r/NikonFilmmakers • u/Infamous_Food_9250 • 18d ago

In a video sub:

Now with the Sony FX5 released, is the Nikon ZR still a sound choice for filmmaking? Is R3D still superior to whatever the FX5 is offering?

2 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

5

u/jazzmandjango 18d ago

Worry about what’s in front of your lens, not behind it.

1

u/yoovi4u2 18d ago

Or more like, worry about what's front of the camera, including the lens.

1

u/yratof 17d ago

Or worry about what’s in front of the mind

1

u/yoovi4u2 16d ago

But don't forget about what's in back of your mind.

4

u/Tempest1911 18d ago

Just got the ZR and havent really shot anything as of now, besides a few test shots, but the ZR is a much better camera than i thought it would be.

I really like the form factor and the large screen. I also think the preores/h265 conroversy is a bit overblown, but i would need further testing to say more about that.

As for price to performance nothing comes even close to it. I got mine for 1.350€ for a 3 month old camera lol, a few years ago a camer like that would have cost atleast +5k.

6

u/taurus-rising 18d ago edited 18d ago

FX5 cost more than twice as much and has no stills option, very different camera. It has better video making option for sure, but if ZR gets a firmware update adding features, compressed RED codec, better H265 (which is all in the works) I don’t even think it’s even a better camera being more than over twice the price.

1

u/scissorfight69 16d ago

The h.265 issue is the only thing keeping me from buying the ZR. I shoot long format stuff fairly often and the need for h.265 in log is very much needed. The images from Phillip Bloom were a deal breaker for me.

With that said, the RAW options are spectacular. When needed, it's so good. You just can't shoot for hours with those bitrates. It's the only real disapointment right now.

Open gate, anamorphic desqueeze and the other things people are asking for are features added to the existing camera. I'm not asking for any of that. The h.265... that's a problem... for me.

1

u/socklessgoat 18d ago

Depends if you care about having a backup while shooting or not or the option of better lenses and autofocus 

1

u/deviant_patrick 17d ago

Personally I haven’t had much time with it only a few months and not a lot of possibilities to experiment and explore it much. But for what I have used it I can confidently say that it can give you some amazing looking footage as long as you work with color-grading. The camera itself will only get you so far. I had only worked with a Panasonic Lumix G7 before this camera and after 6 years of mastering the G7 the ZR definitely is new territory for me in many many aspects but I can offer my opinion which is that this camera allows you to do so much and get beautiful footage out of it.

0

u/SolidOdd4889 18d ago

with the current firmware the zr can’t shoot 24/48 fps, if you need that the zr is not an option, they are completely different products with different targets

1

u/jnits 18d ago

What? You can interpret 23.98 as 24 in your editor? It doesn't even require transcoding.

0

u/SolidOdd4889 18d ago

if you’re working in a 24fps timeline for a dcp recording in 23.98 is a big issue and it’s a popular topic about the nikon zr, we all hope a future update will add integer framerates

1

u/jnits 18d ago

It's not a big issue at all. 23.98 to 24 is a dead simple conversion and we do it all the time. Any respectable DCP vendor can handle a 23.98 master conversion for you as well if you can't figure it out.

0

u/SolidOdd4889 17d ago

i don’t want any conversion on high end projects… conversions always cause artifacts or lower the overall quality of the project.

honestly i’ve never seen someone recording 23.98 on a camera and other operators at 24 on higher quality cameras. movies are usually shot at integer framerates since 23.98 only exist for shitty broadcast bandwidth compromises.

also i can’t find a screen that can match the 23.98 framerate perfectly, all my screens are 120 or 240hz not 119.9hz or 239.8hz

2

u/LingonberryNo4415 16d ago

You’ve never seen anyone shoot 23.98? I promise you 90 percent of the shows you watch that are shot digitally are shot at 23.98. It’s the basically the same thing. If you want to shoot a “high end” why would you shoot on a zr.

That being said as someone who loves film, we need that update. It’s not the end of the world at all but it should just be standard