GH5 How interested are you in a GH6 anymore?

[NorBro]

Dude. It's Panasonic Corporation.

Z Cam with less than 1% of its money already has shown deep learning for objects. Camera puts text over things in a room.

This is human. This is cat. This is apple.

Panasonic could have possibly even had better AF than Canon and Sony in 2013 if fair competition existed.

There are zero excuses anymore almost a decade later. They are not stupid; they know how sought-after AF is.

If this was Apple or Google or Microsoft or Amazon or Walmart or any other power company, they would have all had amazing AF the same week.

 

[hojomo]

Dude. It's Panasonic Corporation.

Z Cam with less than 1% of its money already has shown deep learning for objects. Camera puts text over things in a room.

This is human. This is cat. This is apple.

Panasonic could have possibly even had better AF than Canon and Sony in 2013 if fair competition existed.

There are zero excuses anymore almost a decade later. They are not stupid; they know how sought-after AF is.

If this was Apple or Google or Microsoft or Amazon or Walmart or any other power company, they would have all had amazing AF the same week.

this is the bottom line. there are open source programs that recognize & can track all kinds of objects. you can load software on a raspberry pi security cam to recognize specific people. Panasonic has hobbled their AF up to now because of the cartel

I bet GH6 (and S1h Mark II) have a good chance of having PDAF in a form that probably mimics Nikon's level - not challenging Sony/Canon, but adequate for a lot of situations and able to track pretty well for video. That will mark the new baseline since Sony is ready to push better readout tech into cheaper bodies in the next two years & move onto the next iteration of bleeding edge performance for an A2.

Anecdotally, after using an S1h for awhile - the video af isn't as atrocious as it's made out to be. AF-C - with manual focus override - has been surprisingly usable for me with the 24-105 f4. I alternate between human/animal detect, tracking, 225 area based on subject, you can also tweak focus racking speed & how sticky it holds onto the subject. Not saying it's great, but I have followed two active pit bulls around and kept them sharp pretty reliably.

If Sony let Panasonic have PDAF enabled in the sensors they buy, Panasonic could undoubtedly implement competent video AF. The idea that Sony would never allow this is bunk to me. It's all about staggering and timing the feature rollouts to maximize the opportunity the various makers have to sell their particular version of a niche camera/feature in any given cycle. hybrid AF w/ PDAF is now reached the point of just being a standardized feature. After all Sony let Sigma use if on the FP l...

 

[ahalpert]

I can't claim to understand the inner workings of these systems but I'd imagine if it was that easy they would have switched. I think enabling phase detect is one thing but it's far more complex to program the camera to do face detection and tracking. This is where Sony and Canon put the time and money to develop an AF system that works well. We all can speculate the reasons why they didn't implement PD but at the end of the day it doesn't really matter because they didn't and it doesn't look like they will in the foreseeable future.

But Panasonic DID implement face detection and tracking. They do it with contrast detect. They just dont have any phase detect info to feed it

 

[Peter C.]

But Panasonic DID implement face detection and tracking. They do it with contrast detect. They just dont have any phase detect info to feed it

Look I'm just trying to think of what could be the conceivable obstacles to an obvious problem. There are many things that go on behind closed doors that consumers are not privy to, both technical and economic. I was reading more on the subject and apparently many of the good focusing cameras use a hybrid of contrast and phase detect. So its not as simple as using one tech over another. It could also be that Sony is not allowing Panasonic to use phase detect on their sensors or are charging a high licensing fee. It could also be that Panasonic is being cheap and won't pay a reasonable license.

Just think about the 29 minute record limit most cameras still have. It had long been argued that it was done to avoid higher European tax classification. If this was the case why didn't manufactures offer more expensive models that offered unlimited recording? Why were American models limited too? Recently I think the tax law changed but cameras were still limited? Some manufactures said the limit was to prevent over heating. I'm suspicious that the real reason was cripple mirrorless cameras from competing against more expensive cinema lines. My point is for such a simple issue that consumers care about we could never get a straight answer or be offered a solution to allow consumers the choice of buying a camera with unlimited record time.

 

[DLD]

The obstacles are listed in spec sheets. On the Sony side of the street - pardon the pun - the same 24 MPX full frame sensor with different brands has a different combination of the AF points. Clearly, the cameras software can add or subtract from the overall performance too. There it's Sony's turn to BS about being "incapable" of providing the 10-bit recording or a reasonable bit rate/codec.

 

[NorBro]

There it's Sony's turn to BS about being "incapable" of proving the 10-bit recording or a reasonable bit rate/codec.

Yeah, and that's not even discussed as much but it's the same thing as Panasonic's AF.

The lack of 10-bit and the implementation of 100Mbps for 4:2:0 4K year-after-year-after-year while everyone kept improving was inexplicable.

[Only Canon held out as long but at least they had a solid 400+Mbps 4:2:2 MJPEG and external 10-bit for a model or two.]

 

[Peter C.]

Yeah, and that's not even discussed as much but it's the same thing as Panasonic's AF.

The lack of 10-bit and the implementation of 100Mbps for 4:2:0 4K year-after-year-after-year while everyone kept improving was inexplicable.

[Only Canon held out as long but at least they had a solid 400+Mbps 4:2:2 MJPEG and external 10-bit for a model or two.]

Camera companies commonly will not include a codec for economic reasons. Unlike on the consumer side where we don't have to pay to use a jpg, raw, mp4... device manufactures do. Its the same argument whether camera company is being cheap not to pay the licensing or the consumer has unrealistic expectations and would be unwilling to pay more for technology they view as free. This isn't always the reason, Canon has used codecs as way to cripple a lower end camera from a higher end one that uses the same sensor. This way they can build virtually the same camera but sell at different price points depending on the codec that they allow. This was done on the C200.

 

[NorBro]

Camera companies commonly will not include a codec for economic reasons. Unlike on the consumer side where we don't have to pay to use a jpg, raw, mp4... device manufactures do. Its the same argument whether camera company is being cheap not to pay the licensing or the consumer has unrealistic expectations and would be unwilling to pay more for technology they view as free.

All of their cameras in question already had Sony's own XAVC so unless you have to pay someone to use better chroma and bit depth then nothing about that statement makes any sense.

Now if you're saying you had to pay Sony more money to have 10-bit then OKAY, but no mirrorless cameras had it until last year, which is silly.

 

[Peter C.]

All of their cameras in question already had Sony's own XAVC so unless you have to pay someone to use better chroma and bit depth then nothing about that statement makes any sense.

Now if you're saying you had to pay Sony more money to have 10-bit then OKAY, but no mirrorless cameras had it until last year, which is silly.

Every situation is different but they're always done for economic reasons. Whether it be licensing fees or feature hierarchy. You sound like that you know better than the camera manufacture. Do you think they don't have a strategy when they decide whether or not to include a feature or improve a codec on a particular camera? For a long time people complained that Canon dslr didn't have clean hdmi. Was this an over sight? No they knew the internal codec were a designed limitation and they didn't want people using an external recorder to side step it. You need to buy the cinema line for raw 10bit video. Codec are a common choke point. Once you step back and view where a particular camera sits in their other offerings you can understand why something will not be added or improved.

 

[NorBro]

Honestly, the companies were able to do what they did for so long because of your kind of thinking. (And I don't blame them.)

If you truly knew cameras and camera specifications, you wouldn't be speaking like that.

All of their products and feature omissions and prices - across five different Japanese companies - fit together like puzzle pieces.

___

As a technical professional, one should not be accepting that 10-bit was unavailable in a corporation's mirrorless cameras until 2020, or that another corp still doesn't have modern AF.

Again, back to fair competition and just having common sense, this would never happen in the United States.

 

[DLD]

The royalties for H264 and H265 are peanuts in the camera market. It's 20c per unit for up to 5,000,000 units sold and capped at $6.5M. H265 has the same unit rate but is capped at $25M annually. The 8-bit was/is simply Sony's own cripple hammer to satisfy its sensor clients.

PS. The real money for the codec groups is the smartphone business, one of the reasons Apple is thinking of using Pro Res in its next iPhone. Otherwise, there is a bunch of companies paying $25M/Y. Which adds up over a decade or so.

 

[Thomas Smet]

Every situation is different but they're always done for economic reasons. Whether it be licensing fees or feature hierarchy. You sound like that you know better than the camera manufacture. Do you think they don't have a strategy when they decide whether or not to include a feature or improve a codec on a particular camera? For a long time people complained that Canon dslr didn't have clean hdmi. Was this an over sight? No they knew the internal codec were a designed limitation and they didn't want people using an external recorder to side step it. You need to buy the cinema line for raw 10bit video. Codec are a common choke point. Once you step back and view where a particular camera sits in their other offerings you can understand why something will not be added or improved.

Adding at the very least external 10bit doesn't involve codec licensing costs at all. Thats 100% down to manufacturers just deciding to hobble the HDMI output. The DSP can process the data however they want and are not limited by licensing costs. They debayer the data and pump out uncompressed video. It doesn't touch an encoder or codec at all in that pipeline. Thats why Sony cameras are 8bit but yet still 4:2:2 and uncompressed YUV video. Its the external devices that then encode to ProRes or even uncompressed video formats if captured on a computer.

 

[Thomas Smet]

Even the Canon M6 Mk2 for $850 manages external 10bit this way. Internal is limited to 8bit but the external is 10bit 4:2:2.

There is zero excuse for any camera not to have at least external 10bit.

 

[DLD]

The latest A7IV rumor is that it will have a full sensor - comes out to about 7K - readout, subsequently downsampled into 4K.

Surely, it will be 10-bit. I guess, in H265.

 

[ahalpert]

They only mention 30p full readout though. Which means it could have a slow rolling shutter. And it could have low-quality 4K60p or even 4K60p only available in aps-c

 

[DLD]

Likely very slow shutter ... a bone to the partners in crime.

Still, it might be a home run in the making.

 

[ahalpert]

Still, it might be a home run in the making.

Yeah but probably not for me

 

[DLD]

Side note, A7IV delayed release has likely more to do with the NAB than with the chips. Sony's streamer is on the 10th. One has to think that A7IV will be part of it. If not, it's not showing up on store shelves any time soon.

 

[ahalpert]

Side note, A7IV delayed release has likely more to do with the NAB than with the chips. Sony's streamer is on the 10th. One has to think that A7IV will be part of it. If not, it's not showing up on store shelves any time soon.

Maybe but I think the chip shortage is serious. I can't find an a7siii in stock anywhere. And people have said they've been waiting for an a7siii or FX6 for months and months

 

[DLD]

Maybe but I think the chip shortage is serious. I can't find an a7siii in stock anywhere. And people have said they've been waiting for an a7siii or FX6 for months and months

Apple is allegedly ordering 100 million A15 chips from Taiwan Semi. That's one client from one supplier. The chip itself runs about $40. An average car has about $600 worth of chips (electric about $800), which averages 25-30 per automobile. There are about 80 million cars manufactured per year (projections for 2021). That's over 2 billion chips required by the car industry. Smartphones account for a couple billion more. Computers gobble up another chunk. The whole semiconductor industry is generating about $700 billion in sales annually.

A popular camera sells 50,000-100,000 units per year. And uses one chip. So, I don't think it's the chip related problem.