Django

AF performance can absolutely be quantified. How it levels to your particular needs is subjective though obviously. Generally speaking subpar AF performance is simply an AF system that hunts/pumps or/and doesn't stick to your subject. Then you've got second gen PDAF that detects left/right eyes of various subjects. Object, animal etc detection. And finally tracking. Canon/Sony have tap to track which Fuji is still lacking. Why would Canon/Nikon/Fuji goal be to push 8K TVs? They aren't Samsung, Sony or LG. I doubt anyone buying an 8K camera is even planning to view it on an 8K display. For 95% mainstream consumers 8K is just a distant buzzword. But camera/phone manufacturers have to justify new model purchases and increased pricing by adding specs so 8K is the obvious thing to add despite overheating.

Yes. Electronic shutter only with quite important rolling shutter and no drive mode, only single shot. No EVF. If you are mainly stills oriented or even hybrid, the FX30 would be the last camera I'd choose. What about Canon? R6 mk2 + R7? Or is it the third party RF situation that is keeping you away? Seems like tamron zooms are your favourite lens options regardless the camera mount.

yup basically this. also future proofing. for me 6K is enough and a good middle ground of resolution / file size ratio. that being said, 8k is the last priority in new camera specs I'm interested in. oversampled 4K is also good enough.

Sorry to hear that but didn't you just buy into the Fuji ecosystem? Were you planning on mixing camera brands or switching already to Sony? Bloom just uploaded a long FX30 review. Of course half of it was spent gushing over the cat AF and the other ranting that cat AF wasn't in his A1/FX3. Still few interesting observations in it.. For me I find the FX30 a bit too expensive here in EU. with the XLR handle it is 2800€ which is XH2S money and above the new R6 mk2 which is my ideal FF hybrid. Lack of EVF and mechanical shutter is also a bit of a deal breaker. Solid choice though for other types of shooters.

Like I said above Fuji is really segmenting the XT & XH series. The XT is heavily stills oriented hence the smaller and lighter body (close to an XT1) tilt screen and 40MP sensor. The downside for video is obviously heat management and crop factor. This forces hybrid and video centric users towards XH series. I’m disappointed by this but it makes sense on a segmented strategy perspective..

..Furthermore.. there is a 1.23x crop in 6.2K & 4K HQ shooting. and no ProRes codecs anymore. alongside potential overheating issues and high rolling shutter this camera is also dead to me. a real shame as I really like the top dials, compact form factor and tilt screen a lot more than XH2/XH2S. But from watching the Fuji Summit it appears clear Fuji are now further dissociating XT & XH series. XT is much more photo oriented with severe video caveats and XH are the hybrids. XH2S remains the one for me personally..

So XH2 sensor and specs minus 8K (6.2K is actually a better resolution/file size ratio imo) in an XT body with the top dials and a 3-way tilt screen, probably my favourite design here (I'm sure @MrSMW will be happy to see this as well). All that for $1700 is a major WIN. If only it had open gate it would be an instant buy for me. What a month for camera announcements!

As an R6 user, I can tell you this is going to be Canons best selling camera (which R6 already is). It finally eliminates recording time limits and overheating at 4K30p. That alone is major. Adding false color, specific easy video menu, focus breathing comp and other video centric tools is fantastic. DPAF 2 is indeed killer. The faster read out times surely means lower rolling shutter. Really seems like the perfect mid-tier mirrorless. I don't see any cripple hammer, aside from no ALL-I codec so you'll need an M1 Mac to edit the 10-bit Log footage. Aside from that detail this is an A7IV killer. Needless to say my R6 is going up for sale today. Here is a pretty good rundown of the camera:

units are starting to get out in the wild.. this lowlight footage is rather impressive for APS-C imo. it really looks like Sony has dialled down the in camera NR giving it a much more filmic look at higher ISO. That with the added oversampling and the IQ really rivals (if not surpasses) the FF FX3. what do you think?

..yeah I'm an 80s kid!

Kodak CCD sensors have so much mojo vs CMOS. I'm still stunned by the IQ I get from my Leica M9 vs CMOS Leicas. I feel Fuji carry over some of that mojo with their Xtrans film simulations but the heavy chroma NR remains an issue. Still XH2S with ProRes, Open Gate and ultra low RS (5ms in 4K60) probably gives some of the best IQ for the money. Komodo is by far the best under $10K. Sigma is very interesting to me sensor wise since the DP2 Merill Foveon days. Again lots of mojo not so un similar to Kodak CCD. Is there any update on their FF Foveon x3 supposedly releasing in 2022? https://ymcinema.com/2022/08/03/sigma-ceo-the-full-frame-foveon-x3-sensor-will-be-ready-this-year/

I' hadn't thought about that! I see how sound guys must hate open gate, often a tough enough battle when shooting 16:9!

I just discovered this "van life" scene the other day looking for FX30 videos. I was kind of shocked this one "influencer" got a whole Sony pelican case of gear yet at the time of release, she only had 25 subscribers ?! What's at play here, Sony marketing trend speculating? HOW TO VLOG - with the new Sony FX30 Cinema Camera!

Gerald started shilling around A7S3 release. He's not the only one: Matti, Armando, Potato Jet.. all formerly Canon apologists suddenly switched sides overnight. I know some will claim Sony > Canon but I suspect something else is at play. Too many sales at play through influencers. Remember all those luxury first-hand trips to exotic locations pre-COVID? all that budget gotta be thrown elsewhere. Don't wanna sound like a camera conspiracist and I'm sure Sony aren't alone in this but they really seem to have a strong grapple on the YouTube scene.

when there is a will there's a way! I had to buy an extra suitcase last time I was in Tokyo, camera gear wasn't even on the main shopping list..

Lol.. call me pessimistic but I just feel Nikon aren't going to be around for so long. Their financial problems are no secret and they could barely get this Z9 out the door and its already on V3! You can adapt glass on just about all these mirrorless mounts so that's not even the issue.. I left Nikon after my D750 took 5 months to get the parts in (for a mass series failure that really shouldn't have been there in the first place). The European customer service was a living nightmare too. Stuff like this matters when you're on the field and need your daily gear up and running.

Yeah I'm noticing restocks are under way here in France as well although probably not for long. PS5 style. I also want one.. just because I love Nikon and this seems like the ultimate one, but I can't help but feel I'll be trapped in a dying ecosystem and too many unknowns as far as video for me to go blindly into such an expense. Hopefully you or someone else here with pull the trigger and put it through its paces so we can have a clearer picture of real world video capabilities!

Yeah major supply problem with Z9. Places like Fnac here in France do get them in, like a couple units each month and they’re gone within the hour. It’s basically a PlayStation 5 situation. Helps if you know someone that knows someone 😉 If money were no object I’d probably go for R3 over Z9 but I’m just biased towards Canon. On paper Z9 seems like the ultimate FF hybrid.

Yeah big yawn. This camera is about 2 years too late. Canon R5 already did the high MP, 8K $4K FF hybrid camera in 2020. And with no weird crop factors, binning or horrible rolling shutter like the A7RV displays.

$3900 / 4500€ The 'R' series was always a snoozer for me personally and this is no exception. The video specs are weird AF: 1.2x crop on 8K & 4K60. 4K24/30 uncropped but binned. No 4K120p. S35 mode oversampled but 30p tops. Props on the new tilt screen mechanism though, finally a best of both worlds solution.

That's the thing, you kept referencing the silver screen and cinema standards so I just thought I'd give further context.. Its like HDR.. I feel it makes much better sense on a device used in daylight than in a dark room. Different medium, different tech and workflows make more/better sense. Context is everything.

Cinema screen is actually not a great example as 85% of theatres in the world are still using 2K projectors (that number was probably even bigger a decade ago). Cable TV in the US aren't even all 1080i with some networks still broadcasting at 720p. That is the main reason why ARRI have been so slow to develop true S35 4K cameras and why DI/editing/finishing have been done on 2K timelines. We often like to put cinema on a pedestal for various valid reasons but truth is that concerning resolution, that whole industry has been lagging behind home entertainment and streaming productions for a minute. The 2014 video I linked already assesses that back then. We simply can't ignore what's been happening on streaming platforms and social media like it or not that's most peoples daily reality and benchmark. So yeah depending on what industry you're in, what you shoot, what your end viewer is displaying on, your storage capacity and bandwidth, what your post tech skills & min/max requirements are: different workflows, different resolutions, different codecs may be used in the pipeline. That is the reason why there are so many options. Heck for some, 8-bit rec709 may still be better than 10-bit log or even 12-bit RAW. So within this diversity of context I don't think we can really blanket one codec or one resolution format as being ok across all scenarios. That said, sure 4K ProRes LT is a pro standard codec, fairly chunky and superior to low bitrate h26x. Its no XQ 444 though. ProRes in consumer hybrids is a great leap forward. Much more practical than RAW in editing sense. On a similar tangent, I also think open-gate has never been so useful. Traditionally for anamorphic shoot but today also serves the purpose of multi-aspect ratio deliveries which is becoming pretty common. Oh I'll believe you that the IQ difference is marginal in between 3.2K & 2.8K and 2.8K & 2K downsampled. However for anamorphic shooting, difference in between the XT's Open Gate 3.4K in ARRIRAW vs 4:3 2K ProRes of the Classic was substantial as the video details. Even though technically they're both the same ALEV sensor with identical characteristics. The LF has a larger than FF sensor shooting up to 4448 x 3096 so yeah that's a major boost in IQ as far as detail but also noise levels which was the biggest con of the OG Alexa S35 sensors imo.

I'm talking acquisition from a DPs perspective. As the following video from 2014 states, 80% of films back then where shot above 3K yet indeed 99% were finished in 2K. That doesn't mean it was ideal as far as IQ as the guy explains nobody printed Super35 to Super16 which is sort of what was being done back then. Not to mention they were already anticipating 4K streaming (or "broadband" as they called it then lol). He goes on to explain/push the benefits of shooting in ARRIRAW at 3.4K with the then new XT and details a workflow where you'd transcode to ProRes 444 2.8K for a 50% gain in file size and almost 3K resolution. That would have definitely been the forward-thinking workflow:

Good observations. I agree that h264/h265 can really kill footage with sharpening & NR done in-cam. But it really depends on camera brands and models. Even within Sony, the FX3/A7S3 has tons of NR you can't adjust. The same sensor on FX6 is a lot more adjustable and on the new FX30 the same XAVC codecs display much less NR applied in-cam so it seems Sony listened to feedback. Canon allow you to fully turn off high ISO NR. And higher end models have internal compressed RAW. On Fuji you can reduce NR & sharpening but not fully turn off. Now with ProRes I assume there is a less processed image but its still a baked in format so not sure of the specifics. All-in-all prosumer hybrid cameras are getting better with XH2/XH2S/GH6/Z9 taking the lead with internal Prores. Followed by Canon with internal RAW. Sony is really still in last position with its heavy NR induced h26x codecs.

If you're referring to the Alexa Classic, 2K ProRes HQ was closer to 300Mbps and it could shoot up to 430Mbps in 4444. Second gen Alexa XT really changed the game though with ARRIRAW /Prores XQ and resolutions up to 3.4K in OpenGate. So I'd say "sufficient" by 2010 theatrical standards but ARRI IQ took a major bump as soon as the XT came out around 2013. Besides I heard there were software upgrades to give the Classic 3.2K/3.4K XQ/Open Gate so those bitrates and resolutions may have been used much earlier than 2013. Long story short I don't know if that many features were actually shot in 2K ProRes HQ..