Andrew Reid

Trapped into a dying ecosystem! Are you confusing Z mount with EOS M or something there 😉 Native Z lenses aren't my bag (although the 50 and 35 1.8 are decent bargains) but it's an enormously flexible mount. Compared to EOS R mount, I can adapt Sony E mount lenses to Z, which I can't with R or L or M43. I don't think there are c-mount Bolex adapters for R but there are for Z. Then with the broader manual lens eco system being PL, Leica M, Canon FD and also Canon EF via the Z mount Fringer adapter for nigh on perfect AF and the Nikon F-Z mount adapter, the ecosystem for lenses looks pretty strong to me. Unless you are talking about the ecosystem of the planet, now that is fucked.

It certainly would be hard to beat a Z9 for years to come. Although I can imagine Fuji putting their X-H2 processor in a GFX100S Mark II at some point, the Z9 is unique in that it is the only one to stick two fingers up at RED and go all guns blazing with internal RAW. Canon with their sweetheart deal have a decent compressed 6K RAW codec on the R3 but it has hardly any options or frame rates compared to the Z9, which has about 5 pages of them! Including the crop mode and 120fps 4K N-RAW. I also feel the Z9 might have the distinct advantage over R3 in having that handy E-mount adapter compatibility. I have a shed load of E-mount lenses including the Sigma 24-70mm F2.8 and would be nice to put them on the Z9. It is hard to see how Nikon could have done a better job really... Perhaps shave 300g off the weight and have a mechanical shutter, which I might or might not miss depending on how the electronic one holds up. Also in the next firmware it would be nice if they put ProRes Proxy and LT 4K/6K/8K in there like the X-H2 for smaller file sizes (rather than just the HQ variant). Has anyone seen it covered anywhere about N-RAW bitrates and whether the 4K RAW is binned or oversampled from the 8K sensor readout? If I can put about 10 older cameras on eBay and replace them all with one, I'd probably still not be able to part with a few 'tricks' like uncompressed CDNG on the Sigma Fp-L, with the mojo that has in the crop modes, and a dedicated camera for my Super 16mm c-mount lenses, although these will mount on the Z9 too, remains to be seen if the new Firmware 3.0 lossless zoom goes all the way to 2x crop.

The A7 IV at £2.5k and A1 at £6K? In that gap there's the A7S III and the FX3. Not sure there is much of a market for the A7R IV, as those who can afford it are more likely to go for one of the above cameras or spend a bit extra for the A1 if they need 8K and high res stills? What puts you off the Z9? It seems like there's not much it can't do. Have you considered EOS R3?

I like what I see with the screen. But £4000??!

WEX showed it in-stock for all of 10 seconds yesterday. Apparently a lot of shipments going out at the moment, but apparently not enough to satisfy the hordes! Even I want one, and I have 200 cameras! That clear-image zoom is going to be great for c-mount lenses.

The OG BMPCC is hugely different again, compared to the Digital Bolex and Ikonoskop. The Ikonoskop had the same Kodak sensor as the D16. I shot with both side by side (BM Pocket and Ikonoskop) in Berlin. Whereas the D16 and Ikonoskop have a very particular low-fi look and a lot of "imperfections" in certain conditions from the CCD sensor, the original BM Pocket was far more modern and clean looking, just all round a bit more normal. Still very nice, but it was its own thing and separate to the DB. Joe ran the sensor hot in the D16, basically overclocked it. It also had a much more appealing look undercranked to 16fps in post than a modern CMOS sensor camera. So if we can get even a bit closer to this look, with the help of some tricks and post production I'd be a happy bunny. Yeah. It's very much uncompressed. Cinema DNG is the key to the Fp. Even in 8bit. It doesn't have the squeaky clean and processed look of BRAW and ProRes RAW. I may try the 2K on the Fp-L and see if it's any good. The file sizes in 4K are a bit of an issue. But so is finding, maintaining, keeping and shooting a Digital Bolex lol. I am also curious to hear more about that. The CMOS 'plastic' look could well have something to do with that. I also think it handles white balance and colour temperature completely differently to CCD. There is always an overall slight veiling especially in warmer scenes.

Global shutter and the motion cadence were very nice on it. I don't expect to nail the look identically just see what gets closest to it. Because the big full frame, high resolution, noiseless, super-duper £6k stuff of today is miles off from that look, at least out of the box

It is interesting that Joe says in the video, they wanted the absolute character of the Kodak sensor to be preserved in-camera, without any noise reduction or introduction of any circuit noise. Just the natural grain from the sensor. So it got me thinking... With HVEC and modern sensors we have a squeaky clean look. It has a lot of noise reduction you can't turn off, and a lot of compression. So if we wanted the colour, character, uncompressed Cinema DNG and film grain of the Digital Bolex... We need to find a modern camera... Because the D16 on eBay now is $6K!! I think the closest I own is the Sigma Fp-L in crop mode. It has the resolution for 2x crop so works with Super 16mm lenses. But any crop from about 1.37x onward gives a very detailed texture to the uncompressed 4K raw.... as it is a 1:1 pixel readout. If you download the frame grab below, and look at the full 4K JPG conversion of my DNG, it is apparent at 1:1 that nothing is being lost and nothing is being added. Especially since this is at ISO 3200 behind a strong ND filter. At lower ISOs it looks a bit too clean to be a Digital Bolex-a-like. However at ISO 3200 it is perfectly on note. What other cameras could we wrangle (with a few tricks) to look like a Kodak CCD? GH5S? S1R 5K? Canon RAW? Nikon Z9? How about our smartphones in Motion Cam?

What's interesting is that the Digital Bolex used a completely separate board for the Kodak CCD sensor internally. This was to avoid introducing noise which would need cleaning up and it is that step in the pipeline that hurts the nuances of a sensor according to Joe Rubinstein. So it might be that with the modern cameras and their single circuit board, there's simply too much pre-processing going on and too much interference with the signal coming back off the sensor, which lends more digital look. It would be lovely to get the look of a Digital Bolex in a modern mirrorless camera. We'll see if we can harangue the X-H2 into looking more 'raw'.

https://we.tl/t-ZnnuboUFed That's another X-H2 ProRes 422 HQ clip in 8K (FLOG 2) Autumn trees at infinity Will be interesting to see how (or if) the processing has changed

I would go with either the Panasonic S1, Sony a7 IV, Fuji X-H2 or a GH6 Look at the pros and cons of each of those and see which one you prefer S1 has had such big firmware updates it's almost a Mark II, and has the best image for the price (in V-LOG) and is full frame. But lacking in the AF department and is quite a brick. a7 IV is a very capable all-rounder. No major weak areas. Might be a bit over your $2K budget though. X-H2 has the best codec, and is 8K. Excellent AF. It isn't full frame and may necessitate new lenses. GH6 is a good bargain and if you don't mind the crop sensor, has the biggest feature set for video of nearly any camera on the market. Endless creativity and options.

Thanks Dustin. Anyone got an X-H2S as well? Would be curious to compare

Looks a lot better than the H265. I'll try the 422 in 8K next.

Very nice, but doesn't it get expensive over the years as masses of material builds up on the NAS? Nikon are not the saviour, they are a very naughty boy. If you look at arch rival Canon, internal compressed C-RAW, and the only one RED doesn't seem to have a problem with. Nikon will be after a similar deal to Canon. Likely a technology and patent swap deal. I can't see the patent rolling over quite so easily at this point, but Nikon's approach to use the original EOSHD Forum argument about why the patent is invalid is certainly novel 🙂 The only way I see this being resolved is for somebody to eventually buy RED. Perhaps Apple, Nvidia, DJI, Canon or Sony, and for the RED codec to be licensed to earn some money before the patent expires. DJI would probably be most interested. Whether RED is up for sale, let alone to the Chinese is another matter.

Here is a ProRes LT clip at infinity https://we.tl/t-Di1du9K61X Will try and get more footage today but the weather has been diabolical.

USB 4 port as well so quick to edit straight off an external SSD, if iOS lets you do that. It will be interesting to see if the iPad version runs on a MacBook as well considering Macs now run iOS apps. I am all for a slightly simplified user interface and stripped back to the core basics version of Resolve!

I would love an internal 2.8K RAW codec around 300Mbit. A good balance of image quality and practicality. I have moved on from 1080p but 2.8K never got the attention it deserved. It's a big step up from 1080. As the original BMCC showed! Closest at the moment is the 6K C-RAW from EOS R3 in 24p mode at 720Mbit. Or ProRes LT on the X-H2 which I think stands up very well to some of the lighter RAW codecs and BRAW. ProRes RAW file sizes are a bit silly so won't be rushing out to buy an external recorder any time soon! Canon RAW lite seems to edit quite fluidly on my MacBook Pro 16" (m1 pro) It's a shame EOS R3 cannot downsample the RAW to 2.8K and 4K in-camera as I don't particularly need 6K.

Username checks out 😉 Honorable mention to EOS R3 with 6K C-RAW (24.00p/23.98p): Approx. 720 Mbps That it is actually quite a nice data rate for 6K RAW compared to most other cameras which are 2000Mbit+

Remember when the 1D C came out, with MJPEG 4K. 500Mbit/s file sizes were a real struggle in a practical sense. Now we have this enormous range, anything from 100Mbit H.264 to 3000Mbit RAW. I am interested what kind of file sizes people are comfortable with and using most in 2022. Do you find yourself sticking with smaller file sizes like 200Mbit H265? Would you shoot much ProRes 422 HQ if you had a Nikon Z9 (2700Mbit)? If so what are you editing from (HDD or SSD?) and archiving master files with? Looking forward to hearing from you all. Just for reference. Here's what I think... - Best overall codec is ProRes 422 LT in 4K oversampled from 8K on X-H2. 435Mbit and image quality is flawless - Bitrate sweet spot for me is around 200Mbit. I find that kind of file size nice and manageable over time. Anything bigger is more of a special occasion thing. - I don't mind 8bit at all as long as it has some colour science mojo going on - ProRes 422 HQ in GH6 and Nikon Z9 is too big, not practical in my opinion - may as well shoot raw? - HVEC on S1 and S1R has some very nice mojo going on and tiny file sizes so a thumbs up to them. - I don't shoot BRAW, prefer Cinema DNG on Sigma Fp-L. Special occasions only but great for pulling stills from a short burst at 24fps.

FX30 is soundly thrashed by the X-H2 under $2k but I can see why Sony are the new Canon - Trap people in the ecosystem with their lenses and adapters. There must be a big profit margin on the FX30 because the Sigma Fp is same price and is full frame and internal RAW 4K!

I don't understand why anyone would go for the FX30 over an X-H2. Am I missing something?

Finally stopped pissing it down with rain so some shots coming up later today. Here is first one... 6.2K ProRes LT. It is very impressive how it scales the 8K sensor. No crop in either 6.2K or 4K. The IBIS is amazing as well. Is this first shot a good test clip with the autumn leaves, or do you need something further away at infinity focus? Wetransfer link: https://we.tl/t-g7zPP58q3B

It's thought of a rare disease but is anything but. Looking at the stories on here breaks my heart even more than it is already. So much loss and suffering because of no cure. The best we can do is stay positive and put our faith in the medical professionals who are making so much progress. Already there's a lot they can do for early stage cancer and certain types, compared to what would have been the case even just 20 years ago. The NHS did their best for Zara but it was not to be. I am genuinely scared of what the future holds if we do not start living in a more healthy environment. Huge businesses are playing Russian roulette with our food, our water, our air. If we don't do something to hold them to account in a big way this planet is finished.

Great, will grab you some files and post the links below later

£700 price difference in UK so quite a lot. 4K/120p I have on EOS R5 so didn't need that again. On the X-H2S the 4K 120p comes with a hefty crop of sensor. 6.2K open gate already got on S1 and the 5K 4:3 mode of S1R great for anamorphic. X-H2 rolling shutter seems fine so far, I don't shoot a lot of fast paced handheld action. DR and AF isn't better on X-H2S and IBIS is worse. Was this one of Gerald's tips. A real revelation that is haha. Yes curious about that as well. Care to do a test if I give you a file to play with @Attila Bakos?