Focus Check

ARRI is selling its global rental business – we break down the management buy-out backed by H2 Equity Partners and what it means for rental-exclusive cameras and lenses. Also this week: the FCC fines alleged DJI "front companies", Sony announces the RX10 V after nine years plus the LYTIA L910 LOFIC smartphone sensor, firmware news for the VENICE 2 and GFX ETERNA 55, new gear from SmallRig, Tilta, Blackmagic Design, and MOFAGE...

We settle a question every filmmaker has cursed at some point: which camera brands actually let your batteries last — and which strand you the moment you upgrade? Nino goes brand by brand, ranking the best and worst for battery longevity, from Canon's decade-proof LP-E6 to the fragmentation that leaves Insta360 owners buying new cells with every generation. Then: the man who invented the stabilized camera. Garrett Brown &mda...

Nino reports back from DJI's Malta press event with first impressions of the Osmo Pocket 4P, Johnnie's Leica SL3-P video review goes live, and Apple has a mixed week – raising MacBook and iPad prices while also shipping a meaningful Creator Studio update for Final Cut Pro. We also cover Adobe's planned acquisition of Topaz Labs, MultiDyne stepping in to save the MRMC motion-control brand, a new sun-tracking cinema viewfinder...

We dig into the new Leica SL3-P with a full review and Lab Test, share the results of our DJI Ronin 4D successor poll, go behind the scenes on an immersive BBC Proms production for Apple Vision Pro, and run through a wave of new on-set apps and gear – plus SMPTE opening its standards catalog, two pieces of FUJIFILM news, new DZOFILM adapters, and CVP’s Warranty+.

Chapters & Articles Mentioned in This Episode:

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In this week's Focus Check, Nino and Johnnie tackle an industry in a tumultuous, consolidation-heavy phase. They open with the escalating Insta360 vs. DJI patent war over the Luna Ultra, then move through Artlist's layoffs, the US approval of Paramount's Warner Bros. merger, and MRMC's surprise liquidation just weeks after Nikon sold it off. From there the episode shifts into new gear: the budget Blazar Sentinel anamorphic zoom, th...

This week's episode is all about Cine Gear, which took place at the beginning of the month in Los Angeles. We discuss what brands and new products Johnnie covered at the show — from the ZEISS Horizon Anamorphic lens to the Sony RIALTO 65 sensor block. Further, we talk about the Kinefinity VISTA pricing, Apple Immersive Video updates at WWDC26, the ARRI Eurovision documentary, and GoPro's going concern warning.

In this special episode of Focus Check, Johnnie sits down with our guests David Kellermann and Viola Evang, the co-founders of Glaswerk Optics – a German lens manufacturer developing high-end 2x anamorphic cinema lenses. Tune in to this candid conversation about their seven-year journey: from a client arriving with a box of old projection lenses, to engineering some of the most meticulously designed an...

In this episode of Focus Check, Nino speaks with Biro Florin — entrepreneur, misfit, and founder of Masterwork Films — about his unconventional path from cosmetics and software to running a green screen virtual production studio in Brighton, UK. They also dive deep into the new Virtual Production for Beginners course now available on MZed, which Biro co-created to help filmmakers, studio owners, and virtual production e...

Nino shares what it was like to be embedded in the ARRI ALEXA 35 broadcast deployment at Eurovision 2026, followed by discussions of the newly released Insta360 Mic Pro, Graham’s review of the Profoto ProPanel 3×2 LED soft panel, two ASUS ProArt OLED monitor reviews, the OPPO Find X9 Ultra smartphone, a Sony a7 V firmware update, the Thypoch Voyager 24–50mm f/2.8 lens, the ARRI Omnibar LED bars, ...

This week on Focus Check: three major camera announcements (Canon EOS R6 V, Sony Alpha 7R VI, Panasonic LUMIX L10), the first same-day lab test for the a7R VI, a DJI Osmo Pocket 4P teaser, Sony's landmark TSMC joint venture, and what the new global battery rules mean for filmmakers flying with gear. Plus: Nino shares what it's been like filming behind the scenes at Eurovision with 24 ARRI Alexa 35 Live cameras.  

Sponsor ...

I'm Back Roll APS-C on Kickstarter: https://i-m-back-gmbh.kckb.me/8c61e3bd Samuel and Filippo, the two founders of I'm Back, join Nino to talk about their latest Kickstarter campaign: the I'm Back Roll APS-C — a self-contained digital sensor that replaces the pressure plate inside any analog 35mm camera. Nearly $1 million raised, 1,400+ backers, and two significant mid-campaign updates later, we dig into the engineering, the...

Episode 114 of Focus Check is our full NAB 2026 Best of Show breakdown — 11 categories, 12 winners — covering cameras, lenses, lights, monitors, intercoms, power, storage, and post-production tools. Plus non-NAB releases from DJI and ARRI.

This episode is sponsored by Nanlite. Check it out at 27:58

(00:00) Intro & overview

(03:31) Kinefinity Vista Teased at NAB 2026 – Sub-$3,000 Full-Frame 6K Open Gate in a...

Live from NAB 2026 — Nino Leitner, Johnnie Behiri, Graham Sheldon, and Michael Cioni break down four packed days on the show floor.

AI is finally landing inside tools you actually use, a new wave of affordable Chinese cameras is threatening Japan's dominance, and the ARRI acquisition raises big questions about the future of cinema cameras. We also get into the GoPro effect, the sunk-cost fallacy killing established brands, an...

In this episode of Focus Check, host Johnnie sits down with Marko Pirc, founder of LIT Systems and the creator of the LIT DUO 1 light meter. It is a rare, candid conversation about what it really takes to build a professional hardware product from scratch in Europe: the failures, the crowdfunding mechanics, the supply chain reality, and the product decisions that led to one of the most distinctive instruments the cinema lighting wo...

The I'm Back Roll goes APS-C on Kickstarter, Videndum's near-bankruptcy and what it means for Teradek, SmallHD, and Manfrotto, Apple's 50-year impact on filmmaking, why camera batteries fail, CVP expanding into the DACH region, the AutoCut 2.0 Premiere Pro plugin, and a new AI pre-production lesson on MZed.

Sponsor of this episode is NANLITE. Check out the section at 20:40

Chapters and Articles in this Episode:

(00:00) Intro & ...

Episode 110 of the CineD Focus Check is a packed news week. Nino and Johnny cover a major update to the CineD Camera Databases, an escalating patent dispute between DJI and Insta360, Sony's dramatic suspension of nearly all memory card sales, a new shot listing course on MZed, the Panasonic LUMIX TZ300 compact camera, a new affordable pancake lens from SG Image, DNG becoming an ISO standard, a Fujifilm GFX100 II firmware update, ne...

In this week's episode of the Focus Check podcast, Nino and Johnnie cover a remarkably packed week of filmmaking news. They dig into the brand-new DJI Avata 360 drone, which arrived at the CineD office literally the day before recording, discuss OpenAI's surprise decision to shut down the Sora app and the collapse of its Disney deal, break down what GoPro's patent case against Insta360 actually resulted in, and touch on the strange...

In this episode, we sit down with Helena, founder of Harlowe (previously Hobolite) and CEO of AEC Lighting Solutions, calling in from her Shanghai office fresh off a trip through Europe. Helena’s story is anything but ordinary: raised in the Chinese countryside, self-taught in art from age five, trained as a mechanical engineer, and now running a globally recognized premium lighting brand with 26 years...

In this week’s episode of Focus Check, Nino and Johnnie cover a packed week of filmmaking news. The headlines include an in-depth DJI RS 5 review tracing a decade of Ronin evolution, new Blazar Viper 1.5x full-frame anamorphic lenses, Fujifilm’s community-voted X-mount lens concepts, smartphone camera highlights from Mobile World Congress 2026 (Vivo X300 Ultra and TECNO concept devices), a new lesson in the “Ethic...