BTM_Pix

I'll start believing these are impartial events when they start holding them in Hull instead of Hawaii.

Motion cadence is internal to the SD card but mojo is external through HDMI only.

Glad to see its finally being released, even though a lot of it looks unfinished, as was expected, in this version. That being said, I'm having trouble deciding what got more hate in the comments section today, that RED Hydrogen video or DPR's Leica M10-P Review. If this thing doesn't work fully when it gets into the hands of normal consumers, I can see Jannard having to stand at the entrance to their user forum like this.

There is understandably a lot of buzz about the upcoming cameras from all the other companies - and from Fuji itself with the X-T3 - but I've got to say that this one intrigues me more than any of them.

Do you mean switch as in just a simple A/B switch for monitoring so you don't mind a break in the signal while it re-syncs or are you talking about doing a live broadcast switch where you need it to seamlessly switch between the cameras? If its the former then there are tons of cheap units that will suffice (no external power required) on Amazon etc such as this one http://amzn.eu/d/i17hwow They are all much of a muchness at that price so just pick one that has the most positive reviews is the best rule of thumb. If its the latter though and you want to actually switch them seamlessly then you are usually looking at an entirely different solution like a BM ATEM unit but there are some simple HDMI switchers similar to the basic A/B switch (but more expensive obviously) that claim seamless transition between sources. This is an example of one http://amzn.eu/d/61pE8aU If you need the seamless transition do go that route of using the middle ground one such as the one above then see if you can find demos of the particular units on YouTube to check the transition.

The R stands for Rebel as it will be a continuation of their consumer DSLR line rather than a pro model and will also have inferior AF to other brands* so that Sony fans can sing "Rebel, Rebel..Your face detect is a mess" * Absolutely not true

Thanks Yes, I remember that. I think it might have been the other way round though where I'd bought/stolen the Leica R version of the Minolta 75-200 and was trying to justify the additional cost Its ironic really as in general I'd have said the Leica versions (as in the one I'd bought) would have been in better condition as they'd have had more cosseted lives than the Minolta ones but sounds like you got the exception to the rule ! The plummeting price of the original T (which is the only Leica body I have) is changing the game for the entry cost of ownership for Leica. https://www.mpb.com/en-uk/used-equipment/used-photo-and-video/used-digital-rangefinder-cameras/used-leica-cameras/leica-t/sku-729835/ Once you have the L/T to M and/or R adapters (3rd party ones are cheap) then you've got access to a lot of reasonably priced used lenses (and new ones in the case of the 7Artisans) and its obviously all very compact stuff as well. The only drawback to the T for me was the prospect of having to pay the same price for the EVF as I did the camera but I eventually hung out to find a (still expensive) used one. If you go for the X range then you can use the much cheaper Olympus EVF but the T series uses the new one. The drawback of course with the original T is the video which obviously isn't all that. It isn't even really any of that.

A few from the Minolta MD 35-70mm f3.5 zoom adapted to M and then T/L mount. I was going to buy this lens in its Leica R guise but it was a bit too a rough condition even for me so got this one instead for 15% of the price and 200% of the condition. I'm going to A/B it against the Contax Zeiss 35-70mm that was another one of my robbery spree finds in Japan.

I think that this is a very good point and its interesting to compare the (lack) of negative, if any, reaction from video people to the "battery grip" for the Z7 being literally just a battery pack without shutter release, AF On and navigation stick etc compared to the "WTF??!" reaction from photographers. The anger from the angry fella has a bit to do with Nikon trailing this camera like it would be something game changing when in reality its just ended up, from the photo perspective at least, as being something game joining. He is also very angry that he has found himself in full agreement with the views of some of his nemeses like Jared Polin and the Northrups

They have a patent for a mount that takes both EF and M mount lenses. Whether this is it remains to be seen as they and others obviously have tons of patents that don't end up in actual products such as Sigma's patent for foveon video and my slightly less far fetched one for an autopilot system for unicorns.

That's next level teasing that.

Yes, I agree, some of those ones are far more interesting than the NYC ones.

Absolutely they're not 100% ideal either and you make a very valid point but at least those images are approaching somewhere where you would be interested enough in them to then look closer for defects. There is a night and day difference between the overall aesthetic of those Sony images and those from the Z7 launch. The vast majority of the output I've seen from the Z7 hasn't been worth the click and the zoom as far as I'm concerned. Does it mean that I think the output from the camera is or will be shit in general terms? After four decades of using Nikon cameras (which is a confession rather than a boast by the way ) I'm inclined to believe it probably won't be shit. If I came to this from never having used their gear or was looking to change though then I'd have looked at the stuff from the launch and had serious doubts about what the fuss was all about. If you take DPReview as a yardstick of this then look at the reaction to the sample gallery of the Z7. Even factoring in the usual hysteria on there, it is overwhelmingly scathing and in this case I have absolutely no issue with that because how else are people supposed to react to such underwhelming output from a £3.5K camera? The blame for that I'm afraid and the potential consequences of it are Nikon's because they controlled the parameters of those launches and are responsible for what has ended up out there. Including the banding by the way that Polin's video exhibits. I'm conscious of the fact that I have not had too much positive to say about these new cameras but I want to stress again that I had/have as much if not more vested interest in Nikon getting things right and establishing themselves in mirrorless as most people, even if I knew ahead of time that these ones would likely not be the most appropriate for me. So I want Nikon to do well with these cameras and any negativity that I have been raising is genuinely coming from a place of concern rather than one of hate. Basically, even from a purely selfish point of view, I want them to do well enough with them that they are still in the game when it comes round to them making versions of it that I would actually want to buy and that means they need to sell these ones to everyone else. I haven't seen much to fill me with the confidence that they have made the best of the platform they had to impress, let alone slay, the wider world outside of a core "You had me at Nikon" audience. Worse than that, there really hasn't been much in the way of an outpouring of love from some of the quarters that I would have expected either. That doesn't mean they are absolutely slating it but I do get the feeling that there is a slight amount of this going on with them I suppose my general point here is that there are undeniably some issues that have irked people about the system as a whole (price, lens lineup, single card slot, ergonomics etc) that are gaining even greater traction because they aren't being mitigated by anyone being able to convincingly say "Yeah but forget all that, just look at the images coming off this thing". I think that Nikon shot themselves in the foot by not offering an environment where that kind of counter point could be generated. None of that means Nikon have created a bad camera system but I do think it amounts to them having created a bad impression. That can change when they start delivering the cameras and people start doing real reviews of course so it will probably be a blessing that there is a short time between the launch event and actual delivery.

You say that but I bet you somewhere out there there is a knitting forum where people are lambasting each other over their choice of needle, getting into seething rages about people not using the same wool as they do and referencing influencer YouTube channels like Mo Knows Mohair.

Amongst all the debate about what Nikon has got right or wrong about this camera, I think one thing that everyone must surely agree on is just how badly wrong they got it with the demo setups at the launch events. It wasn't just that it was bad in its own right - although it was - but it was also how much worse it was comparatively to what Sony gets up to at their versions of these events. In Jared Polin's video above he illustrates this huge gulf and you just have to wonder how anyone from Nikon thought that what they laid on was even adequate let alone comparable. Of course Sony has a much bigger budget for this stuff than Nikon but its not like we are talking about them launching a new speedlite or a consumer compact, this is about a crucial new line for them. I'm not sure how anyone is gleaning anything particularly useful about these cameras based on the output we've seen from these events as everyone who has posted their content is, quite understandably, couching everything they say in relation to how mediocre at best the shooting conditions were. Sony makes it very easy for everyone who attends and reports on those events to get decent images whereas Nikon seemed to have approached it like some sort of challenge to them to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Weird.

Or an indication that the AF is so horribly bad you'll be using MF permanently hence the clutch focus of the Olympus lenses makes them far more appropriate than the Panasonic ones. Where is the emoticon for "Of course I'm kidding about the AF so keep your drawers on but its worth bearing in mind this feature if you are choosing between Olympus and Panasonic lenses at similar focal lengths if you intend to do a lot of manual focus on this camera" ?

Thats a downer isn't it. There was always the nagging suspicion there that they were just re-skinning an existing product, which is perfectly fine by the way if you are enhancing it with your own additional value through the app etc but I don't think they've achieved that here.

More M mount stuff with the rather cosmetically battered but still optically very much not battered Leica 90mm f2 that I picked up recently. Stills again for now but I'll definitely do some grabs of it and the other M mounts I've picked up on a the A6500 and X-T2 in a few days.

There was some speculation about it due to what I believe was a misunderstanding about the Fresnel element in some newer Nikon lenses such as the 300 f4 PF and the 500 f5.6 PF making it into z mount lenses. The Fresnel element enables a lens to be much smaller so the 300 f4 PF has a much smaller footprint than it's predecessor and is more the size you would expect of a 300 f5.6 for example. This was wrongly interpreted in my view as people thinking it made a lens faster (ie an f5.6 is then equivalent to an f4) but it is related to physical size allowing faster lenses to be smaller. I think the reason they all got so excited was that the presumption would be that the 24-70mm f4 Z mount launch lens would act like an f2.8 if it had a Fresnel element in it.

I have done but in this case they were all done in Lightroom for continuity as the DNG from the Sigmas isn't supported in Aperture.

I've not used them but if you look at their list of previously sold items in the Feedback Profile it is almost exclusively printer cartridges. Some of them are Canon ones but thats about as close as you'll get to them having a track record of them selling Canon products.

In the interest of balance, its worth remembering that the people who've bought the Leica Noctilux-M f0.95 will be looking at the price of that Nikon one and thinking "Blimey, thats cheap".

It can be frustrating with Flickr because a lot of it also depends on where in the life cycle of the camera you look. I tend to go back to about a quarter of the way from the start point as people will usually have found their feet with it by then and you start to get the most representative images. Its also quite situational though as well as to how interesting the content is as I was in a far more interesting location last Sunday than I was this Sunday, for example, so the images reflect that. Once you've made your format choice these days, I really do think you can get as near as dammit the same look out of most cameras and its the handling and the lenses that are the difference. If you don't want to pick up the camera and use it then whats the point ? Or if you've spent so much on upgrading to a marginal gain for the sensor that you can only afford to put inferior lenses on it then, again, whats the point? Its actually an interesting exercise taking 4 completely different cameras out in 42 degree temperatures and juggling the around trying to take the same photographs as it really hones the mind about which ones do and don't get in the way and I heartily recommend it. You'll end up being like this fella with them after about 20 minutes !

Same f stop on a smaller sensor than the others though so a slightly more generous DOF.

That was precisely the point I was making though ?