Danko

Just a an update. RED still haven't shown up at my door. I did started locking up in the evening and hiding the camera in the safe houses. I started checking if I'm being followed. On this side of sanity (hopefully), I finally shot some material. Clients I often collaborate with suggested that we try playing with format of the visual research and use moving picture. It's usually stills photographic work. Since the whole job was more of a exploration case study I decided I may as well push and shoot RAW. I have mostly XQD cards and SD cards. XQD was able to record about 7 seconds of 8K at 50p before interrupting. Slight disappointment (but there was a twist later on). So I went and bought CFast B cards. San Disk were easiest to get quickly, 128GB holds 5 min 40 seconds at 8K60p and RAW quality NORMAL. I went with SDR and Nikon FLAT, used waveform and kept ISO at 64, partially because I carry the habit from the stills and partially to keep aperture values reasonable. I only played with the footage a bit on the flight back. In Resolve 17 on Mac (you have to run the app under Rosetta, so affecting the performance) it edits without issues on 16 inch M1 MAX. I've been out of serious video for more than 12 years so tweaking it is going to be a bit of challenge but also why I really tried to get it right in the camera. The picture didn't break when I pushed it hard in Resolve. The camera's ergonomics are great for photography. For filming - I'm not used to stills cameras. I feel it basically needs to be rigged to get the best of what it offers. Monitoring is good, it has a mode where the LCD shows everything an assistant would need. Speaking of, the viewfinder on Z9 is the best I used on mirrorless camera. My workdays are sometimes 13, 14 hours and the eye strain can get too much (I'm squinting at you GFX 100s). I can't comment on the autofocus for video as all of the lenses I used were manual focus. What might be the most interesting part for me is that camera runs really cold. I don't know what kind of processing TICORaw uses but the whole focus on low hardware requirements they've brought from their broadcasting background seems to be paying back. While the first part of the job was at 18 to 20 degrees Celsius and low humidity, the second one was at high 30s and low 40s with very high humidity. The camera just kept going. The card surprise that happened at the end was that I tried 8K normal quality RAW at 24 and 25 and XQD card recorded without issue for minutes on, full capacity, without problems. This material can't be shared but if someone wants, I can shoot short and specific tests and send over the RAW footage. Maybe skin tones, cadence and highlight/shadows but not longer than 15 seconds each. Which brings me to the main problem of the RAW. You need a data wrangler and increased budgets for storage.

I don't know much (enough) about patent law. What strikes me as interesting is why would IntoPix, who has been in the video compression since 2006 and patents dating since then even go into developing a new RAW compression method and hardware implementation when there is seven years until RED's patent expires? Is it a good business move to invest yourself like that or have they done something in the process that makes them sure they can avoid infringement? Also, I have been shooting Z9 for the past six months, it is an almost flawless camera. I only now have some use for its video specifications, RAW not being crucial. But if anyone is interested and wants to play with the files, I can shoot some samples.

I wouldn't bet on that. They're announcing the thing in two, three days, I don't know when would they have time for another video. One thing, after finally watching all the released ones, I got interested in what they don't talk about. And, as you've implied, still no mention of video and no mention of how amazing AF is going to be. Why? But then again, I'm getting dragged into reading-the-future-from-a-crystal-ball mentality.

Slam dunk...

Maybe the guy is a Lithuanian basketball center turned spontaneous hipster moment catcher... It's all matter of context.

At least you laughed while watching it...

Hold my beer! ? I'm addressing the dramatic and false narrative that seeped into otherwise fun, speculative conversation we're here for. While keeping open to many sources is a great thing, are they all equally valid and valuable? If the whole business model of youtube is to attract views, what does that say of the general intention and direction of the narrative there? I have never come across him before so I've made an effort to see some of his videos, visited his website, and generally informed myself about him from what he presented online. I agree with you, he doesn't seem to be someone desperately trying to stir the pot in order to attract views. I had problems finding his work or something that would give me a reason to believe he has a deep experience and knowledge of the topic. Apart from a smooth presentation reminding of a well rehearsed TED 'talker', he's not saying anything different. Maybe in different way, more, shall we say, (insert here his trademark slow nod and bringing index finger to the lower lip), thoughtful. He says that Nikon has an "opportunity to redefine state of the art -- actually reset the entire industry -- but they have to get past Sony's a7 III first", then states in the video that if they don't do that - they lose. What does it mean? Nikon stops existing, it's the beginning of the end for that brand? Why? Why do you think it is? It was a genuine question. From your previous posts, I've gotten a sense that you do have an idea. Again, I really don't see how I can enlighten you ( who is the plural you?). I'm asking because I thought you have some idea. I’m writing this to try and make people here step away from the discourse that’s been prevailing. Guessing and speculating is fun as we said somewhere earlier but it became a narrative of this battle or survival. And it’s not. And it has nothing to do with reality. It’s not a reality of creative industry, authors, amateurs, simple professionals. It’s only reality of youtube ‘influencers’, embattled fans on DPReview, idle wanna-dos.

Haven't you mentioned a couple of times you're not a representative sample for the market? The gentleman you've mentioned has to say that Nikon has to surpass Sony or that Fuji has to do something else because that's how he attracts views. You'll go there for confirmation of your opinions, someone else will go again because they are 'fanboys'. It's like a tabloid war. You think it's about right and wrong. And in reality, it's about the number of views and engagements. - Do you think Nikon or Canon market decisions are guided by the video users' needs? - Do you think their 'future' depends on catering to video shooters?

But then it's not fun!!!

And a G Master unicorn to pull the focus with its horn and swing the tail to help dissipate the heat. And a little pink bow tie ? Sorry, I didn't mean to be rude or harsh. I like reading your posts. But to repeat myself, the biggest thing Nikon is achieving now is putting out a new infrastructure. Something they can build different form factors and functions around, something to set a new ecosystem that even future DSLRs will be based around. And people are lazy, especially photographers. They won't leave Sony equipment because Nikon puts IBIS and PDAF. Just like people didn't sell their current equipment because Sony is smaller and lighter. It's funny to read forums where every other post is a testimony of someone about to jump the ship or the system bought a couple of years earlier is dying so they are about to angrily replace it with something different and new... Let's just say that people won't let facts get in the way of a good story when they want to make a point. Colleagues who have 'jumped the ship' did it because they were offered equipment from distributors and brands. Sometimes we get cameras for testing and you do it because there's a deal between the agency and the brand, some money comes in. But it mostly stops there. You know what works good enough, what's familiar to handle, you take it and go work. The current war of brands has been helped by the need of the media following the 'industry' to create something people will be worked up about. Half of the editorial decisions on DPReview are done with that in mind. About nine tenths of the youtube reviewers are doing that (when they should really work a bit more on their photography). The fact is, trends go one way and another, while armchair 'strategizing' is just a fun thing to do in the meantime. Again @jonapais - didn't mean to be rude, it was just that tone at end of your post that made me giggle and I had to award the fever of optimism.

I wanted RX1R (in all its iterations) to be a more reliable, straight forward tool. I must have stopped by it twenty times in stores. But to move to Nikon mirrorless - whatever they end up releasing now, I would like for the 'mount-sensor-processor' trinity to allow for different forms now and in future. To be able to make a small(ish) basic camera, with 3 or 4 fps, decent hybrid viewfinder, another one for people who are primarily filming, one with 850 approach. Even fit a sensor larger than FF. Something that's been bugging me for years, ever since switching to digital. It's about the consistency of the image across the product lines and forms. Working on film, you had the same output whatever you decided to work with. Now, working in parallel with large and small cameras on the same jobs or longer pieces of work, it creates a bit of an obstacle having to calculate how to expose in order to be able to match images, to think about how to size and scale images in sequences. It would be good to have a same output in three different bodies from the same producer. It doesn't have to be the best, just to know what I'm working with.

Is it true that it is not a true raw format? Reading it like this, it sounds like an idiotic question. It comes from the conversation on the newsshooter where that seems to be the conclusion.

Dual ISO?

I agree I am, but this jerk face prefers when people stick to the topic and keep conversation productive and to the point. This same comment on G7 pops up left and right, whether related to them or not, sometimes twice in the same topic. Now, leave me out of your future contemplations and prayers, warrior.

Man, with all due respect, we got it.

I saw your post few days ago and only today got around to look at the projects. I found only one instance, a pretty bad one. When I looked into it better, I realised it was pushed hard, hard. Over the past few years I've been filming corporates for two agencies and almost raped the London skyline to the extent that I have it in some iteration up to three times in four, five minute finals. I don't have banding in these shots, no matter what profile I used. Even internal V log looks good, but it's always scaled down to 1080 and Juan Melara's luts (used it with red and wanted to try and keep consistent) I would try and reset everything and start from the scratch. P.S. To crush hopes of all those who might go on to think that downscale to 1080p and JM print luts are some magic way to correct all the faults of V log, they are not. While skies are great, (non-white) walls often look mushy.

Upressing makes sense when printing to send the native ppi-s to the printer drive. Following the same logic, client may ask you the same for when they are being asked to deliver a certain size, ppi, colour space for prepress. In the end, it all revolves around interpolation and sharpening. It starts with initial sharpening of the input file, interpretation of the raw file. Then there are several specialised programs for interpolation but few years ago adobe bought a great one and output resizing with output sharpening (adobe has bought and incorporated a technology for this as well) from Lightroom works great. Other option is Photoshop, again, engine and algorithm is same, it offers you to chose what kind of interpolation you want and output sharpening is done before the final "save", usually using the USM. Big advantage of Photoshop is that it lets you change bit depth of the files, colour space. There's a whole science behind it and if you ever thought that colour science in video is complicated, try digging into this.

What makes Eizo a rip off?

Are you delivering 4k?

I don't think they are aiming for a small form. At least not compared to dslrs. Most of their public communication goes to try and point that the image quality is compared to mf. People using the cameras are often people who have a history with larger than 35mm formats. Cameras seem to be rather slow and demand patient operating. So, in their own universe I think Sigma is on its own path. What really intrigues me are the formats of the jpgs that they put in as default, first two are clearly video and film ratios, 16:9 and 21:9 (~2.35:1). Top sensitivity is 6400ASA so it's hard to expect that they are going to go for video with this sensor but in the future I'd sure be interested to see what it can produce.

http://www.sigma-global.com/en/cameras/sd-series/ I've printed from older versions of the sensor, if it's anything like that it's second to none. It's only now I see that they've kept the SA mount. Interesting choice...

If anyone is really interested I will sit down and find the article and point to it.

If memory serves me well, there was an article in American Cinematographer few years ago where a representative from Arri or one of the camera makers complained that at the industry meeting where the were trying to push to high standards of 1080 distribution (high color accuracy, representation of whites, dynamic range, to summarize - true picture quality) they were pushed aside by the very producers of the cameras that we all rave about (Sony, Panasonic, Samsung) because they were invested in production and marketing of television sets and believed that resolution (being quantifiable) is what consumer can understand and is already has a point of reference (SD to HD).