Andrew Reid

Why does it still have an Olympus logo?

I have a bit of a conspiracy theory about the new OM digital company. I think Sony will help it along, and maybe Sony has some interest in taking a stake in a competitor who was formerly more close to Panasonic. Rumours of a Sony Quad Pixel sensor in the new OM digital camera, could make it surprisingly advanced tech. As for video... Olympus had a few fans but the masses always saw them more as a photography brand like Fuji, and unlike Fuji, Olympus did not do a big video push later on or any dedicated hybrid models like the Fuji X-H1. Plus if you had a bunch of Micro Four Thirds lenses and wanted video... You wouldn't choose an E-M1 II over a GH5. Personally I liked both. Olympus did do some things in a different way, and it's up to opinion whether that was better than Panasonic. Plus, E-M1 II had phase-detect AF. E-M1 X is a nice body, they went out on a high. Of course it lacks all the myriad video features of Panasonic and 10bit. But it has a seriously nice image and great ergonomics, plus superb IBIS.

Plot twist. This patent is actually for the Komodo. Canon makes it for RED. Just a thought. Probably an incorrect one but it is oddly similar isn't it?

"sensors up to 56x42 (a 4:3)" So Canon going into medium format market then? Which of their current lenses will cover that?! There must be more to it. I would be very surprised if they bring out a Canon camera with no Canon lenses to go with it.

Indeed real life is much missed! Social media has brought along a degenerate culture to the industry. It's a bit like if Associated Press put out a public tender to the camera companies but it only mentions specific Sony specs because a deal was stitched up behind closed doors earlier. Meritocracy is under serious threat if this continues.

Facebook's vision with the tech that started with Oculus is to virtualise our everyday lives so we do nothing but sit at home with a bucket on our head watching ads.

The social media abuse is one thing but I'd like to bring this topic back to what Canon Rumors guy says in his actual tweets above. I am interested to hear all your opinions on this more so than anything else. 50K ad guys CR guy falling out with YouTubers Gannon at DPReview (who writes all the clickbait on the news feed) Industry is turning into a cess pit and it isn't much fun to be involved in it. Unless the audience and consumers turn away from this and stop watching, stop clicking, stop endorsing, the problem of cronyism is going to get worse. Why aren't we on Roger Deakin's forum instead or taking lessons from other top DPs?

I think it's obvious what it's about, and I fully agree with him. But on that I have no idea what is going on. Strange times indeed!

It is not shutting down. Canon Rumors is staying open, just under new owners. It's a sale.

Oh yes. I'd forgotten about that. Crazy fanboy lunatics. I had daily anonymous threats via my contact form with fake email addresses. Found the guy by looking up his IP address and comparing it to previous website use where he'd used his name and email. I think the reason I forgot about the Canon fanboys was because most of all I remember the Philip Bloom defenders coming after me in their hundreds.

Certainly came out of the blue, did this from Craig. I wish him all the best. Sounds like he needs a break like me. If he sold the site to a good home, and took a good pay cheque from it I hope he can build something fresh and new out of that and use the money to take a good photographic adventure. Social media brings out the worst instincts in human beings. Tribal behaviours. Epidemic misinformation and lies. I didn't see what has been going on with Craig, but he seems to have completely deleted his Twitter and closed up shop there. The internet is fucked. Facebook can go out of business as far as I'm concerned, and they've ruined Instagram / WhatsApp too, so they can go in the bin along with the whole Meta group. Fuck VR as well. Nobody wants this shit. It's a distraction at best, at worst it can takes lives or destroys democratic political system. Facebook and social media has sucked so much life out of my own business - this forum would be busier too, if it weren't for the distraction of Facebook groups and Twitter. Thankfully $200 billion shaved off FB's share price this week so couldn't happen to a nicer company. I haven't always seen eye to eye with any of the rumours sites. But I genuinely do wish Craig well in what he does next

It's just a discussion and that is the question. I am not saying nobody needs 8K. As far as Canon goes, business ethics are important to me as is how you are treated after spending X amount. No matter how desirable a product is, I can only go off past experiences with that company. If reps for that company lie to me, or a product doesn't do what is promised, and then there is a cover up, with no remorse or refund, then it's tough to expect the customers affected to go back isn't it. I can only say no to the R5C. I've said why. All are factual points for me not wanting one... 1. Canon business ethics and treatment of me as a customer 2. Prices of the lenses (just got second price increase in 5 months by the way) 3. Lack of need for what is offered 4. Constant weirdness in terms of features removed, missing stuff 5. It's another 4 grand I don't need to spend and happy with what I have 6. No IBIS. 7. 8 seconds between modes. 8. Don't need 8K. 9. Massive file sizes at the highest quality and in RAW 10. Poor 10bit 422 codec performance in Resolve. 11. I don't have any RF lenses, all sold. 12. Piss poor anamorphic features. Not to mention competition is much more compelling. Z9 anyone?

You really are determined to promote YouTubers on this forum aren't you... Are you moonlighting as a manager or something? 🙂

Exactly... Creativity is in the limitations, not throwing numbers and convenience at a job.

It's a case of each to his own. I personally invested tens of thousands of euros and £ into Canon gear over the past few years. It's not true at all to say I never have anything good to say about a Canon lens or camera. The EOS R5 was not for me, it was an unethically marketed product and raising our concerns as paying customers got us exactly ZERO APOLOGY, and in fact a tidal wave of online abuse for our troubles - not for me - but the others involved in the timer and firmware discoveries as well. It's all a bit ungrateful if you ask me. I can only open people's eyes and if they keep them closed, not much I can do about it. It's unfair to call it "pedantic rehashing of bullshit". People have to see things from their own perspective and express their own opinions on here. That doesn't make it bullshit. Eh? It's a valid argument. Who needs 8K and is it needed on a $4.5K cinema camera? I don't see the issue with debating it at all.

They have all missed a trick there. Should have shot everything in 12K and just cropped instead of using lenses!

I think there's a reason the MacBook Retina display even at 16 inch doesn't go beyond 3K. 4K on a smartphone, don't get me started on that 🙂 However I don't think many filmmakers actually care how the masses watch movies, they're more interested in the artistic selection of lenses and the right tool to tell a story and capture a mood. And this is where I think too much resolution, detail, sharpness, hardness and higher frame rates really work against the process of capturing the mood and doing justice to the story. Unless you want unflinching levels of clinical realism. So if I was going for classic or cinematic, I'd stay well away from 8K and probably not even use modern lenses either.

I agree there is a huge gap in the market for a characterful vintage film image, which was everything that the Digital Bolex, original BMCC 2.5K and Magic Lantern RAW were. The megapixel and dynamic range race makes me a bit cold. I don't see what it is doing creatively for watching a film. The crazy resolution is just distracting and emotionally clinical. The dynamic range is at the expense of good colour science and leads to lazy lighting, lack of contrast and piss poor tonality. Something needs to be done to recognise the appeal of a more low-fi cinematic image. If film is going to die out it needs a direct replacement in artistic terms. And that is not 8K RAW on an EOS R5C!

Kai is entertainment to a select niche who like goofing around YouTube tech videos. He isn't an in-depth reviewer.

I see what you mean but there's not the same perceptual benefits. First of course not all 1080p is created equally in-camera, a lot of it was mush. 4K was a big leap for us and our mirrorless cameras because in most cases it's a full pixel readout without binning (although not always). So we got the advantages of a full pixel readout AND double the number of pixels horizontally and vertically. With 4K to 8K it's a story of diminishing returns and getting your eyeballs even closer to the screen and making the screen even bigger. So what are the available common formats for viewing 8K movies today? Well, at 65 inch in the home on a TV you have to move the sofa right up next to the TV to notice a difference in resolution, and none of that extra resolution will serve the story or even the experience all that much. Normal viewing distances in a lounge room with a very expensive and very large 8K TV makes the extra resolution 8K almost unnoticeable compared to 4K. In the cinema with the even longer viewing distances, it's even less. On a PC monitor the difference is more noticeable. But that's not really where I want people to watch movies! They get a better experience in a cinema, with surround sound. Rather than sat at a desk. You know what I mean?!

Crop for a small sensor look. Digital zoom for that YouTube look. What about the cinema look? 8K for cinema falls flat. Only when they are the producer. Passing was on Netflix and on the Oscar short list. It's 1.7K Hmm that's not why the Alexa is popular And Hollywood cinema has the highest camera requirements in the entire industry.

If you're talking zooming and cropping for cinema, count me out. It looks dreadful. Looks like YouTube not cinema. Parfocal zoom optics all the way for that purpose. Oversampling 8K to 4K brings marginal benefit for the audience when they watch this on the big screen. Film viewers aren't the same as pixel peepers. Don't get me wrong, glad we moved on from line skipped moire 1080p. But 4K is a sweet spot and anything more is a bit pointless. For reference see how many Oscar winning films are shot on an Alexa vs the Sony F65 in 8K oversampled to 4K mode. You can on a Sony A1 as well and if you're not bothered about 8K then an A7R IV will produce detailed 4K images in FF/S35 and S16 crop modes for $2500. Nothing unique at all about the images, could have been shot on just about anything else. Just because it has an 8K badge doesn't make it better.

It looks nice because Slashcam have a nice subject. It also looks steadier because slow-mo handheld footage just does. What distracted me the most from the nice subject was the 8K. Every imperfection in the skin and hair just rammed into my retina. And she is far from imperfect looking. What is the point of 8K exactly?!

Refresh rate = frame rate. That is not the same as rolling shutter speed. Is this really a problem unique to the Z9? I don't think it is. I recall Sony cameras had issues too. Would be curious to see how a mechanical shutter handles a 240hz LED ad board at certain shutter speeds. It's probably a solution to try and sync shutter speed or go a bit lower.

Yeah Canon colour science has become modernised and the others have caught up anyway, so that's no longer really the big selling point it once was. Fuji, Blackmagic & Panasonic very nice. Sony still a bit off but certainly improving. Canon-LOG is no longer the best LOG format either. Panasonic caught up nicely with V-LOG and Blackmagic as well. Maybe LOG profiles will become less relevant in future when we're all shooting compressed RAW any way. The pricing is nutty across the board for the RF lenses. £2.5K for a prime lens you can only use on one system is not acceptable to me. I can only imagine what consumers think to that. In the modern world of consumer electronics you could get a really top end Macbook Pro for the price of just one lens like the Canon 50mm RF F1.2. Unless you have existing EF lenses, it's a high premium just to get some fast apertures & AF in the mix. Nikon Z9 is the best all-round body for me. I have a top class autofocus system and editing codec. Fastest full frame sensor on the market. Nice ergonomics and a big battery. With the Fringer adapter for EF lenses, I don't need to go full on and invest in new Nikon Z lenses. It's really reliable on my Z6. On Z9 it will probably be even better. Canon has bet the imaging division on EOS RF mount. EF is dead. All I can say is that it's a good job they have a thriving photocopier division because their camera department is going to shrink back into a niche of pro bodies and lenses. I really can't get over the lack of apology from Canon about the EOS R5 troubles either. Really unethical and arrogant behaviour. Really glad I don't have a dilemma of a really must-have Canon camera I want to buy, so I can be comfortable to continue not to support the liars in that company. Also I don't see a Canon EOS R6 II or Canon EOS R5 II any time soon giving us anything like a big step forward. It will all be little baby steps from here on like it was once the 5D II and EF mount was established. With a Nikon Z9 you're not exactly going to be left wanting for much anyway... What's going to be the big bait and switch once that comes out? Same specs for £2000 from Canon? Not going to happen!