I wish it had a flippy screen, IBIS, and autofocus but at $1,295 it's impossible for me to pass up. Especially considering you can add a Zhiyun Crane Plus and still be cheaper than a GH5. Black Magic wants this market.
GH5 Game Over, Panasonic
- Thread starter Jim Simon
- Start date
I wish it had a flippy screen, IBIS, and autofocus but at $1,295 it's impossible for me to pass up. Especially considering you can add a Zhiyun Crane Plus and still be cheaper than a GH5. Black Magic wants this market.
Thomas Smet
Veteran
I think the opposite is also true and we can partially thank the GH5 and GH5S and EVA1 for pushing BMD to finally make a 4k Pocket camera. They didn't think of dual native ISO all on their own.
Thomas Smet
Veteran
That may actually be a preferred method over the crudely scaled down HD on the GH5. I would gladly deal with the extra crop but have very clean 2k slow motion over overly processed scaled down quickly 2k slow motion. I really wish the GH5(S) would allow this as an option.
Mike over in the other thread made solid points why the GH5/GH5S still has its place for many people:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?359866-4k-bmpcc&p=1986749455&viewfull=1#post1986749455
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?359866-4k-bmpcc&p=1986749455&viewfull=1#post1986749455
Mike Krumlauf
Award Winning Filmmaker
I'm sorry to sound close minded, but, I honestly do NOT believe Blackmagic will ever make a camera that is as good as something from Panasonic or Sony. If i was in the market/interest to buy a camera in that class I would put my money into the GH5s before I spent another penny on a black magic camera... (you can tell I've had not so good memories with them)
joe12south
Veteran
It's not "game over", but this camera is a serious shot across the GHx bow.
The GH series has lots of features I love, but their video capabilities have always been artificially crippled with lightweight consumer codecs and flimsy consumer ports. BMD has one audience, knows that audience very well, and has little reason to compromise. Unless this camera has delivery and/or quality problems, it's a home run for serious "budget" videographers/filmmakers.
If you think you can push the GH5s highly compressed V-LOG L file like a true RAW file in post, then you haven't actually tried doing so. Say what you will about the looks...look at it in the hand. Look at the button placement. This is the first SLR-style camera actually designed for video shooters. I would have gladly purchased it at the GH5s price. As it is, I'll buy 2 and probably only use my GH5 for stills.
- Don't want to buy CFAST cards? Just plug in an HD. What a whacky idea!
- A screen you can actually use to focus 4K on a 4K camera? Crazy!
- An OS/ menu system that wasn't designed for a 1997 car head unit? Amazing!
- Proper ports for power, audio, timecode, etc. Silliness!
The GH series has lots of features I love, but their video capabilities have always been artificially crippled with lightweight consumer codecs and flimsy consumer ports. BMD has one audience, knows that audience very well, and has little reason to compromise. Unless this camera has delivery and/or quality problems, it's a home run for serious "budget" videographers/filmmakers.
If you think you can push the GH5s highly compressed V-LOG L file like a true RAW file in post, then you haven't actually tried doing so. Say what you will about the looks...look at it in the hand. Look at the button placement. This is the first SLR-style camera actually designed for video shooters. I would have gladly purchased it at the GH5s price. As it is, I'll buy 2 and probably only use my GH5 for stills.
- Don't want to buy CFAST cards? Just plug in an HD. What a whacky idea!
- A screen you can actually use to focus 4K on a 4K camera? Crazy!
- An OS/ menu system that wasn't designed for a 1997 car head unit? Amazing!
- Proper ports for power, audio, timecode, etc. Silliness!
PaPa
Major Contributor
Amazing new camera from BMD. I had the pocket and with the exception of the nasty moire, the colour and image was fantastic. I've got myself a gh5s and have no buyers remorse seeing this. This will be another incredible tool in a kit of other awesome tools. And what a great price!
Not just any HD, but an expensive USB-C SSD drive that will cost almost as much as the CFAST cards will. ( though I do like the idea of being able to use the drive for other purposes than just video capture )
Sage
Well-known member
Their inherent color science is better; though I will have something to contribute there
Dunno why you got downvoted, as you're on the money there.
Please tell me more about how a 128gig drive which costs less than forty bucks is "almost as expensive as a CFast card"!
https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Ultra-128GB-Type-C-SDDDC2-128G-G46/dp/B01EZ0X55C/
And heck, if you're just doing a basic shot on a tripod that is running for ages (say a locked off shot at an event) you could get a FOUR TERABYTE harddrive for less than US$170:
https://www.amazon.com/G-Technology-G-DRIVE-USB-C-External-0G05666/dp/B06ZY3N7QC/
This is indeed a major feature by BMD!
Thomas Smet
Veteran
Anybody know if the 4k Pocket has a OLPF this time? I refuse to buy a camera that requires an after market OLPF just to get rid of aliasing and moire. One can add all the cool formats in the world to a camera but it the image has artifacts it is a no go for me. I would gladly take 10bit from a GH5 over raw from a Pocket if that raw suffers from artifacts.
TheTrickster
Well-known member
As a owner of a GH5 and as of yesterday (of all days to buy one) a GH5s. If its using the same sensor, would it not have similar colour rendition properties as the GH5s?
At this point, it looks mighty impressive (for the price...wow) if it had ProRes RAW I would have some serious buyers remorse. But apart from the cost differences I'm not jumping all over it.
At this point, it looks mighty impressive (for the price...wow) if it had ProRes RAW I would have some serious buyers remorse. But apart from the cost differences I'm not jumping all over it.
doubledark
Well-known member
Might want to read some of the reviews before buying "Terrible product, at least as far as performing as claimed by the manufacturer. I will be requesting a full refund. I have a new HP Spectre X360 running Windows 10 Pro and a 512GB SSD, and have the SanDisk connected to the USB-C port. I am trying to copy a few GB of documents onto the SanDisk. Essentially all other apps are closed. I am getting in the range of 1-10 MB/s transfer rate. I got one or two instances where the rate hit almost 20 MB/s, but only briefly. Just peeked at see that I'm getting less than 10 KB/s (yes, that is KB, not MB).
I shoot long form video with both GH5 and GH5S. At first this camera looked attractive however for me shooting up to 3 hours continuous means getting power and external SSD. This external USB drive has to be bus powered from the camera and fast enough for the data rate from the camera too so simple USB drive will not do I think. When these are added on to the cost it may even be more expensive than a GH5 setup with external power and does not have the other features the GH5 has to offer. I can see that for someone shooting a short film where clips are only a few minutes long and where focus is full manual then it could be attractive. But for someone like myself shooting with unattended camera under control of the WiFi app that can fully control the camera it seems that the Pocket camera is not all that competitive. For the person who carries the camera around to shoot unless on a gimbal it will also be at a disadvantage to the GH5 IBIS add the fact the screen is fixed so bloggers can't see what they are doing and the deficiencies mount up. It seems that it would be a great film camera but other applications may not be that good for it.
While the USB-C drive you linked to might work, I would never want to bank a paid video project on it. You should be looking at the higher end Samsung USB-C SSD drives that cost significantly more. Ok maybe not as much as CFAST cards do at the moment, but they are still not that cheap.
Sage
Well-known member
The big question at the momemt
Bassman2003
Veteran
BM seems to make filmmaker cameras, not all around use cameras. They know they can not beat Panasonic at their game. Add IBIS and a viewfinder along with other mirroless stuff and the BM price would be closer to the norm. I can see why Panasonic sort of forced the GH5s out, they probably knew this was coming. Imagine if the GH5s had not been announced yet? No $2,500 release price.
You could say Panasonic needs to go cheaper and BM could add some features but they won't. They are operating in their segments. All we can hope for is some pressure which results in some future adjustments and maybe some discounts.
As a side note, Puredrifting called it in a GH5s thread: I wonder if Panasonic is regretting the choice to leave IBIS out of the GH5s design right now? I know they say it was technical but I believe it was a choice by them. Having IBIS would be a clear yes or no purchase decision against the BM camera for many buyers. Now they can only put the viewfinder against a $1200 price gap...gulp!
You could say Panasonic needs to go cheaper and BM could add some features but they won't. They are operating in their segments. All we can hope for is some pressure which results in some future adjustments and maybe some discounts.
As a side note, Puredrifting called it in a GH5s thread: I wonder if Panasonic is regretting the choice to leave IBIS out of the GH5s design right now? I know they say it was technical but I believe it was a choice by them. Having IBIS would be a clear yes or no purchase decision against the BM camera for many buyers. Now they can only put the viewfinder against a $1200 price gap...gulp!