Ilkka Nissila

I think it's not clear whether the MAGA politicians are rational or not. Clearly, many of them know little about the government of states, which explains why there is so much fumbling about and obvious mistakes and unintended consequences. However, it's clear that Trump is a con artist. He is using the power of the presidency for personal gain. Just now there are videos showing how Trump is bragging about how he and his friends made a lot of money by taking advantage of the stock market fluctuations caused by Trump's tariffs (being turned on and off). This is entirely rational behavior from a con artist and a narcissist. He's got the all-clear from the Supreme Court that he can't be held responsible for his official actions as president in court. Congress could still hold him responsible (impeachment), and the people maybe can (if there are free elections in the future) but it could very well happen that he gets away with it, and he's old enough that even if he does go into prison, he wouldn't be there for a long time. Tariff wars tend to be followed by actual wars where people die. That's why the EU was founded, by removing tariffs between European states, it was thought that wars between the states can be avoided, which has been the case so far. However, for Trump, the tariffs are just a means towards personal enrichment (and his friends' enrichment), plus getting a lot of personal attention in the media that he craves.

It's like the polar opposite of how people view things in my country. If someone is rich, in my country, many people will invariably feel that that person didn't get rich via honest work but instead probably did something either unlawful (stole something, didn't pay taxes, smuggled something etc.) or at least morally questionable (oppressed workers for personal gain). And so it's something to be ashamed of rather than proud.

Can you explain? As a European I am completely lacking understanding of how American voters make decisions. I did live in the US for two years, but things weren't then how they are now. And it was in Massachusetts, so that may not count. I would think that those who are poor and lower middle class would not want to be swindled and wealth transferred to the ultra-rich, nor can I see any benefit in voting in favor of policies of the current US government (including stock manipulation but also in general, high tariffs).

Trump did tell people on his social media platform before the reduction of the tariffs for most countries that now is a good time to buy. People who had invested in the stock market but also had debt were in some cases forced to sell their stock (since their loan was going to be greater than the value of their stock) and lost money at the worst moment, but those people with spare money could sell stock before trump announced the tariffs and buy at the moment just before the tariffs were reduced. I bet many of Trump's billionaire friends did just that. It's a way of swindling the majority of what they had into the hands of the few who already had a lot.

Trump's deficit calculations are only about goods and completely ignore services. For example, US has a trade surplus in services with the EU that is twice as big in value than the deficit in goods trade with the EU. Yet tariffs were placed on goods coming from the EU. I think the EU could simply respond by placing a 30% tariff on Google, Meta, X, etc. and it would be fair. I would guess that the EU has a better chance of creating its own IT services than the US has of industry returning. Somehow Trump likes physical industry and doesn't care about all the pollution that comes with it. It has been argued that there is a defence motivation behind this, as although currently US has a lot of military equipment, they lack the capacity to build more of it quickly to fight a world war. Another factor is that a lot of Trump voters live in the (formerly) industrial areas of the US. I can see SNL comment "I restored a beautiful smog, so much thicker than in China, and much more beautiful, America has returned to a new Smoggy Era. And the rivers have beautiful white foam, unlike anything seen before. The fish are dead, and we can have beautiful and proper beef burgers at McDonald's."

While I agree that buying fewer things that you don't really need (only may want) is good for the environment, it's not the main result that will come out of this if the trade wars and tariffs continue. The main effect is that people who have low incomes will not be able to afford what they need to continue living, and the rich are comparately less affected (which is why a government led by billionaires is doing it). It's a move from progressive income taxes to a flat tax that mainly affects the poor and middle class. The billionaires know when to buy and when to sell because they have inside information of Trump's moves. So the billionaires sold stock before the tariffs came into effect and the common people sell in panic after the tariffs have crashed the stock market. After the crash the billionaires on the inside buy stock on the cheap after which the tariffs will be cancelled and the rich will have made a lot of money and the common people have lost their retirement savings. That's what this is all about. The richest people can never have enough. Industry will never return to the US because the American people are not willing to do that kind of work for as little money as the people who live in the 3rd world are willing to do it for. Not even close. Tariffs would need to be something 500-1000% for the manufacturing to actually return to the US. And that would make a lot of the American people poor in terms of what purchasing power they have. Instead, US sells services such as software and financial services to other regions, balancing the trade. This is of course not going to help them fight a world war because for that they would indeed need a manufacturing industry, which led to this dilemma.

I assume you're talking about the Zf, not the Df which is a DSLR that has no video. If the tariffs are actually implemented, sellers on the used market in the US are likely to increase prices also, to reflect changes in the new prices and increased demand for used products originally sold to the US before the tariffs were implemented. The 4K N-RAW from the 24 MP sensor doesn't make much sense as there is no way to do it without quality loss. Unless by first debayering and resampling the data and finally rebayering to get RGBG data, but that's a lot of processing for unclear benefits (and clearly, not really raw data). On this camera, I would just use the normal non-RAW codecs (h.265) for 4K video.

The Z8 does lock the sensor into place mechanically when in-camera VR is not in use, or when the camera is turned off. Most Nikons do. The Zf is an exception and the sensor flops around when the camera is off.

It believe it's the nominal price the factory sells the product for. Typically the retail price is 2-3x that. So why does the price at retail differ so much? This is because the importer typically does marketing, answers questions from customers, pays for the existence of the repair facilities (and typically covers the cost of warranty repair) etc. Then obviously there are shipping costs and retailer markup. These are not included in the CIPA numbers but they are included in the retail price.

They practiced each episode for two weeks and then filmed it twice a day for one week, so 10+ takes for each episode. They then selected the best version of each episode.

I see, I hadn't realized that. I think Nikon should be able to easily fix this in firmware, as you suggest.

I don't have the camera with me to test but according to the Z8 reference guide, in aperture priority (in video mode), the user can not manually adjust the ISO. It's always in Auto ISO mode in S, P, and A. Manual ISO is only available in manual mode. (In stills mode, Auto ISO is not coupled to a shooting mode.) When the camera is in Auto ISO mode, there is a minimum shutter speed that you can set in the ISO sensitivity settings menu. I don't know if they changed this to shutter angle when the camera is in shutter angle mode, if not, then probably it is an oversight that they didn't think of. I can check these things when I have the camera with me.

When you're in video mode, aperture priority on the Z8 doesn't necessarily give anything useful over manual mode. When selecting A mode, you select aperture manually (the same as manual mode) and the camera will choose shutter speed and ISO for you (you cannot select aperture priority and adjust ISO manually in that mode). If you go to manual mode, and select the shutter angle manually along with the aperture, by turning on Auto ISO, you get automatic exposure via the camera adjusting ISO. Why would you want the camera to adjust shutter angle during the take when Auto ISO is available? I understand that Auto ISO may not be ideal for log video as then the noise in the image will vary, but surely that's less distracting than shutter speed or angle varying during the take?

This is an important point, and has been widely discussed in other forums. The Z8 works well in terms of temperature management as long as you choose one of the coolest running CFexpress cards. Card temperatures have been tested a few years ago in https://www.thessdreview.com/our-reviews/cfexpress/delkin-black-cf-express-type-b-512gb-memory-card-review/4/ though not specifically in this camera. I have the 325 GB Prograde Digital Cobalt card and it's excellent (it was originally preferred by Nikon when the Z9 came out, as their developers found it to perform the best in the Z9), but Delkin Blacks (which are a newer card series) are very popular among the intense-shooting crowd and can be cheaper than the Prograde Digital Cobalt. If you need larger capacity than is available in Delkin Black, then Delkin Power can be considered. Note that the series have been updated by Delkin and the newest cards may be different, but I haven't heard anything negative about the new series. The Z9 has a larger body and better temperature management than the Z8 but the Z8 also does fine as long as one chooses the right CFexpress card for the extended video recording.

Since RED is working with Nikon on the autofocus, it is likely it'll be similar to Nikon camera AF if not now, in a model in the near future. The processor architecture might need to be changed to achieve parity with cameras like the Z9 so maybe a separate AF processor (Nikon's) and image processing pipeline (which would be RED's). Porting all the code across systems could take some time. As for whether AF will be good enough to use as the go-to focusing mode, eventually, I think it'll be, but perhaps not today, at least not for all uses. Retaining the focus while zooming is achieved using software and the AF motor, which is probably sufficient for most AF users who may occasionally need to use manual focus and fix the distance while zooming (which the lens will then achieve using the AF motor). Those who want a parfocal implementation via a mechanical compensation system (instead of electronic) will choose a manual focus parfocal lens. Focus ring direction can be set from the camera custom functions menu in Nikons, also how fast the ring affects focus, in most Z mount lenses and most Z cameras. I doubt, however, that the zoom direction can be changed, at least not now. The T/W switch on the lens barrel has fixed labels and those match the direction of turn of the zoom ring in Nikon's other zooms, so probably it is the same here. As for which is the correct direction of turn, for Nikon users Nikon has the correct direction which we are used to. Some other brands also have the same direction as Nikon, while others have different, so it's not like Nikon uses different orientations from all the other camera and lens manufacturers.