Help The Camera Manufactures Choose Must Have Features

[DBounce]

Please try to limit the amount of answers to this poll. This should help in prioritizing features.

[KnightsFan]

"None of the above"

Honestly "price" is the only really important thing for me from the list above. Compared to my NX1, the only improvements I would want are:

- 10 bit HEVC. That's why I put robust codec, though Raw is not something I'm interested in so I think that option in the poll means the exact opposite of what I mean by robust codec.

- EF adapter with aperture control (which is why I put lens selection--basically all I want is to be able to adapt EF lenses and control aperture).

- Less rolling shutter

- Better low light

- FF or at least APS-C, so I can use vintage lenses properly

- Timecode sync

- Higher frame rates in 4k

- DC power input for external batteries or tethering

Pretty much everything on the list is "nice to have but don't really care." Obviously for things like "dynamic range" and "battery life" it's important, but as long as it's on par with the average DSLR/M cameras from the last few years that's sufficient.

Edit: added a few things

[Video Hummus]

I want em all!

I tried to limit to three but ended up picking four.

Dynamic range, IBIS, built in ND, and weather sealing / build quality.

I wish Olympus would do better for video. I really love their build quality. They are truly rugged and weather sealed. 

[Jimmy G]

2 hours ago, DBounce said:

Please try to limit the amount of answers to this poll. This should help in prioritizing features.

Wish I could accommodate your wishes here but my #1 desire is for a global shutter, first and foremost, beyond all other desires...in a consumer-priced camera...yes, consumer-priced...just like my first serious movie camera, the consumer-priced, Super-8 shootin', Canon 1014XLS, from back in the late-'70s, which gave me all that glorious global shutter real-film look because, well, it was film. Y'see, I'm getting older now, going to be on Medicare in a few short years, so I sure do hope it's in the new S1H, or a GH6 (like it should have been in that 5D Mark II and a7S II I spent all that damn money on! ha!)...global shutter, yep, that, would make me smile.

:)

[sanveer]

Considering the majority of Canon's cameras don't do 14 stops (does ANY Canon do 14 stops???), it's amazing that people chose 14 stops of dynamic range, whereas the majority of cameras don't d 14 stops or over, especially if they are smaller than Full Frame (and aren't Nikon). Even the S1R makes it to the 14 Stops Club, by a whisker. Only the last 1-2 generation of Sony sensors seem to be hitting 14 stops and over. 

What about:

1. Usable ISO of atleast 12800 for video and a stop less for stills. 

2. No or Negligible crop in 4k video.

3. Excellent colours out of the camera, so that one can save turn around time, where one absolutely needs to.

4. 14 Stops of Dynamic Range for Stills and Atleast 12 stops for Video.

5. High frame rate video and multiple frame rate and bitrate options. Atleast 120fps 1080p video and a good Log profile.

6. Usable photo burst with continuous autofocus.

 

Also, except for Olympus and Panasonic, none of the other cameras can vouch for IBIS being usable for video. It only applies for photos, and walking in video with the IBIS is going to be pretty much useless. 

 

[DBounce]

15 minutes ago, sanveer said:

Considering the majority of Canon's cameras don't do 14 stops (does ANY Canon do 14 stops???), it's amazing that people chose 14 stops of dynamic range, whereas the majority of cameras don't d 14 stops or over, especially if they are smaller than Full Frame (and aren't Nikon). Even the S1R makes it to the 14 Stops Club, by a whisker. Only the last 1-2 generation of Sony sensors seem to be hitting 14 stops and over. 

What about:

1. Usable ISO of atleast 12800 for video and a stop less for stills. 

I think that’s going to happen anyway 

2. No or Negligible crop in 4k video.

Same as above

3. Excellent colours out of the camera, so that one can save turn around time, where one absolutely needs to.

Great color science... can’t disagree with this.

4. 14 Stops of Dynamic Range for Stills and Atleast 12 stops for Video.

I think the mark has moved to 14 plus for video with the newer Sony sensors... Canon will need to keep up.

5. High frame rate video and multiple frame rate and bitrate options. Atleast 120fps 1080p video and a good Log profile.

Forgot about slow-mo. I know it’s a must have for some.

6. Usable photo burst with continuous autofocus.

This should be standard on all hybrids.

Also, except for Olympus and Panasonic, none of the other cameras can vouch for IBIS being usable for video. It only applies for photos, and walking in video with the IBIS is going to be pretty much useless. 

I think there’s some compromises that need to happen to accommodate higher resolution, more DR, more FPS, no crop etc... because all of these features generate heat. And to cool the sensor it needs a heat sink and maybe heat pipes... and that means forgoing IBIS.

I believe electronic image stabilization is the answer to this problem... weather in camera or in post with gyroscopic metadata. 

 

 

[thebrothersthre3]

Dynamic Range

Auto Focus

Large detailed screen(also bright) 

To me Dynamic range really gives the high end look, coupled with 10 bit or higher color depth imo.

Auto focus is huge at least if its as good as what Sony is doing with the A6400. 

A 5in screen that is very bright would be really helpful to have on most cameras. Saves me having to have a monitor on top of the camera. Being able to see what you are shooting is highly underrated lol. 

 

[anonim]

I'll be modest and minimal - at this moment: update from any manufacturers of Pocket 4k specs and accordingly proportional price for improvements that include absence of fear of bugs, internal SSD slot and 1000 nit flip screen... it will not hurt if olympusian IBIS would be also there.

[thebrothersthre3]

4 minutes ago, anonim said:

I'll be modest and minimal - at this moment: update from any manufacturers of Pocket 4k specs and accordingly proportional price for improvements that include absence of fear of bugs, internal SSD slot and 1000 nit flip screen... it will not hurt if olympusian IBIS would be also there.

A pocket 4k with a 10000 nit flip screen and IBIS(Hey even GH5 level would be great) would be a pretty incredible package. 

[kye]

Interesting poll.   I chose IBIS because I shoot hand-held, size and weight because I have to carry it all day and shoot in places that consumers are welcome but pros aren't.

In terms of the top options (as they are now), I shoot GH5 and so I'm probably quite spoiled, but I don't feel I need more DR, the codecs I have are just fine for my needs, I have great IBIS, I don't care about NDs, price is good already, and I use manual focus anyway as I like the aesthetic.

Great low-light would have been a good option to add to the poll, I think people care about that to some extent.  

[Mako Sports]

5 hours ago, sanveer said:

Considering the majority of Canon's cameras don't do 14 stops (does ANY Canon do 14 stops???), it's amazing that people chose 14 stops of dynamic range, whereas the majority of cameras don't d 14 stops or over, especially if they are smaller than Full Frame (and aren't Nikon). Even the S1R makes it to the 14 Stops Club, by a whisker. Only the last 1-2 generation of Sony sensors seem to be hitting 14 stops and over. 

What about:

1. Usable ISO of atleast 12800 for video and a stop less for stills. 

2. No or Negligible crop in 4k video.

3. Excellent colours out of the camera, so that one can save turn around time, where one absolutely needs to.

4. 14 Stops of Dynamic Range for Stills and Atleast 12 stops for Video.

5. High frame rate video and multiple frame rate and bitrate options. Atleast 120fps 1080p video and a good Log profile.

6. Usable photo burst with continuous autofocus.

 

Also, except for Olympus and Panasonic, none of the other cameras can vouch for IBIS being usable for video. It only applies for photos, and walking in video with the IBIS is going to be pretty much useless. 

 

I believe the C700 is the only Canon doing 14 stops

[Mattias Burling]

None of the consumer stills cameras does 14 stops in video. Canikon manages 13. Sony had something like 11 in the A7sii, might have become better as of late.

[Andrew Reid]

Seems so far the important stuff is in this order:

1. Dynamic range
2. Raw / Codec
3. IBIS
4. AF and ND a slightly distant 4th

For $350 I think the 70D with Magic Lantern would make a lot of people happy, especially with a good vari-ND and IS lens.

For $1250 not hard to see why the BM Pocket 4K camera is so popular

But what really comes closest to being strong at DR, Codec, IBIS and AF is the Olympus E-M1X which nobody bought

It has very good dynamic range in Oly LOG, a very robust high bitrate DCI 4K codec, the world's best IBIS system and phase-detect AF that demolishes the GH5's CDAF.

Some things are missing from the list like colour science. I might make a poll myself.

[Mattias Burling]

12 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

Some things are missing from the list like colour science. I might make a poll myself.

I made a poll asking about Underrated Camera Features. 39% out of 2300 votes went to color science.

I also did one for Overrated Features with 64% out of 2400 votes going for Dual Card Slots. 

*It's supposed to say IBIS but unfortunately YouTube doesn't allow editing of polls.

[Andrew Reid]

Interesting stuff. I think colour science is a big one. Comes for free with RAW, but what I'd like to see is the ability to bake a LUT into a ProRes recording in-camera. Saves grading time in post and speeds up the edit.

Dual Card slots causes a big hype and debate... I think that's why people feel it is overrated. I think it's a small feature but a critical one for pro work. If a single card does fail then it's an irreplaceable data gone and imagine if you lose somebody's wedding... disaster. There is no need NOT to do dual card slots on a pro camera, especially a $3000+ one, and it has hurt the Nikon Z series so badly in shops with photographers.

I think it could be interesting to split a poll up into sub-categories, as big features lumped with small features will always show the big features coming out on top, but that's not to say smaller features aren't also important.

[Mattias Burling]

None of the pros I work with use dual card slots for backup. It's just more space. Then again, none of us shoot weddings. But it's not like we can ask for a reshoot either.

In my mind, it's more likely that the camera is the issue, not the card. When ever I have had a problem in the past, dual slots would just have meant twice the number of corrupt files.

Regarding color science it's just as important in raw for me (at least for stills). It's all about keeping the time spent in post to a minimum. Time really is money.

[DBounce]

I did consider color science,  but there seems to be some debate as to if color science is real (which I'm convinced it is). Some cameras definitely appear to have mojo.

The real reason that color science was omitted, was because it's so hard to pin down. While I'm convinced all the manufacturers believe it's important,  that doesn't mean they will get it right... even if we all selected it as our single must have feature. 

What Fuji is doing with their film emulations is pretty cool.. I do wish they could add film grain to video also. 

The fact that DR is rating so strong,  means that there is room for improvement on virtually all the current mirrorless cameras. I'm certain those enhancements will convert to sales. 

[Avenger 2.0]

14 minutes ago, Mattias Burling said:

None of the pros I work with use dual card slots for backup. It's just more space. Then again, none of us shoot weddings. But it's not like we can ask for a reshoot either.

In my mind, it's more likely that the camera is the issue, not the card. When ever I have had a problem in the past, dual slots would just have meant twice the number of corrupt files.

Regarding color science it's just as important in raw for me (at least for stills). It's all about keeping the time spent in post to a minimum. Time really is money.

Have already had sd cards fail on me (SanDisk extreme pro). Most of the time just some corrupted images but also a whole card. For wedding I would always use dual cards. Other less critical events, things you can reshoot or backup on site, one card is fine. Never had a camera generating corrupt files on both cards (unless a single battery dies). Does not frequently happen (at least with Canon) I think.

[Andrew Reid]

36 minutes ago, Mattias Burling said:

None of the pros I work with use dual card slots for backup. It's just more space. Then again, none of us shoot weddings. But it's not like we can ask for a reshoot either.

In my mind, it's more likely that the camera is the issue, not the card. When ever I have had a problem in the past, dual slots would just have meant twice the number of corrupt files.

Regarding color science it's just as important in raw for me (at least for stills). It's all about keeping the time spent in post to a minimum. Time really is money.

I agree with the RAW colour science... Easiest thing is to open a raw file from a cherished Leica M9 in Photoshop and within seconds you have it looking wonderful... Whereas do the same with a Sony A7S II and you are deep into presets and HSL before getting it anywhere close. It's very time consuming.

The Adobe Camera Raw defaults are very important.

Sure, RAW is very malleable but changes take time especially on hundreds of shots.

In video it's the same, different scenes and shots call for different processing... which can take hours and hours away from the actual edit and shooting.

Sometimes it's quicker to get it right in-camera with video.

25 minutes ago, DBounce said:

What Fuji is doing with their film emulations is pretty cool.. I do wish they could add film grain to video also. 

The fact that DR is rating so strong,  means that there is room for improvement on virtually all the current mirrorless cameras. I'm certain those enhancements will convert to sales. 

Yep absolutely agree DR has biggest room for improvement, it's not progressed as fast as resolution, that's for sure.

Thanks for the poll. Food for thought.

I've done one as well, an expanded version. Check it out.

[Mako Sports]

Not running dual card slots is risky af. Run a single slot, have a bunch of corrupted video files and what do you tell the client? "Most pros don't run dual slots"

 

Even if you have the time and money to reshoot,  good luck convincing them to hire you again after that.