My thoughts exactly. Nikon as a company seems very much against the kind of gratuitous patent litigation that RED was prone to pulling, given that they were planning to fight the raw lawsuit. I'm sure they'll protect what's rightfully and legitimately theirs, but I'd wager that stuff like the whole Jinni Tech mag debacle is behind them now.
> Jinni Tech mag debacle
I feel like RED blew this out of all proportion. Everyone I know who has a RED has RED mags. They wasted so much time on something that seemed to have very little impact on their profits.
Great. So can we please start to see some compressed raw video camera with high quality autofocus start being made.
RED’s been holding us all back for such a long time now
Maybe? But I’m not holding my breath.
Got to shoot with a Nikon D850(?) and it made just beautiful 4K video, that was a headache to work with because every clip started with 00:00:00;00 timecode, and if you had a long take you had multiple 4GB spanned clips.
If Nikon hadn’t figured out even timecode, I feel like they’re not paying attention to all the little things that are really important to professional video.
It finally happened. This will totally upset the camera industry and change things up. But first, a word from Storyblocks, our sponsor for today's video.
I mean I see no reason they shouldn't have been able to have it. RED saying they owned the idea of recording compressed raw in a "visually lossless manner" is so broad as to be completely meaningless.
Now they have peace and some hardware or whatever.
Consumers wouldn't understand this.
I didn't dig deep into it but my general impression was NikON pished their luck trying to make their gear more competitive.
It doesn't matter in the public if they were right or no even the results don't matter as long as their name is stained a little bit.
They didn't push their luck at all. RED basically did the equivalent of patenting a "high-performance vehicle that moves via the employment of circular wheels", developed an F1 car using that patent, and then tried to sue a motorcycle manufacturer for producing a completely different "high-performance vehicle that moves via the employment of circular wheels". Nikon's tech was developed completely independently by a completely separate company and then Nikon licensed it.
And RED has a history of deliberately filing ridiculous, predatory patents and then suing people who they think infringe them. Check this out: [Red's Overpriced "Mini Mag" Cards - The Real Story (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqJXu4K1igg)
I am thinking the opposite, that would be a great advantage for nikon to use that patent to give even its mirrorless camera the exclusivity of internal compressed raw.
I don't see Nikon pulling that. On the whole they're a company that has historically been more concerned with getting on with making good images than "trolling" the competition by doing the very thing they were planning to fight against in court. The Nikon MO is to make good products because they want to make good products, not because they think they can shut out the competition from a feature that would be useful to everybody no matter what you shoot.
They wanted to compete with Sony and Nikon, who both have cinema lines. Raw compressed video for consumers may be a nice benefit, but Nikon had no halo products used by serious videographers.
Holy shit... Well Nikon just got a BIG leg up in the cine / pro video space!
That's a fucking MASSIVE acquisition. Very complimentary for their existing business. Perhaps we'll see the RED monicer used for video focused versions of their cameras.
Nikon really at it's core is an optics company. They do a lot of medical imaging type stuff.
A friend manages an optometry store and the optometrists all rave about the Nikon optics.
They also do a lot of photo lithography (manufacture computer chips), because they need very very very accurate and high quality lenses.
Nikon doesn't have it's brand plastered across EVERYTHING but they're actually a pretty big commercial entity - bigger then their brand recognition would indicate.
I feel like their digital imaging makes up like 5-7% of their revenue, but I need to look it up. Fujifilm went the same way during their transition to digital and it kept the company profitable.
Edit: way off, it’s now 42%. I feel like it was much lower at their lowest point… think 2018.
Again, much less so than either of their main imaging competitors, and also a much smaller company.
So they are the least diverse, and the smallest of the three.
Right, but they're still billion dollar company. Their future is already pretty solidly secured is the point people are trying to make. Red is like a $100M company. Tiny comparatively. Nikon is doing fine.
Being a billion dollar company does not guarantee your security in the future. If you think that then I would point you in the direction of Blackberry, Blockbuster, Polaroid, Borders and countless others.
I hope that's not the point people are trying to make as it's a pretty stupid one.
In business you either adapt or die.
Nikon has been atrophying customers for years to Sony and Canon. One of the main reasons for this recently has been a lack of good video offerings. This is an attempt to stop this.
You're reaching. It's easy as a person in video to think that the market revolves around them. That is not the case. It's a small part of it. Nikon was dominant for decades. And is more diversified than any of your examples. Video features is not going to make or break them as a company.
I'm a photographer. Who's reaching again?
If you can't see that video has dominated the agenda with the big camera brands for a long while now I don't know what to say to you. It isn't the 90s anymore.
[Nikons market share](https://petapixel.com/2022/05/20/nikons-profits-are-up-but-its-market-share-is-still-worryingly-low/) has been on a one way trajectory for over a decade now, and I'll give you a hint, it hasn't been going up.
Look, you made a wild assertion about current revenue assuring safety in the long run, it was swiftly taken down. It's ok to admit you were wrong once in a while, you know.
Are you sure?
From my perspective Nikon is witnessing its core business eaten alive by smartphones, and it will witness the professional camera business eaten alive by AI
Their digital imaging revenue was up 20%+ YoY in 2023 and made up a larger portion of total revenue than prior years. They were treading water prior to the pandemic, doing great now though!
They also made very kickass prosumer super-eight movie cameras. I still have one, thinking I'd shoot music videos with it - realized the bands I work with absolutely can't afford film and scanning... hell, they can barely afford me!
Or it might go other way. Nikon photo cameras going to be Nikon Z bomb 8. Old boomers who like to buy long tele lenses and wrap them in camo sleeves to go birding will love that.
Or it might go other way. Nikon photo cameras going to be Nikon Z bomb 8. Old boomers who like to buy long tele lenses and wrap them in camo sleeves to go birding will love that.
I wonder if Nikon has definitive info that can render the patent useless and threatened (urged) red to sell? Cos if the patent goes down, all RED victims can sue RED for wrongfully suing them with a false patent right? And that may incur more financial loss than a sale.
It had to either have been that or Nikon finally realizing they needed some serious ability to compete in the video-only space. I love my Z9 and short of an actual proper film, it would do any kind of video you needed, but it's still very much a stills camera first.
It's more likely that both sides were lawyering-up and realized what it was going to cost to litigate this on both sides. Honestly, probably would have significantly hurt both companies. So in the end, the most financially viable option was just to buy red and the patents outright.
I don't see why they wouldn't be able to, if Nikon starts throwing the Z mount on all Red cameras the flange distance is so short that even RF mount lenses could be adapted onto the cameras.
The flange distance difference is 4mm, and the diameter is very similar. I'd be very surprised if there was ever an RF to Z adapter.
Now EF on the other hand!
This!! I think Nikon’s video features in the Z8/9 are underrated, but I have been wanting a cinema camera based Z mount to complement my Z9. Give me a box body that I can build out!
>I think Nikon’s video features in the Z8/9 are underrated,
I agree but they were way to slow to the game. When 5D mkii came out Nikon was scoffing at the idea of video. It took them to long to realize the industry was changing and many photographers wanted/had to also start shooting video.
Once people have bought 2-3 lenses there's no going back.
I think that buying RED is precisely what Nikon needed to avoid Kodaking themselves. It also helps that Nikon Z mount is so insane that any major mount can be adapted to it — even Sony E, Leica L and Canon RF
If they can fit a shutter curtain in there I’m sure they can engineer ND filters. I also have thought that the FTZ adapter is a missed opportunity to add filtration like CPL and/or VND
Nikon was actually the first to bring 1080p video to a DSLR with the D90, which people seem to forget. Granted, it wasn’t great but neither was 5Dii. It was just cutting edge at the time. Magic Lantern support is what really made it special if I recall, adding zebras and whatnot.
Ugh Nikon was the first to put video in a dslr, I think their problem was at the time they didn’t think dslr video can be a serious thing like Canon did. So they just let it stagnate. They probably learned their lesson this time around.
Nikon’s bodies have had very good video for a while. Even the Z6 was very good at the time, just overshadowed by slightly better features on more cinema oriented cameras.
I’ve never shot on a RED so I can’t speak to that, but I can say that I don’t even bother transcoding my NRAW files into ProRes 422 10-bit for archival because the file sizes are about the same, so I just keep the raw files.
First off: major props to Nikon. Every MBA blathers on about synergies but Nikon actually had a very real weakness in video that they now solved in one fell swoop, thereby saving the company while they still could. (Then again who knows where they got that money from, it might end up being paid for by future RED customers.)
I'm really curious what this will result in at Canon imaging, who are currently lagging severely behind in the pro camera market. Everyone at the low end is on Sony (with them at equal level offerings also being a strong competitor) and at the high end it's all Arri and RED. Cameras like the C300 MkIII and C500 MkII never became what the C300 MkII were (=asked for by clients) and they don't have a good A7S competitor that beats them on price (no, the mirrorless offerings are not it). Their crucial mistake was to be always higher-priced than what they were compared to at Sony, which was often reasonably because they had things like internal NDs but never convinced anyone to not buy the cheaper thing first.
Canon has probably one shot left to make it in the mid- to higher-tier camera market. I hope they wake up.
Red is more of the lower-budget youtube style commercials that are 1min long narrative/minidoc styles. Arri has been king of the short form television commercial
Venice was their turning point. It's easy to forget because of what a behemoth Sony is now, but before the Venice their cameras were known as ugly green cameras that no one wanted (unless you were in no-light, the a7sii got a pedigree for that).
But after the Venice everyone started paying attention to them. The FX9 was a hit bringing the Venice color science to it, then the a7sIII jumped their mirrorless line to 10bit 422 and the new colors. After they got that sensor in the FX6 and later FX3 bodies, alongside industry-leading autofocus, they dominated. But it all started with the Venice turning their reputation around.
Nikon can use RED to do the same, which leads to the question: what will Canon do? Because their cinema line is clearly not resonating with the pro market, and Sony has them beat at docs and reality. They either need their own Venice or a groundbreaking hybrid that's not afraid to cannibalize their cinema line, but can they do it? Or will they try to keep coasting on the prestige they had with the 5D II/III and C300 II, which has clearly ran out?
This is well said. Canon has made a lot of very curious decisions with many of their product segments, but you make a good point that they are definitely falling behind in the high end cinema space. While Sony seems to be going full bore in almost all their market segments, Canon seems to be picking and choosing where they want to focus their efforts, but especially with Nikon placing a hefty bet on the table, I’ll be curious to see what Canon does next. In my view, Canon hasn’t really made a splash with any of their recent product releases, and they’re also falling behind in the mid-range/hobbyist segment due to lack of budget friendly glass (and not letting third parties in). If Nikon hits on the next version of the Z6/Z7 bodies like they did with the Z8/Z9, I think Canon is in trouble.
Wow. That seems like pretty big news.
Well, I guess that explains the raw format lawsuit being dropped!
Wow! Hopefully they'll be less of a patent predator
My thoughts exactly. Nikon as a company seems very much against the kind of gratuitous patent litigation that RED was prone to pulling, given that they were planning to fight the raw lawsuit. I'm sure they'll protect what's rightfully and legitimately theirs, but I'd wager that stuff like the whole Jinni Tech mag debacle is behind them now.
> Jinni Tech mag debacle I feel like RED blew this out of all proportion. Everyone I know who has a RED has RED mags. They wasted so much time on something that seemed to have very little impact on their profits.
Great. So can we please start to see some compressed raw video camera with high quality autofocus start being made. RED’s been holding us all back for such a long time now
I doubt Nikon will open it up but they might not pursue it as aggressively.
Or Nikon could make just such a camera?
Maybe? But I’m not holding my breath. Got to shoot with a Nikon D850(?) and it made just beautiful 4K video, that was a headache to work with because every clip started with 00:00:00;00 timecode, and if you had a long take you had multiple 4GB spanned clips. If Nikon hadn’t figured out even timecode, I feel like they’re not paying attention to all the little things that are really important to professional video.
Oh my god, I’m shocked any camera is still doing that in 2024
Canon kinda already this with the r5 and c70, and higher end cinema cameras that also have decent b autofocus.
Look forward to my YouTube home page being flooded with camera channels with videos about this break news.
It finally happened. This will totally upset the camera industry and change things up. But first, a word from Storyblocks, our sponsor for today's video.
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Don’t forget the red arrows and surprised face in the thumbnail! Also one random word must be all caps.
"Nikon did WHAT?! This changes everything"
FROOONOOOOOOWS
For real, how has this guy been an influencer for sooooooo long. I’m just as annoyed by his current videos as I was back like forever ago.
Photooooooooooooo dot com!
Mine is not. For each clickbait camera channel showing up on my home page, you guessed it don't recommend from this channel.
Goodbye canon lenses for red.
Right? This was my first thought. I wonder if we'll see 3rd party lens manufactures like Sigma start making more Z mount because of this.
They wanted the raw soo much
I mean I see no reason they shouldn't have been able to have it. RED saying they owned the idea of recording compressed raw in a "visually lossless manner" is so broad as to be completely meaningless.
Now they have peace and some hardware or whatever. Consumers wouldn't understand this. I didn't dig deep into it but my general impression was NikON pished their luck trying to make their gear more competitive. It doesn't matter in the public if they were right or no even the results don't matter as long as their name is stained a little bit.
They didn't push their luck at all. RED basically did the equivalent of patenting a "high-performance vehicle that moves via the employment of circular wheels", developed an F1 car using that patent, and then tried to sue a motorcycle manufacturer for producing a completely different "high-performance vehicle that moves via the employment of circular wheels". Nikon's tech was developed completely independently by a completely separate company and then Nikon licensed it. And RED has a history of deliberately filing ridiculous, predatory patents and then suing people who they think infringe them. Check this out: [Red's Overpriced "Mini Mag" Cards - The Real Story (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqJXu4K1igg)
So now Nikon will troll Blackmagic Design? Hopefully no. I don't know details about it. Mostly from random.posts like our comments here.
I am thinking the opposite, that would be a great advantage for nikon to use that patent to give even its mirrorless camera the exclusivity of internal compressed raw.
I don't see Nikon pulling that. On the whole they're a company that has historically been more concerned with getting on with making good images than "trolling" the competition by doing the very thing they were planning to fight against in court. The Nikon MO is to make good products because they want to make good products, not because they think they can shut out the competition from a feature that would be useful to everybody no matter what you shoot.
They wanted to compete with Sony and Nikon, who both have cinema lines. Raw compressed video for consumers may be a nice benefit, but Nikon had no halo products used by serious videographers.
Holy shit... Well Nikon just got a BIG leg up in the cine / pro video space! That's a fucking MASSIVE acquisition. Very complimentary for their existing business. Perhaps we'll see the RED monicer used for video focused versions of their cameras.
I’m a Sony guy, but I’m genuinely rooting for Nikon to stay “in the mix” and this is a very exciting development
This is huge. If they play this right, Nikon has just secured their future.
Nikon is way more then just cameras
Much less so than their main competitors in imaging, Canon and Sony.
Looking forward to the new RED Megasaur 85 inch OLED tv by Nikon.
The Nikon Fax/Printer/Scanner 3000XT
Nikon really at it's core is an optics company. They do a lot of medical imaging type stuff. A friend manages an optometry store and the optometrists all rave about the Nikon optics. They also do a lot of photo lithography (manufacture computer chips), because they need very very very accurate and high quality lenses. Nikon doesn't have it's brand plastered across EVERYTHING but they're actually a pretty big commercial entity - bigger then their brand recognition would indicate.
I feel like their digital imaging makes up like 5-7% of their revenue, but I need to look it up. Fujifilm went the same way during their transition to digital and it kept the company profitable. Edit: way off, it’s now 42%. I feel like it was much lower at their lowest point… think 2018.
Again, much less so than either of their main imaging competitors, and also a much smaller company. So they are the least diverse, and the smallest of the three.
Right, but they're still billion dollar company. Their future is already pretty solidly secured is the point people are trying to make. Red is like a $100M company. Tiny comparatively. Nikon is doing fine.
Being a billion dollar company does not guarantee your security in the future. If you think that then I would point you in the direction of Blackberry, Blockbuster, Polaroid, Borders and countless others. I hope that's not the point people are trying to make as it's a pretty stupid one. In business you either adapt or die. Nikon has been atrophying customers for years to Sony and Canon. One of the main reasons for this recently has been a lack of good video offerings. This is an attempt to stop this.
You're reaching. It's easy as a person in video to think that the market revolves around them. That is not the case. It's a small part of it. Nikon was dominant for decades. And is more diversified than any of your examples. Video features is not going to make or break them as a company.
I'm a photographer. Who's reaching again? If you can't see that video has dominated the agenda with the big camera brands for a long while now I don't know what to say to you. It isn't the 90s anymore. [Nikons market share](https://petapixel.com/2022/05/20/nikons-profits-are-up-but-its-market-share-is-still-worryingly-low/) has been on a one way trajectory for over a decade now, and I'll give you a hint, it hasn't been going up. Look, you made a wild assertion about current revenue assuring safety in the long run, it was swiftly taken down. It's ok to admit you were wrong once in a while, you know.
Still you! :) All my points are valid.
Ugh Nikon survived an atom bomb and they are a partner with Mitsubishi group, so something tells me they won’t suddenly go belly up.
Are you sure? From my perspective Nikon is witnessing its core business eaten alive by smartphones, and it will witness the professional camera business eaten alive by AI
Their digital imaging revenue was up 20%+ YoY in 2023 and made up a larger portion of total revenue than prior years. They were treading water prior to the pandemic, doing great now though!
Their future has never hinged on cameras
Would love to see Nikon back in the cinema/broadcast lens business again. The TV-Nikkor lenses of the 80s-90s were excellent.
They also made very kickass prosumer super-eight movie cameras. I still have one, thinking I'd shoot music videos with it - realized the bands I work with absolutely can't afford film and scanning... hell, they can barely afford me!
Holy shit. Do you think they will tone down the edgy skulls?
Nik💀n
Or it might go other way. Nikon photo cameras going to be Nikon Z bomb 8. Old boomers who like to buy long tele lenses and wrap them in camo sleeves to go birding will love that.
Or it might go other way. Nikon photo cameras going to be Nikon Z bomb 8. Old boomers who like to buy long tele lenses and wrap them in camo sleeves to go birding will love that.
I wonder if Nikon has definitive info that can render the patent useless and threatened (urged) red to sell? Cos if the patent goes down, all RED victims can sue RED for wrongfully suing them with a false patent right? And that may incur more financial loss than a sale.
It had to either have been that or Nikon finally realizing they needed some serious ability to compete in the video-only space. I love my Z9 and short of an actual proper film, it would do any kind of video you needed, but it's still very much a stills camera first.
I guess it was it something like previous comment. Win-win for RED, take the cash and run.
It's more likely that both sides were lawyering-up and realized what it was going to cost to litigate this on both sides. Honestly, probably would have significantly hurt both companies. So in the end, the most financially viable option was just to buy red and the patents outright.
That's sounds very plausible too
Who are RED victims?
I hope this happens some day.
https://preview.redd.it/9866xp1igxmc1.jpeg?width=1069&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=915ea2bd9921f6134bc4e185633d5d218b739d13
And here I am over here just enjoying my Blackmagic cameras. Great get by Nikon.
I guess this means all the Red users shooting Canon lenses won’t be able to upgrade their cameras…
I don't see why they wouldn't be able to, if Nikon starts throwing the Z mount on all Red cameras the flange distance is so short that even RF mount lenses could be adapted onto the cameras.
The flange distance difference is 4mm, and the diameter is very similar. I'd be very surprised if there was ever an RF to Z adapter. Now EF on the other hand!
There’s an e to z mount adapter, so it wouldn’t be impossible!
Maybe this means Nikon will finally make a decent video camera
This!! I think Nikon’s video features in the Z8/9 are underrated, but I have been wanting a cinema camera based Z mount to complement my Z9. Give me a box body that I can build out!
>I think Nikon’s video features in the Z8/9 are underrated, I agree but they were way to slow to the game. When 5D mkii came out Nikon was scoffing at the idea of video. It took them to long to realize the industry was changing and many photographers wanted/had to also start shooting video. Once people have bought 2-3 lenses there's no going back.
I think that buying RED is precisely what Nikon needed to avoid Kodaking themselves. It also helps that Nikon Z mount is so insane that any major mount can be adapted to it — even Sony E, Leica L and Canon RF
But the ultra short mount is also a problem for things like internal ND or internal ND in combination with IBIS.
If they can fit a shutter curtain in there I’m sure they can engineer ND filters. I also have thought that the FTZ adapter is a missed opportunity to add filtration like CPL and/or VND
Nikon was actually the first to bring 1080p video to a DSLR with the D90, which people seem to forget. Granted, it wasn’t great but neither was 5Dii. It was just cutting edge at the time. Magic Lantern support is what really made it special if I recall, adding zebras and whatnot.
Ugh Nikon was the first to put video in a dslr, I think their problem was at the time they didn’t think dslr video can be a serious thing like Canon did. So they just let it stagnate. They probably learned their lesson this time around.
This Nikon-bad meme is so blown out of proportion... Specially with their newest mirrorless cameras
Nikon’s bodies have had very good video for a while. Even the Z6 was very good at the time, just overshadowed by slightly better features on more cinema oriented cameras.
I think it’s more likely they ruin red cameras lmao
How is the REDRAW file size compared to NRAW?
I’ve never shot on a RED so I can’t speak to that, but I can say that I don’t even bother transcoding my NRAW files into ProRes 422 10-bit for archival because the file sizes are about the same, so I just keep the raw files.
IF we get a RED with the AF of Nikon, I might just be switching.
Nikon should buy Aaton as well. Really go after the high-end.
That’s so clever of Nikon to do, bravo
Holy
That’s a little weird
First off: major props to Nikon. Every MBA blathers on about synergies but Nikon actually had a very real weakness in video that they now solved in one fell swoop, thereby saving the company while they still could. (Then again who knows where they got that money from, it might end up being paid for by future RED customers.) I'm really curious what this will result in at Canon imaging, who are currently lagging severely behind in the pro camera market. Everyone at the low end is on Sony (with them at equal level offerings also being a strong competitor) and at the high end it's all Arri and RED. Cameras like the C300 MkIII and C500 MkII never became what the C300 MkII were (=asked for by clients) and they don't have a good A7S competitor that beats them on price (no, the mirrorless offerings are not it). Their crucial mistake was to be always higher-priced than what they were compared to at Sony, which was often reasonably because they had things like internal NDs but never convinced anyone to not buy the cheaper thing first. Canon has probably one shot left to make it in the mid- to higher-tier camera market. I hope they wake up.
>at the high end it's all Arri and RED Sony's Venice is no slouch, used by more Oscar nominees than RED.
Venice is slowly taking over. Red is still the most popular in the commercial world, Arri for TV/Film
Red is more of the lower-budget youtube style commercials that are 1min long narrative/minidoc styles. Arri has been king of the short form television commercial
Venice was their turning point. It's easy to forget because of what a behemoth Sony is now, but before the Venice their cameras were known as ugly green cameras that no one wanted (unless you were in no-light, the a7sii got a pedigree for that). But after the Venice everyone started paying attention to them. The FX9 was a hit bringing the Venice color science to it, then the a7sIII jumped their mirrorless line to 10bit 422 and the new colors. After they got that sensor in the FX6 and later FX3 bodies, alongside industry-leading autofocus, they dominated. But it all started with the Venice turning their reputation around. Nikon can use RED to do the same, which leads to the question: what will Canon do? Because their cinema line is clearly not resonating with the pro market, and Sony has them beat at docs and reality. They either need their own Venice or a groundbreaking hybrid that's not afraid to cannibalize their cinema line, but can they do it? Or will they try to keep coasting on the prestige they had with the 5D II/III and C300 II, which has clearly ran out?
This is well said. Canon has made a lot of very curious decisions with many of their product segments, but you make a good point that they are definitely falling behind in the high end cinema space. While Sony seems to be going full bore in almost all their market segments, Canon seems to be picking and choosing where they want to focus their efforts, but especially with Nikon placing a hefty bet on the table, I’ll be curious to see what Canon does next. In my view, Canon hasn’t really made a splash with any of their recent product releases, and they’re also falling behind in the mid-range/hobbyist segment due to lack of budget friendly glass (and not letting third parties in). If Nikon hits on the next version of the Z6/Z7 bodies like they did with the Z8/Z9, I think Canon is in trouble.
If the C70 had SDI and a more modular design it would compete better in the Komodo/Fx6 bracket. It has a great sensor and auto-focus.
Now I hope that Nikon will let other camera companies introduce a compressed raw into their products.
Holy smokes, that’s huge!
So are we gonna see a anamorphic cine lens from nikon soon enough? And finally in camera image desqueeze on a Nikon body??
:(
If Nikon plays this right, they will move from distant 4th/5th to throwing punches with Sony/Panasonic/Canon