BTM_Pix

The TG-BT1 bluetooth shooting grip might help with the control of the zoom.

Just to add the stuff from my now cleared thread. 26.1MP APS-C X-Trans BSI CMOS 4 Sensor 5-Axis In-Body Image Stabilization X-Processor 5 Image Processor 6.2K 3:2 Open Gate 4K60p H.265, ALL-Intra, 4:2:2, 10-bit internal External RAW to Atomos/Blackmagic Available end of June - $1299 Body Only / $1399 with 15-45mm kit lens A very interesting sign of the times is that it has a dedicated control setting on the dial for Vlog mode...

I've had my eye on getting that for a while. Unfortunately, I need a bit more capacity for all the shit I've accumulated that I can't let go of so this would have to be me dragging my suitably sized cart to a gig.

So the ZV-1 Mark 2 has been announced today and Sony have indeed addressed the wide end being wider so it now starts off at 18mm equivalent instead of 24mm equivalent. But it isn't optically stabilised like the original so you lose a fair amount of that 6mm by having to use the electronic stabilisation. And the long end has been cut from 70mm to 50mm. And it is now a lot slower (f1.8 to f4 versus f1.8 to f2.8). And now we go over live to the Head Of Hopes & Dreams at Sony .....

As is the ProRes. I'm going to be avoiding the internet on Thursday in case I accidentally lose my mind and buy one.

This is apparently from an over enthusiastic Leica dealer who pushed the publish button a bit hastily ahead of the official launch on the 25th of May. \ Cached version of the since deleted page is here https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:WVl0azXh3-gJ:https://downtowncamera.com/blog/the-new-leica-q3&cd=10&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Hypercrapoid. To be fair it does have external input too.

The Osmo Pockets are great products for vlogging but don't seem very well represented. The magnetic clip on anamorphic lenses and ND filters offer a lot of possibilities for more creative shooting and the stabilisation and tracking capabilities are far better than the resolution and time eating post production methods of other cameras. They are also a bit better in terms of not attracting attention - at least the unwanted variety - as they are much smaller and people are usually more intrigued than defensive when they see one being used. I watched this the other day as well as the one in a very similar vein made by his partner in crime and I've got to say it did neither them nor Canon any favours at all. It just looked exactly like someone from Canon had invited them down to their office for a couple of hours to have a quick go with one that they had just got in and it was all very sloppy. This one is a bit more comprehensive and considered in my opinion. Sony are apparently announcing a new camera on 23rd May which most people seem to think will be the Mark ii version of the ZV-1. It will be interesting to see whether the lens range on it will be the same or whether it starts wider.

This is actually a bit of a rework/variation on a theme of Canon's Legria Mini/Mini X cameras from a decade ago. I had the original one and it was pretty decent for what it did at the time and I think this new one might be an idea that has now met its time. I've seen a lot of mocking about it but considering its a single purpose product then judging it on its suitability for that one purpose then it seems to have a lot going for it for a lot of its intended users.

Well there is a Lumix S2 already available that will also fill the Q3 role.

Puzzles me why Sigma don't get in on this market. They have a track record in fixed lens compacts (albeit APS-C) and with the FP-L and their compact primes they have the building blocks to do it. Likely for half the price of the Q3. Maybe their long overdue full frame Foveon may actually come as a fixed lens package rather than the FP based interchangeable one that everyone expects.

From the brief hands on experience that I had with @Andrew Reid's Z9 and Megadap E mount adapter, I was impressed enough to consider it a bit of a turning point in finally purchasing the Z9 (or Z8 or Z9 or Z8). This review is with a broader range of lenses and setups. There are a couple of EF adapters out there and the one I'm looking at is the Meike with the drop in VND system. This is their own test video but it looks usable enough. For M mount (and everything else like M42, C/Y, Manual focus F mount etc that you can adapt to M) I have the original version of the TechArt Pro for E mount and it works well for what it is but has some restrictions. Their version for the Z mount looks to made a lot of steps forward and for the miracle it is performing in terms of bringing AF to manual focus lenses I'd be fine with the performance judging by videos such as this. With regard to the FTZ, I've only seen positive things really other than some slight slow down with TCs but thats par for the course a lot of the time with my experience on some lenses on TCs on the native F mount. I'm not sure there is any performance difference between the FTZ and FTZii but the latter is the one for the Z9 as it doesn't have the protruding foot.

OK, so its not something that will find a natural home here as a talking point and it is bound to be at what will euphemistically be termed "a premium price" but it might actually have some relevance as an indicator of another camera release in the not too distant future. We are all aware of the relationship between Leica and Panasonic goes beyond (and behind) the L mount and the internals in terms of the sensor and processor spec of the Q2 and the S1R are "quite similar". It wouldn't be beyond the bounds of credibility then to take a steer from the specs of the Q3 in terms of what a mark 2 version of the S1R might be when it arrives and considering the Q2 and S1R were released within a few weeks of each other then this might be sooner rather than later. The Q3 is officially announced on the 23rd of May but, as expected these days, the full spec has now been leaked and the general headline for stills shooters at least is the bump in resolution from 47 MP to 62 MP, the tilt screen and the persistence with Hybrid AF. It is the video spec that surprised me though : C8K (17:9): 8192 x 4320 8K (16:9): 7680 x 4320 C4K (17:9): 4096 x 2160 4K (16:9): 3840 x 2160 Full HD (16:9): 1920 x 1080 No further information regarding the codecs that will be available (and knowing Leica it might well turn out to be limited to 256 colours, 15fps and be in FLV format 🙂 ) but that spec would be interesting in a new S1R. There is no news on price but I'd be surprised if it is less than €5.5-6K. There has always been something about the Q series that has had me about to irrationally buy one several times so I'm certainly mad enough to buy one of these but, unfortunately, poor enough these days not to be able to afford to.

Yeah, I thought that camera may have appeared by now to throw a bit more doubt into things but I'm now having intrusive thoughts about the Sony a1. This will be me outside the shop.

Yeah, that really is a weird one how they've managed to do that. I'm now weighing up my actual uses in terms of when I would need that extra power though and whether the external PD option wouldn't be more appropriate to me anyway. My thinking is that the times when I would need that extra power would also align with the the uses that would potentially cause heat issues as well so fully externally powering and not having a battery in it might offer some mitigation to that issue too. For my usage, the times when I would be doing 8K RAW etc on any serious level wouldn't realistically be me casually wandering about wafting the camera about but be in a more controlled situation so external power doesn't bother me and would actually be more beneficial. Another issue is media costs. I'm presuming the RAW and ProRes formats are a no-go when using the SD card option of the Z8 but I'm wondering what the maximum capability is format wise when using them? Absent of dual recording capability to the two CF cards in the Z9 anyway, the CF/SD combo of the Z8 could actually be of more benefit to me in a lot situations. So, there we go, its not even the end of the afternoon and I've gone from Z8/Grip/2 batteries to Z9 and now back to Z8 only. Tune in tomorrow to hear another U turn.

As a lot of it seems to be related to the heat in the card then it could well mitigate it but it would need confirming. On a more general note though, that kit does offer a good option when shooting a lot of content as the cost of say a 1TB drive to go with it is at least half the price of the equivalent CF card. I've just done the sums and a brand new Z9 will cost me around £400 more than a Z8 with the grip and two additional batteries. For a used Z9 it will probably be almost even. I like the modularity aspect of going the Z8 route, particularly as I can defer the grip until later to see to what extent these issues affect me in actual use, but I'm still leaning towards the Z9 at the moment. Its just under three weeks now until I'm in a shop and having to make the actual decision though so thats enough time to change my mind at least another five or six times !

Was the title of the thread a clue to the name of the artist? If so, did the audio section of the contract say “And you may find yourself working with a shotgun mic” ?

In the same vein as the XC10, have a look at the Panasonic FZ2000/2500. Its a stills camera style form factor but it can be considered a full on 4K/HD camcorder, complete with integral 4 step ND filter, V-LOG, 5 axis stabilisation, servo zoom (with LANC input to support external control), audio monitoring etc etc. The 24-480mm zoom lens makes it ideal in the tourist camcorder role to get that broad range of coverage and shot sizes and here are some frame exports from footage that I shot with mine in that role, shot in v-Log using the 200mbps all-i HD codec. \ Panasonic made a camcorder style version of it (with additional high frame rate capability) but it obviously was significantly more expensive (at least double if I recall correctly) as these things tend to always be. You can pick up a used FZ2000/2500 for around €700 or under which makes it a very decent option for a camcorder role. As long as you ignore the fact that it doesn't actually look one 🙂

The 6K timecode can actually be read over bluetooth so with the F2BT versions it would be possible if the Atomos/Timecode systems used the same protocol but unfortunately they don't. Even if the UltraSync Blue had to sit in the middle as a translator (as it does with the Nikon Z8/Z9) then that would be something but that would require Atomos and BM collaborating which is extremely unlikely considering the rivalry in terms of monitor/recorder products between them, let alone the long standing antipathy between them. For anyone using a Ninja V to monitor P4/6K etc, you can roll your own solution by using the Atomos Connect add on which will act as a BT timecode hub for the Zoom, Tascam etc products that support the protocol. I have one of these on order and have a few Zoom BT timecode products such as the F2BT and H3-VR (and an F3 shortly) so I'll report back how it turns out if it ever shows up.

Whilst its true that if you had the BT versions then you would be able to achieve it, even then its still not that straightforward/inexpensive as you would need the Ultrasync One for the camera and also the UltraSync Blue to connect to that to provide the BT timecode to the F2s. With the non-BT versions you will have to rely on basic audio sync in post but that has got a lot slicker over the past couple of years so, whilst far from being as ideal as having TC sync, it will still do the job albeit with an additional burden on file handling and making sure the mics are rolling etc. The issue with doing it through basic audio sync though is you still have to get good scratch audio into the camera to make the post syncing easier. This is where using a Rode Wireless Go system (or similar) in tandem with the F2s will be a big advantage if you have access to them. The output of each F2 can be attached to the input of a Wireless Go as shown here in the Newsshooter review (https://www.newsshooter.com/2021/01/14/zoom-f2-review/). The dual channel receiver can then be attached to the input of the 6K to provide good scratch audio of both F2s in the camera files whilst still taking advantage of the 32bit float audio of the recorder's own internal recordings. Of course, this setup will also be a boon in terms of remote monitoring of the audio of the F2s. Obviously you don't need to go the extra step with the transmitters/receivers and can just use any decent mic that you have around plugged into the camera but the audio monitoring aspect of such a setup for the F2s will potentially payoff in picking up issues.

I seem to be spending a lot of time thinking and posting about the Z series cameras considering that I don't actually own one. Well, not yet at least. What is solidifying what now seems like an inevitable purchase of the Z8/Z9 (more likely the latter) is the mount but not necessarily the native lenses themselves. Not that there is anything wrong with the native lenses from what I have seen more that I have a some may say addiction level collection of lenses and I don't fancy the expense of adding to it with a collection of native Z mount lenses. Not least because, of course, I won't get any utility from them with any of my other some may say addiction level collection of cameras. The supreme adaptability of the Z mount means that it is unsurpassed in terms of allowing me to use the, erm, "carefully curated " collection of lenses of various mounts that I have in no way impulsively purchased over the years, particularly when it comes to providing AF translation too. There are four adapters that I will be buying when I eventually cave in and buy the Z9. Nikon FTZii - Absolute no brainer for most users of course but particularly for me as I do have a legitimately large collection of actually carefully curated high end F mount lenses from when I was a working pro. Meike EF>Z With Drop In Filter Adapter - EF lenses feature second largest in my shame and this lets me use them with full ND control built in. Meike/Megadap E>Z - This one has really pushed my decision to commit to Z mount as I have a few E mount lenses already but the bigger interest is in using it as a pathway to get cost effective mirrorless lenses in the form of the Sigma E mount contemporary range. TechArt Pro TZM02 - The secret weapon for the rest of the groaning draws of glass and metal as it provides AF for manual lenses on Z mount. Predominantly for M mounts (of which I have "a few") but with cheap adapters can also perform the same miracle for my Contax/Zeiss etc and, of course, the old Nikon F mount collection. The only gap is for PL mount lenses but only because I don't want to buy a basic PL>Z adapter when I suspect that Meike will produce a Z mount version of their PL adapter with drop in filter that they already produce for RF, E and L mount. These adapters definitely cement the Z9 as my forever* camera as it fulfils the notion of bridging the requirements of what I need now and the future with a modicum of mitigation for the profligacy of the past. Having said all that, one Z mount lens that I wasn't aware of that looks quite interesting is the 24-200mm. Not fast but very versatile and decent performance. forever* - AKA this week at least.

It’s all been an elaborate ruse to avoid paying redundancy to the two Canadian fellas ?

For some reason (a combination of presumption and wishful thinking) I thought it was both USB and bluetooth. Pity.

According to the manual, 4K 120p RAW is FX but I think it is line skipped so RAWish I suppose. However, there is a specific 4K/120 2.3 crop mode.