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Z-CAM E2 camera is coming with 4K at 120fps
  • 336 Replies sorted by
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Preorders

    http://www.z-cam.com/e2/

  • eatstoomuchjameatstoomuchjam

    @IronFilm

    they're making steady progress, going to get ProResRAW it seems.

    Oliver Daniel Price Jason Zhang, will the Z Cam output the latest RAW format alongside this YUV 422 codec you've applied for?

    Jason Zhang No

    (from https://www.facebook.com/groups/zcame2/permalink/246476342749985/)

    They are working on licensing some as-yet-unnamed YUV422 codec, but have absolutely not promised any sort of raw and have said they don't plan to support it. In addition in the same post, Jason says that for 4kp120, they only intend to support h.265 at 250 megabits/second.

  • DrDaveDrDave

    Looks good.

  • eatstoomuchjameatstoomuchjam

    Kinson says that production is coming along. Who knows? Maybe I'll get my early bird soon (and I'll cross my fingers that v1 of this guy is better than v1 of the e2 was)....

    https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10156559602153390&set=gm.254528685278084&type=3&ifg=1

  • FirworksFirworks

    Woah I didn't realize it was that small. That is incredible. I'm still so torn... I am beginning to think the E2 would be a smarter buy than the BMPCC4K for me. I've preordered the Black Magic but I'm getting more and more worried about working with the 4K pro-res rather than H264/H265.

  • eatstoomuchjameatstoomuchjam

    Why would you be worried about working with Prores? It's an excellent codec that is well-supported by most/all major editors.

  • eatstoomuchjameatstoomuchjam

    Also, for whatever it's worth, Black Magic is a company that has a history of delivering cameras (and capture cards/editors/other production gear) with generally good image quality that people use to get real work done.

    Z-Cam is a company that has a history of making two cameras, one of which was nearly completely unusable when it was released and which, after several firmware updates, has achieved a status of "sort of adequate." Given how quickly they are releasing the E2, I'd expect early bird orders like mine to be more akin to a "beta tester" order.

  • FirworksFirworks

    I have the BMPCC right now and it's just a lot of added work to put the footage through Resolve before editing in PP. Taking a huge Pro-Res file, and then exporting it in an even more gigantic format just to pull into PP for editing and render is a lot of work for quick turnaround stuff. For projects that are more artistic or for fun it's not a big deal and will be nice but I'm just hoping it doesn't slow me down too much for YT stuff.

    I'm also still a bit worried about matching with my G85 and G7 for multi-cam. I'm still learning how to work with the Blackmagic image and colors (that's why I got the BMPCC when I preordered the 4K version). I almost wonder if I might start shooting some stuff BMPCC4K and BMPCC rather than trying BMPCC4K and G85.

  • eatstoomuchjameatstoomuchjam

    Are you using an older version of Premiere Pro? I use Prores in Premiere all the time and I'm on Windows... The Resolve step seems unnecessary. If you're shooting raw on the BMPCC, you'd need to transcode to another format before bringing it into Premiere (unless newer versions of Premiere can import it natively? I haven't had any reason to try for a while now)

  • FirworksFirworks

    Premiere Pro is fine working with Pro-res files. The problem is in grading the footage for use. I've tried using Lumetri to grade the BMPCC footage and I cannot get anything even passable out of it. The BM LUT in DaVinci gets me 99% of the way to footage I'm happy with and I can tweak it a bit off that. I even exported the .cube out of Resolve and imported it as a LUT into Premiere Pro but it provides very different results than the same LUT in Resolve.

  • eatstoomuchjameatstoomuchjam

    OK, that sounds less like a Prores vs h.264 problem and more like difficulties in grading footage from a specific camera. In that case, I'd probably just edit entirely in Resolve (in fact, that's what I'm doing lately anyway). :)

  • eatstoomuchjameatstoomuchjam

    The latest comments from Jason in the facebook group indicate that they have production models of the camera and are ready to start shipping. Exciting! This might also explain why the E1 is listed as discontinued now.

    https://www.facebook.com/groups/zcame2/permalink/213010226096597/?comment_id=293968828000736&reply_comment_id=296921624372123&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R8%22%7D

  • markr041markr041

    They promised at the meetings where the Z Cam E2 was introduced that there would be another firmware upgrade for the Z Cam E1 (it's in the video, you can check). Liars. So, who knows what else is not true?

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    They promised at the meetings where the Z Cam E2 was introduced that there would be another firmware upgrade for the Z Cam E1 (it's in the video, you can check). Liars

    It will be 100%. I have assurance from their CEO. Do not worry.

    I am especially interested as some of our teams will be using E1's soon. :-)

  • eatstoomuchjameatstoomuchjam

    Discontinued for sales doesn't have to mean discontinued for firmware upgrades. How long has the GH2 been discontinued?

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    It is very sad to see E1 discontinued, hope they'll have Mark II quite soon.

    Cheap, compact m43 camera.

  • eatstoomuchjameatstoomuchjam

    I ended up selling mine. While the most recent firmware updates improved quality and usability to acceptable, the lack of exposure preview drove me crazy and some of the still-existing usability problems would be difficult to correct without adding more buttons (or a much better mobile app, maybe). I used it as a secondary safety camera for a few things to test it - it was a headache to set it up each time and took time away when I could have been focused on other stuff and in the end, the picture was unremarkable at best, and the low light performance remained fairly poor.

    With that said, I'm excited for the E2. The samples that they've been posting in the group have been pretty exciting and it sounds like they're pretty close to having a usable +3-stop WDR mode.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    @eatstoomuchjam

    Exposure preview is absent from mobile app also?

    Is it auto lenses thing?

  • eatstoomuchjameatstoomuchjam

    @Vitaliy_Kiselev I'm not sure if it's absent from the mobile app. The last time I tried the mobile app, it didn't work well (I think it crashed a couple of times) so I gave up on it. I've seen some others complaining that the mobile app doesn't work well in the Z-Cam E2 group as well. If it's working for you, great!

    Heck, if I'd known you planned to acquire some for your teams, I'd have just donated mine instead of selling it to Adorama. I didn't get a lot (though keep your eye on their site - if it isn't already listed used, it will be soon, I'm sure).

  • MckiniseMckinise

  • eatstoomuchjameatstoomuchjam

    I got the email today. My preorder should ship next week.

  • sammysammy

    They came up with a WDR mode,which they came to get 16 stops of DR .. WIth out it enabled its 13 stops of dynamic range (per the Facebook page).. Here is a test of that mode https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SK1Rdh7Gl7bpmEpFFiSB20o5F0LznY0h/view

  • FirworksFirworks

    Someone asked Kinson Loo about adding BRAW support to the E2 on their Facebook group. He gave an emphatic NO.

  • GrimorGrimor

    Cinemartin will do.

    Fingers Crossed

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  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    @Firworks

    Adding such things to other camera is certainly not free and very hard to do.

    I suppose whole aspect is close to Red in a way that it is made to be implemented in FPGA.

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