Ilkka Nissila

Honestly this shouldn't be too surprising when you look at how the Biden Administration behaved over the last four years, and when you consider the palace coup which took place to put in place Kamala Harris, and how the Democrat Machine just totally ignored the will of their own voters in mattering in the process. Biden was too old and so they switched to Harris as the candidate. No laws were broken, as the party is free to put whomever they want on the ballot. There should be some kind of age limit on political candidates as many of the most powerful politicians today are really old and of questionable mental fitness. Also a limit on how much a single person or company can donate to campaigns should be limited to make the donating more egalitarian rather than the rich people controlling everything. USA has gravely depleted its weapon stocks. USA needs to immediately stop sending hundreds of billions of arms to Ukraine, as all it is accomplishing at the moment is: 1) needlessly perpetuating yet more deaths of Ukrainian men (they truly are trying to take literally the saying "until the last Ukrainian", this is going to be a demographic disaster for post war Ukraine) & 2) running dry USA's own stocks which is putting at risk USA's own security should they need it for themselves. USA has only been spending only a few percent of their defense budget on Ukraine, and a lot of it has been used to give old weapons that have expired and needed to be replenished anyway (so most of the money was spent didn't actually go to Ukraine directly but to defense contractors in the USA, boosting domestic employment). Ukrainians know what it is like to live under Russian oppression and they'd rather die than experience that again. America has never been occupied, lucky for them. I think the West needs to stop giving Ukraine restrictions on arms use and let them fight as deep into Russia as Russia has attacked in Ukraine. Otherwise a fair border can never return as the fighting always continues only on Ukrainian territory, gradually demolishing what was. How much of that was due to "outsourcing security to the USA" vs being due to: 1) having a collective living memory of the recent horrors of WW1 & WW2, with zero desire whatsoever to repeat that under any circumstance 2) having ever close economic ties with each other now within Europe than ever before (the more you're trading with a country, the less likely you wish to go to war and ruin all that prosperity) The memory of war in Europe has faded and new generations do not remember it, and this can lead to selfish and indecent behavior towards other people. Those close economic ties can be severed. Populist leaders already lead the UK to leave the EU single market with a hard Brexit lying before the election that of course they wouldn't leave the single market. Similar things can happen in other European countries, e.g., France was close to being lead by a populist far-right Le Pen. Eventually the economic co-operation can end and result in a hot war among European countries. Right now it is only Russia who is trying to return to the 17th century of nation states fighting wars over land and looting property, but this kind of thinking could spread. Russia is supporting rightwing populist movements across Europe because they know that a divided Europe is a weak Europe. Unfortunately true, because no matter who the people elect to represet them in Washington DC, its "the establishment" (the unelected bureaucrats) who hold all the cards. The bureaucrats were nominated by elected representatives, and as some of them serve longer than one electoral cycle, they can have the positive effect of stabilizing the society against too rapid changes (the US government is always by one party and so there can be a zigzagging effect of one direction and then reversing the direction repeatedly, which is not productive over the long term). In foreign policy, consistency is very important to build trust with other countries. However, now there is the world's richest man who apparently is taking the role of a shadow president. He owns the most popular media platform and effectively can control a large part of how people think with changes to algorithms behind the scenes. In the US, if you have money, you can be untouchable, as Trump has shown, he is still a free man after 4000+ law suits. The terribly botched withdrawal from Afghanistan happened under the Biden Presidency. True, Biden did handle it badly, but before he took office, Trump threw the Afghan government under the bus by making a deal with the Taliban and releasing 5000 prisoners. The Afghan government never had a chance after that. NATO primarily existed to oppose the USSR, and the moment The Cold War ended then NATO itself should also have been wound down and abolished. Russia is allied with Iran and North Korea today and to some degree also with China, and combined those countries can be very powerful economically and they're spending a lot of money on military build-up. Russia is trying to re-occupy the previous parts of the Soviet Union including Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, and they're making threats that they will have a new world order from Vladivostok to Lisbon. I think NATO is needed today more than ever especially as Europe has cut its defense spending so much in the years since the cold war ended, people in many countries in Europe assumed that there would be peace and prosperity after the Soviet Union collapsed, but here they are again. Russia is testing where they can just take foreign land and resources. Now they're using threats about nuclear weapons use to prevent a fair defense.

From a European point of view, I would say that on economic policies the US Democrats are center-right, but on social issues they tend to be more left. The US society itself continues to be very racially segregated, as the rich and poor live in distinct areas and the schools in the poorer districts are poorly funded while the wealthy areas have very good and well-funded schools. This maintains or increases the economic gap between the different communities. When I was working in the US for two years, I went to work in a building with approximately 1000 employees. All the cleaners and janitors were black and there was just one black scientist whom I knew in the whole building. There is no genetic reason the African-Americans only get jobs that are poorly paid and they don't get educated, it's mostly due to the environment they're growing in. So an effort into reducing the racial divide and the difference in wealth between different groups in the US would make the society stronger (because more talented people would get the chance at developing to their full potential) and it also would make the society safer (because income and education inequalities lead to crime). Because of global warming, there will be a whole lot more immigration in the future. I would expect there to be hundreds of millions of climate refugees trying to get to Europe and North America from hotter areas of the globe in the next 100 years or so. I think it's best to try to let them in to such a degree as possible (since we are mostly responsible for the warming, we ought to give shelter) and give them good education so that they contribute positively to society. A lot of populist leaders want to just shut down the borders but this becomes unviable when the numbers of immigrants increase by 100x from current figures. Since birth rates are declining rapidly in the Western countries, new blood is needed to keep the society active. How this is managed is a key question if we want to maintain some resemblance of an organized society. Since leaders have basically chosen not to curb carbon emissions and instead we are driving at accelerating speed towards a brick wall, the option of continuing as if nothing were happening does not really exist in the near future.

In Trump's first term, Americans generally felt they were better off financially. On the other hand, Trump had promised to cut down on the federal spending and yet he increased the federal debt dramatically even before COVID-19. The pandemic lead to pumping money into the economy with subsidies and this lead to subsequent inflation which was witnessed during Biden's presidency. However, the inflation rate has been declining towards the end of Biden's term and the increase of federal debt was slowing, so things seem to be moving towards a better foundation. Trump again promises to cut down on government with Musk's help. He also says he will end inflation and bring industry back to the US by using heavy tariffs on imports. 23 Nobel laureates in economics say that Trump's policies will increase inflation. This is where the con is: he will not help the ordinary American to have better purchasing power by applying these (counterproductive) policies. On the other hand, Trump may not actually implement what he said he would. He didn't make Mexico pay for the wall, either. I saw a documentary series by a Finnish journalist traveling through the US and talking about the reported division in the country with regular Americans. It seemed a lot of people there believed that Trump would help ordinary people be economically better off. Trump claimed that China will pay for the tariffs but that's not how tariffs work: the consumers pay them in increased prices. There is no easy way out of this, and it seems unlikely that ordinary people would be happy to pay for goods the prices that American-made products would cost (in many cases). America doesn't have the trained workforce to replace Chinese imports by made in the US products, neither will the Americans be happy to experience return of industrial pollution on a massive scale. One another policy that will increase the prices that Americans pay is deporting illegals. They are responsible for a large part of the workforce and typically they are hungry and willing to work hard for less money than born-in-the-US Americans. Thus if the illegals are removed, agricultural and other products will become more expensive. So, the rich will be better off (because of tax cuts for the rich), but the poor and middle class will be worse off economically because they do not have the buffer to take the price increases. People were told these things but they didn't believe it. I am constantly surprised why Americans think their "national security" and "freedom" are somehow threatened. US is the most powerful country militarily and economically and is not threatened by anyone. However, the US is very important for European security as the post-WWII security framework is based on US presence in Europe. Why this was implemented is simple: European countries have a history of starting wars with each other that lead to world wars where tens of millions of people die. By outsourcing security to the US, a lack of (hot) war has been maintained in most of Europe for nearly 80 years. This is an amazing achievement. US military and economic presence has prevented France, UK, Germany and Russia from having another go at each other. I think Europeans are very grateful for this and hope the policy can continue. I doubt Trump will really have power to change US foreign policy in a major way. This is largely controlled by the establishment and even though Trump is rich and soon a second time president, he is not a career politician or part of the establishment. And he will not have the power to change major foreign policies. Musk and Trump will try to take down the establishment but they will most likely fail because neither of them have an intimate understanding of how the country works as they are not career politicians nor did they study a relevant field. However, I do expect a lot of chaos in the US for the next 4-5 years.

I just remembered that Nikon does make 24/1.7 for DX, and 26/2.8, 28/2.8, and 40/2 which are quite small lenses and probably attractive for this camera. Sigma make 16 mm, 30 mm and 56 mm f/1.4 primes also for DX and available on the Z mount, but they're not quite as small. A faster zoom would be nice.

I think this is a result of Nikon using a lot of the same code in all Expeed 7 based cameras. It's less expensive to give the features to all the cameras than to go and change the code to remove features. I think Nikon need to make some faster DX lenses to go with their cameras. f/3.5-6.3 zooms are quite limiting. Sigma does make a few fast primes for DX which are also available in Z mount cameras.

I find that that image quality has been improving quite lot in all delivery systems; broadcast, cable, and streaming. Displays have also improved greatly. The bandwidth given to particular content can vary depending on various factors including network traffic (for streaming) and hardware used. My TV is a 48" 4K OLED Sony and it seems to render all content from different sources quite well. Although 4K looks better than FullHD which in turn looks better than SD, I don't have any problems watching network TV and enjoying it for the substance (when there is good content). I can see the differences between the different resolutions but it really doesn't bother me when the image quality, e.g., of older content is lower. To my eye, the Paris Olympics coverage seemed better technically than what I remember from previous Olympics, but it could be partly thanks to the new OLED panel. Although it was all HD, and nowadays a lot of content is available in 4K, I don't really find the HD content to be substantially worse. It's more like a higher level of aesthetic refinement is present in some of the newer content, but still the HD cable TV was quite fine and the substance was communicated well. I watched Equalizer 3 on Sony Core and that's a film made with the Arri Alexa 35 and one could really see the very fine image quality in high-contrast indoor scenes where the brightest part of the scenes (the windows) still had details. I think that's a nice touch but the contrast in the movie was used in a way which emphasized drama and didn't really feel like how things look when present in similar indoor locations: the brain really opens up those shadows and one can see a lot more than one could see in that movie. I think this is done mainly for dramatic effect, but I've felt quite a lot of content nowadays is excessively dramatized visually and TV news and similar content actually seems more realistic with natural contrast, more like "how one would see it" if viewing the scene in person than Hollywood productions which often go over the top. I don't think it is necessary for news to go 4K, HDR, or anything like that; there is enough detail even in the 1080i/25 that we get (some content is now 50 fps, and during some sports events the national TV broadcasting company also streamed 4K content of certain events like football (soccer)). I think for certain sports, higher resolution does have value, you can see the different athletes more clearly, but HD sports content already is very good. I think going for 4K would probably just necessitate greater attention to makeup and lighting, all-new equipment and wouldn't necessarily give that much added value to the viewer for news type content. I think a lot of people watch the news on smartphones which are so small that 4K is probably not that useful and it would tax the communications bandwidth unnecessarily. For carefully crafted movies and series, I do see the value in 4K, but even then I think it's the audio that is lacking rather than the image. As for 100" TV sets, how do you even move it about in a home? I used to have a 55" and now a 48" and I greatly prefer the latter. It takes less space and yet because of the higher-quality (OLED) display I enjoy it more than the regular LCD tech from 2015, even though it was slightly bigger.

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.