Ilkka Nissila

Even if the learning models were similar (in my opinion, they're not, as human learning is focused on biologically relevant things whereas AI models learn what they are taught using algorithms and training data), AI models are not humans and they don't have the same legal rights as humans. People put their work on display online for other humans to see, not to be siphoned into AI models to be sold for profit by companies who are so large that their leaders think the they can just ignore the law, break it at will, and deal with the aftermath later by an army of lawyers. The legislation has to step up and protect society and work made by humans. A US Federal court already determined that AI-generated works cannot be copyrighted. In my opinion, training data has to be obtained with legal permission and with proper compensation to the original authors of the work that is used to train AI models. The AI companies have said that they can't operate in this way because it would be too slow and expensive and justify their actions by others doing it if they don't, and US companies being left behind in the competition if they don't do it. If the courts indeed allow this accepted practice then basically humans will have no work and no money in the future. The money for the work will go to the owners of the AI models and they will never give up their financial advantage over the common people (who created the work that was used to make the AI models and were used to filter the garbage out from the teaching material for extremely low pay). This will lead to a massive increase in economic inequality and collapse of societies, if allowed to stand. There is no reason to allow it, of course, as the governments in democracies are responsible for the people rather than the companies let alone AI models.

Neither cinema and photography are well suited to a small screen and even smaller attention spans, they are supposed to be viewed on a large canvas and in a socially interactive way like in a gallery or theatre. Now with stuff like streaming, this works fine when everyone has a subscription to one or two of the same platforms like Netflix and are stuck at home with nothing better to do like during covid, but after a while there is a total oversupply of stuff to watch, and a total ADHD mess of an audience who is getting constantly distracted by social media content in direct competition to the long form stuff. High quality displays are now higher quality and more affordable than ever, so it's easy to view video content in high quality and on a fairly large surface - people aren't limited to viewing on smartphones if they make the time to sit down for a bit. For it to be a socially interactive viewing experience, that really requires people to gather in the same place at the same time, and that probably requires a scarcity of content. If content is viewable at any time anywhere, then people don't bother to join others to watch it. There used to be a huge scarcity of content and people would sometimes struggle to find things to do on their free time, and this lead to (in-person) social activities being more relevant a part of life than today where one can just entertain oneself at any time with a mobile phone. This state of affairs leads to people not being able to focus on what they should be doing and also it seems to be leading to significantly reduced birth rates in the developed world. So, will a humankind which is too connected to each other lead it to extinction, or will there be a corrective move? Probably fewer humans would be better for the planet's ecosystems, but then this would also likely mean the current level of technology (or technology development) is difficult to sustain because (in the future) there is not enough volume to pay for the costs.

I think most customers only care about what they are getting for their money and not about the ethics of businesses. Those things can affect some people's decision-making, of course, but usually it is only the purse that they look at. Also if Atomos were to leave the market then wouldn't Blackmagic effectively have a monopoly? That would not be good for the consumer even if it were temporarily good for Blackmagic owners. I don't have an external recorder but things that would be nice to have (and I believe are available from Atomos) include more physical connections, a larger, HDR capable screen, larger and less expensive storage per TB, less risk of overheating than internal recording in high quality, the option of recording to two media at the same time (e.g., Nikon cameras don't support video recording on two cards simultaneously but this can be done using external recorders by recording both internally and externally), custom LUTs, streaming accessories with wireless capabilities, tally indicators etc. I don't see how these products would become obsolete even though the quality of internal recording has improved. Most professional video setups I see at large events (such as sports events and concerts) use external monitors and often there are streaming setups as well. How competitive a particular brands' products are at a given time is a bit beside the point because if there is only one major manufacturer, prices will go up and development will slow down.

Nikon Z cameras focus at the shooting aperture (unless smaller than f/5.6 in which case they focus at f/5.6 and stop down for the picture which can result in flickering of the EVF). Canon cameras focus wide open (unless the user selects otherwise) and thus the EVF brightness can vary a bit during the composition and focusing as the camera has to adjust the aperture between focusing and actual taking of the picture. The advantage of the Canon method is that the focusing system gets more light, advantages of the Nikon approach are that focus shift between aperture does not cause focus errors (between wide open and f/5.6 at least) and there is a more stable viewfinder experice. Ideally the user would be given the option to switch between these two modes of operation. I am not sure I would call camera review websites "journalism". I mean, from the start it has been clear that dpreview wants to promote the sales of new gear rather than a discussion of photographs or techniques. The amount of front-page pics of equipment was always very high. There are other sites more focused on discussions on photography. Note that print magazines who review gear also have the advertisers' backs and practically never say too negative things about the gear. The reader is expected to understand these realities of business. Ultimately, one can learn how a piece of gear works for one's own use only by testing in one's applications. Other people or companies cannot reliably give that information to you. I think rather than moderators or other posters working for the manufacturers, they more likely have vested interests in particular gear and brand and defend it due to pride of ownership etc. They can also defend the products or brand to maintain a positive vibe on the forum focused on a particular brand. A positive mindset can make the forums more friendly and welcoming to visitors. I think too often people focus on problems rather than what can be done to get around them and get work done. Forums are full of endless complaints to the point of exhaustion yet excellent work can be done with the gear that exists. Dpreview forums have extremely low social quality and friendliness due to inadequate moderation (while the editorial content is generally very good). I think the hostility on that site is so high that I have not posted there for almost a decade.

Manufacturers do their own market research which they don't typically publish at least not verbatim. I don't see anything too illogical or controversial about the claims made by Nikon in the interview. Nikon's market share has declined to about 1/3 of what it was at its peak 10+ years ago, and the overall camera market has declined to 1/20 of peak volumes. Nikon's improved high-end camera sales can be explained by two possibilities: one is that Nikon's high-end cameras have become relatively more competitive and thus sell better than expected from their overall market share, or that the increased total camera market (including smartphones) now produces more people who buy high-end cameras, including Nikon's. There are specific examples of the influence of social media on camera sales, including the X100V/VI. I am not sure if Nikon will make a high-end compact camera, they tried and got into trouble with some problems with the processor (reportedly) of the DL series in 2016 and cancelled the release of those cameras as a result. I think they may have been burned so badly that they are not eager to try again for some time. That was a bad year for Nikon in other ways as well, they released Snapbridge which was initially so problem-ridden that it really was amazing that they would launch in that state. A third mishap was the Keymission action camera series which also had problems in basic function. DL and Keymission were cancelled and Snapbridge today is not as bad as it was, but still isn't perfect, though some of the difficulty may come from smartphone manufacturers not willing to let Nikon implement its app in the most beneficial way (e.g. the iphone cuts off wifi from Snapbridge if switching to another app which is ridiculous throwing sticks between wheel pins). I am sure Nikon could make a high-end compact camera but then is there a need when there are cameras like the Z30 which are very small and can take a 26 mm pancake lens which is also very small? The Zf is also very thin and capable (especially good for smaller lenses from body shape point of view).

I think we were thinking about different kinds of "cinema" cameras; in this thread I wasn't so much thinking about cinema production for the big screen but what Nikon's interest in RED is, and that I believe mainly to be on improving the video capabilities of Nikon's mirrorless hybrid cameras, and likely also to offer a line of professional video cameras between the Z9 and the high-end cinema cameras (with similar color science across the lineup, perhaps giving Nikon's traditional and RED's as options). RED likely has technology which would enable Nikon to compete and improve at the various levels of video cameras and Nikon can help RED take benefit from technologies developed for mass-market manufacturing. When we talk about feature films made for the movie theatres or streaming, I realize that manual focus is the norm there and in that case an adapter may be fine, but in applications which benefit from autofocus, image stabilization, hand-held or gimbal use etc. the lens mount (and lens compatibility) is a factor (even if some compatibility is achieved within or across manufacturers and mounts, optimal performance of the advanced features is likely to be achieved only with native lenses). The lens mount is also important when designing lenses to be compact and of high quality; there is a considerable difference in optical quality between Nikon Z and F mount lenses especially at short and medium focal lengths. I'm surprised that PL lenses (with flange-back distance of 52 mm) are still used and nobody seems to be saying they aren't state-of-the-art (which is in stark contrast to how lenses for still photography are seen), but this may be due to the lack of requirement for the lenses to be compact as well as tradition. For stills the flange-back distance seems to make a huge difference. Lenses that weight a few hundred grams (on Z) can equal and better image quality previously only available from 1 kg lenses (in F mount), etc. As long as there are mechanical focus pulling systems attached to cinema cameras a smaller lens may not necessarily be a great motivation or a purchasing factor but for a lot of applications of video (where the operator may need to be mobile and has no help), size and weight can be important. And thus in the smaller "cinema" cameras (which really are not as much for the big screen but video for ads, social media, weddings, influencers, documentary, etc.) I do believe a possible lens mount change can affect purchase decisions. Anyway if people really only use manual focus lenses on RED cameras then the possible loss of RF mount as native option in some distant future may not be a problem; if anything, the larger diameter Z mount is likely to be more rugged and handle heavy lenses more easily than a mount with smaller diameter, and lenses of any other mount can probably be adapted. I do wonder if the 16 mm flange-back distance gives enough space to have ND filters built-in. But for Nikon I think what they really want is to sell Nikon lenses and so a Z mount RED camera is likely to be launched sooner than later.

I think the issue with Canon is that they have so many mounts and lens lineups and the transition of everything to RF can incur significant costs to the users and as more cameras are released with RF mount, EF mount lens sales are adversely affected and people start thinking there is no future for them. Canon still very recently launched new EF mount Cinema lenses. How will they recoup the investment if people stop altogether buying new EF lenses? Having a roadmap of new bodies would have the effect of ending demand for EF lenses before Canon has comparable RF lenses available for purchase. Another aspect is the move from Super 35 to 35 mm full-frame sensors which is not universally loved. Nevertheless Canon seem to be doing just that with the (presumed) replacement of C70 with C80 and C300III with C400. What about Super 35 lenses? Just using the center area of the sensor is of course possible but will it give optimal results? DGO is not available in 35 mm full frame and a larger sensor could generate more heat than necessary for recording a Super 35 image. A slowing down of new camera releases could simply be because it's not clear which path the manufacturers and users should take. As for Nikon, it is kind of interesting that they now own a camera manufacturer which makes cameras with a Canon lens mount. I think existing RED users probably are concerned at whether Nikon/RED will continue to make RF mount products or transition to Z mount. If Nikon/RED were to announce such a transition, the demand for current RED camera sales could stop overnight. No one wants that to happen. A softer approach where Nikon/RED continue to support and offer RF mount cameras into the future, with Z mount as option is probably much more prudent. This seems to be what Nikon is saying as well: they are considering Z mount cinema lenses but are supporting RF in RED cameras. It would be hazardous to make an abrupt transition IMO. For Nikon the main benefits from the RED acquisition are that they can in the future offer higher end video cameras but it is important for them to consider current users as well, for customer good will and brand reputation. Not that they could not offer adapters but supporting multiple autofocus (and possible motorized zoom and VR/IS) protocols could prove challenging.

Is it? I calculated how much it would cost to store three copies (on RAIDed NAS units) of Prores 422 HQ 4K at 25 fps shot per 20 min of footage per day, for a year and with 16 TB drives I ended up with a cost of 2250€ per year just for the hard drives, not considering the cost of the NAS units themselves. That's just twenty minutes of footage on a single camera per day, on working days of the year. If I used 8K HQ N-RAW at 60 fps, that same 20 min per day would cost 20k€ / year in HD storage. OK now let's shoot 2 hours per day with two cameras, again at 8K HQ N-RAW, that's 12 times 20k€ / year, or 240k€ / year. I don't know how much you spend on lenses and cameras but for sure the storage cost is not a trivial factor when shooting a lot with the higher-quality formats.

If you rent equipment, or if you sometimes use the employer's equipment that is also used by others, I would imagine it can be a frequent problem. Certainly going from Nikon (my own equipment) to Olympus, Panasonic or Fuji can take some time to get everything set up properly and this is (kind of) an unnecessary complexity. The more rarely you use a particular type of gear, the more difficult it can be to remember the thinking behind each make and model. The manufacturers try to make switching difficult and staying within-brand easy (as a part of vendor lock-in) and so the nomenclature and menus evolve in different directions in each brand compared to others. Which brand of camera is used for a task may not be in the operator's control.

Since motion in the physical world causes changes in our field of vision which are not limited to a discrete frame rate (essentially the frame rate is infinite), and this causes no psychological adverse effects, I would argue that the frame rate itself has only a minor effect on perception if it is fast enough. The human vision of course has limited speed of observation of events, and when this is combined with a discrete frame rate of presentation of a video it can cause a different perception than seeing motion in real life. There is also the effect of camera shutter speed on perception of movement. I would argue that if the video is taken at a very fast rate and presented at the same rate, a higher fps would result in a more natural perception of movement than slow frame rates. However, most monitors operate at 60 fps (while some displays and TVs can operate at the fps rate of the source) and so this kind of a fully continuous movement cannot be conveyed perfectly and the video always looks a bit different from seeing the action with one's own eyes in real life, due to technological limitations (which may be lifted over time). Whether one wants to present video like things look in real life or as purposefully different from real life, to make sure the viewer immediately sees that it's a fantasy, an illusion (not only frame rate, but deliberate use of colour, costumes, and lighting contribute to this). Probably there will be both in the future: "as-is" presentation of events such as sports etc. where realistic presentation is the aim, and more stylized "artistic" films which tell fictional stories. Television in Finland has moved from analog (quite fuzzy) to SD to HD and now 50 fps as standard and a lot of the footage probably is shot on 4K sensors now, allowing a higher-quality HD presentation. This was evident in watching the Paris Olympics, the picture quality has evolved quite amazingly over the past 20 years and this really helps in seeing clearly the sports events and it was really a pleasure to watch. I didn't read the paper you linked carefully, I briefly skimmed through it, but it left me the impression that they were comparing speeded-up or slowed-down footage to normal speed (25 fps and 50 fps capture were used in some experiments, but didn't seem to have statistically significant effects) and I don't think the psychological effects were attributed so much to frame rate of capture but simply presenting the video at the "wrong" speed and how that affected the perception of time. Just by shooting at 120 fps and presenting at 120 fps (if you can find a monitor that will display at 120 fps) is unlikely to have any adverse psychological effects as it simply makes the video more fluid and realistic. Slow flickering can cause the brain to have to work harder and it can also trigger epileptic seizures on rare occasions. But use of faster frame rates that go beyond the ability of the brain to notice the frame changes as discrete steps should not cause problems as long as there are no dark frames etc. (With CRT displays the image was never really stable but flat displays don't show visible flicker when the content is static). >Most sports are at 50 or 60 fps and our brains are primed for and expecting something exciting to happen. What about cable news that is at 60 fps? Is that why so many people get addicted to it and enraged by it? I doubt it. It's likely the presented content that causes those effects. >Video games are generally 60 fps to 120fps is that why I personally have trouble falling asleep after playing? In that case the image is synthetic and there could be a number of issues that cause agitation compared to seeing things in the real world with one's own eyes. For sure games are designed to get the players hooked and addicted so they don't stop playing. They even collect user behavioral data to adjust the games to become more addictive. Again, I doubt the frame rate is responsible for these effects, at least not as a primary factor, but the presented content and the nature of the interaction between the game and the player. One factor that is known to increase arousal is the presence of blue light in the display light. This can cause problems falling asleep. I got these blue-light blocking eyeglasses some years ago and my sleep quality and falling-asleep times immediately improved which I was very happy about. I do spend a lot of time at screens though not playing games. Another way to fight these issues is simply not to play games for 1-2 hours before going to bed.

I thought that Super 35 mm was the traditional format for cinema, not 35 mm full frame, and video cameras used much smaller formats in the past, but buyers seem to have largely rejected those, except for many professionals (those shooting sports for TV, etc.). 35mm full frame is a relatively new format when it comes to video and things have moved up from smaller formats to 35 mm, likely mainly for the reason of hybridization where the objective is for one camera to both video and stills, whether this makes sense or not. For (still) photography, 35 mm is has been considered a small format (mainly suitable for family snapshots, photojournalism, and action) and ignoring cost constraints, I think it would be preferable to use larger formats such as medium format in many cases, to get exquisite detail, tonality and colour, and differentiate from the everyday smartphone camera user. The problem is, larger than 35 mm sensors are expensive, especially if wanting sensors that approximate medium format film such as 645. I love the rich colour and tonality of the larger formats, and the robust detail in large prints. Unfortunately the technology that has been developed to make photography easier, faster and more precise, is mostly available only in the smaller formats, in particular, 35 mm. As for the size of the camera, no pain, no gain. If something is easy and painless, others have already done it (likely better than you would) and there is no reward, financial or otherwise. To get a reward, you need to do things others are not willing to or comfortable doing, things that are messy and uncomfortable and smell of work rather than just having fun. Such as collecting the garbage, fixing people's teeth, lawyering, r carrying a lot of lighting and camera equipment. That's the difference between working and casual happy snapping. If something is easy and fun, no one is going to pay a penny for you to do it, because billions of people want to have fun and are delighted to do it for free. I think most serious amateurs and professionals rejected the smaller formats for still photography and want the higher quality, low-light possibilities, shallow depth of field etc. of 35 mm (full frame). For video, I think 35mm is excessive and unnecessary but since companies want two for the price of one, the size of the sensor is dictated by the stills side and video goes along with it. Other formats are available and if people choose them, manufacturers will follow the money. So far it seems the vast majority of interchangeable lens camera buyers deliberately choose manufacturers who offer full frame 35 mm as option in the lineup, and those manufacturers who focus exclusively on the smaller formats have a very small combined market share. The manufacturers accept the customers' wishes and put their efforts on the larger formats (such as 35 mm) as a result.

How about seeing it as a way to learn French (if you're an English-speaker)? In Finland usually international programs on TV and in the movies are not dubbed, instead they present subtitles in Finnish or Swedish (the other national language). With digital TV and/or streaming, you can in some cases choose the language of the subtitles or turn them off. But seeing all those English and American shows and movies gave the Finnish people pretty good knowledge in English, which is useful today. Similarly one could learn German or Swedish, if motivated, by listening to the words and reading the subtitles as we're used to doing. But I guess if one is not used to subtitles then it can be annoying? I think on a traditional 4:3 box the subtitled fitted in nicely but with the widescreen shows, especially with streaming, sometimes the subtitles take up too much space (in some apps one can adjust the font size). Anyway the silver lining with subtitles is that you can simultaneously absorb the same information in two languages which can help with learning those languages. The problem in Europe is that many of the larger countries use dubbing so the original sound is not presented which I think is a bit of a crime. Anyway, as TV screens get larger, maybe one can at some point see the subtitles outside of the picture area and so the text would not overlap the image area. For me the subtitles generally are not a problem except in those cases where there is some strange language in the original voicetrack which the audience is not expected to understand, then English subtitles in the original, and finally Finnish (or whatever is the viewer's expected language) subtitles over on top of that or in top/bottom parts of the frame, leading to not much clean picture area being seen for those scenes. 😉 That's bad ... As for the presentation of movies on a projected screen, I have not noticed any quality issues over time in the Helsinki theatres. I don't remember when I last saw an actual film projector, they've been digital for a while now. I think a big part of the experience is that one has to focus on the film rather than having refrigerator breaks or pausing the film for whatever excuse, so the timeline is fixed and you cannot not watch it unless you close your eyes and ears, or leave the theatre. So the film is presented as intended as a whole, with little or no distractions. Of course, the screen is also bigger than most people's TV screens in terms of angle of the visual field, but that can be a positive or a negative depending on where you sit and how your eyesight is (I wear varifocals so if the screen is really big I have to turn my head around to see things sharply). Today, with television having so many channels, and streaming platforms, there is so much material available that the choice of what to watch is diluted, whereas with going to the movies in the theatre, one has to make a clear choice and think about what one wants to see, which can be a good thing. Too many options can be a problem IMO. The quality of those options can suffer from the vast quantity available, and choosing to see some film doesn't even result in necessarily seeing the whole film; one can stop watching when one feels like it, and move to something else, which makes the whole experience less special and less memorable.

Even when the print etc. is made by machine, in most cases the content was created by a human (with some tools), so it reflects an individual's life experiences and vision. With AI it is basically given all the previous work to derive from but it has no life experiences so it's not the same. After a while the teaching material scalped online will be made by AI so it'll just become a self-regurgitating loop with little relevance to humans. Actual fully hand-made art such as paintings or sculptures are too expensive for most people to own, but they can still be appreciated in museums, galleries and other people's homes in many cases. People often frame and post on their walls and mantleplaces photographic prints where they at least took the photos of moments that spoke to them themselves. So although a machine or two are indeed involved, human choices decided on the moment and camera position etc. Usually it is of moments, subjects, people that are relevant to the people who took the photos and chose to exhibit them in their homes. People often even have drawings made of their family members (not paintings but something like a charcoal drawing). I think there is no chance that AI-fabricated collective conciousness images will replace such images in people's lives. It's not the image or its shape but the human experiences that matter to us humans.

Are you asking who doesn't do illegal smuggling? I would imagine most people don't do that. Maybe Panasonic has fewer quality problems that need fixing in service? I don't know. It could also be that Panasonic may have a company policy that they distribute costs evenly across markets while Nikon may require each subsidiary to make a profit and cover their own costs.

The Z6 III initial price is 3100€ and the Z8's initial price was about 4700€ but the current (discounted) price is about 4300€. So there is a 1200€ difference, and 1600€ difference between initial prices. In 1 or 2 years the Z6 III price will have been reduced to 2500-2700€ if I am guessing correctly. That's how it works; during first availability the demand is at its highest and this is balanced by the higher initial price; after a while the demand is reduced because those who were interested already got theirs, and so a lower price can tempt a few more buyers. The Z6 III has a number of advantages over the Z8, including 60 fps full-size still bursts (jpg though), more effective VR, more custom wide-area options, smaller body size, less processing needed to produce high quality 4K video (so less likely to overheat, since it starts from a 24 MP sensor and not 45 MP), higher-quality audio interface, brighter, more detailed viewfinder, better high ISO image quality (probably), better low-light AF, screen that can tilt into selfie mode (for those that need it) etc. The Z8 has other advantages (higher resolution and faster sensor readout, a screen that tilts two-ways without moving to the side) and so users can choose based on needs and budget. If comparing US prices to European prices then things may look completely messed up, of course.