Z-CAM quietly announce 8k and 6k FULL FRAME cameras - no joke!

[Laurier]

5 minutes ago, tweak said:

The product isn't for sale yet... Yes maybe it will be that sensor, but talking about products that don't even exist based on having an inkling about the sensor it will have is pretty stupid, which is the part of his posts I'm opposed to.

You talk so much crap it's insane. You clearly haven't had or used either of these cameras. They are totally different cameras, of which I'd argue E2 has many better features, also better colour.

I actually tested both because I was considering the P4k and was interested into the 120fps of the E2.
But that really a matter of opinions at that point, I think you get more for your money with the P4k because its cheaper, already have a screen and better codec options and a resolve licence.

 

But also, I personally think that the sensor is the most important part of a camera, I did download the samples from the Mavo LF and compared to what I get from a A7iii and in prores you get pretty much the same thing.
Not many company sell full frame sensors , Zcam don t manufacture their own sensor, so I think that safe to assume they buy what is on the market , and at that price point there are not many options.

Don t get me wrong , I support the idea of company like Zcam, but in a competitive market such as cameras, I think it s going to be tough to sell a camera at a 2kusd+ price point.

[tweak]

Sensors are important, but doesn't make different cameras the same because of it. P4K, E2, GH5s should tell you that.

P4K is "cheaper" because it lacks many options that the E2 delivers on (full sensor use, anamorphic modes and de-squeeze, multicam pixel level sync, 120fps 4K, etc, etc), also because it has a cheap ergonomic nightmare of a body that batteries get stuck in and dirt/dust gets trapped in. It doesn't surprise me at all that it's cheaper than E2, if P4K were the same price it would be a rip off in comparison.

Personally I bet Zcam will sell a ton of their cameras over the 2K price point.
 

[zerocool22]

32 minutes ago, tweak said:

Sensors are important, but doesn't make different cameras the same because of it. P4K, E2, GH5s should tell you that.

P4K is "cheaper" because it lacks many options that the E2 delivers on (full sensor use, anamorphic modes and de-squeeze, multicam pixel level sync, 120fps 4K, etc, etc), also because it has a cheap ergonomic nightmare of a body that batteries get stuck in and dirt/dust gets trapped in. It doesn't surprise me at all that it's cheaper than E2, if P4K were the same price it would be a rip off in comparison.

Personally I bet Zcam will sell a ton of their cameras over the 2K price point.
 

You are underselling the pocket 4K here though. It has a 5" monitor build in its body, they could address some of these features in a firmware update. Not sure if they will though. But nothign can touch the pocket 4K cost wise. 

[tweak]

11 minutes ago, zerocool22 said:

You are underselling the pocket 4K here though. It has a 5" monitor build in its body, they could address some of these features in a firmware update. Not sure if they will though. But nothign can touch the pocket 4K cost wise. 

That screen is pretty useless for me personally, but I could see it maybe being useful if you shoot dslr style (something the E2 isn't primarily designed for of course). My use of the P4K was pretty awkward, maybe it's just me but that screen is odd to use, I wish they had just given it an EVF and not a screen (also a smaller body). 

They wont be addressing any of those things in BM firmware updates, they have already said that. Also it will never have anamorphic modes as BM have said it's a 16:9 sensor, which really makes me question whether it is indeed the exact same sensor as E2 or GH5s in the first place.

Don't get me wrong P4K is an amazing buy, so is E2.

[thebrothersthre3]

I personally love the E2 form factor. I am tired of dealing with DLSR bodies and their tiny internal batteries. Only thing missing internal ND's. If they had that I would probably be sold on them. Prores + H265 and H264 is a huge win as well. 

[eatstoomuchjam]

2 hours ago, Laurier said:

I actually tested both because I was considering the P4k and was interested into the 120fps of the E2.
But that really a matter of opinions at that point, I think you get more for your money with the P4k because its cheaper, already have a screen and better codec options and a resolve licence.

 

The P4K doesn't really have "better codec options" at this point unless you mean braw - and that will probably be less of a competitive advantage when ZCam release the first version of their raw implementation sometime this month.  Otherwise, the ZCam has ProRes HQ at up to 4kp30 and ProRes 422 at up to 4kp60 as well as h.265 with decent bitrate.  If you tested months ago, the quality of 4kp120 has improved since then - they upped the bitrate on it a bit.  In the next release, they are upping it more (I think to 500 megabits/second).

And you're very likely right about the A73 sensor - or something similar to it.  In general, if you check the features of a Z-Cam vs a list of modern Sony sensors, you'll find that they align really nicely.  It's why people keep asking about 4kp120 in the bigger sensor cameras and getting turned down.  None of the bigger Sony sensors support it.

The BMPCC4K is a great camera and a fantastic value, no doubt about it, but the E2 is also excellent and I'm glad I bought it over the BM.  I love that I can rig it on a big heavy shoulder rig with huge EF lenses and F-970/V-mount batteries for long life... or I can throw on a tiny Micro 4/3 prime like the Panasonic 14/2.5 or 20/1.7 and put in an F550-type battery and have a super tiny light camera.

The lack of a built-in screen is mitigated very nicely by being able to wire in my phone as a screen which I very much prefer to using wifi - it gives me an excellent 5" or so low-latency screen with a built-in battery.  Not bad.

[thebrothersthre3]

8 hours ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

The P4K doesn't really have "better codec options" at this point unless you mean braw - and that will probably be less of a competitive advantage when ZCam release the first version of their raw implementation sometime this month.  Otherwise, the ZCam has ProRes HQ at up to 4kp30 and ProRes 422 at up to 4kp60 as well as h.265 with decent bitrate.  If you tested months ago, the quality of 4kp120 has improved since then - they upped the bitrate on it a bit.  In the next release, they are upping it more (I think to 500 megabits/second).

And you're very likely right about the A73 sensor - or something similar to it.  In general, if you check the features of a Z-Cam vs a list of modern Sony sensors, you'll find that they align really nicely.  It's why people keep asking about 4kp120 in the bigger sensor cameras and getting turned down.  None of the bigger Sony sensors support it.

The BMPCC4K is a great camera and a fantastic value, no doubt about it, but the E2 is also excellent and I'm glad I bought it over the BM.  I love that I can rig it on a big heavy shoulder rig with huge EF lenses and F-970/V-mount batteries for long life... or I can throw on a tiny Micro 4/3 prime like the Panasonic 14/2.5 or 20/1.7 and put in an F550-type battery and have a super tiny light camera.

The lack of a built-in screen is mitigated very nicely by being able to wire in my phone as a screen which I very much prefer to using wifi - it gives me an excellent 5" or so low-latency screen with a built-in battery.  Not bad.

I know the image quality is very good but how do you like the color science? 

[tweak]

4 hours ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

I know the image quality is very good but how do you like the color science? 

Using the OFX Zcam plugin it's my favourite affordable camera to work with so far. If you want Alexa colours you can get them with ease. Most the tests I've seen are from people who hardly know how to use a camera let alone the E2. If I compare it to my GH5 colours (and ease of use manipulating those colours and whitebalance/ exposure) it's worlds apart.

[eatstoomuchjam]

19 hours ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

I know the image quality is very good but how do you like the color science? 

I won't use the term "color science" because it's really dumb in the context of a fairly simple matrix operation to map values read from the sensor to values to be output to a file.  However, the colors coming right out of the camera look really nice to me - and the footage is really flexible.

The camera's biggest weakness right now is audio.  It really needs a powered mic to get decent performance.  The engineers have promised an improvement with the next firmware release.

The camera's second biggest weakness is CAF performance.  It's really decent for contrast AF and is generally passable, but not a thing I would rely on for anything I cared about (though the human tracking mode is surprisingly good).  For this, they are experimenting with add-on modules (ultrasonic and lidar have both been mentioned).  We'll see what comes of that.

Other than those two things, just about everything is really great.  It's really shocking how much things improved between the E1 and the E2.  If they didn't have the same logo, I wouldn't believe the cameras were made by the same company.  I'm really happy with my purchase and I'm likely to jump on the preorder to get the APS-C camera with a m43 mount. 

[tweak]

3 hours ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

I'm really happy with my purchase and I'm likely to jump on the preorder to get the APS-C camera with a m43 mount. 

I'm thinking about that too, but I also know I should probably just stick to the E2 and worry about other stuff  .

[amanieux]

what is so exciting about a FF z2 for $5k, if nikon z6 can deliver its promise of a uncrippled prores raw via ninja V then for $2900 you get FF raw video + proper monitor  with tool to expose and focus  + a FF compact still camera when you just want to take a few stills travelling light

[newfoundmass]

44 minutes ago, amanieux said:

what is so exciting about a FF z2 for $5k, if nikon z6 can deliver its promise of a uncrippled prores raw via ninja V then for $2900 you get FF raw video + proper monitor  with tool to expose and focus  + a FF compact still camera when you just want to take a few stills travelling light

I generally agree. Guessing higher frame rates / slow motion? 

[zerocool22]

4 hours ago, amanieux said:

what is so exciting about a FF z2 for $5k, if nikon z6 can deliver its promise of a uncrippled prores raw via ninja V then for $2900 you get FF raw video + proper monitor  with tool to expose and focus  + a FF compact still camera when you just want to take a few stills travelling light

Dynamic range and image for one. 

[KnightsFan]

4 hours ago, amanieux said:

what is so exciting about a FF z2 for $5k, if nikon z6 can deliver its promise of a uncrippled prores raw via ninja V then for $2900 you get FF raw video + proper monitor  with tool to expose and focus  + a FF compact still camera when you just want to take a few stills travelling light

It's a diminishing returns thing for sure, but the e2 series cameras have an ergonomic advantage, more frame rate options, and don't require a 5" monitor bolted to the rig to record raw. Up until the e2 series, you needed to pay tens of thousands for a kinefinity or red for those diminished returns, and now its down to $5k. Many ultra low budget people will still opt for a z6, s1, a73, gh5, etc., but if you have a little more money to spend and were already considering more expensive, dedicated cinema cameras, the z cam offerings are amazing value.

[andrgl]

42 minutes ago, KnightsFan said:

Up until the e2 series, you needed to pay tens of thousands for a kinefinity or red for those diminished returns, and now its down to $5k.

$54,500 for the MONSTRO 8K VV and $5,995 for the Z CAM E2-F8.

This thing is going to wind up as a B, C and crash cam for so many productions...

[Emanuel]

Well, perfectly natural your point but to strictly call it crash cam range is absolutely lame.

Without mention how someone who loves art tends to see the most part of the pictures produced there, actually : ) That's invariably their outcome to frequently discard instead. Much more often. History tells that.

 

Not enough number of adverbs to express my revolt on the way gear is categorized according to the(ir) price list.

BMD as for instance has proved such nonsense.

It is only a matter of numbers. Bucks. Not bit rate nor pixels. The box office numbers or its potentiality, not even the effective cost price of manufacturing. Let alone R&D.

A capitalist thing. Nothing against. But call it the name it has. No other. Crash cam is a shame.

 

Just my two cents, though (E : -)

[tweak]

7 hours ago, amanieux said:

what is so exciting about a FF z2 for $5k, if nikon z6 can deliver its promise of a uncrippled prores raw via ninja V then for $2900 you get FF raw video + proper monitor  with tool to expose and focus  + a FF compact still camera when you just want to take a few stills travelling light

 

6 hours ago, newfoundmass said:

I generally agree. Guessing higher frame rates / slow motion? 

 

3 hours ago, zerocool22 said:

Dynamic range and image for one. 

Yep the things you usually pay more for, DR, Ease of use, colours, internal recording, higher framerates, better build quality, constant firmware updates + smaller size for use on gimbals and in tight spaces. 

Another thing that no one seems to have cared to discuss yet is how Zcam are making small cameras with no vents that don't even get hot shooting 4K 120fps... meanwhile other brands overheat with lower frame rates in much bigger bodies.

[zerocool22]

6 hours ago, tweak said:

Another thing that no one seems to have cared to discuss yet is how Zcam are making small cameras with no vents that don't even get hot shooting 4K 120fps... meanwhile other brands overheat with lower frame rates in much bigger bodies.

I wonder how battletested these Zcam camera's are though. I will take some time before users start to trust their products(warranty/support/reliable) as they are still the new kids on the block, even kinefinity still struggles with that. Buy maybe they have great engineers who knows, time will tell. 

[tweak]

14 minutes ago, zerocool22 said:

I wonder how battletested these Zcam camera's are though. I will take some time before users start to trust their products(warranty/support/reliable) as they are still the new kids on the block, even kinefinity still struggles with that. Buy maybe they have great engineers who knows, time will tell. 

Yeah, ultimately time will tell. But the small amount of issues I've seen them have so far they've dealt well (and quickly) with. Most "issues" however have been user error, not issues at all.

"A whole batch of Z CAM E2 have been working 7/24 under waterflawlessly for two months. All is well!" - Kinson Loo.

I guess that's some good news haha.

[amanieux]

10 hours ago, zerocool22 said:

Dynamic range and image for one. 

isn't there a 90% chance of having a sony FF sensor in both zcam e2 and nikon z6 ? if it is raw (real raw i mean, uncompressed or lossless compressed data) then DR and image should be exactly the same no ?