Andrew Reid

Now you are making a lot of sense. I like it when there's a hard realism to my fantasy worlds... HDR V-LOG is not how we see.

I don't think Leica deep down like the alliance. It's a bit of a recipe for some brutal competition within their own ecosystem isn't it? Whereas Canon can pick and choose by themselves who makes lenses for R mount, it seems Leica, Sigma and Panasonic have a democracy and vote on it. It must be tricky for Leica to sell their own overpriced L-mount lenses to their own customers (SL2, SL3) when most of these users knows quality of Sigma's stuff is equal or even better.

Another comparison between a high dynamic range scene in 2049 vs similar shot from the original... I personally think the HDR 2049 scene looks too peaceful and clinical, milky, hazy. Whereas the high contrast in the old film looks far more dramatic and in keeping with the brutality of that dystopian world.

Fast forward to 2049 and the modern Alexa era.. This shot looks like it needs 15 stops but it could have been shot with a GH2 actually. That's because they have 100% control over the yellow light source. And yet still they chose to blow out the top of his head to give the figure some shape and tonality. It would be weird if it looked like he wasn't under a strong glare because they wanted to maximize the dynamic range. Wouldn't suit the scene.

I still think that ETTR and trying to max out dynamic range leads to a worse overall look. It is one of the reason people complain about the colours on CMOS sensors and the flat tonality. The cinema look even in uncontrolled light is to prioritise what part of the shot is the most important. I really like my contrast Take the original Blade Runner for example, there would be no benefit in bringing up the shadows in this shot. The silhouette of the figure and the walkway is what the shot is about. So here 7 stops better than 14. In this one even though it's film the neon is blown out. There would be no benefit having an Alexa 35 here because if the neon mess behind him was bright colours and details it would be distracting us from the main subject. It is also supposed to look bright... because lights are... erm... bright Like the sun is bright. Today I don't know why people want to make lights look dark and shadows look bright, it makes no sense.

Or maybe not actually because although the parts outside the metal fencing are not blown out the entire back of her head is, and there's no detail in the hair. I would be tempted to prioritize the colour, detail and tonality of the inside of the barn and let the small bit of outside blow in a graceful way to absolute white, which looks like sunlight flooding in and would be quite nice.

Yes and lifting shadows is exactly the reason not to go 4 stops underexposed. I've seen shoots where they are trying to protect a highlight to the extreme and the rest of the shot is so noisy when they lift the exposure back up, looks like camera was at ISO 25,600 or similar. I also think that a high dynamic range look on an SDR display looks like it has no tonality. You have done a good job with the cow shot though. So maybe it's a moooooot point.

Just an observation... These latitude tests are daft. Nobody should be exposing a CMOS sensor 3-4-5 stops under. Just let the fucking window blow out. Colours, skintones, the entire look is more or less best when the multi-metering is on default. Sometimes I like to go 1 stop under maximum. When you have to dig the mids out of the blacks they look like crap.

You mean it is good at focusing sideways then? 🙂 I would choose S5 over anything pre-A7 III as well as 2012 cameras aren't my bag. Do you mean a7 IV? I just think the a7 IV is superior to the S5 in so many ways. And not in the small stuff but big... The autofocus. The viewfinder. The mount. The resolution. The lens adapters. The ergonomics. No-phase-detect-AF is a no-go for 2025. I just don't know why you'd want to put yourself through the inconvenience especially for video. For stills with native Panasonic glass you can usually get away with DFD just fine though. The Z6 is like $650 used now, probably one of the all-time great bargains as far as bang for image quality goes.

The 40mm F2 is on my list, it's dead cheap. Tamron not so much as the Nikon 28-75mm f2.8 exists Does it not transfer the E-mount geometry metadata via the adapter? I thought it did. Will have to try that. A7R V is about the same price as Z8 used at the mo. It's more of a stills camera in my view. Whereas Z8 is a hybrid, with lots of speeeeed. If the a7r V just had a faster sensor it would tick a lot of boxes and beat the a1. But then it would beat the a1 and Sony would not allow that. So the a7r series might forever remain quite slow, and I dare say they will increase the pixel count again with the next one... 100mp anyone? Certainly a place for that but it doesn't make for speeeeeeeeeed.

I asked Foto Meyer if they had any S1R II as well. Apparently they sold out within days, but it's not clear whether this initial shipment was 3 units or 300. So will have to wait a bit longer to try one. By the way I did notice again how soft the Leica M mount lenses inc. Voigtlander were on the Sony at fast apertures vs the Nikon Z8.

This is the plan. I have shot some various formats today around the Tiergarten in Berlin... Most cinematic duck shot ever. Will upload later to a Google drive folder. I am very happy with it so far. There are a few quirks, nothing major. Finding myself nailing manual focus on the Voigtlander 40mm at F1.2. So the slightly lower-resolution EVF vs Z9 might actually help, as it has a bit of aliasing on the focus plane. The main LCD is sharp as tack. Mega detailed and bright. Small thing but you can't assign movie recording to the movie recording button. Better explain further... In stills mode the movie recording button acts as a func. button, none of the functions are to start/stop movie recordings in stills mode. So it's a good job it has that quick to reach stills/movie lever isn't it? Size is fine. Weight is barely any different to the Sony a1. I actually prefer the ergonomics especially in cold weather with gloves. Incidentally the a1 itself popped up later in the day on same shelf I picked Z8 from yesterday. For a good price too. It's a bit smaller, but it feels just that little bit more dated compared to the Z8 with just a little bit less charm. Still a damn good choice for under $4000 though.

Yeah I have heard it doesn't like the hand grenade cards. Which is understandable. Personal opinion: 8K is a cinema thing and 60p is video/TV. So not too bothered about the 8K/60p. 8K/24p I will definitely be using.

To be honest 6K H2.65 ain't to be sniffed at... It's very nice. I am sure it does have 24/25p.

Hopefully SLR Magic.

Ah, if you toggle Silent Mode it doesn't keep parking and unparking the IBIS when entering and exiting the menus. Much nicer. It does still do so when cycling the power.

🤯 So some early doors impressions of the Nikon... It's been out a while so I won't get into the specs again. The overwhelming impression is that Nikon are mad bastards. It's as if they have taken the Z9 and gone... right let's make this better and reduce price by a lot. Everything about it I prefer to the Z9. The price, the size, the newer features and firmware updates since launch which I am discovering for first time since I sold my Z9 a couple of years back. Size wise, it's barely larger than my EOS R5. Weight is impressive given the slightly oversized body vs the Sony cameras. It feels chonky but light at same time which is a nice feeling. I am reminded how well the Nikon Z mount filter stack works at fast apertures. The manual glass I have like the Voigtlander 40mm F1.2 VM is like a different lens on the Z8 compared to the EOS R5 and Sony a7 IV. The glowing edges are gone at F1.2 and less fringing too. F1.2 looks almost as good as F2! I have gone deep into the menus and decided that there's absolutely nothing missing. The different levels of compression for both RAW stills AND RAW video is refreshing especially coming from Panasonic where's there's only ProRes RAW with very large file sizes or uncompressed Cinema DNG on the Sigma Fp-L. Nikon with the RED patent clearly will lead the RAW video codec race for perhaps the next 10 years or more. I want to do a comparison in 4K (where you can toggle between pixel binning / oversampling!) between the higher bitrate N-RAW and 700Mbit/s smaller file size N-RAW. Of course ProRes RAW is also in there. No mechanical shutter doesn't seem to be a problem so far and you can make it do a cute beep when taking a shot instead of a tacky fake shutter sound. Rather a quiet or optionally silent stills camera than one with a loud average shutter clack... although I will one day miss the 'feel' of a quiet mechanical shutter with a satisfying heft. X-H1, Leica SL2, GFX 100, to name a few. There are still a few mechanical sounds coming from the Z8. And one of them is actually quite annoying... It parks / locks the IBIS mechanism to save power / protect the camera every time you enter the main menu. It parks it with quite a loud clank and unlocks with a similar clank when it activates again. Wish there was a way to turn that off without disabling VR. The only other mechanical part is the sensor protection curtain which comes down at power-off, but you can choose whether to have that off or not. The EVF is enormous. In optical terms the best I've ever used. In resolution terms, perhaps not the absolute most detailed but right up there. Can you use it for manual focus at F1.2 without peaking? Absolutely. There's not this feeling you are looking through a tunnel. It's smooth, high contrast, a big FOV flat with no distortion. The rolling shutter appears to be a complete non-issue and there's no crop whatsoever in 4K/120p. Not tried the 8K/60 yet. I have a few 512GB CFexpress cards to test. Got a feeling I might need to go bigger. I am glad I resisted the tempting Nikon Zf. Only thing I am unsure about is whether the Z8 shares the same level of locked-down IBIS performance in video mode as the Zf, as that was quite incredible. Also tested the Nikon 28-200mm travel zoom which has been reduced recently to around 650 euros. I am surprised how small it is and how light. Sure, it's slow at f4-6.3 but it seems pretty sharp and nifty as a shot getter. The 28-75mm F2.8 Nikon Z is also incredibly small and light for a bright zoom. Not tried the Sigma ART E-mount range yet via the Megadap adapter but those are next up.

BMPCC original was niche, but cheap. £1200 I seem to remember back in 2012? Sigma BF... best friend... is like the original BMPCC. Affordable niche artistic tool.

Maybe you can use memes instead, I put a GIF button in.

Depends which Sony camera. Which firmware of Metabones. Which mode. Which era. Which year. The Sigma MC-11 has been practically flawless since 2017. Metabones also evolved into a bullet proof experience. The same is not true for the S5 II in my experience, with the Sigma MC-21. It's ok, good-ish, but not at same level as Sony. Also using E-mount lenses on Z-mount with the Megadap adapter is like a native lens experience. But you can't bring any E-mount lenses to L. The flange distance is too long.

It's the only way to stand up against a fascist dictatorship, you can't do it like the democrats with their little slogans and signs, and Micro Four Thirds cameras... You have to have a warship, and a big bazooka on the front.

Am starting to feel we are maybe a bit off the S1R Mark II trail and half way to new zealand. Please remember the other users... They click an S1R II topic and want concise info about it. It's fine to have the occasional diversion in a topic but this stuff is taking it too far my friend. And it's not a one off. I don't speak for myself but for the average lurker. It is really annoying for them to have to scroll through so much off topic chatter.

I'm happy for him to go with his native language and we can have a button in the toolbar. But it's entirely up to him 🙂

I agree the original S5, and S1 have a lovely image. Both great for the price. 10bit codecs. S1R with 4K/60p only a 1.1x crop. They should be in my top 10 but I still don't think they suit as many people as an E-mount or Z-mount camera. Sigma Fp OG should be in my list as well but again it's more of a niche tool. The S5 and S1 practically have no autofocus to speak of. The non-nerds I speak to regularly complain about it and want to switch to Sony. The S5 also has a very pokey little EVF, which makes the S1 a better deal as they're both around 800 used. But the S1 compared to a Sony a7r III or a7 III is clunky... heavy, too large, bad AF, wrong mount in most people's eyes, and doesn't play well with adapters. Whereas the Z6 has the same sensor, very similar image quality, but much better ergonomics, is smaller, lighter, excellent AF, and I believe most people would pick the latter qualities over just having 10bit codecs.