jonpais

? My prediction of Sony churning out a half dozen new G Masters by the time Nikon releases their mirrorless was just a poke at one one of our contributors, who speculates that third party manufacturers could easily roll out as many as twenty Z mount lenses within the first year of its release alone. But I’m liking the unicorn idea! ?

I'd also be willing to concede if, as I understand it, the D850 does indeed use CDAF in 4K, PDAF in their forthcoming mirrorless camera would certainly enhance its video capabilities.

“Nikon could go all out in terms of video” - they haven’t up till now, no reason to expect any more than 8-bit 4:2:0 in the near future. “IBIS good enough to chuck your gimbal” - IBIS is not about to replace gimbals any time soon. Gimbals are now adding dozens of features and customizability in addition to mere stabilization. “If they are able to improve their IBIS” - Micro four thirds already has excellent IBIS. Even if I could do somersaults and run up and down flights of stairs, CDAF isn’t going to cut it. Earth-shattering video AF-C would be a bonus. Not sure what any of this has to do with a discussion of FF mirrorless...

I don’t see the batcam even competing in the same space as these hybrids. The P4K is a straight up cinema camera.

The more I ponder it, the less likely I believe we are of seeing anything revolutionary at all.

Yeah, I realize it now. I still insist though that were we to count the market share according to those using Canon, Nikon and Sony for videography alone, those pie charts would be turned on their head. Does it have any relevance to the point you were making? Probably not. But from my perspective, it is impossible to say whether anyone entered the mirrorless market too early or too late just from looking at those pie charts. People will buy shit like the 6D mkII no matter how weak it is, and Canon’s mirrorless offerings may fly off the shelves at the moment, but I’d never go near one. Sales figures don’t mean anything to me. If Andrew is correct, and I believe he is, Nikon’s not going to endanger sales of their DSLRs by giving away budget mirrorless cameras loaded with all kinds of features videographers want to see at half the price of a D850 (to compete with the a7 III). So @ntblowz may get his wish after all - decent AF and IBIS in a mirrorless body, but not much else new aside from the mount. And by the time the Nikon is rolled out in 2019, Sony will have yet again improved (borrowed from the Venice) color and ergonomics; they’ll have a slightly less convoluted menu system with a fully usable touch screen; will have added a half dozen more superb lenses to their already excellent lineup of FF lenses and who knows what else.

No, there’s no way to avoid vignetting with the Laowa - it persists even through f/11. That’s the price you pay with such a fast, tiny wide angle.

My point is that you might be right about market share, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with buying decisions for filmmakers. And if, as some seem to gleefully hope, Sony goes under, there will be less competition, not more.

my sentiments too.

@Trek of Joy I'd like to see a breakdown of how many of those users are videographers. My guess would be that Nikon would be dead last.

Back in the day, I shot a Pentax 645, Rollei f/2.8, view cameras... and there was never any question that bigger negatives meant better image quality. Four years in college and not a word about chromatic aberration, field curvature, dynamic range, grain... Simpler times!

@BTM_Pix Yeah, in spite of all my grievances with Fuji, the X-T2’s pricing is pretty darn attractive. Still, with no zebras or IBIS, to name just two features I can’t live without, I found myself using the G85 instead. X-T3 is probably just around the corner... but it’s hard to go back to a crop sensor!

Since all I shoot is video, some things important to me are: a headphone jack, good preamps, a fully functioning remote app (no 720p video like the X-T2!), full HDMI out, zebras, live histogram, dual card recording, legible display info (Fuji at long last answered my prayers!), long life battery (please, no dumb battery grip!), precise and highly visible focus peaking (a la Sony), good IBIS (Sony, not so much!), silent and instantaneous AF-C in video mode, no crop in 4K, face detect in 4K, PDAF in 4K, little to no moire, large grip, ability to program all frequently used menu items to fn buttons by depressing them for two seconds, ability to record higher quality to external recorder, fast native primes (16, 35, 50, 85mm), shutter angle, weather sealing, file structure that isn’t insane like the a7 III, HLG 10-bit, an LCD with greater than a measly 1 million pixels, good customer support. Things I can live without: touch screen, firmware updates every three months fixing bugs and adding features that should’ve been there in the first place, joy stick, exposure compensation dial, fully articulating LCD, EVF, locking mode dial, shoulder e-ink LCD.

Here’s the Sigma 16mm f/1.4 mounted on an Olympus OMD E-M1. Looks like it would be pretty imbalanced on the GX85 to me.

A few souls here were predicting drastic price reductions on the GH5, but here we are in Aug 2018 and major retailers are still selling it for $1,697 or so (new). Meanwhile, the darling X-T2, released around a half year earlier, is seeing drastic price reductions ($1,099, last I checked). The moral of the story is to wait a year for Fuji to fix the bugs, add 1,000 new features and sell the camera for 1/2 price. According to rumors, Panasonic should be releasing a firmware update for the GH5(s) soon. And in recent news, Olympus is expected to launch a high end video camera in 2019. But I’m afraid my m43 days are coming to an end...

@Danyyyel Ergonomics and overheating might have plagued Sony in the past, but the a7r III and a7 III are much improved in both regards. The grip is larger, button placement is better and practically any menu item can now be assigned to as many as thirteen buttons and dials. Battery life has also been dramatically increased over previous generations. The compact size of the a7 III means it can be flown on an inexpensive lightweight gimbal. I can’t see a pressing need for f/0.95 FF lenses with Sony’s insanely good lowlight sensors; f/.95 lenses will be large, heavy and prohibitively expensive. Many reputable photographers now believe that even f/4 zooms should no longer be considered ‘consumer’ grade. I’ve never shot Nikon, but AFAIK, the D850 uses slow CDAF for 4K that hunts and there is no focus peaking in 4K either. Sony has shown that not only are they ready to throw in everything but the kitchen sink in their ‘basic’ model, but also to price it extremely aggressively, something which I don’t for a moment expect Nikon to be able to match. There is likewise no reason for me to expect Nikon to surpass Sony in video; in fact, in my whole life, I’ve never seen anyone use a Nikon for video: so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. There still remains the issue of native lenses (ie, not adapted), which will take years to catch up with Sony.

Sony Distagon FE 35mm f/1.4. No color correction in post; just pulled down shadows and added a slight vignette around subject. Beautiful contrast, pleasing bokeh, satisfactorily sharp (somewhere between f/2.8 and f/3.5, not sure). This lens is a heavyweight among my primes. Really hard to find fault with the camera, except for the file structure and numbering. image

The point isn’t just about throwing money around. What you’re basically saying is that if IBIS alone is better, you’re switching systems - without knowing anything at all about the Nikon mirrorless camera!

Yeah, if IBIS is better, I’m dumping my perfectly satisfactory $2,000 a7 III and $7,000 worth of brand new lenses for a system we know absolutely nothing about. After all, they’re just toolz, and I change systems as the wind blowz. ? I can go along with most of this.

Ergonomically, it looks vastly superior to my a7 III. But one of the chief reasons for getting Sony was reliable continuous autofocus when shooting on a gimbal. And I’m able to balance practically all of my lenses on the original Crane, making for a very compact setup. The Nikon + lenses looks like it will require the much larger and heavier DJI, something I wouldn’t be too thrilled about. Not to mention that it will be years before they catch up with Sony’s native lens lineup (I’m through with adaptors). Lastly, looking at those leaked images, I can’t imagine the Nikon selling for less than $3,000. I guess we’ll see...

Go with the Dell 9570. Do not get a MacBook for editing Premiere.

There’s an interesting discussion over at Diglloyd about color shifts when stopping down the Sigma Art 105mm f/1.4 (though this shift can be seen to some degree in other lenses as well). When it comes to custom white balance, Lloyd Chambers has this to say: Then there is the question of correction for secondary color, which itself can impart a significant greenish cast to background out of focus areas, and magenta cast to OOF foreground areas (which is why a gray card must always be shot in focus and never even a little out of focus). I also noticed a green tinge in the OOF background of a few of my videos shot with the GH5 and white balanced with an X-Rite Colorchecker (which I never bothered to focus). Apparently some brands and lenses are more susceptible to this effect than others. Still, I’m not entirely ruling out the possibility that the beta LUTs I was testing might have contributed to the green tinge. Something else to test in another life!

Sorry if this is a dumb question - but who makes cameras in Taiwan? ?

On the other hand, with the GH5, focus peaking (which is what I rely on for manual focusing), all but disappears when engaging focus assist; which is not the case with the a7 III.

note: I shouldn’t have said negative impression; perhaps unfavorable when cf. to the GH5s.