eatstoomuchjam

If it's CDAF, it will pretty useless for AF-C anyway. Panasonic spent years of time and tons of development hours trying to make AF-C not suck and in the end, they made it suck a little less. AF-S can be pretty great with CDAF, though. I'll have to check out the review - I'm not usually a fan of BMD's consumer/prosumer line, but I DO love tiny cameras with a good image...

The very question is flawed. You're asking which sensor produces the best image, but the sensor is only a part of the image pipeline. The same Sony sensors are sometimes used in cameras from Sony and several other vendors and the image that gets output differs radically. Each manufacturer is applying their own denoising algorithms, color interpretation, internal debaying algorithm, etc. I'd also say that @kye is fully correct that there's really no way to evaluate which camera produces the "best" image. What is "best?" Is it the most faithful reproduction of colors? Or is it the interpretation of colors that I like more? Is it preserving every single detail from corner to corner? Or is it producing an image where my actors like how their skin looks? How contrasty is best? Is the image being color graded in post? Or is it being given to somebody straight out of camera? If one camera has better DR and the other has more pleasing colors, which one wins? This kind of thing is also why, in the example above, industry professionals could end up preferring the image from a $1k GH4 to a $25k Red or a $70k Arri. Were the images straight out of camera? Red and Arri might not spend as much time with the SOOC image because almost any production that can afford to use their gear can also afford to have a colorist. Meanwhile, many people shooting with a GH4 don't. If the images were graded in post, was the colorist more familiar with the GH4 than the Red or Arri? Could be. Did that test result in any of those Hollywood DPs choosing the Panasonic GH4 as the A camera for their next feature film? Nope. It's not useful to obsess about the micro-differences between two cameras. It's far better to actually get (or rent) a camera and spend some time shooting with it.

Keep in mind from context (quoted below) that the OP is potentially not talking about the actual fx3 and more likely is talking about the zve1 and is comparing it to the fx3/a7s3 due to similar sensor. The zve1 doesn't shoot raw. Also, if it's worth mention that recording raw on any of these cameras requires an external recorder which will add $300+ to the price. Also also, that the OP doesn't currently have a video camera or experience (so raw might be questionable choice) 😃

If you haven't used a mirrorless ILC for video before, either camera is more than enough to get started. I'll go back to saying that if you care about a specific feature on one of them, that's probably the one to choose. If not, neither of these cameras will be what holds you back. The differences in dynamic range between the cameras in most practical shooting situations are unlikely to be severe. The A7 IV has some of the best test chart performance for DR of any camera in the industry, similar to my C70 and my GFX 100 II (in 4K with DR boost turned on) - and they are both fantastic. The other one tests about half to a full stop worse? If your exposure is way off or the scene has too much contrast, there's a good chance that the difference won't be enough to save your image. Using similar exposures on my C70 (best DR of any camera under $10k) and my R5 (comes in at like #30 or #40 on cined's charts), the visibilities in DR are different in the form of highlight/shadow details, but it's FAR from night/day.

Is there an existing camera? Sorry if I missed that. If so, which is it? That could also be useful to know.

I'd say that if there is a specific feature that one has which the person cares about (higher frame rate, etc), then go for it. If not, the majority of differences between those cameras will become negligible pretty quickly once you start using them. I try to make sure to go rewatch Reverie every so often. It's a great reminder that the 5D Mark II, released in 2008, could look pretty good in the hands of a Vincent Laforet. Is the quality equal to even an entry-level modern mirrorless camera? Not really. Does it look better than about 40% of short films being made by local filmmakers in my area? Yes. So nobody can tell you which camera is the best one for you. That's a personal decision - but FWIW, between the two cameras that you're looking at, I don't think either one is the WRONG choice, especially if you're just getting started.

You could check the cined lab tests for both. If you do, the a7 iv seems to have better DR (though much worse rolling shutter).

In some ways, this already exists - Atomos are charging to upgrade to AtomOS 11 on older devices. Some vendors have also included paid firmware features (Panasonic with V-log on the GH5 or ProRes on the S5 II). In an ideal world, paid firmware upgrades would incentivize manufacturers to actually invest in them, especially for somewhat older but still popular cameras. In the real world, they would also do it for cameras that are still on the market and try to extract money from existing users even though new users would just get it as part of their purchase (even if the camera ships with older firmware on it (since no stores gonna open all the boxes to update firmware), they usually need to grant the new firmware to prevent RMA count from increasing as people send back devices with outdated firmware). Anyway. I don't like it, but it's where the world is going these days, sadly.

I, for one, can say that I enjoy having internal raw available (even if I don't always use it) and that I have little or no use for 8kp120. I'd also say "Nikon won't enforce their new patent" and "they'll probably license it" are completely incompatible statements. If they don't enforce it, other companies would be stupid to pay for a license. Even if Nikon fought to invalidate the patent in the past, now that they own it, there's a decent chance that their opinions on the validity of the patent have evolved.

I'm not sure if it was brought up before in this thread, but apparently Yaroslav got some new old stock of the Z Cam E1. https://www.soltyscameras.com/product-page/z-cam-e1 I really didn't like mine at all when I had it (and I was so pleasantly surprised by the E2), but as far as I know, it is still the smallest 4K ILC camera ever produced. If you do get, avoid the log profile.

The "X" vignette is basically inherent to variable ND filters - those that don't have it just have a hard stop before it becomes visible. I'd also say that in the real world, having accurate full stop measurements is not that important if you're shooting digital. You have plenty of tools available to dial in your exposure. Plus, in the real world, light rarely perfectly aligns to full stops anyway.

Even if file sizes were totally the same, not every project needs or wants raw. If you need any sort of fast turnaround, a raw workflow is usually incompatible with it. It's great to have options, though! Anybody who has had anything more than a superficial interaction with Atomos will be thrilled to never do any business with them again. With or without Young, they are are garbage company.

I'll be curious about the autofocus. AF is not so important when making cameras with small sensors and fairly wide-angle integrated lenses, but with a big sensor (comparatively) and the potential for fast lenses, it becomes a big deal (at least with a camera that is marketed to be for people who want to record themselves for streaming). If the price is fairly low, pairing it with something like the Olympus 75/1.8 could be kind of great for Zoom calls, etc. If the price isn't low, it won't make a lot of sense, given that one can get any number of APS-C and FF cameras with really decent PDAF/DPAF that support webcam protocols.

It's also a great time to remember to focus on lens portability instead of buying the latest shiny mirrorless lenses. If you use EF lenses, for example, they autofocus well (with PDAF even!) on Fuji, Canon, and Nikon cameras (with the right adapters) (and sort of on Sony, but there are a bunch of asterisks there). Then if you value raw and Nikon decide to prevent everybody else from using it, you can just switch over to their system. Shooting on Red and Nikon switch it to use Z mount? Buy a new adapter and keep rolling. Bonus: EF lenses are plentiful on the used market and you can put together a nice shooting set for a lot less than with the latest mirrorless versions (and almost nobody watching your film is going to care about the quality difference compared with the latest stuff). "What the hell? This film isn't perfectly sharp all the way to the corners? What, did they shoot this on EF LENSES??? I want my money back!"

Fair point. There could be an asterisk on "a bunch of"

My guess is that the core RED stuff will remain largely unchanged for a time. It'd be hard for any business not to love those margins. I think the writing's been on the wall for a little while now, though, that aside from patent IP, RED's time as a viable company is limited. Competition from cameras that cost 1/4 of their prices gets stiffer every year. Otherwise, as others have said, I'd guess that Nikon will now roll out compressed raw to a bunch of their bodies and as soon as they can, end Canon's ability to add compressed raw to any new bodies (is it too late for the R5 II?). Guess I'll start paying more attention to Nikon now...

There’s nothing wrong with wanting longer record times - it’s too bad Fuji didn’t include a socket for the fan that works with the xh2s and the gfx100 II (both of which, ironically, don’t really seem to be prone to overheating). It’s totally valid to say that you record long clips and that a camera which overheats after 10 minutes isn’t for you and it’s equally valid to feel disappointment that a newer camera doesn’t include all of the features and upgrades that you hoped for. Luckily we live in a time when there are lots of fantastic cameras on the market and you can choose one that fits your preferences/needs (like your Ricoh)! 😄

Whenever anybody starts thumping their chest about how good they are at manual focus, I tend to just assume that they’ve never worked with any combination of fast lenses and human talent - that or maybe they’ve never had to explain to the director why that take was unusable because the actor committed the cardinal sin of moving their head an inch…. Or that they’ve never actually tried to be a solo operator for a multi-camera shoot. There are times when manual focus is an art and can be used for excellent expression. There are also times when the only “art” is keeping the talents’ eyes in focus and these days, the machine is much better at that than most humans. I wouldn’t usually shoot an 85/1.2 wide open, but on the occasions when I want to do that, I’d either have to put the talents’ head in a vice or let the machine focus for me.

For me, a 10-minute recording limit is absolutely fine for a pocket camera and 40 megapixels + 6k video offer a really nice upgrade over just using my iPhone. If you want to shoot documentaries/interviews/etc, it’s probably not the best choice. I’d just use other cameras for that (and maybe whip out this camera for BTS or similar). As far as whether the newer Sony bodies would fit in a jacket pocket, I’m guessing they would - but the A6700 (specifically) is only 24 megapixels, has Sony UX and colors, and has no internal ND. I shot Sony for a number of years when they were the only ones making viable full frame mirrorless, but I never really got to a point where they were any sort of a joy to use - it always just felt like using a hammer (a hammer with cruddy menus at that - though I’m told they’re somewhat better now). I still have my old ZV-1 (and maybe an RX100V?) - and one of the reasons I never really considered any of the newer models is that Sony got rid of the internal ND. For a pocket/carry-around video camera, internal ND is pretty huge. (And I’m glad it has f-log!)

Looks really sweet - I put in a preorder. Could be the perfect jacket-pocketable walk-around camera. The built-in ND filter makes me really happy. What features does it lack that I’d want (and that aren’t completely unreasonable)? Internal ProRes Raw over HDMI recording (at least I don’t see this on Fuji’s site) log recording(?) (not listed in the specs on Fuji’s site, guess I need to watch more reviews to see if they just aren’t mentioning it (though Eterna helps to mitigate the sadness for lacking raw)) Full-size HDMI (this one is a bit petty, though, given the camera’s size) Makes me a better photographer somehow (I keep buying cameras and my mediocre talent seems to stay completely constant!)

Since they’re using a Raspberry Pi CM4 as the base for the camera, keep in mind that it’s still possible that TC and/or audio will be over USB - it’s just that it might be a USB device that sits inside the camera where the user can never see it. I think I’ve seen some CM4 boards that offer a 3.5mm jack so audio might be onboard without needing another adapter - but for TC, it depends, I’m sure, on how long it takes to implement TC right (given how much I see sound people complaining about how poorly various cameras support it, I’d guess it’s a harder problem than it seems). 😅

FWIW, the debate about USB audio may be irrelevant - the write up on newsshooter says that they plan to add a dedicated 3.5mm ltc time code port and 3.5mm mic and headphone jacks. Overall, it looks pretty cool to me. If they really can deliver it at less than $1k, I’ll likely be a customer.

If your budget is decent, the Canon R5 is really not much larger to begin with when compared with the Sigma fp, does decent 12-bit raw internally, and has a decent flippy screen. By the time the fp is rigged to do 12-bit raw (and you add a small grip so you can actually hold the thing!), it’s already about the same size as the R5 (and still has a fixed screen). It’s one of the reasons I sold my fp and fp-l and kept my R5. Sometimes I thought about shoving the fp into a small space without a screen to get something, but then I remembered there’s no built-in wifi and by the time you add even the smallest cineeye/hollyland transmitter to it, it’s… about the same size as the R5. 😛 If the new BMMCC 4K can do monitoring over wifi to a phone and can do 12-bit raw to a really small external SSD (like a Sabrent Nano or something), it could work well for that kind of thing. If not, by the time you add an external screen (even the VL35) and small SSD, you have a kit about the size of an R5 (with worse ergonomics). (With that said, your computer’s likely to be able to edit raw from the BMMCC a lot more smoothly than from the R5 - my M2 Max is just barely tolerable with R5 stuff in Resolve) Also, I’d add in (though I haven’t used) a hacked EOS M as an option for a teeny tiny camera that can record raw internally. From what I remember, it can do some sort of 2.5k, though that might only be in a 2.35 mode or similar.

The 50mm f/1 Noctilux vignettes like crazy on full frame.

I’d go a different way entirely and say that instead of many of the things suggested above, you could spend about $4-5k and get a used C70. The only thing you’ll miss is a somewhat boxier form factor. 😉