It’s here, yes it is finally here you are not seeing things. In what may be the most anticipated camera release in years, Sony has finally unveiled the a7s III video-centric mirrorless camera. It has all the new performance benefits of processing and AF seen on other Sony bodies but now applied to a 12 Megapixel back-illuminated full-frame sensor geared to shoot pristine 4k and be able to shoot stills as a secondary function. The original 5D from Canon shot 12.8 MP in 2005 when it was introduced and it is still being used out there by many professionals as it was and still is a wedding workhorse. However 15 years later which in the camera world seems like a century, we get a brand new Sony camera with 12MP and that is actually a great thing!
The slow motion on this camera has a lot of good but also some hidden secrets that you should know about before plunking your hard-earned cash. We get what may be the best 120fps 4k footage we have seen in any camera under 10k USD at full 4:2:2 10 bit quality which after looking at the samples left us with nothing but praise to see such a well-executed mode with the added benefit of being able to shoot nearly 1hr worth of it before the camera temperature spoils the party. Excellent performance!→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
Canon has now released the final specs and estimated release dates for the EOS R5 and R6 cameras. There is a lot of good advancement in features especially in video mode as what many believe is an afront to Sony and Panasonic who dominate video recording on ILCs. The R5 can record 24fps and 30fps 8k video or 8192 x 4320 pixels in RAW quality which is a staggering 1TB of storage or 2600 Mbits/s for only 51 minutes of recording time. That means that every hour you will eat up through a full TB of your RAID backup storage. We see this mode being transcoded to an intermediate format like Blackmagic RAW or BRAW or Apple ProRes as soon as possible.
There is more bad news, on the 120fps 4k front there is no other option of recording but All-I which saves every frame independently in 10-bit 4:2:2 which is good for excellent quality but at the cost of 1,880 Mbits/s which is 224MB/sec or 13,447MB / minute of recording time. Better get a ton of memory cards and hard drives ready!→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
The new trend this year is the selfie mirrorless camera being bundled so that Youtube and other social media Vloggers get a camera that can easily capture what they need with little fuzz. It is no secret that camera sales are in free fall and companies will try to market anything and everything to get some sales. Such is the case with the Panasonic Lumix G100. It has a very nice microphone, a diminutive body, a terrific bright day screen, and a very portable and good enough image from a micro 4/3 sensor.
So why all this negativity? Well for a camera that wants to compete with the smaller 1″ sensor but better overall featured Sony ZV-1 with excellent dual pixel tracking AF; the G100 is limited in a variety of ways. The 5x stabilization will only work in 1080p and be only electronic in 4k. 4k itself only lasts 10 minutes which is very constrained for 2020, maybe for 2016 as a spec but not 4 years later. Dig in for more info!→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
Sony has revealed the ZV-1 Vlogging camera which uses the tried and true technology of the RX100 series and simplifies the body controls plus allows the screen to be of the vari-angle kind to work essentially as a do it all solution for web Vlogs. The body is reminiscent of the latest RX100 VII and very close to the previous generations but with the added benefit of a real video-oriented 360-degree screen.
As an RX Camera it features our favorite slow motion mode of the compact camera world, the Motion Eye or HFR Sony mode which offers up to 1000fps on sub HD resolution at capture time and near 1080p at 240fps with excellent quality. We dive into the camera’s slow motion mode to see if anything has improved from the RX line and if this camera with it’s lower entry price makes more sense to own than the RX100 line.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
We were very skeptical earlier in the year when the R5 specs were just a rumor. Canon has not really been delivering powerful video features out of their Cinema line and we expected this new camera to be a crippled continuation of the trend. We were not only wrong but now know that Canon is banking the future of the EOS line on cameras like the R5 with features that really put it in a class all by itself.
The original video darling was the EOS 5D Mark II which made it possible to use the EOS line of lenses with a video mode that delivered good enough quality for the web and some careful productions. The camera had issues like severe rolling shutter and a tendency to moire and alias so bad that many shots were really ruined. However, the excellent Canon color quality and lens choices made it so popular that it really forced companies to change the video options forever. Now Canon intends to do as big a splash with the introduction of 8k video internally on the new camera.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
Rumors surrounding the 2020 release of the OnePlus 8 phone are already heating up with a tentative May release date and a new camera module that can capture 960fps super slow motion at 720p, a clear step up from their previous phones at 480p. The OnePlus 7T can shoot 960fps but it is an interpolated mode from doubling the frames of 480p by 2x and doing the in-betweens in software.
What is interesting is that OnePlus since the OnePlus 6 has allowed for a full minute of playback in super slow motion from their 480p mode and has been one of the go-to phones for dependable slow motion capture that offers the longest recording time still to this day in higher than 240p modes.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
