Now In Stock - Value Priced Panasonic GH4 and G6 Bundles at Adorama!

For shooters looking to buy the GH4, it's now back in stock at Adorama - and for just $10 over the $1697.99 body only price, you can get a GH4 bundle with a camera bag, a 32GB SD card and more.

For shooters on a budget who don't need 4K or Quicktime, Adorama also has a great value-for-money Panasonic G6 bundle with kit lens, extra battery, SD card and more for $699.99.

These are great deals for the best still/video hybrid cameras on the market in their respective price ranges.

Brand new Sony A7s marked down to $2265.51 - due to competition from the GH4?

If you need a full frame camera that outputs 8-bit 4:2:2 UHD video and can pretty much see in the dark, here's a brand new A7s for over $200 less than list price at 6th Ave Express via eBay. Compatible with your Canon lenses with a $374 Metabones Canon EF to NEX Smart Adapter.

Another Canon blog says, "It's time to move on and say goodbye to the Mark III"

In the course of his terrific short review of the new $2498 Sony A7s, Johnnie Behiri of cinema5d joins the chorus of Canon bloggers who are either leaving Canon themselves - or explicitly recommending that shooters "move on" from the 5D Mark III.

I happen to agree with Johnnie (and Dave Dugdale and Caleb Pike) on this. The $3000+ 5D Mark III is not a very good value for money for video shooters at this point - especially now that it has lost its competitive advantage as the only moire-resistant full frame video-capable camera in the marketplace.

Like the GH4, the full-frame A7s meets or beats the 5D Mark III's image quality without forcing shooters to deal with a on old-fashioned fixed LCD, lack of video viewfinder, poor codec selection and soft 1080p.

Johnnie also prefers the A7s' full-frame look to the GH4's at 1080p - even though the Sony is a 30 minute, region-locked camera with no internal 4K recording (and its external 4K ouput is 8-bit).

As you can tell from this list, I differ a little from Johnnie here. I need a video camera with hours of continuous recording, a battery that will last me all day and internal 4K for future-proofing.  The full-frame look doesn't make up for the A7s' lack of these basics, in my view.

But for Canon shooters who are hesitant to move to a micro 4/3 sensor - especially those who want a smart adapter for their EF lenses- the best full-frame video-capable camera on the market right now is the Sony A7s (and I haven't even mentioned its amazing low light capabilities).

To underline how good this camera is (and how good Johnnie is), here's the video that accompanied his review:



Pretty much the only way for Canon to beat the A7s among full-frame afficionados would be to introduce a "1D C lite" 5D Mark IV with internal 4K recording to a decent codec. Or, as Dave Dugdale suggested the other day, they could just lower the price on the 1D C.

It will be very interesting to see what Canon does here.

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Great Price for Open Box Panasonic GH4 at Adorama - Won't Last Long!

Even though my used GH4 came in last week, I promised you that I would keep looking for used cameras deals for you - and I found one! This open box Panasonic GH4 is just $1613.09 from Adorama!

At this price, my guess is that this camera won't be there for long. If you want a GH4 right now, and don't want to pay full retail - click here or on the picture above to order this barely used, factory warrantied unit.

If it's already sold, and you're ready to order at full price, you can click on the display ad below. It won't cost you anything extra, and it will help keep these posts coming. Thanks for your support for the Hybrid Camera Revolution!

Which is better for Chromakey - the 4K compressed Panasonic GH4 or the 2.5K RAW Blackmagic Cinema Camera?

Here's a very nicely done video from Paul Shillito at Video-Alchemy, who gives us an in-depth discussion of keying with 10-bit ProRes 422 and uncompressed RAW video from the 2.5K Blackmagic Cinema Camera (BMCC)  - and then compares the results to an 8-bit 4:2:0 compressed video key from the 4K Panasonic GH4.

In this 15:25 video, Paul does a 9 minute, detailed walk through of the setup - and then about 6 minutes of side-by-side conclusions. If you'd like to cut straight to the bottom line, please click here.

It would be reasonable to expect that the 8-bit compressed video would not hold up well to the key as uncompressed RAW - but let's take a look at the video and see:




So - to my eyes at least, compressed 4K looks clean enough for a production quality key. This should be interesting to two groups of people. First, those who have already bought their GH4s, and who have had concerns that they'll need to buy an external 10-bit recorder to get a clean key. Those folks can relax - internally recorded 4K works just fine.

The second group is those who have hesitated before buying the GH4 because they were concerned about this issue. Those folks can relax too - and go ahead and order their cameras.  The best price for an in-stock GH4 right now is $1793.95 at Cameta via eBay.

Panasonic releases firmware update v1.1 for the GH4

Updated!

A little mysteriously, Panasonic's description of the update (download it here) is limited to: "Improved [sic] the reliability of video recording performance."

Perhaps this is to reduce the incidence of crashes? My GH3 would crash sometimes (not often), but it was a PITA. I haven't shot with the GH4 enough to crash it, but, in his review, Dave Dugdale does mention a few crashes he had with his test camera. Hopefully, upgrading to firmware v1.1 means that my new GH4 will never crash :)

Sony A7s Now In Stock and Shipping from Adorama and Amazon!

You have to give it to Sony. When they promise a camera on the first of July, they deliver it on the first of July! The amazing full frame Sony A7s is now in stock and shipping at Adorama, Amazon and B&H.

Some reviewers who've shot with it like it better than the GH4. Here's one of the earliest and best examples of what the A7s can do from W. Ashley Maddox of Missionary Films:




In an interview over on newsshooter.com, Ashley says, "The buttons took about an hour to get used to – compared to days that it took for me to get used to the Panasonic GH4’s buttons" and "Editing [A7s footage] was way easy compared to the GH4 and FS700 in S-Log 2. I found that the noise was low. And when there was noise, it had a natural grain look to it vs. the muddy blacks that I am seeing in the GH4".

For shooters who are accustomed to Sony menus, who really really want mirrorless full frame with great low light performance, don't mind buying an external recorder to get UHD, and who don't need 10 bit output or true 4096x2160 4K, this may be the right camera.

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