They officially have pro res now at 422 ..interesting little guy now

I'd guess that the reduced dynamic range comes from whatever cheaper sensor they are using. Judging by PoE as a feature, I'd also guess that they intend the cheaper camera to be used in multi-camera streaming setups which are frequently indoors where lighting is fairly easy to control.

In any case, a ProRes/raw capable camera available for $799 is still pretty great. There's pretty much 0 competition in that range - and if it doesn't sell well at $799, I'm sure the price will come down similar to the E1.

Hmmmm. Wonder if the budget version could be hacked to shoot 4K 120?

Love that Toronto footage jleo <3

I “hacked” it, though it’s not much of a hack.

And yes, ProRes is latent in the firmware and just not enabled yet. And with the new beta firmware, they distribute as a pw protected zip file which makes it harder to find the trick.

Judging by the fb group, measuring dynamic range on cameras is hard and depends on how one measures SNR

To be correct - measuring "dynamic range", first require to do proper definition of it. Including specified SNR.
And as almost 100% cameras have some kind of noise reduction you also need special measures to fully eliminate it's effect, show worst real case.

Z-Cam are claiming that the latest firmware beta has similar DR to an Alexa at up to 30p

As I see each day that Z-Cam guys are doing I want to cry. Now they want to compete with Alexa.
Company completely do not understand where camera must fit on the market.

This is the game they play now:

Is it possible to have 15 stop DN with this E2 ?

Correction - the new firmware beta adds ProRes Proxy and now ProRes 422 shows up as an option at 4kp60. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm excited!

@Eastmoomuchjam you know how to enable prores on E2? And in all flavors ?

Z Cam E2 looks good in this comparison:

So they decided to explain the magic behind the increased dynamic range from same sensor . Via Facebook group

I've seen a lot of "cloud reviewing" about dynamic range yesterday and let me give you some basic knowledge on log curves. When you understand how log curve compress lights you may find the way you use to judge dynamic range is kind of wrong.

1. Sensor dynamic range can be higher than camera system dynamic range. For example the sensor can be over 100db dynamic range but the adc is only 12bit which will limit it to maximum 13 stops. If the system only deals with 12bit raw in pipeline it will be maximum 13 stops too. For those who claim Arri can do 16 stops I just want to let you know it's impossible.

2. Log compress low light and highlights non-linearly. Normally if we normalize the light range, from 0.5-1 light range are compressed to less than 10% room. The beginning a few stops are very weak so if we don't put enough lift for these signals it will be enlarged hundreds times which will bring in very serious noise. So normally camera makers give 10%-20% of the light range as lift. This area is normally not log(we have a parameter of cut in log curve), so stops here are very flat. Then when you observe from scope the difference among these stops are weak.You can refer to existing DR test charts from log based cameras. So what to judge? SNR. I just want to say that the scene footage won't be easy to judge dynamic range from not proper prepared light environment. It's easier to judge by comparison. If you get Arri to shoot in the same condition you still have the same feeling. That's not your fault.

3. More stops in shadow means it's more clean with the same sensor and it also means that you can under expose and still get the details back. One problem we didn't design more stops to highlight is some of our customers don't have enough lighting experience and sometimes there are shadows in face and it will break the image if it's under exposed. Most of the users I talked to don't use false color as exposure tool and that means getting into problem is a sure thing. I DON'T care how other brands solve the problem but I DO care how to make our users easier to produce good image with less efforts and I don't want them to fail in shooting. We modified the AE strategy as well to prevent over exposure as well.

@sammy

LOL