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This is S9 versus some similar size MILC alternatives that you can buy new (from the left, ZV-E1, A7C ii, S9, OM-5, X-S20). Paired with what I think are the most compact mid-range zooms currently available from each camera manufacturer. The small size of the 28-60mm f4-5.6 lens on the ZV-E1 and A7C ii does rather make the point that the S9 really needs the upcoming 18-40mm lens (and maybe a compact 28-70mm or 35-100mm).

Am I the only one seeing a ninja in the cold shoe of the S9? I wonder if they meant that? I can't unsee it now.

Yeah, I really think of it in terms of the priority. Cinema cameras are divas - the things in front of the camera are changed to suit the camera. You need lighting to suit native ISO, you have to wait for the camera to be ready, you have to start/stop if there's an issue with focus etc, they need external stabilisation. Hybrid / mirrorless / video cameras aren't divas - they adapt to the things in front of the camera. They are designed to operate at non-native ISOs and often have dual-native ISOs, they turn on quickly, they try to keep up with the scene with AF and AE etc, and they often have stabilisation built-in to reduce need for external rigging or tripods etc. Obviously this isn't a perfect description, but in general terms I feel like these are the "stereotypes" of each genre perhaps. Over the last 10 years both camps have started integrating the features and benefits of the other camp, with cinema cameras getting better ISO performance and now AF and IBIS, and video cameras basically getting a nicer image. If you shoot in relatively controlled environments I think it's easy to think that everything is mixed up now, but I shoot my friends and family during travel in available light with no direction and no retakes. Often I will see a moment about to occur and I have 2s to start recording and by the 4s mark the moment is over. I miss lots of these because the camera is in my hand by my waist and I can't get it turned on and in focus in 2s. Lots of my clips have the first 5 frames of the clip being the nice moment and then the smiles fade as people turn away etc. My situation is obviously extreme, and I'm 100% aware of this and that almost no-one is operating like this, however it throws the situation into very clear focus for me, because: 1) my iPhone can operate under these situations just fine and can turn on and do AF and AE before I've composed the frame properly, and apart from delays in getting the camera app started from the Lock Screen, it's basically faster than I am 2) my GX85 is almost as fast as my iPhone, being easier to turn on, but AF and AE are a tiny bit slower 3) BMPCC / BMMCC..... good freaking luck with that!! By the time you turn them on (and the monitor of the BMMCC), get the ND adjusted, get focus, start rolling, then frame, the moment is all but a memory. and these don't have a 60s turn on time! Yes, I could walk around with the camera turned on, but I remember the day my wife and I went to Pompeii - we walked around looking at this and that for 3 hours, had lunch, then went for another few hours again. Carrying a cinema camera around with batteries large enough to last that long simply wouldn't have worked. I carried the GH5, F0.95 prime, and Rode Videomic Pro in one hand that day, and my arm was sore for a couple of days afterwards. From this perspective, a C70 might be a camera I could work with, but a Komodo would simply not be anywhere near flexible enough for me. Thus, I am very aware of the differences in general approach, and thus thus, these "I just bought a RED!!!!" and then "Why I'm selling my RED" aren't surprising at all 🙂

Camerasize.com now has the S9, just so you know. I only saw that just now. Here, we have a proper comparison to a camera and lens I own:

IMO the phone is exactly the right camera to use for those moments. The quality on modern phones is so good that I would barely even think of it as a compromise. IBIS is still really uncommon on cinema cameras. Komodo/K-X are global shutter which makes shake feel a little more organic, IMO, and if one can deal with higher shutter speeds, they also record gyro information so you could use gyroflow or similar. Lack of IBIS can also be a feature in some cases - like I'd be unlikely to mount a camera with IBIS on my car before driving down a rough road. I've heard stories of that sort of thing wrecking the IBIS mechanism. But yes, they are converging for sure. It'll be interesting to see the knots people tie themselves into to explain how it isn't "true REDcode raw" as soon as Nikon announces a camera (or firmware for an existing camera) which adds it. I'm coming from the perspective of hiking with the original GFX 100 for the last few years so my perspective on which cameras one can carry around all day might be a bit off. The GFX 100 body weighs more than the K-X body (though the K-X weighs more with battery+screen) It sounds like you might be frustrated by the startup time and weight of it too. It's faster than the K-X, but probably not "take a shot in 2 seconds" fast. I still would say "a bit weird," but not so much "surprising." 😄

That may depend on the camera. I have no experience with their older stuff, but DSMC3 isn't nearly that slow to use. I've even been taking the K-X on hikes and from my shoulder bag to recording takes about 2-3 minutes. Of course, I'm not running with a sound person, video village, etc. If I were on a half day indoor natural light docu-type shoot with it, I'd bring it with the EF 24-70/2.8 on a focal reducer. Camera setup and teardown time would account for 5-10 minutes of the day. I'd probably have to swap a battery midway through. The problem may not be the camera in this case, but the person who is using it. 😉 That said, if someone didn't insist that I use it, I'd be far more likely to grab my C70 for that kind of shoot (also with 24-70/2.8 and focal reducer). It's hands-down a better camera to use in a fully uncontrolled environment. Setup/teardown time would be almost identical.

My eyesight is not as good as it once was but I see Batman. 💥KAPOW💥

It's all marketing. There is no such thing as "tech press" in YouTubeland. And even if there were something akin to it, companies would find a way to grease editor's hands, as the auto world has shown. No one in their right mind trusts car magazines anymore. And with good reason. "Ad-mags" I think they call them? Well, the ad-mag for the camera world is now YouTube. Those guys in Tokyo allocate some $$$ for Marketing and they want/need results in their investment. It's just a spreadsheet. But that Excel file has a clear line between Marketing budget and Journalism/Media budget. Two different beasts completely. It's incredibly strange youtubers are asking journalist's rights when they have played the Marketing game for a long time now. Why would they ask the respect journalists command when they have not won that respect in the slightest?

One thing about these YT'ers and their marketing, they are actually offering looks at interesting imaging products, which does make things a bit of grey line in some legitimate film production. For instance, I just convinced a neophyte documentarian I'm working with to stop invading the space of his subjects with his "A Crew" Which is him, his cinematographer with a RED and all the rigging gak-gak that goes with it, a sound guy with boom pole and harnessed multi-mixer, an RF video village, and assistant producer. Trying to parachute in and get useful naturalistic footage of a person ON A HALF DAY SHOOT with that nonsense? C'mon. By the time they're in and out they maybe put in the can only about 30 minutes of footage, it's all stagey as hell, and if there's 10 seconds that's compelling it's a minor miracle...they got lucky with what the subject's personality delivered, not with the process of their craft. RED gear and crews are built for certain situations. Docs of a certain type? I say nope. No, just allow a savvy and talented 1 man band w/a mirrorless to go into the situation and keep it chill. Trade the marginally and slightly more advanced IQ for BETTER F'IN FOOTAGE. If an image looks better, but is inauthentic, what have you accomplished? Not much. The easiest path to some sort of normalcy in cinema veriti doc filming is to do one's best to mitigate the disruption of that normalcy. Boys and their toys. Always thinking that more is better.

And I can't believe that with my GH5 I can't do what the gopros have been doing for years which is to download the videos in lightweight format to my phone immediately to get a preview. This would be a very useful thing on a boat with the housing still wet since I can turn on the wifi from the underwater housing.

Nope, I think that it is not the intended use - probably is another reviewer who don't read the manual. If the user wants to post the image / video ASAP, it should put the app on the mode that it automatically downloads from the camera every still /video that was taken. It is not a novelty, my X-S20 have this option, and I think that other manufacturers have this option in their apps to. Panasonic just thought a bit more about the process - hence a optimized use of 5ghz wifi (the download times looks faster than usual) and the new 50mbps codec for a fast transfer to the phone. You leave the phone on your pocket, take you shots, and when you finish the pcitures / video are already on you phone (on almost completed), you upload it to social media in the app, applying (or not) some of the luts with an optimized editor. I'm not this kind of user, but looks like a much better workflow than usual.

Indeed. Gerald likes to complain in that video about all the unfair consequences for speaking his mind, yet when it comes to people like me speaking my mind about cameras, he and fellow influencer marketing colleagues like Chris Nichols just aren't at all interested (even in the case of the EOS R5), and this demonstrates that they don't respect real journalism, and don't value it enough to draw attention to it. This is because such marketeers are not the same as us - they're not filmmakers, nor are they journalists, nor are they end-users paying their own money and finding stuff out - it's quite simple - they are marketing and sales people in a fancy studio, who like to stick together with other marketing and sales people. They respect each other in terms of other marketing and sales colleagues and PR departments, rather than actual journalists, shooters or those outside the PR industry circle like artists and real filmmakers. They are opportunists. Undone and his marketeer chums like Chris, enjoy being in their little circle jerk with the camera company PR people and events. That's where they want to stay. It goes to show that the hypocrisy levels are off the chart - Gerald doesn't like free speech, and doesn't tolerate it at all when a filmmaker speaks their mind about them. And the moment a camera company has uninvited them, for whatever reason logical or not, all the toys come out the pram which shows how much this attention circle jerk means to them. Unchartered levels of window licking achieved!!

"Dialing in the color science and optimizing the dynamic range on the sensor is still very much a process we are dialing in. There are two modes for the sensor, one is 12-bit and the other is a 16-bit ClearHDR as Sony calls it, which is Dual Gain Output ( like Arri sensors / fairchild sensors used in Blackmagic ) it's this mode that has quite a bit of configurability and some further tuning. Most of the footage shown in this video is from the standard 12-bit mode." Wow. Sounds quite promising. Would love to see some footage from the 16-bit video. I am guessing it may have impressive exposure latitude. The video in this clip has crushed blacks and blown out highlights. So adding a stop or 2 more may be a welcome change.

I have a feeling the next Lumix Live Thursday is going to be a shit show. People are already leaving rather agressive comments. I think it's going to be a must watch! Let's see how they handle it.

Had the two 14-42 kits from Panasonic - the first and bigger one, that was the kit zoom on the GH2, and the second smaller one. The older was not grat, but the smaller was very ok. Using in f/5.6 (where I used all my m43 lenses when travelling with sun), plenty good indeed. In the last trip with m43), used the "little gem", the pancake 12-32. Was one of the m43 lenses that I did not sold, very good, sharper than the 14-42. Is exactly what Panasonic should do in FF. I asked for a small f/4.5 zoom lens for FF because in terms of DOF, is like a "f/2.9ish" in APS-C - and I'm using the Sigma 18-50 f/2.8 and in most cases the DOF is ok for general use. The manufacturer that makes a FF small body with a small 24-60 or 24-70 f/4.5 (collapsible, if possible) with good (don't need to be very top) image quality, probably will get me in the future.

It happens to me all the time with wildlife photography/video... 🙂

Just saw the Gerald piece. Some good points. About his rant to Lumix, his 1st point is very strong (being put out just for use STRANGE in a title) but the 2nd one...not invinting he because it was not a camera for him could be or not a bad point. They could honestly thought that is like (in a exaggeration) invite a smartphone shooter to a Arri Alexa launch. The S9 is for smaller creators / travel camera, not long run videos. But...they invited some people that are even farther from this crowd like Hugh Browstone and he made very good points about the use cases for the camera. For me was an error, intentional or not. The Lumix message for the camera was all over the place, their marketing team is probably on drugs (even using stock photos - don't go to Shutterstock when high 🙂). First the rumors sites (that, of course, are feeded by internal "leaks" - irony alert) cemented the idea that it was a X100VI competitor, and is VERY far from that. It is a ZV-E10 / ZV-E1 competitor that is much better for stills than both - which, for me, is a interesting proposition. But their screwed it up all over the place. And grab a buckle of popcorn and read the comment section of the Gerald post. 🙂 There are a lot of people much more pissed than Panasonic there.

Don't know, never had a Lumix FF on hands. About the S9 I've just mentioned because I saw it on one of the reviews, and because Fuji have for some time this option to make the stills go directly to the phone - but is not for me either, I've got the photo manually on the phone if I need it. (never tried the new Frame.io integration on Fujis because I'm out of the Adobe ecosystem)

The Panasonic S 28-200mm f4-7.1 Macro OIS lens probably gets closest, which at 93 mm long is about 6mm longer than the 20-60mm f3.5-5.6 and about 19mm longer than the m43 14-140mm f3.5-5.6. Another one is the E-mount Tamron 28-200mm f2.8-5.6 - about 25mm longer than the S 28-200mm and 40mm longer than the m43 14-140mm. But both of the FF 28-200mm are only x7 zooms, not the x10 the m43 lens gets you (but that is pretty small for its zoom range).

Wishful thinking. That would have great idea though.

oh damn, I need to check out if that works with my old Fujifilm X-A3, would certainly get me using it more again As you just can't deny the damn ultra nice convenience of shooting everything with your cellphone (even if it's just a sh*tty $199 phone's camera)

Sooooo... Does it have a 2X crop mode, and can you adapt MFT lenses to it? 😉

Yeah. I have spent time in tech startups, app design, user experience circles, and "proper" cameras are basically dinosaurs, and the thinking from the manufacturers is pre-historic as well. It's not getting better that quickly either, because there's this background mentality that "it works for the pros". In practically any camera forum you see it with discussions that go like this: Hi, I'd like a small and convenient camera with great image quality.. what do you recommend? Use your phone Actually, I'd like great image quality too, that's important to me Oh well then, you'll need this 5kg rig that is manual everything and needs lighting and external audio Actually, I need it to be small and convenient too Use your phone ........ Actually BOTH are really what I need <mumble mumble...> so you know better than the pros do you? well.... hey everyone, this guy is shitting on Deakins!! It totally is!!!

That's true. It also points out to the clear way any of YT personalities can semi-guarantee being objective. "I paid my cash for this thing. Here's what I think about it". Put your money where your mouth is and all that.

It helps standardise and unify the content, so for example Tokyo is one of the most photogenic places on the planet... That breathtaking beauty is going to be plastered all over the launch footage and test shots on the day the embargo lifts. It's why Canon took their bros to Hawaii, and not a carpark in Slough. Couple of days on a trip you can tell a lot about a camera, but it usually isn't final firmware and you can't compare very much to rival models. Although I did once bring my Leica SL to the Panasonic S1 launch 🙂 So you're right that you need longer to really get a long term insight into whether it's worth a serious investment and how it compares to a myriad of other options. So what usually comes out on YouTube is a range of quite glossy stuff that shows off the camera in the best light possible, in some of the most aesthetic situations. This has replaced the Vimeo tests of old where you had a filmmaker and model, or perhaps a videographer and a duck in the pond. And herein lies the marketing.

I don't know if this is one of those events that Gerald was talking about in the video. Events where he had been invited and had not produced any videos. Josh has always been nice to me because of his wacky, arty projects, and I still don't have a clear opinion about what Gerald said. However, when I hear these moral sermons and see this video from five years ago now again, I ask myself some questions. If I had been there and had a million dollars worth of equipment at my disposal for 4 days (watch to believe at minute 2'29") could I really have spoken badly of Sony? I mean, I'm not a sellout but I'm not a rude one either. Mom taught me well about education.

I always took that as tongue-in-cheek and as a device to add a bit of humor to what would otherwise be relatively dry videos of somebody showing him a bunch of lights on lightstands, etc.

I'm not really following the project, but this got posted to a FB group I'm in and the footage looks pretty good... nothing incredible, because it's a standard sensor of course, but really workable: From the video description: STARVIS 2 sensor (IMX585) from Sony shot in a variety of frames rates ( 24, 30, 48, 60 ) in both 12-bit lossless compressed and 16-bit uncompressed CinemaDNG RAW at 4K resolution directly to CFExpress Type B media shot handheld with an image-stabilized Canon 17-55mm lens and a Metabones speedbooster Edited and color graded in DaVinci Resolve 19 Beta (4K timeline, exported in 8K)