Thanks to the eagle eye of YMCinema Magazine, a report by Reuters and GlobalTimes China has been brought to our attention.

For a while now, Canon has decided to restructure camera and lens manufacturing.

According to the latest reports however they are to completely shut their established factory of 32 years in China.

The factory is not a small one. Even in the pandemic year of 2020 it produced nearly 13 million lenses and over 1 million Canon cameras.

The Chinese media, such as National Business Daily (NBD) cited a screenshot of the Zhuhai unit’s termination notice on Wednesday, where 1317 employees will lose their jobs.

Very interesting is the statement by Canon China public relations department representative Shen Yue in an email to the unfortunate employees at the factory.

It says the company is facing unprecedented difficulties in the camera market, due to the pandemic, smartphones and chip shortages.

Continue reading Canon “facing unprecedented difficulties”, shuts down massive factory at EOSHD.com - Filmmaking Gear and Camera Reviews.

Passing, which is in contention for an Oscar uses the LOMO round-front vintage anamorphic lenses in an interesting new way.

EOSHD on YouTube looks into it.

Continue reading Oscars 2022 contenders – Is there a trend towards vintage lenses? at EOSHD.com - Filmmaking Gear and Camera Reviews.

The EOS R5C is set to be one of the hottest cameras of 2022, and the first one announced via the magic of a JPEG filename accident.

Who needs the fanfare of NAB?!

Continue reading Thoughts on the accidentally confirmed Canon Cinema EOS R5C which will EXPLODE onto the market January 19th at EOSHD.com - Filmmaking Gear and Camera Reviews.

Lensrentals have revealed rental sales data for 2021, as summarised by Yossy Mendelovich of the excellent YMCinema here.

You can see extensive charts from Lensrentals here for 2020 and 2021 which reveal what gear has been successful, and what’s missing from the top 20.

However there’s more to this data than meets the eye!

The Blackmagic Pocket Camera 6K Pro appears at number 5 on the “new gear” released in 2021 chart, but the older standard 6K model without the ND filter is a bigger hit overall in 2021 with rental customers, second only to the Canon C300 Mark II in the category of video cameras. It manages to out-perform both the new C70 and recent C200, thanks to the affordability, small size, vertical integration with DaVinci Resolve, and the presence of ProRes as well as BRAW.

Lensrentals is a very large company and quite representative of the overall market for photography and videography in the US, but of course more niche or high-end rental houses for cinema will give you very different charts and in other countries things may be slightly different as well, but this is a good glimpse of what’s being used often.

Continue reading Camera rental trends – Smaller cameras, larger sensors, dominant start for Canon RF at EOSHD.com - Filmmaking Gear and Camera Reviews.

RIP!

Perhaps the most surprising event of 2021 is that EOSHD has outlived the Canon DSLR. A hugely profitable range of cameras has died before EOSHD has.

Back in 2010 when the Panasonic GH1 went head to head with the 5D Mark II, it was clear mirrorless was the future for video shooters.

It took 10 years for Canon to come to terms with this, and even longer for some of their users 😉

Now, let’s see if EOSHD can outlive the EOS R range!

Premature snuffing out?

Is the decision by Canon to kill off EF mount DSLRs and presumably the lenses premature?

I assume that sports photographers will be switching from a 1D Mark II to Mark III well into 2022.

But Canon obviously hopes they’ll switch to EOS R because that’s where the big spending will be.

Continue reading EOSHD outlives the Canon DSLR at EOSHD.com - Filmmaking Gear and Camera Reviews.

Comment on the forum

The optical viewfinder and EF mount is officially dead.

An opportunity for Pentax to take over a niche market?

In an interview with the Japanese press (https://www.yomiuri.co.jp/economy/20211228-OYT1T50000/), CEO Fujio Mitarai says the 1D X Mark III will be the final Canon DSLR in production, and when it ceases production that’ll be it. There will be no future 5D after the current Mark IV and no new 7D.

Although not surprising that Canon want to focus on mirrorless cameras, it still comes as a surprise that they will completely kill off the optical viewfinder. It will be missed by many, and EF mount lenses are still some of the most widely used due to their compatibility with multiple mirrorless systems.

It’s a shame to realise we’ve probably seen the final EF lens from Canon.

Also, I would have liked to have seen a hybrid optical / electronic viewfinder model.

Continue reading Canon officially discontinue entire DSLR range, 1D X Mark III to cease production at EOSHD.com - Filmmaking Gear and Camera Reviews.

Due to a major chip shortage, Sony has announced it will cancel the production of several recent models, some permanently. Sony are themselves a manufacturer of semiconductors, can’t they just make more? Of course it isn’t that simple. Sony use thousands of third party chips in their products. The pressure on supply and even their own manufacturing facilities which are ramped up to capacity means they must prioritise cameras with higher margins, sold in lower quantities. This means that for the foreseeable future, affordable cameras may well be dead.

EOSHD’s Opinion – Is this a sign of things to come?

At the moment if you need a camera body under $1000 you really do have a lot of choice. The prices of stuff like the Fuji X-H1, Panasonic GH5, Olympus E-M1 II and even several full frame models like the Nikon Z6, Panasonic S1 and Sony A7 III are at rock bottom on eBay.

Continue reading Is this the end for affordable Sony cameras? A7C, A6600, A6100 all cancelled at EOSHD.com - Filmmaking Gear and Camera Reviews.

The famous Iscorama 54 is making a comeback. A small number of lenses are being made available for rental only. The Iscorama 54 anamorphic adapter appears to be identical in design to the original, other than the cosmetic appearances of the lens housing. In the rental kit, it’s being paired with spherical taking lenses by a Hong Kong company, which is interesting as Schneider Kreuznach could have paired it with their own cine lenses but chose not to.

So here’s the big question – is the “new” Iscorama 54 a freshly manufactured piece, or did Schneider Kreuznach find some new-old stock and give them a fresh lick of paint?

EOSHD investigates.

ISCO Optics of Göttingen go all the way back to 1936. The link to Schneider goes back as far. ISCO manufactured Schneider’s Xenon lenses.

These lenses were used on high precision aerial cameras during and after World War 2.

Continue reading What’s the story behind Schneider Kreuznach’s return of the Iscorama? at EOSHD.com - Filmmaking Gear and Camera Reviews.

Hello to everyone, and I hope you’re looking forward to having a good break over Christmas and are ready to welcome in 2022. Talking of holidays – I have been having a break from EOSHD for a few months. I went and sat on a hill and finally had time to reflect on my work which is this blog and the community around it. The last video had a lot of support, it’s made me really appreciate what I have in a more positive light. I’m mega appreciative of the people who took the time to say how EOSHD has helped them over the years and that they want it to continue.

So that’s what we’ll do! EOSHD is back.

I never lost my interest in cameras, writing, cinematography and photography. It’s been 11 years working on EOSHD and sometimes you just get tired of social media and being plonked in front of a screen all the time!

Continue reading EOSHD is back, and a Merry Christmas from me at EOSHD.com - Filmmaking Gear and Camera Reviews.

Nikon is keeping the details of internal RAW recording close to its chest so far, I think partly because the firmware isn’t yet final and most of the RAW recording capabilities will be added later in a 2022 firmware update.

However what we do know is that Nikon is licensing a RAW codec technology for the Z9 from “intoPIX”.

Quite how they are manoeuvring around RED’s compressed RAW patent is another question mark, but we’ll see if we can figure out some answers below…

The Nikon Z9 undoubtedly caught many by surprise!

The headline grabbing video features are world-beating, but it’s the more practical side of the camera I’m most interested in.

Aside from topping out at 8K 60p, can the Z9 give us practical internal 4K N-RAW recording in 12bit at similar file sizes to 10bit H.265?

Continue reading What are the details of Nikon’s new cinema 8K/4K RAW codec on the Z9? at EOSHD.com - Filmmaking Gear and Camera Reviews.

What!? A mirrorless camera finally gets INTERNAL ProRes 422? Also unexpectedly it’s Nikon to do it first.

In my opinion this is a complete game changer for mirrorless cameras and no longer do we have to rely on crap external recorders or a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera shorn of nice features like a full frame sensor, weather sealing, IBIS or cutting edge utofocus.

Hopefully the Z9 is the tipping point to convince other Japanese manufacturers to FINALLY follow suit with ProRes 422 and internal RAW on high-end cameras, breaking the reliance on H.264/H.265 codecs and give us a PROPER EDITING CODEC.

Wonderful news.

What’s more the Z9 undercuts the EOS R3 and Sony A1 on price by a decent $500, even though on paper it has the better specs versus either of them.

So it appears the Nikon Z9 is an unexpected powerhouse of a camera.

Continue reading AT LONG LAST PRAISE THE DAY HALLELUJAH!! Internal ProRes and RAW on a mirrorless camera finally arrives with Nikon Z9 at EOSHD.com - Filmmaking Gear and Camera Reviews.