Andrew Reid

Very optimistic article given the current reality of the cinema camera market (clue... It's shit) Also you can't democratise what's already been democratised. And in terms of the high-end, it's ARRI, ARRI and ARRI. If Nikon want to expand the market for RED, first thing they should do is dump N-RAW in the mirrorless camera lineup and replace with REDcode. They should then decide whether they want to go after Cinema EOS market or ARRI market, it's very unlikely they'll be able to do both!

I also despise it, the form factor is terrible. Poor balance, top heavy, overcomplicated, poor battery life, unreliable, wobbly cable, you name it... And the advantage is minimal, the main use case for a rig is to make it look more fancy... in front of clueless clients.

When it comes to Sony the question is what do they invent next that moves things forward. I can't think of much that's left. And even if we go back to the 2019 vintage S1H, there's nothing particular missing from the image quality department at 6K/24p. The problem for Panasonic is that they put all those resources into the S1, S1R and S1H and then just left the market basically. It's not the way you gain market share is it? A one off attempt... The cheaper cameras (S9, S5) are all well and good but they are mainly just killing Micro Four Thirds, not so much taking sales of the A7 IV. So we have to sadly conclude that Panasonic are idiots.

I absolutely agree that we should be seeing much more progress than we are there... Seems like a bit of a cartel thing with Sony stitching up the supply side of LCDs or something. Obviously there is a need to prioritise physical controls and body size, which means fitting in a big monitor isn't easy unless you change the design concept radically. And this is where the Japanese are very reluctant to innovate. The overall design concept of mirrorless cameras is extremely static and samey.

The talk around this camera is quite bonkers out there on the internet. Complaints of it being $6.5k with a 4 year old sensor and no 8k/60p It's designed to compete with the lowly EOS R1, and it outperforms it in just about every way. It's priced to compete with the existing $6k rivals, whilst being smaller and lighter than them. It's not designed to appeal to enthusiasts in the $3.5k range or a7s III users. In terms of the spec, it's the pinnacle of what a camera can do pre-generative fakery era. It will take a complete change of concept for the a1 II to be surpassed. The only mirrorless camera that out-does it in terms of ultimate image quality and resolution is the GFX 100 II. But not in terms of speed or autofocus or sports. Meanwhile the a1 does 95% of it as well... for soon to be $2.8k-ish on eBay. What's not to like about that? Panasonic need to get those new cameras out, otherwise Sony and Nikon will really kill the market for future high-end Lumix cameras.

The cash rich working pros will buy the a1 ii and a9 iii is what I said. The not so rich working pros are better off not upgrading. As the existing models are so good, even the a7 iv.

No never tried that as don't like the Ninja hanging off a rig, you're better off just recording the 8K H265 internally as it's such a good codec, and resampling to a 4K timeline in post (with added ability to crop, etc.) The data rate is 500Mbit/s max, but it stands up to codecs in the 2500Mbit/s file size range including even Prores RAW.

Yeah possibly and they are also quite rare, seen in low quantities at the usual second hand places. The a1 prices will benefit though from the cash-rich section of the market - working pros - wanting latest and greatest a1 ii and a9 iii instead, whereas previously they had been focused on the a1 as the ultimate workhorse from Sony. I dare say they might also be migrating to the FX3 as well. And I say... buh bye, close the door behind ya 🙂

I agree best thing about the a1 II is the price of used a1, if it gets down to $2500 that is an end-game for less than the price of an a7r V. It has very few disadvantages compared to Z8... Only the 8k60fps is missing and oversampled 4K... The subsampling is ok just something to be aware of, because of the occasional moire and it changes the grain texture in low light. That 8K though... believe me when I say it's the BEST I've ever seen from any camera that small and soon to be affordable

Back to the Trump bashing... https://news.sky.com/story/prosecutors-file-to-drop-2020-presidential-election-interference-charges-against-trump-13260598 One rule for him, another for the ordinary guy of course!

A bit of Aubrey to lighten the mood

Indeed! And the reason they gave for voting... "To save democracy"

From my point of view I just think the "lesser of the two evils" stuff is an excuse. It excuses his abject lack of character and ethics, and downplays the danger of the people around him like Bannon and Musk, who was literally stoking racist riots in the UK on social media a few months back. These racists debase the highest office. Makes Nixon look like Mother Theresa. Then there's the really problematic Project 25 stuff as well and the unusually cozy relationship with anyone who happens to be a far right totalitarian mafia fallen ass-backwards into government. These - Putin and a certain Isreali leader have an international arrest warrant out for them. They are war criminals. Listen to what Robert De Niro has been saying. How angry he is... Why is it that so many people in the arts and film industry Democrats? It isn't because they're elites, it's because they have a fucking brain. Now I don't believe you lack a brain, but something has clearly gone wrong with it. So then you decide to vote for the MOST extremely morally corrupt set of them in US history. Makes sense to me! You know there's been a pandemic, right? Part of the reason Trump lost in 2020 was his handling of the early stages of the pandemic. Convincing people to drink bleach, etc. Fast forward into 21/22, the pandemic and lock downs rumble on and there's global inflation in every country, not only the US. All governments, whether liberal or right-wing had to pump trillions into the economy to prevent disaster, such as with furlough schemes (Trump-policy btw), and then there were supply shortages and cost of shipping and fuels went massively up especially as Russia withdrew from Western energy markets with the advent of their war in 2022-2023. This is not the fault of a politician or president, it is a global issue. You say your friends just want to afford food and gas, so do I. But let's correctly apportion the blame for the high prices, and the solution to lowering them. The solution to lowering them is to get inflation under control which the Biden administration has already done so, and then to increase supply and competition in the market so that these big companies cut prices. You know what won't help... Tariffs on imports, cost passed onto stores and consumers. Mass deportation especially in agricultural industries, cost passed onto stores and consumers. Economic policy that looks after the 1% and corporations and AI / tech companies = inflation in property / house prices, inflation in large cities, inflation in wages and further increases in interest rates. You want a fair economy and fair prices, but can't square the Trump policies with the economic consequences. You're also incorrectly associating the lower prices of 2016-2020 & lower interest rates with the fact that there was a Trump presidency. The prices were lower then and interest rates were lower then because A) it was a long time ago and B) it wasn't post-pandemic. You don't need the media to program you into believing this... You just have to be into facts. It isn't a case of "Andrew's opinion". It's what's actually happened. Silly media... trying to convince people a morally corrupt convict felon should be disqualified from running the US government. Batshit crazy if you ask me! I don't understand this obsession with the media. You can make your own mind up based on what Trump does and what he says.... direct from the horse's mouth. When he says he will get mass deportations going and concentrate women and children in concentration camps, does it not give you any pause for thought based on what we know about the history of fascism, at all? I agree there should have been a proper nomination process and earlier... The moral equivalency is not in the same league though. This is the problem with being a good person in today's world... you are judged on a totally different social contract to somebody like Trump. Look at Hilary in 2016 - emails! Yes emails. Not rape, not fraud, an email server was her downfall. Trump is somebody who sets the bar so low for ethics you don't expect any better from him... You have admitted this yourself. As well as that, he is authentic. Not fake or an upper-middle class hypocrite like Harris... Trump is an authentic disrupter crook, everyone knows it, everyone sees it, they want him to wreak the establishment of government which they no longer have any trust in, they're no longer surprised when he says something outrageous, he's normalised it, if any career politician had half the trouble he's had, they'd have been out long ago, same with any worker, any employee, any NORMAL PERSON on a fraud charge, out on your ear from the office the moment the guilty verdict comes in, difference is - YOU GO TO PRISON - HE DOESN'T. Why? Presidentially immune, you're not. Man of the people huh??

Here we go... down the conspiracy rabbit hole. The one thing consistent in all of this I've noticed myself is that Trump voters are very distrustful of media, journalism, institutions... Yet some bloke on Facebook posting stuff = TRUTH! You can't take a moral position on Trump? Because thats blindly following the media? I'm sorry I just can't agree. Being a convicted fraudster and allegedly rapist is a pretty big character flaw for the leader of a country like the US. It shouldn't disqualify someone from being a sales rep perhaps, but leader of the free world definitely. It isn't my "mass media programming" that is convincing me of that by the way. It's the justice system that is. Which is why it is important to trust the experts and institutions because they do their jobs based on the FACTS, apolitically. You may not think it, to listen to social media bubbles, echo chambers and much of the right-leaning media though... Because they want to destroy the truth and the evidence, any to discredit the checks or balances on power. Sorry but in what particular ways is Trump going to serve your interests when he hikes inflation and deports key workers using the military and concentration camps? Is he also going to serve your interests when he puts 50% tariffs on Chinese imports or Japanese cameras? What about when he stitches up the judicial system to pardon himself and a bunch of other convicts? Stitching up the legal system so that his pals can stay in power for a generation? Polluting the environment with his promise to "drill baby drill"... bringing large scale industrial manufacturing back to the USA... more pollution. More lung cancer. People only see the jobs and economic benefit... not the widespread problems that China's environment and air quality has from all of their manufacturing of our cheap Amazon electronics. I think you have to be a bit careful what you wish for. This isn't true at all. There are facts and these are not a matter of opinion or "fake news". That's because they're backed by documented evidence. Like the fact that Trump had crate after crate of classified documents at home, with the intent to profit from it in some ways - most likely by selling the info, which could then find itself in the hands of hostile nations like Russia. And yet there has been no accountability, no punishment, and before you say "But what about Biden" it isn't a sport. It is about this specific fact of Trump with the documents and what his intent was in stealing so many from the secure enclaves of your fucking government. Complete nonsense. Some opinions DO have more value than others. The quality of source material, the quality of research, the objectivity of the discourse, and a lot else besides. I'd sooner listen to a trained, professional New York judge who has prosecuted thousands of people based on cold hard evidence, than to some Fox news twat. I hate the Matrix tbh, tired shite.

By the way, the world needs a strong United States. Because the alternatives to our way of life are far worse.

We can deprogram ourselves very easily, just by using character and ethics as a guide in politics. Trump and his inner circle are unsavoury, unintelligent and many of them are convicted felons. BUT - apparently this resonates with the American public which I'm sorry to say is just fucking embarrassing for your nation - it shows to the rest of the world that quality of character, being a public servant, and ethical behaviour is of no interest to over half of your population and that you'd willingly vote for crooks if you think it's good for the economy. I have news for you, it won't be good for the economy. It'll be good for the 1% and the rest of you will be enjoying inflation in the region of 15% before too long. The media in the US is appalling, it is the most biased in the world, be it CNN or Fox, they're both completely incapable of taking a balanced objective view of politics. In the UK, the BBC has withered away, corrupted by the Tory party and hamstrung by the abuse of the BBC's impartiality rule. So we are in a bad situation here as well, and when you add Murdoch to the scene and his shitty tabloids which have somehow managed to cling onto relevance in the so-called enlightened age of the internet, it's no wonder people are distracted by all the arguing and less able to focus on quality of character and policy. Too many aggressive interviewers whose only aim is to pick holes in everything, whether it's a good politician or not, or a good policy or not... nobody is immune to the constant shit stirring of the media. It's not even real journalism a lot of it, and it brings the country down. It sometimes gets so depressing to see, that you start to think about emigrating to Russia to enjoy the more 'favourable' and 'patriotic' media 🙂 Yet in the end, what I am saying is... You don't need the media. The truth is out there for all to see about what kind of characters and ethics are on display with Trump and his inner circle. We need better journalism, yes... But you can make up your own mind whether it's sensible to have a convicted crook as the leader of the free world. There has to be a move away from the two main parties also - as they're both becoming corrupted in some form or another. The Democrats by vanity career politics and drab humourless political correctness, and the Republicans by a complete loss of sanity.

You're a free speech absolutist but a very poor judge of character. Are you not watching who Trump has around him, men like Steve Bannon and Matt Gaetz. The former is another convict, and the latter is an alleged sex offender under investigation from all corners, $10k payments to prostitutes, sex with an underage girl and there's even a witness for that. This is only just scratching the surface of the Trump circle jerk. They are terrible people. Absolutely terrible. You as an American deserve better.

You do seem to care about the facts. So why support Trump?

2025 going to be a bad time to be poor in the US

I watched the Joe Rogan / Musk podcast in its entirety and can see why they have the opinions they do on the progressive politics of the more extreme Democrats. But the extremists in that party are not a majority. You need to ask yourself also why the woke issues are being amplified and dominate the world's discourse and who is doing the amping and why. It is a point of failure and division in western society and the Russia/China-compromised social media engine is amping up the discourse around it to make us all fall out and get angry at our media, institutions, judiciary and government. Musk has his own valid personal reasons for switching side but it's mostly opportunistic... He sees an opportunity to get into government, pump up the value of Dogecoin and enact change which will favour his businesses. Trump and Musk are not going to be best friends, there's no substance to it. It's just a circle jerk thing. The trick is to fool the rest of us into thinking there's a genuine agreement and friendship that binds together all the people you mentioned prior. In fact, as the last Trump government shows they all hate each other and will barely last 2 months together, it will be like the Apprentice with a new firing every week just like it was in 2016-2020. Musk wants to wear many different hats at once... He is an environmentalist selling green cars. He is a MAGA guy and hangs out with the Murdochs and right wing mainstream media / press. He is a space rocket engineer and world's most clever guy, at the same time as buying a website for 44 billion and proceeding to destroy it, not a smart move really. He had an allegedly highly abusive upbringing and father, and has allegedly got some quite bad psychological issues because of it. And he clearly is an able talent and has an ability to get a lot out of his employees in terms of technology and achievement... but only because of huge government subsidies from NASA and the green car venture capitalism industry. He's a very complicated guy and so are his politics. But it's possible to judge someone not by their achievements but instead by the company they keep. And let's face it a mid-life crisis & divorce happens to the best of us. Wow really sticking it to the establishment there then. Men of the people! It will be right down once Trump and his team start to make material concrete decisions in government. How is the removal by force (with military involvement) all the undocumented workers from agriculture for example going to impact food prices and inflation? And a lot of these deportation victims will be well on their way to becoming valuable hard-working members of society with wives and husbands, families, jobs, paying tax... And Trump wants to end all those personal success stories before they've barely even got started. Is that what American is about now? Think about it. The threat to democracy was shared by both sides with both sides pointing the finger in the opposite direction. Can we have that discussion about democracy in 4 years when Trump has stitched up the entire judicial system in America, made himself a king above law and is holding Russian style elections for show? Pretty ironic you mention a "palace coup" when Trump had people literally storm the capital. They can choose who they want, it's their own party... yes a proper primary and much earlier dropping out for Biden would have worked much better for them in the end. It was all mishandled very badly. It's not about STARTING WARS it's about preventing them, that's what NATO and nuclear deterrence is about and as others have pointed out that's why we have American-backed security for other countries like Taiwan and why the UK and US work so closely together on intelligence and security matters. Trump is a trojan horse sent by Russia, North Korea and potentially other bad actors including allegedly China to weaken all of that security - for you in Australia included. No, America has a responsibility. They don't have the right to shy away from it under the guise of being all doveish all of a sudden. The impact on Afghanistan by withdrawing was horrific. Would you like to live under the Taliban? And why did we spend all those trillions of dollars and all those lost lives only to go and have that shitty outcome? It was a disgraceful decision by Trump, and bafflingly followed-through upon by Biden. The message we are sending to Taiwan at the moment is also very bad... That the security agreement isn't worth the paper it's written on. That is laughable man... NATO exists for there to be peace in Europe and the West. Are you suggesting that military collaboration between democratic countries is a BAD THING? Who will come to help out Australia or Japan if you are attacked by communist China? Are you going to defend yourself on your own? I don't think so.

Monumentally stupid. (And the source of all this is Elon Musk on X, you just happen to parrot it). It is simply insane to suggest that the current Republican party is now closer to the Clinton era democrats. They are not even remotely similar and not even close to the Bush era Republican party or even 1980s Reagan. The Republican party of the past is dead. If you think the likes of Steve Bannon, Matt Gaetz, Laura Loomer and Tom Homan are the spiritual successor to Bill Clinton you want your fucking head examining. It just goes to show how little you know about politics outside of social media BS. By the way, the values you are labelling far-left are nothing of the sort... They are centre-left neoliberal policies, not socialism or communism. They are not even really that unusual, and come from people's well meaning intentions in lieu of being less racist. That's not to say everyone has to agree with them and that there aren't major practical issues in terms of the implementation of it. You are free to want less immigration, not more. You are free to want less affirmative action and wokeness. But for fucks sake get your facts right before making your mind up.

With control of the entire judicial system from the top down, Trump could end democracy and he's already given himself criminal immunity. The clever thing is that he has convinced a lot of Americans that the "other side" are the real threat to democracy. I've lived through similar in the UK. We had a right-wing government promising all sorts of things like reduced immigration and a better economy and they never delivered. The only thing they were effective at was adding zeros to the end of their own bank balances. I know that Biden's term hasn't been easy for people but there was a global pandemic for petes sake. Had Trump not lost in 2020 he would be taking the blame for that now, and not Biden. When he lost in 2020 he gave the reputation of democracy a good kicking, for good measure. As a result many of his voters don't even trust the same process they used themselves last week which gave rise to their voice electing President Trump. If Trump believes so firmly that US democracy is corrupt and the votes rigged, he would be whining about it all the time and not only when he's losing. Project 2025, ending democracy, stitching up the justice system, removing checks and balances, abolishing department of education, destroying people's trust in gov. institutions and the courts, enabling Communist Russia and China to do as they please to the rest of the world is serious shit. And we have barely scraped the surface of the shit! Look at the character of those around him... Some of them are truly monsters. I think the people who voted for him did so for a variety of reasons... Some liberals believe that a majority of them did so out of sexism and racism. I don't believe that. I think undecided voters and swing state voters had good economic reasons to want change, and a change of government, but struggling people no matter where they are or who they are, are much more susceptible to con tricks and their critical thinking goes out the window in a social media age of mass rumour, misinformation and hysteria. They believe the wrong stuff but think that the other side is equally as wrong. As usual the actual truth lies somewhere in the middle and I dislike the extreme right / extreme left viewpoint, it is not the way to have a unified nation. Believe me I don't just watch the mainstream news and see the US from the outside - I am living the same shit in the UK, we are the same kind of society with the same kind of two party politics and the same interference from Russia, the same hybrid warfare and same problems brought about by globalisation, technology and social media. Good luck to US democracy you will need it, and good luck to the rest of us who are living ever closer to a time of world war or potential nuclear war.

This is certainly what will happen, and then we're really at the midnight hour as far as nuclear war or apocalypse go. China have been training their troops for years on the invasion, even so far as with replica Taipei streets built in military complexes around the country. Trump won't want the US involved in a defence of Taiwan, he won't want to pay for it. America first... Except in this case it will destroy America's AI and tech capabilities to lose TSMC and Taiwanese + Chinese manufacturing, and inflation will probably be up in the 50% region within 6 months. Trump could do what he and his Fox TV talk show host military commander deem to be a deterrent in place... Likely tariffs on Chinese imports. This only makes it even more likely a war will occur as the very productive economic partnership between China and the US is currently pretty much the only deterrent to war. Indeed... It was all being dealt with diplomatically for years and he drove a horse and cart through it all, and let's not forget Trump put the Taliban back in charge in Afghanistan. He lacks the IQ to win. All of his winner persona is fake. It's all showbusiness, no substance.

We are all on agreement on that one! There was a big escalation in the week following this phone call, with the attacks on Ukraine's power grid and civilian infrastructure including homes, so this didn't have any material impact on Putin. Putin is not the kind of person who is going to make a deal over the phone unless Trump does as Elon has suggested, and basically allow Putin to win a mid-term objective - that is, Crimea, territory in the east, and probably removal of the government and replacement with a Belarus style puppet. Then, out of that Russia will also get the added benefit of being able to rebuild themselves economically for a while, replenish their forces and weapons stocks, and first and foremost take a win instead of a loss. The fact is NATO and the US are stronger both militarily and economically than Russia... So ask yourself why does Trump want to give them the chance to take a victory? Because he doesn't care about NATO, he doesn't care about Europe and he has much more in common with dictators politically than a Kamala or Biden type politician. If Russia gain anything at all from this attack it will embolden them in the future to do even more damage and Soviet empire building. Equally with China, what sort of message does throwing Ukraine under the bus give to them? They will be straight into Taiwan knowing it will split NATO and the US down the middle. No, but he did feed Afghanistan to the dogs. Trillions of dollars down the drain and Taliban in charge. That is sheer weakness. Because he's a convicted felon on genuine (non-conspiratorial) fraud charges, who has a show-business flair for being an authentic con-artist, unburdened by any sort of moral complexity or nuanced world view, at the same time as being a refreshing antidote to the traditional career politician who we blame for all the lack of progress and bad governance. And he is willing to use tariffs to bully the world's second largest economy, which means he is willing to play Russian roulette with the price of your food and your job. His interests come first. America first is only a con trick. It's Trump first. He does have a lot of racist rich friends. I'd have thought this would be pretty obvious?

Correct. Although when you look at who Trump has appointed in the cabinet, you have to say that the majority of those Americans aren't a very astute judge of character, or perhaps they're simply unawares. Lesser of the two evils? Trump's tariffs will destroy the US economy and triple inflation, and it doesn't need a 'mainstream media outlet' to tell you that. It's simply logic. If he does what he says he will, and nobody stops him, then he could also crash the global economic outlook as well. The stock market has already fallen following his batshit crazy cabinet picks. I can't in any way deny that the Democrats completely messed up this election... Too cozy with corporate culture and lobbyists, ignored men, ignored Bernie Sanders, can't claim a good record on the economy when normal people aren't feeling it and only big businesses are... And involved in two depressing wars. But the fact that people think Trump is the lesser evil just seems completely wrongheaded to me. It's as if you folk have been brainwashed by a cult leader. I agree... Too much divide and rule in today's pre-war world. Absolutely... Shelter is unaffordable, food is a rip off, and society is becoming clinical, sexless, dull. In fact property prices, rent prices, food prices, are a big reason Biden lost the election. And he ain't responsible for any of it. Global population is growing, resources are not keeping up, and the US public will find out soon enough that whether they elect a politician or a celebrity, it won't make a damn difference in the long term. You have a celebrity apprentice government with unserious, inexperienced demigods and narcissist in it, and somehow they have been able to resonate with the public. That shows how vast the failure of the liberals are... That a convicted felon was able to resonate with the everyday American family better than the morally posturing vacant Harris. They didn't lie at all the polls were very accurate, it was a close outcome in the few key states where the voting mattered, 51-49% is a similar margin to Brexit referendum in the UK which was always on a knife edge, and in these situations even a Joe Rogen podcast can sway the result last minute. Why do you think Trump is the lesser of the two evils then, he is the ultimate divide and profit by media candidate. He is not out for you. He is not out for anybody but himself and his racist rich friends. I am all for it. No hardened personal feelings towards you at all.