BTM_Pix

And thats just the Houses Of Parliament.

Actually, I did forget one other 35mm option I have which is the Canon 35-350mm f3.5-5.6 L that I picked up for £350 last year after a bit of haggling. I've never used it on the Sony A6500 as I'd bought it for the LS300 but I've just put it on to take a few shots for you outside to show its range and it AFs very well with the Sigma MC-11 converter. If you want the flexibility of 10x zoom range then look no further than this one!

Sounds like a modern day drive around some parts of London in the past couple of years.

I'm just wondering whether by the point at which you're talking about making the purchase that the increasing downward pressure on the price of the Sony A7Rii might have it down in a range where you might consider it a contender? From a pure stills photography point of view, you're not going to find it wanting to say the least. From a video point of view, its got a lot of flexibility particularly with the APS-C mode when it comes to low light. In point of fact if you just kept it in APS-C mode you'd then be looking at accessing the small cheap Sigma stuff which is actually far better than it has a right to be. With the A7Rii you've always got the option of going full frame whereas with the other two what you've got is what you've got. I know you don't want to do adapters and you know I am legally obliged to mention the TechArt Pro adapter in every post I make but I think its particularly relevant to the sort of vintage primes that you're in to. I've got most of Fuji's fast primes and zooms and they are excellent but I'm not going to say that my 90mm and 50mm Summicrons don't fart in their general direction. And of course, these lenses will cover full frame as well. To put this in perspective, I hate my Sony A6500 with a passion as its all spec and no camera but I can't deny that its utility is winning me round as with the small Sigmas its a good compact system in its own right, with the TechArt Pro its a poor man's Leica CL and with the Sigma EF adapter it is the viable Canon 4K mirrorless that Canon don't make The only drawback aside from the ergonomics is that it isn't full frame. Which is where the A7Rii would come in, for me at least.

To harmonise with the rest of Europe would be my guess. The drive on the right thing was a by product of Paris having a keep right rule for horse traffic and then Napoleon spreading this custom through his conquests, hence why the resistants to being conquered (i.e. us and a few others) didn't adopt it. Of course we then passed that defiance on to our colonies and it stuck. Japan had an entirely different reason to do with Samurai swords and the scabbard being on the left (as most people are right handed) so you could pass another rider without the swords clashing and causing any accidental "hey did you just knock my sword" fuelled duels kicking off inadvertently. It also meant that you could get on and off the horse easier without stabbing yourself in the Jerry Hall's. The good news for us is that Japan have kept this up which means we can import lovely little vehicles like this Toyota Prixis Mega and revel in its devil may care squareness without having to worry about the steering wheel being on the wrong side.

Not to mention whether the IBIS on it will smooth those out

This is what happened in 1967 on switchover day after Sweden made the decision to go from driving on the left to the right hand side of the road. I bet you there's still people waiting for that bus to show up !

The front control is recessed as per the other Nikon cameras but I'm presuming the other one that isn't is the rear one

Steady on, I think you'll find that its you lot that drive on the wrong side of the road.

I think the perspective is perhaps over selling the compactness a tiny bit there but it is a nice looking thing I'll give it that. Agreed and I wasn't expecting it be a D5 alternative but I definitely think it was a good opportunity to leave the locking PASM dial out and use the switched one instead but segmentation isn't only a Sony/Panasonic/Canon game I think they might get more pushback over the ergonomics of this from D800/810 upgraders than people might anticipate though.

And still no Cinelike D I'm going to wait for the Leica version of it so I can feel as let down but with a slightly more elitist glow.

I'm just going to chime in from the perspective of someone who uses Nikon pro bodies for work and would be looking to swap out his D810 against the Z7 versus perhaps going for a D850. Its not going to be some moan about wanting to hammer nails in with it or tow it in the water behind a speedboat or some such but it is about the ergonomic differences between the pro bodies and those that use the PASM locking dial. This will also hold true for anyone who uses a D850 in anger and was looking to swap over. I'm not sure why they've gone to a locking PASM dial when the mode selection keys at the top of the dial of the other cameras (like the D850 for example) offers fast access to WB and Meter Modes as well as the PASM selection. Not to mention being able to switch Quality modes without having to go into a menu. And it looks confirmed as per the post the other day that they've removed the dedicated lock file button which is absolutely nuts considering how vital it is. Strange choices to be honest. Quite surprising as well when you'd have thought that they would want to tap into their existing user base and offer them a seamless transition in to this brave new world of mirrorless. This is not me just being an old fart and complaining about not wanting anything to be changed by the way but their existing ergonomics weren't broken so I don't get why they've tried to 'fix' them in this way. The beauty of that top dial in their existing cameras is that you can change everything about the mode, the metering and the white balance with one finger of your left hand and scrolling with your right thumb without ever having to take your eye from the viewfinder. I've no idea why the fps mode suddenly becomes important enough to have its own dedicated button either. There are also a few other omissions (such as the multi pin front remote connector) that are surprising but the AF/MF switch seemingly disappearing is quite baffling, even for users of Nikon's lower range DSLRs. For the benefit of people who don't use Nikon bodies at the moment, the AF/MF switch also has a centre button which enables you to switch between AF modes really quickly using the thumbwheel when you hold it down and, again, all without taking your eye off the viewfinder. Its really puzzling what's happened here and as exciting as the new aspects of it may be, I'm not convinced they've done what everyone has expected them to do which is to make a mirrorless D850, irrespective of how close the specs are because it isn't comparable in one of the most important aspects of all. If this thing is significantly cheaper than the D850 then those compromises might be acceptable but if its anything like the same price - and I've not seen anything to suggest otherwise - then I, for one long time Nikon user, won't be jumping on the merry go round this time round. I'd completely accepted that a D5 style version will be somewhere further down the line but I'd definitely thought that this would be closer to a like for like D850 which suggests that there is likely a Z8 to come which will be even more expensive. For someone coming late to the party - and having seen the lens lineup from Sony improve dramatically in the interim - I don't think they've gone big enough at all here with the Z7 especially when they are trying to push a new mount as well. None of those choices have been governed by the body size either. Puzzling and a little bit troubling to me but probably less so to the intended market.

Its slightly different when it comes to Contax cameras though as Contax was originally a camera model name of the Zeiss Ikon company before becoming a brand name in itself but still owned by Zeiss. The modern Contax cameras were produced as a manufacturing joint effort with Yashica after an aborted link up with Pentax and Zeiss still retain the rights to the Contax brand name. Its semantics I suppose but a Contax branded product is still technically a Zeiss branded product as Contax is a Zeiss brand. Just spelt differently

Agreed but it was RAW on the Pocket and now 4K RAW on the Pocket II that has thrown the focus back on Panasonic and Olympus most sharply in terms of expectation of the camera when used for video. JVC threw in the curve ball about having a Super35 sensor sat behind it of course

I think the adoption of it by BM has taken it in a direction they probably never envisaged. When they look at what their intentions probably were in terms of it being an interchangeable bridge camera and then saw people hanging PL lenses off it and demanding 4K RAW I imagine they must be doing this

The trick is to get the SA mount versions of the Sigma ART lenses and then use their MC-11 adapter to put them on E mount so you get double duty out of them. You can often find these versions of the ARTs are cheaper because dealers have them sticking round for waaaay too long and want to get shut of them. If you want to use old glass with them, the M42 adapters are about £10 and open up a world of cheap options.

Turns out the something new was a new version of the Pro. Its 8K (yay) but £5K (rather less yay) https://www.insta360.com/product/insta360-pro2/

Maybe this one is more to scale

Their joint venture stuff with Contax would count I guess so it would be the Contax TVS in 2002 with all its 5 megapixel CCD goodness.

Absolutely, I was just clarifying in case any unintended tone might have been coming across in my replies. It was the availability of adapters that allowed a lot of people to dip their toe in the water with Sony in the first place though as they already had Canon glass which meant they didn't have to throw the baby out with the bath water and could also use Canon glass to fill the gaps in the Sony lens lineup which are still not completely filled even today. There are also still plenty of Sony A7 cameras of various models with M mount adapters permanently attached to them to enable people to use them as a (much) lower cost alternative to Leica M and latterly SL cameras. As far as the GH5 is concerned, I'd venture that for every youtuber posting "hey guys, whats happening, lets check out the face detect AF as I am sashaying towards the camera and appearing from below frame" videos, there are probably at least 3 other people using it with adapted (probably vintage) glass on it who would probably struggle to tell you where the AF settings where in the menu because that is the heritage of the GH line. I will also venture to say that the adapter as weakness rather than opportunity issue will suddenly be put on the back burner by a lot of people when the BM Pocket 4K finally appears.... If you don't mind, I'm going to clip together a few lines from your posts because I'm getting a bit confused about your position over it so thought I'd clarify mine against those. I'm reading that as you saying that The lenses are the limitation of MFT That there are no fundamental limitations of MFT That the sensor is a fundamental limitation of MFT That the lenses are the limitation of MFT. I disagree with 1, 2 and 4. In the case of 4, primarily because 3 trumps everything and also because I don't even think Panasonic and Olympus in their wildest dreams ever thought it had a shot of taking over the entire industry. As per my example with the PL lenses, it is everything behind the lens that would negate their use so I agree with 3 for that specific context and quite a few others but it still does have its place. I'm more than happy to agree to disagree and leave it there though mate

Some interesting choices they've made there. If the expensive one is the same price as the D850 then I'd question some of those choices.

No ZF at all, I'm afraid. The 85mm f1.4 I've got is the Contax Zeiss Planar T* which I legally stole from a shop in Tokyo. No on the Sigma 24-70mm f2.8 ART either as I've got the Nikon 24-70mm f2.8 which has been doing the job for what I need it for for years and will no doubt end up getting carried shoulder high by the cockroaches as the only other survivor of the nuclear holocaust. I'm not a massive fan of the 24-70mm range though I have to say when it comes to doing anything creative as you always wish it was a bit wider or a bit longer. Its a good safe bet but even on vanilla jobs like shooting press conferences I find myself taking it out less and less as I'd sooner have a wider prime or wide zoom on another camera (I use the X-T20 a lot for this) and go longer on the main camera.

OK @mercer I don't have anything as exotic as that Zeiss left. In 35mm, the only Zeiss prime I have is a very old Flektagon 35mm f2.8. I also have the short end of the Zeiss 35-70mm f3.4, the short end of the Minolta 35-70mm f3.5 MD and the long end of the Canon 16-35mm f2.8 L as a comparison. All of which I can persuade on to a Sony A6500 tomorrow if you want? As a micro contrast bonus (albeit slightly wider ) I can throw in the 30mm version of the Sigma f1.4 ART on a Sigma SD Quattro. (though this may make you weep openly and cry "Why no video on Foveon, Sigma? Why, why?")

Hang on, let me just check my collection of 35mms ....

I'm not sure why they would be any less "PRO" when they might well have extremely high quality Canon mount lenses attached to them? The adapters are such an integral part of the process for people using these cameras that they are permanently attached to the camera and so can be more or less considered the de facto lens mount. Changing the lens means just changing the lens as if it were a native Canon mount at that point. This is also true for cameras like the Sony FS5 and FS7 where a large number of them that are used in professional environments every day permanently use an EF adapter. I'm not sure where I've suggested MFT cameras are in common use on large budget TV shows and feature films by the way? Even if that was the suggestion, there are numerous reasons why they wouldn't get used in that environment that would take precedence over the lens choice, native or otherwise. I have a RED Epic and a set of PL primes and my Panasonic GX80 can mount all of them and use them in exactly the same way so if those lenses are not limiting the RED then they can't be limiting the Panasonic surely? Absolutely everything else about it would be of course but not the lenses I'm not trying to have an argument with you for the sake of it by the way - as I think the native offerings could be cheaper as well for one thing - but I do disagree about the lens choice being the limitation when it is adaptable to so many different lenses. For what its worth, I think MFT as an imaging format in terms of cameras from Panasonic and Olympus is probably in a bit of an awkward place right now but its more to do with the internals than the lens options. MFT as a mount with cameras such as LS300 and probably the BM4K behind it is a different situation but, again, the E mount is catching and probably overtaking it in terms of utility.