Andrew Reid

Google with their Pixel phones aren't exactly imaginative. It's a shame as they pioneered the early computational photography advances on smartphones with the Pixel 1, 2 and 3. Since then just iterative boring nonsense although the Pixel 6 Pro is a decent deal now for under $250 used. Microsoft failed for no other reason than being shit at phones. They may be a big hitter but you bring a braindead OS and middle-of-the-road hardware to any competitive industry, and you fail. Apple has peaked. The US political drama only serves to strength in the European, Asian and Arabic markets for smartphones. It could get Apple banned in the EU and the tariff wars will disrupt Apple's supply chains. That plays into the hands of South Korea and Samsung. It also allows China to innovate even more, and the Chinese domestic market has so many people in it that they don't even need to release their lower-volume flagship phones internationally any more. America is very good at software, at the OS. Here is Japan's biggest weakness. But China is now demonstrating that their education system produces some rather good programmers and app developers. All the Japanese camera firms have to do is outsource the computational side and overall firmware to China and put as big a bunch of sensors in the camera as possible, along with a very decent OLED screen and phone, boom you now have the best camera phones again like in the 00's. Make Japan Great Again.

Indeed this is where the real-world perspective helps. If a camera isn't designed to run in the highest quality mode for hours of continuous monologue, don't use it for that. Show us instead what it can do and what it's suited to. Unless there's a serious issue like with the EOS R5 at release where 30 or so photos in live-view locks you out of shooting 30 seconds of 8K for half an hour at a time!!! I don't use my Sigma Fp-L in Cinema DNG as a Twitch streaming cam! What next? GFX 100 for OnlyFans? It's the imaginary user he has in his head that's the problem isn't it? He doesn't quite have the average filmmaker in mind. Indeed and this is what fucking pisses me off about it. The Sigma Fp for example is an cine-art tool, it isn't a webcam. And he gave it a shit review because for his use-case of pointing it at himself doing selfies with autofocus on a tripod it wasn't optimal. Had he gone outside with it and shot a mood piece of nature and beauty in Cinema DNG, with a great sound track over the top maybe he'd have appreciate it more. His rant about not showing us any beauty and how he justified that was pathetic. As if he was looking down at art altogether and saying look how fucking irrelevant it is to camera reviews. It's the whole fucking point of a fucking camera you fucking dick.

It's a really entitled video, all about him. A lot of people would be very happy to have his job and his money. He doesn't have to shoot anything, doesn't have to chase clients and he often doesn't even have to buy any gear, it comes from marketing. I don't mind that he's rebutting criticism, it's the way he does it that annoys me - Saying he doesn't care about dynamic range and rolling shutter, after spending the last 10 years and every video advocating such stuff to us and measuring it... that is just highly fucking disingenuous, not to mention hypocritical. And I do think that lacking the artistic perspective matters in camera reviews. He needs to go out and shoot more. Instinctual talent and creative ability is one thing, you either have it or not. But it's as if he doesn't even try at it. No wonder he sounds so jaded. There's literally no point in camera performance, dynamic range and so on if you yourself ain't going to use it creativity. I think he's bored. The pivot to Apple products isn't far off.

Thought I'd make a list, and it has ended up being quite big... - That sensor filter stack is amazing, turns a mediocre soft-ish lens wide open into something much better - Separate sensor readout on Z8 for the EVF, it's so effing fast... A real shot getter of an EVF - Z-Mount... It has proved to be the most versatile of all mounts, in the history of the industry - RAW video codecs, post RED-buyout they are clearly on top of the RAW game - Sensor development... Although they're using Sony Semi, these are not off the shelf chips. The Z8/Z9 sensor is superior to even Sony's own flagship full frame sensor (in the a1/a1 II/CineAlta Burano) - Heat management... 8K 60p RAW with not even a vent in the body (Z8, Z9) - IBIS. The Zf takes things to new heights, even better than Panasonic. As good as OM-1, but full frame - Rear screen... 3.2" may not sound a lot but it's appreciably larger than 3.0" on the Sony alpha cameras. - Ergonomics. Once you get used to the Nikon controls and menus they are some of the most intuitive... Really fast to switch between stillls and video mode too... although like all cameras there are still quirks - Affordable lenses... The Nikon 28-75 2.8, 40mm 2.0 SE, and 24-200mm travel zoom are all very high performing optically for the price. They have also allowed Sigma to bring their affordable APS-C range to Z-mount. Now do the same with the full frame ART lenses please Nikon! - Autofocus performance. I think it edges out the other brands overall, or at least level with Sony. Superior to Canon, Fuji and Panasonic. - Autofocus performance via adapters... The AF with Sony FE-mount lenses and Canon EF is excellent (Megadap & Fringer adapters). - Range of video codecs, resolutions and crops... The list is almost never-ending on the Z8 and Z9. Very impressed with that side, now they just need anamorphic & open gate to complete it - Colour science. It's super and the auto white balance system is very intelligent, as it was on their top-end DSLRs like the D5 and D850. The ability to add your own custom Fuji-style picture styles via Nikon Picture Control Utility is cherry on top (copy on from SD card). - Extended oversampling in 4K/60p... Sony a1 pixel bins in this mode and even in 4K/24p. The Z8 is capable of downsampling from 8K/60p, a full pixel readout. - Rolling shutter performance in 8K. Their flagship sensor is just crazy fast and it means you don't miss an obsolete mechanical shutter for photography - Price/performance ratio. I think the full frame Zf is a real sweet deal, Z6 II by far the best video specs and codec in the mid-range and the Nikon Z8 brand new for $3500 is better value for money than the already good value Panasonic S1R Mark II, let alone compared to Canon or Sony. The equivalent specs from Canon (EOS R5 II) and Sony (a1 II) cost $5-6K. It's all a big step from where Nikon were 10 years ago, let's get some perspective... Canon, Sony and Panasonic were far out in front for video and Nikon had only 1" sensors in their mirrorless cameras! The D750 was a decent start at taking video more seriously but only a 1080p DSLR with limited features, no phase-detect AF for video, no IBIS and so on. A much better stills camera than video. The D800 had been a big success in the years earlier, but the 5D Mark II and III took the vast majority of the video attention. D800 was definitely more a photographic success story. This recent progress makes me wonder what Nikon can do with RED. It would be nice to have a Z8 C with REDcode, global shutter and built in e-ND. It would also be nice if they update the Zf with the Z6 III sensor and N-RAW... Zf Mark II anybody?

"Rolling shutter doesn't matter to me" "Dynamic range doesn't matter to me" It's like the Pope breaking down and saying Christmas doesn't matter to me!

There's only a minimum shutter speed in the ISO settings for Photos. The ISO settings in the video menu lacks it. Definitely a firmware fix for Nikon to consider here.

Still posting on the main blog and plan to pick up the pace from now on, also with YouTube. Social media isn't my favourite media. So you can forgive me for not posting constant drivel for the sake of it everyday. It's still fun you just have to pay $3000+!!!

Is this a Z-mount Komodo with a Sony E-mount adapter? LOL!

It's not really a 180 degrees firmware update problem. It's the missing feature of setting minimum shutter speeds in Aperture Priority. Just set it to 180 degrees in manual mode with base ISO in N-LOG and use a variable ND. Or set it to 180 degrees and auto ISO in manual mode when you're in low light and it is forcing 1/25 on you. I agree that in Aperture Priority mode there should be a way to set the minimum shutter speed to 1/50 in video mode but it's quick enough to override. Either with a quick mode-switch or hiking the ISO.

Even a Viltrox lens looks good thanks to her!

All 100% true but companies as big as Canon have a huge sway when it comes to various non-smartphone related sales channels, so sell through those as sim-free, ignore the networks at the beginning. Remember it would be camera first, phone second. Go for the high-end niche areas first.

Just seems like a massive chance to make money to me. The smartphone market has peaked, and the high-end phones succeeded in selling at $1000+ by differentiating themselves mainly on the camera specs. Now all the flagship phones are pretty much similar, not much innovation and Apple especially under Tim Trump have not come up with a new idea for ages. It strikes me that if the camera is the most important thing about a phone, it should be a sign that maybe Canon, Nikon, Fuji are missing out on some hefty demand. Canon should have a Powershot branded phone running latest CPU and Android, 1" sensor and a ton of features from their serious cameras on it, plus Canon's colour science and picture styles, which leave the Chinese phone manufacturers for dead. Fuji should also do a similar thing, one with more style and imagination than whatever iterative shit Tim Woke But Trump is flogging year in year out. (Japan used to the lead the high-end phone market before Apple came along). Sigma as well, aiming for a more Apple-like high-end product with amazing build quality. So far camera companies in the smartphone market has been a branding exercise. Leica with Huawei and more recently Xiaomi, but the actual hardware is all China. Sony are the only camera company to have their Alpha features and software on a mainstream Android phone... Xperia 1 & 5 series. But in typical Sony fashion these are general purpose daily driver phones that try to do a Samsung, rather than really pushing the camera forward into a new realm or the smartphone onwards into a new concept. In fact they have on recent flagships given up trying to be different at all and just gone full on samey. Panasonic you may remember gave us the CM1. This had the right idea as far as software features and sensor size goes... Terrible implementation in terms of naff build quality, a screen that would scratch if you so much as sneezed at it, and a slow lens with even slower autofocus. Nowadays the thin optics on a phone like the Xiaomi 14 series are capable of amazing things, like the really close-focus telephoto lens they offer on the higher-end models, and the very fast wide angle lenses that are super thin but cover a 1" sensor. But if they really wanted to be brave they would come up with a camera-first, phone second product. And that's where Fuji, Canon and the rest could really make something special.

Sigma should do a phone and maybe RED should do a camera some day, could work out well. I have a Hydrogen too, found it languishing on eBay and thought I'd get it for fun. But it's not my daily driver.

What do you do with 2, 5, 10TB of files though afterwards? It mounts up. You then have to either delete the masters or transcode them. The latter option could get very time consuming and the former option can only be done if you transcode unless you want all the original footage gone forever. Another difference between client videography and art. With a client they are happy when you throw 2TB at them and say keep it, it's yours. But if you've just spent a month filming your short film, no way are you going to compress all that to mush or delete it.

All massive file sizes though. No ProRes LT as on Fuji X-H2 and others. And no 700Mbit/s compressed RAW video codec as on Canon EOS R3 and Nikon Z8. Room for improvement here in my opinion!

I agree the X-S20, X-M5, X-T5 all contenders for value champ. If you look at just full frame cameras under $1000 then it gets less complicated. APS-C and crop sensor cameras have always been plentiful bargains. There's a lot of them to choose from.

My Nikon 28mm F1.4 AF-D will like that. AFD still very popular in Germany.

Beyond the CPU capability for 10bit. Sensor can do 8K/60p so open gate 8K 30p would be no issue for it. CPU encoder that's on the limit, i.e. HEIF and HVEC.

I'd take 4k120 over 60p for slow-mo any day

Since I had the Z9, Nikon seems to have been on a firmware update rampage. This is just for the Z8... ■ Still Photography • Added [Pixel shift shooting] to the photo shooting menu. • Added new picture controls. • Added [Birds] to [AF subject detection options] in the photo shooting menu. • The maximum shooting display zoom ratio is now 400%. • Added [Auto capture] to the photo shooting menu. Users can select capture criteria from [Motion] (the direction the subject is moving), [Distance] (how far the subject is from the camera), and [Subject detection] (whether or not a subject of a given type is detected). • The length of time the camera will continue to buffer frames before cancelling shooting during the Pre-Release Capture phase of high-speed frame capture + has been increased from 30 to 300 seconds. • Added [Large] to the size options available for [Secondary slot function] > [JPEG primary - JPEG secondary] in the photo shooting menu. • Added new bracketing increments for use during auto bracketing with [AE & flash bracketing], [AE bracketing], or [Flash bracketing] selected for [Auto bracketing set]. This change also applies to [Interval timer shooting] > [Options] > [AE bracketing] > [Increment]. ■ Video Recording • Added new picture controls. • Added [Birds] to [AF subject detection options] in the video recording menu. • The maximum shooting display zoom ratio is now 400%. • Added [Auto capture] to the video recording menu. Users can select capture criteria from [Motion] (the direction the subject is moving), [Distance] (how far the subject is from the camera), and [Subject detection] (whether or not a subject of a given type is detected). • Added low ISO sensitivity options to [ISO sensitivity settings] > [ISO sensitivity (mode M)] for use during N-Log video recording. • Changed the range of speeds available for Hi-Res Zoom. • The color of the in-focus AF-area brackets shown on the shooting display when Hi-Res Zoom is enabled has been changed. • Hi-Res Zoom operations can now be performed using the sub-selector. • Added slow-motion video recording. ■ Playback • Added [Playback speed] in the video playback “i” menu. • Added [Auto image rotation] in the playback menu. • Added [Auto series playback options] to [Series playback] in the playback menu. • Made changes to the [Select for upload to computer] and [Select for upload (FTP)] items in the playback “i” menu and added [Select for priority upload to computer] and [Select for priority upload (FTP)]. ■ Controls • Added [Half-press to cancel zoom (MF)] item to the [CUSTOM SETTINGS MENU] in positions d18 and g17. • Added [Focus point border width] to a11 [Focus point display] in the [CUSTOM SETTINGS MENU]. • Changes have been made to how a full format is performed with [Format memory card] in the [SETUP MENU]. • White balance and exposure compensation can now be adjusted while recalling the shooting function settings. • Added support for the power zoom feature on power zoom lenses. • Added an [Exposure delay mode] item to the [CUSTOM SETTINGS MENU] in position d6. • Added to the custom controls and roles assignable via the following items in the [CUSTOM SETTINGS MENU]. New reset options have also been added. - f2[Custom controls (shooting)] - f3[Custom controls (playback)] - g2[Custom controls] Choose [Prefer focus point] or [Prefer focus point (face priority)] for f3 [Custom controls (playback)] > [Main command dial] or [Sub-command dial] > [Frame advance zoom position]. The settings for f3 [Custom controls (playback)] > [Main command dial] or [Sub-command dial] > [Frame advance] can now be applied during playback zoom. • Made updates to [Non-CPU lens data] in the [SETUP MENU]. • Increased the character limit from 3 to 256 for “Category” entries in IPTC presets. • Restructured the [Camera sounds] item in the [SETUP MENU] with the addition of new options, including new sounds and volume level adjustment for the electronic shutter. ■ Displays • Added focus-distance information to the focus distance indicator displayed during manual focus. • The option selected for [Viewfinder display size] (formerly [Finder display size (photo Lv)]) in the [SETUP MENU] now also applies in video and playback modes. ■ Network (Also NX Field) • A warning now appears when the connection to an ATOMOS AirGlu BT accessory is unstable or disrupted. • ATOMOS AirGlu BT accessories and MC-N10 remote grips can now be used together. • Made changes and additions to the [Connect to FTP server] item in the [NETWORK MENU]. • Changed the procedure used when configuring the camera for synchronized release, increasing to twenty the number of groups that can be created, while the number of cameras in each group that can be controlled from the master camera has been increased to sixteen. • Added [Overwrite copyright info] under [Connect to other cameras] in the [NETWORK MENU]. ■ App-Related Changes With NX MobileAir: • the camera live view display for photo mode now shows NX MobileAir status, and • camera settings saved to a memory card using [Save/load menu settings] can now be downloaded to the smart device or copied from the smart device to the camera memory card using NX MobileAir. ■ Other Changes • The time the shooting display goes dark after shutter is released when [ON] is selected for [Photo flicker reduction] in the [PHOTO SHOOTING MENU] has become shorter. • Improved the accuracy of [3D-tracking] for small, fast-moving subjects when [Auto], [People], [Animal], or [Vehicle] is chosen for [AF subject detection options] and no subject of the selected type is detected. • Improved focus lock-on with flicker detection in low-speed continuous release mode. • Made other improvements to the autofocus operation and its reliability. • Fixed an issue that sometimes resulted in the viewfinder darkening during playback when [Auto] was selected for [Viewfinder brightness]. • It is now easier to obtain the correct exposure from the first shot during interval-timer photography in high-contrast settings or settings dark enough for starlight view. • The histogram display is no longer available when starlight view is enabled. • Changed the video low-capacity warning so that it is now displayed in white on a red background when there is less than one minute remaining. The warning is now also displayed when recording is not in progress. • Users now have more precise control when scrolling through videos during playback using the progress bar. • When [AF-area mode] is set to [3D-tracking] and the human subject is large relative to the frame and multiple eyes are detected near the tracking focus point, the camera will assign priority for focusing to the eye closer to the point. • The RGB histogram is now easier to view when [Mode 1] or [Mode 2] is selected for d11 [Warm display colors] in [CUSTOM SETTINGS MENU]. • Fixed the following issues: - Photos taken with interval-timer photography could sometimes be underexposed. - Flash may not sometimes fire during focus shift. - The focus position unintentionally returned to the position saved using [Save focus position] if standby timer was expired while power was supplied via USB and a WR-R10 was attached. - Optimal exposure could sometimes not achieved in burst or focus shift shooting. - Pressing the AF-ON button immediately ended playback when [Playback] was assigned to [AF-ON button] and [Prioritize viewfinder (2)] was selected for monitor mode. - Shutter release was sometimes disabled when “Bulb” was selected for shutter speed. - Focus point selection using the multi selector and sub-selector was unavailable if a touch operation was performed using [Position focus point] when [3D-tracking] was selected for AF-area mode. - Fine-tuning values set in [AF fine-tuning options] in the setup menu did not apply while the subject is detected with [Wide-area AF (S)], [Wide-area AF (L)], [Wide-area AF (C1)], or [Wide-area AF (C2)] selected for [AF-area mode]. - With some lenses, the shutter release was sometimes disabled in burst photography if the lens zoom ring was rotated. Changes from “C” Firmware Version 1.00 to 1.01 • Changed the timing of the high-temperature warnings appearing when the camera’s internal temperature increases mainly during video recording. • Changed the position where the memory card high-temperature warning is displayed in video mode. • Fixed the following issues: - The battery would draw down more quickly while the camera was off if [ON] was selected for [Connect to smart device] > [Wi-Fi connection] in the [NETWORK MENU] even if [OFF] was selected for both [Bluetooth connection] and [Upload while off]. - Focus could still be adjusted using the focus ring when [Disable] was selected for a15 [Manual focus ring in AF mode] in the [CUSTOM SETTINGS MENU] if an option other than [Non-linear] was chosen for f9 [Focus ring rotation range] in the [CUSTOM SETTINGS MENU].

D800 and Pentax K-1 Best stills image quality from 10 years ago I agree there's been a plateau. The main difference between 2015 and 2025 if we're talking stills is that the GFX 100 II now exists. 100mp, and larger than full frame. That's quite a good advance. In video the progress has been much more noticeable due to the speed and less heat of modern CPUs and sensors.

Looks good https://digitalproduction.com/2025/02/10/redcine-x-beta-embraces-nikon-n-raw/