eatstoomuchjam

At the high end, I have no idea right now what would convince me to buy anything. I kind of have what feel like "endgame" cameras. What will improve on the Ursa Cine 12K? Especially if it gets AF (I think BMD hinted that there are phase detection pixels in there somewhere). Improve on the Ronin 4D? Maybe if they released a new one with both PDAF and LIDAR. For something lighter than UC12K, but still set up for sticks? I have my K-X. Want something even smaller/lighter? I have an R5 and the OG Komodo. For travel, the GFX 100 II for photos and very nice video - or the R5/Pocket 3 if I want to carry nothing bigger than a 12L backpack. When the R5 II is a lot cheaper, I could see trading in my OG R5 toward it. No rush there at all. When the Pyxis 12K hits the used market, maybe I'd swap out something else for it? The R5 is in many ways the nemesis of me buying small cameras like the S9. Every time I think about it, I look one one of the sites that lets you compare camera sizes and realize that the only reason the R5 is bigger is that it has an EVF (which I like) and a grip (which matters less with small lenses, but I don't dislike having it with them either). But part of my plan in the first part of this year was to stack my stuff before tariffs hit in force since prices for everything would be going up. Now my wallet is crying and no real reason to get any sort of new camera for a while. Even the Insta360 X5 - I bought it, played with it, decided it won't give me $700 of enjoyment that my older One RS 360 edition isn't giving me, and it's back in the box and getting sent back for a refund today. If it'd been closer to $300, I'd have kept it and sold the other. But $700, going past the emotional moment of playing with it and having fun, is silly for something that will still have much worse quality than the Pocket 3.

Many of these jokes are about the new Zhiyun X100 RGB which they did in partnership with Cam Mackey. It has his name and roadrunner logo on nearly every possible surface as well as a silly faux-leatherette wrap. I've bought a few YouTuber partner things from brands because they're actually useful/decent (the Potatojet tripod, a few of the SmallRig Caleb Pike batteries (2 100W USB-C ports is neat), even some Gerald Undone HDMI cables from Komodo Blue because the store was out of stock on the normal blue ones and when ordering online, it's hard to know which HDMI cables will actually work as advertised), but that was more despite the branding which was thankfully pretty subtle. The X100, even if I were interested, would be a "no" because the branding is a combination of obnoxious and everywhere. https://store.zhiyun-tech.com/products/molus-x100-rgb?variant=43885286457524

This is where I was going - if Fuji released this camera at $300, I'd totally get it. Or even maybe $500. But... at $850, that's why I say fashion accessory.

FujiFilm have officially announced the anticipated X-Half camera that rumors sites have been talking about since last year. The technical specs are a bit below ho-hum and Fuji decided to go a bit far with film nostalgia, including requiring the user to crank a film advance lever between exposures and setting a limit of frames to match a roll of film. Video specs are about 3/4 of full HD in normal mode at 1440x1080 at up to 24p (recorded in 3:2 format) and there's a "2in1" feature which will do 2880x1440 at 24p, but I don't understand what this is at all from CineD's write-up. Photo resolution is about 12 megapixels (4:3) from the 18 megapixel 3:2 sensor. Retail price will be $850. I hope that there's some incredible... something from this camera once I get around to watching the reviews. Otherwise, it seems to be pure fashion accessory. Otherwise, the cheaper X-M5 and a panacake lens would seem to be a better and almost equally portable option. https://www.cined.com/fujifilm-x-half-camera-announced-when-analog-heritage-and-digital-capabilities-merge-together/

The discounts don't seem to have come to the US, at least not yet. Used bodies are still about $1,200 here and new is still about $1,400 body-only.

I certainly don't follow the mergers or spinoffs of semiconductor companies too closely (and especially not closely since apparently the acquisition happened in 2016, though maybe the Fairchild branding still remains?). 😅 I think they've said "designed and manufactured by BMD," but I'm guessing that's "manufactured" as in "handed money to someone who owns a sensor fab who is probably apparently-former-Fairchild-now-OnSemi" since BMD building a sensor fab would be pretty bonkers.

We all understood your point and you seem to have completely ignored the responses that you quoted. Panasonic don't have to make their own sensors in order to have access to the latest/greatest technology. Other companies like Red, Arri, and BlackMagic don't make their own sensors and go to third-party vendors like TowerJazz, Fairchild, and OnSemi. Each of those three vendors have sensors that are desirable over the sensors made by Sony for various reasons. As to the patents thing you halfway brought up, a google search for Panasonic image sensor patent returns a non-zero number of results. You say Panasonic doesn't have anything to bring to the bargaining table, but you don't seem to actually know that, especially because you make statements like "Canon's DPAF builds on Sony's PDAF" which doesn't make a lot of sense, given that they are radically distinct technologies (sure, DPAF is a form of phase detecting AF, but then, in any realistic way, that sort of phase detection is how every manually-focused rangefinder camera in the history of cameras has worked). But more than any of that, people already brought up specific examples of Panasonic buying sensors from someone other than Sony, including for the GH7 which was announced almost exactly 1 year ago and has the most advanced Micro 4/3 sensor ever made - with PDAF.

To some extent, I think both of these things are related. For the most part, gimbals haven't changed a lot in a long time. Manufacturers got pretty good, a while ago, at making them. If you buy the latest and fanciest gimbal made today, it won't me meaningfully different than a pretty good gimbal from 5-7 years ago. A number of the changes/updates tend to be in other features like having a secondary camera where you can ask the gimbal to track people - or gimbal-integrated focus motors. And really, there's only so much to say in reviews of those things. Otherwise, a DJI will work a lot like a Zhiyun which will work a lot like a Feiyutech, all of which will probably work somewhat better than a Hohem (but the Hohem will probably still get the job done). 😅 Anyway, the Crane 2S is a solid choice! Looking forward to seeing what you shoot with it!

I'd be alright with a smartphone with an M43 sensor and the ability to swap out the integrated lens for M43. Then use like the Panasonic 14/2.5 or the Panasonic 20/1.7 with it - and maybe the Funinon 75mm for portraits. Those lenses are really small/tiny and would fit in any sort of pocket or daypack. But at the point where you're taking a tiny camera and adding a bigass DJI Focus Pro to it, complete with handle, lidar unit, and focus motor, you no longer have a tiny camera. Then add a DOF adapter? Is the goal to just make the weirdest-looking camera in the room?

No need for 1927 technology! As recently as 2018, people were only doing run-and-gun film shoots without the benefit of 32 bits. Heck, even now nearly every sound engineer I film with has a 32-bit capable recorder, but records in 24-bit anyway because they don't feel that 32-bit is needed. The others? Never upgraded to a 32-bit recorder. As far as how people are connecting XLR, on my Reds, I plug in an adapter from the built-in little mini double-XLR port to the XLR mic - after all, using a camera that natively has XLR inputs. A Komodo with that is probably either smaller or nearly the same total volume as a Panasonic S1 with the XLR adapter on top. Z Cam also use a dual mini-XLR port. I bet some models of Black Magic do too. All are 24-bit, of course, and that's enough for most things. On the Ronin 4D, XLR plug into the expansion unit. On the Ursa Cine 12K, there are full-size XLR ports. Otherwise, you already mentioned the CA-XLR2D which is barely any bigger than the Fuji or Sony XLR adapter. That's available for Canon and Fuji. It won't give 32-bit, but as before, 24-bit is still enough for most things. Otherwise, you can just jump up to one of their more cinema-focused bodies. The C70 has mini-XLR. I'd guess something like an FX6 does too. Otherwise, for an unobtrusive rig, one can just simply not use XLR and connect any number of extremely decent non-XLR microphones to the camera's mic input port. One example would be the Deity V-Mic D4, though I'm sure Sennheiser and R0de have some too. Still 24-bit, but for many uses, it's also just fine, just like it was for many years before 2019.

The Jazz Singer was released in October of 1927. That would seem to indicate that people have made sync sound films for about 98 years now. The first commonly-used 32-bit field recorders seem to have been the Zoom F6 and some Sound Devices something-or-other which were released about 6 years ago in 2019. So... I'd expect that people who are shooting non-Sony, non-Panasonic cameras (or who are using those cameras without expensive 32-bit adapters) are probably still doing fine with 24-bit audio that everybody used for the 92 years before that, whether run and gun or otherwise. 😉

I'll look forward to Pyxis 12K bodies hitting the used market. I'm a fan of the UC12K and would love a lighter b camera. It's also worth note that even though it doesn't have it now, and I wouldn't buy a camera based on potential future capabilities, but I don't think that BMD has specifically said yet that there are no PDAF pixels in the 12K sensor and that it wouldn't be something that could be added in the future. I think they're wise to beta their AF firmware on a single camera only for now to work out the kinks, but if they add usable AF to the 12K cameras, I think they know that they have a thing that could compel changes from other systems. Heck, if AF comes to Pyxis, BMD might be the last great hope for L mount!

Not directly, but the Zoom F3 is close to the same size as the Panasonic XLR adapter, but only costs $300 where the Panasonic adapter adds $500. It can mount on top of the Z3 and record 32-bit internally while giving a clean feed to the camera which can record 24-bit internally. While it's less convenient to sync files in post, you would also only have to do that in cases where you actually need 32-bit which, for a vast majority of people, will be rare. Also unlike the Panasonic adapter which will probably only work on Lumix cameras, it will work on any camera you want to use. Less convenient, but the goal is accomplished. https://zoomcorp.com/en/us/field-recorders/field-recorders/f3/ That's also fair enough. I don't rule out that there's much bigger demand for a feature than I'd expect, but that is certainly a weird one. Yes, 3:2 is certainly useful with a 1.5 or 1.6x anamorphic adapter which, at least, gives a bit more of the anamorphic look. Though for a 2x anamorphic, it's still far from ideal since you end up with 3:1 which looks nice, but ends up being a really thin strip on a lot of TV's and monitors and isn't a native aspect ratio on a lot of theater screens.

Not cinematic enough. I fixed it for you. Now that's cinematic.

I get wanting open gate for ratio changes, but 60p? Am I missing something where everything is slowed down 2.5x? Most of what I see is still presented at normal speed, give or take. Or does the excitement mean that this new camera will be the harbinger of a new era of everything online seeming v e e r r r y y y y s s s l l l o o o w w w?

If you're in any sort of mass production, FPGA is substantially more expensive than ASIC - and a lot more power hungry. It's one of the reason that the Z Cam E2 series was so power efficient. It's all ASIC. On the other vendors' cameras, things like H.265 encoding are mostly done with a dedicated coprocessor so it's super-duper efficient. It's one of the reasons that you'll rarely see any of them add a codec post-release. Dedicated silicon is also why encode/decode can be a lot faster on the computer, depending on which processor/GPU is in play.

I dunno - the V-Raptor [X] sensor seems to be a marvel of modern engineering - and while it's designed by RED's engineers, the semiconductor manufacturing is done by TowerJazz. And quite good, if not marvelous, the Komodo and Komodo-X sensors are also made by them and they are fantastic. Plus the GH7 sensor is, from everything I've heard, really really good. My guess is that it's largely a cost-based decision. The off-the-shelf part from Sony has much better economy of scale and it's "good enough" for most things. It's sort of the basis for the Z Cam business model - integrate high-end (though inexpensive) off-the-shelf components and write good software to glue them together. The entire E2 series is basically a wedding of Sony sensors with... I think it's Hisense? Anyway, with another off-the-shelf circuit board. They shove those things into a box and put a lens mount and teeny tiny screen on it. The majority of their R&D is in software. It's not hard to imagine somebody in Panasonic management looking at a price sheet and saying "We could integrate this TowerJazz sensor for $1,200 and get 10% better performance than the Sony sensor which costs $600. Either way, we're going to sell the camera for $3,800. Will we get enough extra sales based on 10% better performance to make up for a $600/unit shortfall?" That's even more the case when you are also supporting budget cameras like the S9 which basically demands a commodity sensor which will come from Sony. So you already have a team of engineers who are familiar with the ins and outs of Sony's sensors and having them also support (or having a different team to support) TowerJazz is also going to be expensive. I have no insight into the actual costs of either vendor, but if you're Red and were selling the Komodo for like $6,000 or $7,000 when it was first released, spending an extra few hundred bucks per sensor ain't so bad because you have enormous margin. BlackMagic are the real outlier here. They seem genuinely less interested in turning a huge profit per unit with their cameras. It's not to say the high end where they use Fairchild isn't expensive, but I'm still a little bit boggled by the UC 12K which, at $7,000 is a lot, but less than 2x an R5 Mark II. Other than the fact that my car's suspension groans when I set the camera on the passenger seat, that is. Well, that and offloading footage from the media module. They really need to release a single module reader with USB-C. Having to offload directly from the camera over 10gE is really silly. It means I'll have the CF Express module in my bag most of the time, just in case we need to offload on-site.

Counterpoint: Did Gerald ever make one? And didn't Panasonic quite literally just invite Andrew to review a camera, but he turned them down? It's a weird time to make that accusation. 😃

I don't have VR goggles, but I do have a 77" TV that's in my dark basement and I usually sit about 8-10 feet from it. I scooch up a bit closer when I want to preview how something will look on a big theatrical screen from 30-40 feet away. If I really want the full experience, though, I'll ask a friend to come chew popcorn and talk while I'm trying to watch it. 😉

Pyxis also does 72p open gate for not a lot more - though it can only do open gate 72p at 8K, 12k is limited to a mere 40. And the UC12K does 12k open gate at 80fps and 8k at 144fps. Komodo-X also does open gate at 80fps, though open gate on K-X is 17:9. All of those cameras support those framerates in raw. I think the S1 II can only do it in 10-bit or less formats, right? Not a deal-breaker, but another limitation. I don't know why anybody acts like shooting high FPS open gate is a hugely exciting feature, though. Is shooting slow motion 3:2 really a huge use case? For the sort of stuff that I shoot, we're usually delivering in scope and overcranking done rarely at best.

... and Black Magic seem to be able to source sensors from Fairchild. And Red from Towerjazz (or at least they did once?). Even if those are exclusive contracts, there are plenty of others able to make image sensors. https://us.metoree.com/categories/image-sensor/ At least in the case of BMD and Red, that also means that they have sensors that are a lot more interesting than others - with Red having a global shutter with similar DR performance (or superior in the case of V-Raptor) to non-global shutters used in most mirrorless cameras. And in the case of BMD, the RGBW sensor in the UC12K and Pyxis is fantastic and a great differentiator vs Sony's offerings. The catch is that there's a big upfront cost in development of those or other sensors and Panasonic are unlikely to invest that - instead focusing on extracting money from customers who are locked in to their mount and from technology licensing deals with Leica.

I've heard a few times that the sensor in the A7 IV is pretty fantastic, though I haven't used it myself. It makes perfect sense to put it in a cine-style body! Less sense to give it a mechanical shutter. Even less sense to do it... now? The A7 IV came out in 2021. Why wait 4 years to release the cine equivalent? And while I know that AI AF on the specsheet is AI Autofocus which has nothing to do with AI and everything to do with actually-useful ML, describing anything as "AI AF" automatically makes me not want it. 😉

Sort of, yes, but it's only a 24 megapixel sensor. The resolution in super 16 mode or super 8 mode would be pretty low. You'd be at 4k in S35, and closer to 2k in M43. 1:1 crop mode on the GH7 would be one of best right now for using S16 or Super 8 lenses. You'd still have decent resolution and probably not be at 720p or less.

Ah, maybe, but I'm saying they could release this exact camera at the same price, but with a different brand/form factor and influencers would go crazy for it. I'm not even trying to create my dream tiny 4k camera that uses my C and D mount lenses (that might be the altcinecam thingie). 😅

One thought is that if Panasonic want to charge a premium for their cameras, especially in this day and age, there's a straightforward path to it. So Panasonic/Lumix marketing folks, if you read this, here is a free suggestion: Panasonic were never huge in cameras until the digital age (yes, I know there were 35mm cameras and no, nobody has nostalgia for the C-D353AF or the C-D900ZM). So find an old film camera brand that people used to love, but is no longer made. Some of the big ones have been eaten by the competitors (e.g. Hasselblad/DJI), but the people who bought Rollei are producing junk with the name - but you could also consider someone like Bronica, Agfa, or Ansco. Or hell, Voigtlander is all lenses now. Maybe they want to sell bodies too. Or for film, you could try grabbing Bell & Howell from the vultures who have been using it to sell crap - or maybe Mitchell or Aaton? Don't think I've seen a digital Mitchell. So let's say Mitchell. So buy or license the beloved film camera brand. Now tweak your SOOC colors a little bit. It doesn't have to be a lot. Just... enough to make the images feel a little more nostalgic to people. I dunno, maybe make them a little browner and a little lower contrast. I'll leave the interpretation of nostalgic up to your capable engineers. Next, instead of a body format based on the design of a 35mm camera, go for a retro-styled look more similar to a Bolex or one of the more art deco-looking super 8 cameras. Think less "SLR" and less "box" and think more "ellipse." Then move away from drab product names that are just a soup of meaningless letters and numbers. Then give a proper release to the camera without getting people jazzed up in advance for something it isn't. When you announce the new Mitchell Fox Grandeur Digital Cinema Camera featuring the exact same feature list as the S1 II, you'll have influencers across the spectrum talking about how beautiful it is and the rich heritage of Mitchell cameras.