How interested are you in a GH6 anymore?

[Bassman2003]

I am more in the camp of what makes it so bad vs what makes it so great? Nothing either way imho. If they had put out the GH5s with IBIS with the same recording updates and called it the GH5II then I think we would all find more use for the camera as it would be more of an upgrade for many of us. I don't care about the price point as these cameras are all cheaper than the alternative $5,000-$10,000+ cameras for the role they serve. The GH6 will be nice but it needs to be better from an image point of view for me to buy it. For me, the GH5 falls short in noise and DR. This is a sensor shortfall and they chose to keep the same sensor. This is why I am kind of down on the concept. The GH5s was better enough to be a worthy upgrade for video folks but they chose to leave that one alone. So, I don't see the service to what WE see as the target market - video shooters. So I think the MKII should have been the GH5s which is regarded at the batter video camera to begin with.

I am coming at this from a macro view as well as my own business needs (but that is only important to me). If Thomas is correct about minimal gains in light gathering for the GH6, then it would appear that Panasonic is serving too many masters. I do not see photo people cheering for the GH5.

[ahalpert]

I agree that if you're already invested in MFT and you like the format for your work, these products are a nice step forward and that particular customer base continues to be served.

We all know who we are and what we want. I need maximal low-light for 1/250 shutter slow-mo in conditions too dim for comfortable human vision so I went full-frame. But I'm not packing my whole kit in carry-on or shooting wildlife. And my GH5 still comes in handy when more light is available.

What are people complaining about with the lens selection? Isn't there a decent lens library available already? And by now, the used market for those lenses must be FLOURISHING. You're not going to get a cheaper equivalent offering in full-frame. If you really want budget options, you can get a speedbooster and adapt cheap EF mount stuff. Also if you want better low-light.

Aside from the characteristics of the format which aren't ideal for me, it's a pretty nice realm to play in. Soon you'll have 4K120p and 6K60p internal with awesome IBIS for the cost of an R6. Meanwhile, Canon mirrorless cameras with similar specs would flounder in the hot, high-stakes situations that make my fellow posters love MFT.

I was afraid they'd let the line-up wither away, but I think people should be pleased.

[filmguy123]

It's nuts how rapidly the industry has moved in the last 5 years. People would have lost their minds over the GH6 details and the lens selection at the price point we'll have today 5 years ago, and now everyone's like... "meh". I don't think any of us would have predicted in 2013 while using an AF100 or 5D Mk2 that today we'd be looking at cameras at $1500-$3500 that were better than the red cameras, with IBIS and AF and tiny power draws...

Spoiled bunch we are!

[Samuel Dilworth]

Among the announcements was this: there are firmware updates coming to lenses to enable linear manual-focus response. In the video chat after the announcement, a Panasonic rep listed these lenses to be supported:

10–25 mm f/1.7
8–18 mm f/2.8–4.0
12–60 mm f/2.8–4.0
50–200 mm f/2.8–4.0
100–400 mm f/4.0–6.3
25 mm f/1.4
200 mm f/2.8
12–35 mm f/2.8 (II model only)
35–100 mm f/2.8 (II model only)
12–60 mm f/3.5–5.6
100–300 mm f/4.0–5.6

I identified these from the minimal info he provided (e.g. “ES200” for the 200 mm f/2.8), but he also mentioned a “forty-five to one hundred” lens that I couldn’t identify. Maybe the 45–200 mm f/4.0–5.6?

Further evidence that Panasonic is taking Micro Four Thirds seriously after perhaps a lapse of concentration.

[Samuel Dilworth]

It's nuts how rapidly the industry has moved in the last 5 years. People would have lost their minds over the GH6 details and the lens selection at the price point we'll have today 5 years ago, and now everyone's like... "meh".

Some of the “mehs” are coming from the same place as the FUD that Micro Four Thirds has had to endure since its inception, a land where full-frame sensors have magical properties in addition to their objective merits and demerits, i.e. they’re not rational “mehs”.

For me, the deep and robust capabilities you get with Micro Four Thirds cannot be acquired for any money in full-frame mirrorless and certainly not close to the price of a GH camera and lenses. I looked pretty hard last year and was amazed at how much you have to give up when you choose something like an α7C or R6. The only full-frame cameras that come close (still not quite there) are Panasonic’s own models, and then the price after lenses is way higher and you still lack the feature that is Micro Four Thirds’ sore point: video autofocus.

On autofocus, I wonder if the latest claimed DFD improvements would make it worth trying a native Panasonic zoom. I suspect it would lead to more disappointment.

[ahalpert]

On autofocus, I wonder if the latest claimed DFD improvements would make it worth trying a native Panasonic zoom. I suspect it would lead to more disappointment.

I haven't done a deep dive on the new AF developments, but it seems to me like the advances are all in subject recognition rather than how fast the camera can keep up with a moving subject.

And the GH5 and S1, in my experience, can do good face-tracking. As in - they put the boxes around the faces and follow them around the frame. They just didnt keep the focus sharp on those faces as they moved. But i have lately considered using AF on the GH5 for unmanned podium type shots where the next speaker who steps up might stand a bit further back from the microphone. In that case, I dont need rapid readjustment, but it would be nice if the camera handled the shift for me. But I haven't tested and implemented it.

So, my guess is that you would be disappointed? Although in theory if the AI gets good enough at predicting the motion of the subject and which direction it's moving in, maybe contrast-detect autofocus could achieve parity with phase-detect. But I haven't seen evidence of that

[Christobella]

Meanwhile, Canon mirrorless cameras with similar specs would flounder in the hot, high-stakes situations that make my fellow posters love MFT.

Absolutely. This is huge when you're shooting unrepeatable actuality for a paying client. My GH5 hasn't missed a beat in 4 years. It just works.

[Samuel Dilworth]

Methods used for dealing with heat in the original GH5:

https://news.panasonic.com/global/st...017/48655.html

Presumably further optimised for the GH6.

[Thomas Smet]

Well the first hope is that Panasonic would simply issue most of these improvements via firmware, as was totally possible. A bankrupt Olympus still issuing major firmware updates, while perhaps Panasonic's only true remaining competitor, Blackmagic, is doing the same for the base model pocket 4K.

Another expectation is that is a corporation isn't going to go that route then to at least issue a model with comparatively few tweaks in a 3 year timeline, not 5. This market segment clearly has a faster update cycle then 5 years.

Another expectation would be to be the camera which most people on this thread wanted 2 years ago - a GH5s with IBIS. This camera isn't it, nor is the GH6.

The expectation is that Panasonic would realize what everyone else in the camera-world already knows - few people buy into MFT format to take pictures, particularly the Panasonic models.

In others words, I'd have expected both new cameras to be video-centric and to be issued much sooner than late 2021/2022, and to be far cheaper than full frame competitors. None of those very reasonable expectations were met.



Pretty clear at this point the only real way the format can compete is with lower prices and new lenses... which aren't coming. There's little to nothing that Panasonic is going to provide that isn't already available in both MFT & FF formats, particularly for wide/fast/cheap glass.

There's no affordable 12mm or wider 1.8 primes; the true gem of the lens lineup is their 1.4 12mm (which I own). But it's still $1300 news. A brilliant piece of glass, but hardly one priced to induce new owners to jump into the format. This lack of new glass is perhaps the biggest proof that MFT is an afterthought.

And there's the timing - seems like many, if not all, of the improvements to the GH5 could have been introduced 2 years ago. But of course Panasonic had its hands full with its full frame lineup.

So it's absolutely fair to say that Panasonic could not do both line-ups justice simultaneously... because they haven't. While I'm glad to see 2 new cameras - well, one as there's certainly no guarantee the GH6 is actually released - these offerings offer too little too late to expect much life to be pumped into MFT, especially from young shooters looking to jump into a system.

It's not that the GH5II - or even the GH5 - is a bad camera. It'll be very nice. But it, nor the apparently GH6, does anything meaningfully different than its competition, while still firmly in last place for AF, a feature that most smaller companies consider an absolute must.

Given the above, I'm guessing very few people will actually buy either - the GH5II isn't much better then what it's replacing & is already rendered obsolete by the GH6, while the GH6 is priced at or above existing full frame cameras which offer most/all of the same features. And full frame isn't going to sit still while Panasonic fills in the gaps for the GH6.

I know I sound negative. It's because I am. I've owned at least a 1/2 dozen Panasonic products and want them to be better than they have been this last 4 years. But it is what it is. By operating two formats without the resources to properly support either, they've brought products that are significantly lacking when comparing competitors & pricing.

Put another way, the GH5II announcement would have been a little underwhelming 2 years ago. Now it looks like polishing the rails of the Titanic.

No all those improvements are not possible as a firmware update. As has been stated multiple times now the GH5 processor just could not handle 4k 60p 10bit. While Panasonic could update some things via firmware there is no way they could do everything like the live video streaming 10bit 60p and improved auto focus. The new auto focus is using some kind of machine learning AI to help focus a lot better and that takes more processing power than the GH5 has.

Olympus being bankrupt should tell you right there that perhaps they didn't make the best business decisions when it came to cameras. Panasonic is a business and they need to make money to keep developing new cameras. They can't give you free firmware updates forever on a five year old camera.

Clarification some people wanted IBIS on the GH5S. Panasonic worked with a lot of film makers who actually didn't want IBIS on a film camera. Even when turned off IBIS can move around and film makers want a sensor that stays exactly where it should. There is a reason why cinema cameras don't have IBIS and not just because they couldn't figure it out. Its a cool tool to have for sure but it isn't fair to say everyone wanted it. While you say thats what everyone wanted the reality is the GH5S sold like crap and I'm not entirely sure Panasonic is going to go the 10MP sensor route again to make another GH5S like camera. The much more popular camera has been the GH5 which still sells well.

The GH6 is a move in that same direction. Users want a hybrid camera that can do it all including IBIS. Apparently most Panasonic users are even willing to sacrifice low light from a 10 MP sensor in order to get that.

I think Panasonic is doing in a GH6 exactly what people want. $2,500 for m43 or $2,500 for FF isn't even really relevant. Like I have said earlier FF is not better, its different. Whats important to those shooting video is how well does the 4k look and what kind of features does the camera have. Users want reliability as well. No other camera can shoot forever without crashing or overheating. While some other cameras out there may do 4k 120p the GH6 will be able to do so without any restrictions at all. Heck Canon still can't figure out 4k without farting around. I say this as one that recently bought a Canon M6. Its not bad but its all a compromise.

Plus FF can make the most amazing body in the world but users need glass and there are a ton of m43 glass owners out there. The P4k has even helped sell more m43 glass. Those users are not likely going to just toss away thousands spent on good glass just to brag they now have FF. Which kind of means squat anyway unless one really only shoot extreme wide open and ultra wide angle. That or has a disorder that insists every shot have razor thin DOF.

FF is over rated plain and simple. Thats why I preferred to get a APS-C for professional stills and why many nature photographers have moved to m43 from FF. FF has just as many disadvantages as it has advantages over m43. If the GH6 does have 24 MP similar to the S5 then it really is no longer about cost but if one prefers a certain look or absolutely insists on being lazy and shooting without lights. But low light should no longer be some kind of indicator of camera cost. A camera is not better just because it can shoot in the dark. It has that one advantage but it likely has an equal amount of disadvantages.

Now perhaps you don't find value in the smaller sensor and you can decide what you want to find value in. But there is no law or rule that says just because m43 is a smaller sensor that it should for whatever odd reason cost less. In fact I would happily choose a GH6 for $2,500 over a Canon RP for $1,200 any day of the week. The FF means squat if the camera suffers in other areas. This whole sensor size thing needs to no longer be some kind of quality or price benchmark. Its just a tool and they all have equal pros and cons. I for one love to shoot telephoto in nature and that has more value to me than shooting at ISO 12800 and pretending that less noise means it looks great.

[DLD]

Some have moved on. I'm not sure you can say many have...

Indeed, I can only speculate on the topic by following what the potential customers, including the current and the previous owners, express on the various video forums. However ... with GH-5MKII now being officially listed at popular retailers as "available for preorder", we should have a good idea about its success or lack thereof, at the very least, within a week or so. Maybe within a week after the Memorial Day.

My feelings, as I had expressed them here within the last few days, was that GH-6 would be a hard sell at $1,700 due to the saturated sub-$2,000 niche. At $2,500, which is its rumored price now, I think it's a nigh impossible sell, regardless of the camera innate qualities. Once again, we should see what it can do when it hits the store shelves.

[Thomas Smet]

Absolutely. This is huge when you're shooting unrepeatable actuality for a paying client. My GH5 hasn't missed a beat in 4 years. It just works.

Exactly. Panasonic has always been about making solid, reliable and consistent cameras. They rarely crash, have problems, or overheat. Most of us have not had a single issue since the GH1. Except for when we used to hack those cameras to push them where they were not meant to go. Right there is proof that not everything can be done with firmware. A lot of the hacks on the GH1 and GH2 were cool but not always perfectly stable. I was glad when the GH3 came out and we no longer needed to worry about hacks as much. We finally had a great HD camera that was perfectly stable.

Panasonic has kept making the GH cameras better ever since all while keeping them 100% stable. This should be very important to those earning money with their cameras or just those that don't want to miss precious moments.

[Ron Evans]

It's nuts how rapidly the industry has moved in the last 5 years. People would have lost their minds over the GH6 details and the lens selection at the price point we'll have today 5 years ago, and now everyone's like... "meh". I don't think any of us would have predicted in 2013 while using an AF100 or 5D Mk2 that today we'd be looking at cameras at $1500-$3500 that were better than the red cameras, with IBIS and AF and tiny power draws...

Spoiled bunch we are!

I agree. When I first bought the GH5 as it came out I had been using Sony camcorders and had the Sony AX1 UHD camcorder. Really poor low light with its small sensor but the only UHD camera possible back then that was less then $10000. I think it cost me $5500 Can. I bought the GH5 with the 12-60 lens as a kit price for almost half that with performance so superior anyone could see it. Video at UHD 60P was the only reason I bought it and that is still the case today. I bought the GH5S when it came out to give me a little advantage in low light in the theatre. It has a lot more advantages. Wider field of view, better light and better colour science too. They are always on tripods with image stabilizers off, always manual focus. I have never used continuous autofocus on either or shot hand held. Never taken a still. Use Ninja V on both of them. I shoot UHD 60P and crop into the image on a 1920x1080 timeline so 6K or 8 K would be the thing I look for as well as RAW to help with any wild exposure issues in the shows. I did not expect the GH5II to have anything for me and of course it does not. RAW on the GH5S is great and will see how 5.7K on the GH6 compares to other options when it comes out. Will still not have any interest in image stabilizer or continuous autofocus but do want fast touch autofocus ( which both GH5 and GH5S do fine ) which is how I start setting focus .

[Bassman2003]

It's nuts how rapidly the industry has moved in the last 5 years. People would have lost their minds over the GH6 details and the lens selection at the price point we'll have today 5 years ago, and now everyone's like... "meh". I don't think any of us would have predicted in 2013 while using an AF100 or 5D Mk2 that today we'd be looking at cameras at $1500-$3500 that were better than the red cameras, with IBIS and AF and tiny power draws...

Spoiled bunch we are!

I think this is a little unfair to all of us. Makes us look like spoiled brats but in reality, these are business decisions. I am not going to buy a $10-$15K cinema camera if my business does not support it. No matter how much that company is supposed to be my friend or that I am supposed to buy out of being grateful to them for making the product etc... Yes, technology has moved very quickly and changed a lot of things, one of them being how much we all can charge for work! We are all becoming commodities so to keep an edge we need the equipment to be better to some extent. I have used the GH5 in corporate settings where I am running around conventions or hotel ballrooms then shooting sit down interviews etc... It works fine but I have to process the footage with Neat Video when I get home and I have to be very careful about any highlights as they do not look very graceful. So is it out of line to say "meh" when things stay the same over five years? The GH5s solved some of these issues but they decided to prioritize "crash cam" clients over us. So they left the friend column for me Both of these cameras are overdue imho and Panasonic has a bit of work to do as the GH6 need some wow features for folks to like it as much as the GH5.

They are a great company and I think all of us on this thread are rooting for them and us. And they usually deliver.

[Thomas Smet]

Indeed, I can only speculate on the topic by following what the potential customers, including the current and the previous owners, express on the various video forums. However ... with GH-5MKII now being officially listed at popular retailers as "available for preorder", we should have a good idea about its success or lack thereof, at the very least, within a week or so. Maybe within a week after the Memorial Day.

My feelings, as I had expressed them here within the last few days, was that GH-6 would be a hard sell at $1,700 due to the saturated sub-$2,000 niche. At $2,500, which is its rumored price now, I think it's a nigh impossible sell, regardless of the camera innate qualities. Once again, we should see what it can do when it hits the store shelves.

I'm not so sure about that. $2,500 is still a bargain for a professional camera and there are a lot of flagship models that cost a lot more than the GH6. Just because some APS-C or FF models may cost less doesn't really mean much. The Canon RP is $1,200 and FF and yet people out there still buy the GH5, Olympus higher end cameras and other smaller sensor models.

Sensor size should not be an indicator of cost. Period. Features, performance, stability and comfort should. Not everyone obsesses over the few advantages FF provides. Some of us much prefer the benefits of smaller sensors.

When I was on the hunt for a new stills camera I absolutely did not want FF. I find FF to suck horribly for telephoto work. In fact a lot of nature photographers have started moving from FF to m43 for this reason. A 70-200mm f2.8 Tamron for $1,200 which is an almost optically perfect lens can have a 400mm f2.8 reach on a m43 sensor. Many nature photographers prefer to have that 400mm extra reach. Even on slower lenses m43 will always have more reach. 400mm on FF at f2.8 costs $26,000. Mirrorless FF doesn't even have those kind of options yet and the longest you can get on any mirrorless FF system is 200mm at f2.8. You can get a slower longer lens on mirrorless FF systems but now you are talking at least two stops slower on the long end which completely negates the advantage of FF. Two stops slower for light gathering and now the DOF matches that of m43. plus those slower lenses may end up actually costing more. Sony has a 100-400mm f4.5-f5.6 for $2,400. Thats double the cost of the Tamron 70-200mm f2.8 G2 lens and two stops slower on the long end. Personally I would rather shoot a 20MP still at ISO 200 at 400mm on a GH5 than a 24MP still at ISO 800 on a Canon RP. Now that the GH6 may have a similar 24 MP to some FF cameras I think that is going to greatly appeal to many nature photographers. They will suddenly be able t shoot the same resolution with 2x the reach.

I know I have moved to a Canon M6 but that was because I didn't want a five year old GH5 with 20MP. For stills the M6 appealed to me because of the 32 MP sensor. The other factor was how well EF lenses work when adapted to the EF-M mount. 100% perfect electronic communication. Since I was starting to invest in EF lenses to use with Metabones on the P4k this kind of made sense at the time. It was between the M6 and Panasonic G9. I was this close to ordering a G9 and when I discovered some EF lenses worked horribly on the Viltrox focal reducer and also didn't always work 100% on Metabones I decided to go towards compatibility. Along with the Tamron 70-200 f2.8 G2 I bought a super affordable older Tamron 17-50 f2.8. That lens was sometimes hit or miss on adapters. Its actually a pretty good lens and I still wanted to make use of it for at least stills so the EF-M mount made sense at the time. Once I upgrade it to the Tamron 24-70 G2 which I know works great on Metabones then maybe the Canon M6 will not be as necessary anymore. Plus we get to use a focal reducer which is still a 300mm at f2.0 now. Thats 3 stops better than any current mirrorless FF 300mm lens.

To be honest I also just wanted to finally check out phase detect auto focus. Yeah its nice to have and now I have a body here that can do it for gimbal work. I have absolutely no problem moving back to a GH6 however. I might miss the extra 32MP over the rumored 24MP on the GH6 but I'm ok with that. To be honest the 32MP stills are a little too big. Take so much longer to load and process now. The M6 was a $900 no brainer stop gap for me. It ended up a nice solid stills camera and the 4k video is actually kind of decent for family stuff. I do miss better 4k video however that I can do on the P4k. I don't really want to haul two cameras around on vacation so I may sell off the M6 and P4k and get a GH6 instead. I will of course miss raw and dual native ISO but I also don't really have a problem with 10bit log. It might be a worthy sacrifice to go back to a hybrid that can do it all.

Then there is how locked in the new mirrorless mounts are. L mount lenses are sexy but they will likely never be adapted to work on any other mirrorless mount system. We are about to enter a age where there may no longer be lens adapting.

[Bassman2003]

Thomas, your theory about stills, FF and what people want has many angles. To start, the GH5 is a mediocre stills camera. I have tried to use it in that role and the images are noisey and lack punch. This is with shooting RAW with a custom profile just like I make for my other cameras. Basically, the camera needs to be in outdoor light to make decent images. If one goes to the M4/3rds forum on DPReview, there is not much discussion about GH5 cameras as the focus is predominantly stills oriented. So I think it is misplaced from Panasonic's point of view to think people will be buying the GH6 for stills use over other cameras. This depends upon of they decide to make the GH6 the new G10, but that is a different conversation. One might say FF is overrated, but I would take the Canon RP over the GH5 IF I was going to shoot stills.