The Plateau of Camera Quality

Final Cut Camera, new cameras from Lumix and when will we hit the next camera plateau, with guests Chris Niccolls & Jordan Drake of @PetaPixel

00:00 - Intro
01:05 - Final Cut for iPad & Final Cut Camera
07:43 - Apple Intelligence
14:18 - Apple Vision Pro experience
24:02 - Lumix S9 follow up
31:28 - Lumix GH7
38:22 - The Camera Plateau

[Nate_The_Great]

I think the camera plateau is great, in a way it shifts the focus more on being creative rather than the endless bombardment of future upgrades.

[jonesphotography]

I think you have a huge point with plateauing in the camera world. We are at a point right now that I could pick up a Sony, Canon or Nikon and get the exact same images and not a single human being could tell the difference or care. For example, I was watching a YouTube review of the Nikon Z8 and they said "Here is a sample of the beautiful pictures I was able to capture with the Z8" and they were just of cars at a car show or something. The pictures were nice, but there was absolutely nothing about the images that couldn't have been captured with any other camera and didn't exactly inspire me to go out and buy a Z8. I could have taken my R6 Mark II and gotten the same exact images. What has happened is that people are taking their brands waaaay too seriously now, like they are on sports teams. At the end of the day, no one gives a flying crap if you have a Z6III, an R5 Mark II or an A1. They are all extremly capable, it's just a matter of what ecosystem you want to be in. Everything else is just flexing.

[schoolpost]

The Plateau is also attributable to the widespread adoption of Sony Sensors among all manufactures ( Blackmagic, Panasonic, ZCAM, etc... ) Many of them are competing with exact same sensor, so the differentiation has to be made up in other areas ( Body style, User interface / User Experience, Codec, Lens mount, etc... )

Would be great to see more competition in the CMOS sensor space. Maybe even a resurgence or revival of some older CCD tech?

[StoicJason]

Everyone: All cameras are the same!
Fuji Autofocus: 🤪

[Mel-]

Really nice to see you guys chat in a relaxed format with Tyler hosting. I drifted along with you. Before I knew it, I had watched the whole show. More please.

[EdwardsNH]

I mean... you could cut the echo down a little by at least covering the table with a soft throw blanket. Great content!

[JoeyHoogendoorn]

For me (not a pro) most cameras are still just lacking in how it's integrated with a phone app, quick sharing of videos and photos, how simple it should be to update firmware etc. Even though most of the time I'll edit later on my laptop, I can imagine there are many consumers who don't necessarily want to or just want to be able to do quick stuff on their phone.

Agree that something like built-in ND filters on more cameras would be amazing if the body size can stay the same. This can make a big difference in how much video I shoot when travelling, especially if I'm doing photos at the same time.

[Smart-Alex]

"Jordan nose cam" - Definitely a premium upgrade

[VynZography]

Thanks for recording this video using your iPhones. It's convinced me to not sell my proper cameras just yet.

[PPLRRN]

No, dont lose the HDMI. They may not use external recorders, but you can still use it at home with a video capture card. And they also wont probably monitor their audio anyways. Just slap in a Video Mic NTG or something and use the zero latency monitoring headphone jack. There is a workaround for the headphone jack, but there's none for the HDMI if they remove it.

Panasonic made the right choice.

[handle]

amazing to see chris and jordan meet their hero

[ryakkan]

Excellent work. Great show of the new MC features of iMovie. Great to see Chris and Jordan too.

[benjaminzipser]

Ok. not to trash anyone. But honestly, why does it look so grainy? Like I've seen other iphone footage and it usually looks way sharper and way less grainy than this footage? Does this have to do something with the ipad Software? I'm genuinely curious.

[michaelbell]

Apple and Google have been the only ones innovating in photography for years now. Once these phones start getting 1 inch sensors or Apple and Google figure out how to achieve performance of a larger sensor in a smaller one, as they have figured out out how to get big optical zoom in a tiny lens, it will be game over.

[agentofthewild]

I'm still a huge panasonic fan. I switched from a canon DSLR in 2013 to an olympus mirroless and loved the new features. I switched to a gh5 in 2018 and realized the capabilities they offer a knowledgeable user. I now use the Panasonic s1 and wow. The cameras now are so incredibly capable and I love the options I have as a creator, but the software side of the game is messy. I wish there were more options on linux because I want to leave windows behind with the upcoming release of recall on windows 11, but photo editing on linux doesn't match what we have on windows. Lets hope the software side of the equation doesn't push photographers too far.

[camcamwatt]

I own a C300 Mkiii - and a GH5 “s”. The GH5s still holds up epic, with the right exposure and a splash of grading its stunning footage. LUMIX have always pushed the limits on Video specification and they have done it again. I feel the GH7 is the perfect epic VLOG camera for 2024 as well as you can run some smaller glass and get all those features.

It’s not the camera that matters it’s the person using it. 😊

[timnichols]

Camera makers should re-evaluate the 18% gray convention, and create alternate exposure strategies that you can set your camera to. An expose to the right exposure mode would be awesome. The shutter speed dial could be set up so that you set your camera to the minimum acceptable shutter speed, and the camera only deviates from the expose to the right strategy when it needs to do so to keep the minimum acceptable shutter speed.

[waveland]

Regarding the S9: I finally had a chance to handle one for a few minutes yesterday (June 24) and two negatives jumped out at me right away. One, the control dial feels like it came out of the dollar store parts bin. I’m sure it’s been tested for durability, but it doesn’t feel like it belongs on a $1500 camera. And two, the HDMI and USB-C ports are on the grip side of the camera! I don’t think I’ve heard anyone really talk about this, but if you do want to put the S9 on a little gimbal then start digging for some L adapters to reroute the cables, and if you want to connect this camera to any sort of monitor the cable is always in the way when adjusting settings. Now that’s a really weird design decision.

[grabedigger]

About the last segment the plateau. I've jumped from a Canon 6D to a Canon R6, this was an almost 9 year gap. It's funny how, excluding AF and Video, both cameras if exposed correctly can deliver pretty much the same results when it comes to image quality. I was about to say that the plateau was reached with the Nikon D600 and D800 and after that Canon was playing catch with Sony being the boss all around. Nowadays, there are pretty much no differences between brands and getting all these video features is awesome. I couldn't tell stories and now with the R6, the C-Log and Cinema Gamut, external recorders using ProRes 4:2:2, there are just no excuses. No new camera will bring anything new at least for quite some time.
Oh yes and I own an iPhone 15 Pro and the AppleLog is ridiculous. You can also shoot LOG H265 with the iPhone.

[Toglander]

The biggest two features missing from cameras are a smartphone like interface, and internal storage. Every camera should work like your smartphone and have at least 1TB of storage.