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by nkoren 2799 days ago
What the Pixel cameras are doing is staggeringly good. My father is the founder of https://www.imatest.com/, and has a substantial collection of top-end cameras. He's probably in the top 0.0001% of image quality nerds. But most of the time, he's now entirely happy shooting on his Pixel.
2 comments

I enjoyed some of the articles on your father's other website, like http://www.normankoren.com/digital_tonality.html, and hope he keeps it running.
Yeah he's a good egg. I'm sure it'll keep going as long as he does. His startup actually grew out of those articles -- which were basically supposed to be his retirement hobby -- and now it employs 20 people! I'm really proud of what he's accomplished.
That's great news. I came into contact with your father's work with vacuum tube audio. I always admired his solid engineering approach without mysticism.
Wow, what a cool guy. I know we don't do AMAs on here but it'd be amazing to get HN to pick his brains for a bit.
We don't do them often, but there have been at least a couple of AMAs on here.

Alan Kay https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11939851 Michael Siebel https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13895362 Ny AG Eric Schneiderman https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15853374 Scott Aaronson https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17425377 Sam Altman (he's done a few) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12593689

I've put this proposition to my dad and it sounds like he's up for it! Might do so tomorrow.
If you don't mind my derailing the conversation a bit, could you ask your father what he would recommend for 4K/60fps video as competition for the Panasonic GH5s? In its weight class, it's one of the few 60fps (and 400Mbps bitrate capable) cameras that can be mounted to a relatively small sized gimbal, and flown on a drone that doesn't cost $10,000.

Is there anything expected to be released in the next few months that will be in a similar price, feature set and weight class?

I just asked my dad and he says that he doesn't have a good answer for you. Personally he doesn't do much video -- just still photography -- and professionally he mostly engages with OEMs way upstream from the actual products; often he doesn't even know what the products will be. So, alas, no good answer.
Personally I would suggest checking out the new Fuji X-T3 -- I just got it and am very happy with the video quality. It's actually the only other small camera right now that will do 4k60p 10-bit.
I just spent ten minutes skimming reviews and specs for that - it looks very nearly ideal for what I have in mind. Should be sub $1500 for just the camera body, no lens, and is under 500 grams.
The Blackmagic Pocket Cinema could be a fit for you. I have not researched it, but just a quick look at the their propaganda makes it seem intriguing for you purpose. It does 4K60 RAW which should better the 400Mbps h.264. You'll almost spend as much money on a couple of CFast2.0 cards than the camera itself though. It is also a MFT, so your existing lenses for you GH5 should work fine.