GH5 Review of the $800 Z Cam E2C Camera

Well the rolling shutter and crushed shadow detail crosses this one off my list. The E2 still looks great though, and the F6 and F8 are coming soon.
 
They should have shot on a wide prime rather than on a telephoto zoom. Oh, well.

If you can't get it done with that lens then you can't get it done. Sunny day, talented shooter, scenic place and we are all looking at how soft the trees were. Says it all imho. The fact that the reviewer does not recommend it says a lot too. Shows how good the cameras are these days in the marketplace. But, for $800 you can't ask for a lot.
 
I went to the annual Vistek show in Toronto today and chatted with Kinson Loo the CEO of Z Cam who was there with his full line-up including their Full Frame 6K and 8K cameras. ( the FF cameras are in the process of launching right now )

One interesting little tid-bit that Kinson demoed for me was using a standard USB-C to lightning cable to turn your iPhone into a high res monitor for any of the Z Cam cameras. Depending on the phone model the image is actually pretty darn good, and there is almost no lag at all. Definitely an inexpensive way of adding a 5 or 6 inch monitor to a Z Cam. He also mentioned that Android phones can be used the same way.
 
What kind of service after warranty do they have? Finding out that BMD has no real service after warranty, that $6000 Ursa Mini 4.6k g2 could be rendered to junk after one year if the sensor fails. There is a bit of discussion on this on the BMD forums. I can still get imagers for my 10 year old, out of production JVC HM-700u cameras if I choose to spend the $1500+ to have it installed. I think you can still get GH2 sensors replaced if you want to spend the money (might be wrong on this one).

If Z Cam can fix these after warranty for a reasonable fee, then they are better than BMD cameras (in that aspect). Even if the camera needs to be returned to the factory, because BMD won't even do that, if the regional service center "doesn't have a clean room" then the sensor can not get replaced. Yes you will need to look up that quote, hopefully the post hasn't been edited. Yes I provided a link to a tool that can replace an entire clean room for something as simple as a sensor replacement.
 
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