GH5 Game Over, Panasonic

To the guy complaining about the screen...I'd be surprised if there's a better onboard monitor on the market. It's 5", 1080p, bright and has lut support. Color accurate? You think the GH5 would be more accurate? And that screen is around 3", no? I would prefer a flip screen though.

To the guys complaining about logistical headaches, ie data rates and power. You don't have to shoot raw, ProRes isn't that much worse than the data rates on the GH5s. Plus you're working with a pro codec. And for power, it's really not that difficult to bring spare batteries or rig an external one. And if using phantom power, isn't that also an issue on the GH series? And that's after you've spent the $400 for the module.
 
Well I think there is quite a difference in data rates between GH5 and ProRes. UHD60P at 150Mbps on the GH5 and the equivalent ProRes I think would be closer to 880Mbps. One is in the range of SDXC cards and the other well outside requiring external recording to SSD. Which is why the Pocket camera has a slot for CFast2 card. I have no problems running XLR with phantom power to my NTG2 on the GH5 unit and use just half of one L series battery in the power station in this mode for over 3 hours with still time left. The GH5 module works well with good preamps too and is stereo not just mono. The pocket camera looks interesting but not sure that the GH5S with a ATOMOS V may be a better solution overall. I think I would add the ATOMOS V to my setup before thinking about the Pocket Camera
 
Game over? C'mon, Blackmagic isn't even playing yet!

It's an unbelievable value for a first cam/vlogging setup/crash cam/play around cam and a wonderful option for people who can't afford a GHX / A7siii / would prefer a 2 cam setup etc. Not sure it's going to make much of a dent in those markets, though.
 
Thomas Smet said:
Another thing to keep in mind about the display. BMD tends to not use the best quality the world has to offer. The 5" display might be nice for the camera controls and focusing but I would think twice about trusting it for color and contrast accuracy. There is still a pretty significant advantage to having a nice high quality 10bit 1000nit Atomos display. Not to mention you can never angle or position that Pocket display and have to stand directly behind the camera for decent results. I lost count how many times the articulating LCD on my GH1, GH2, GH3 and GH4 saved my butt.

Its cool that they added such a large display but once again I'm more interested in flexibility vs being forced to only shoot a certain way. Some of you will work around it with no problems but I am no longer shopping for a camera that requires work arounds.
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It is very very likely the 5" display is the same as on their Blackmagic Design Video Assist (which is also the same screen as on their various URSA models). Because of the benefits of reusing parts.

What I know this means it will at least be a MASSIVE improvement over my current BMPCC "screen"! Was shooting with my BMPCC last night, and damn that screen is hard to shoot with sometimes.

And yes I agree it would have been very very useful if only the screen flipped around to various positions (one of the many things I like about the GH series). This is why I wish high quality / affordable priced / lightweight 3.5" ish sized monitors existed (glad Atomos finally made a 4K recorder/monitor which isn't 7"+, and is 5" instead, but I'd welcome even a 3" monitor on a 4K recorder! Perhaps recording to something small like CFast / XQD / m2 SSDs), as sometimes that is all you need just to check the frame while shooting from a position that doesn't work with the built in screen.
 
TheDingo said:
I know that many people equate BM color science with a "film look", but to me it has always been that brown-toned Blackmagic look that does not look like the original color of the subjects being shot. If I buy a BMPCC 4K camera I know that I will work hard to remove the Blackmagic look from my footage... ( hopefully somebody will make a BM ---> GH5s color transform LUT )
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Like NoBro, my first thought (before I even read his comment) is you've got IR contamination. This can happen on all sorts of cameras, even say Arri or RED cameras. Especially if you're using NDs.

Just get an IR cut filter and you'll be good.
 
IronFilm said:
And yes I agree it would have been very very useful if only the screen flipped around to various positions (one of the many things I like about the GH series). This is why I wish high quality / affordable priced / lightweight 3.5" ish sized monitors existed....
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I just bought a Zacuto Z-finder EVF (3.2"). The diopter flips up and you have a 3.2" monitor. They are $1000 new, but people are selling them regularly on ebay for about $250. They may not have everything you want, but they have a good feature set.
 
The original Zacuto EVF/ZFinder does not work with any signal higher than 1080p30, it will not display 1080p60or any UHD/4K signal.
Cheers
 
Thomas Smet said:
It didn't happen when the first Pocket came out and we were all shooting horribly scaled HD at that time. Why would it be different this time? I have used raw cameras in the past. Used the RED ONE a lot and honestly I have never been a fan of how BMD handles raw. I'm much more excited about ProRes raw and until BMD adopts that I'm totally fine with 10bit 4:2:2 log. I'm not missing out on anything. Raw isn't some sort of new buzzword we have never heard of. This is just more pixels of the same raw we have experienced from BMD for years now.

Its awesome to have raw but it also isn't the end all solution to film makers wet dreams. More and more Hollywood films are going the ProRes route vs raw on the Alexa due to budgets and realizing they never really gained a lot for the majority of films outside of the huge VFX films. Why is it indie film makers and corporate video shooters suddenly need raw more than Hollywood does? Don't get me wrong I would also love to have raw on the GH5 but I'm not about to sacrifice a lot of what I'm used to just to play with raw.

Maybe I'm more of a realist but having been around for a long time I started to realize there were more important things to worry about in a production vs if I have raw or not. I am fine with formats that provide some compromises. In twenty years I have also never been in a situation where even an 8bit compressed format couldn't be graded well unless a shot was royally screwed up. Having more flexibility is of course always welcome and having a more robust format is more true now that we shoot log but the Gh5 provides a lot of room to work with and I honestly don't feel like I am missing out at all.
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I am pretty much in agreement with most of what is said here. And I work a lot as a professional colorist. To be honest, I have never found RAW to be much better than Prores 444 from most cameras that output both. Therefore really not worth the extra expense and energy most of the time. Actually, the real reason why RAW gets bandied around, is that it is easier to deal with for many cameras than the encoding it takes to do Prores. There are some exceptions. 16 bit Raw is not the same as 12 bit RAW for instance. When you really need to dig, those extra bits can make a big difference. I also agree that a well exposed and lit 8 bit image is more than enough to many things in terms of grading. Surprisingly, I am also a fan of 14 bit "RAW" from Magic Lantern on the 5D Mark III - still after all this time. Amazing to me how true the colors are right out of the box.

I am truly hoping for a more robust image from the new pocket. Mostly for selfish reasons. When the young kids come in to some production house I am freelancing at and they throw down some footage to be graded from this camera, I would sure like to be able to make it home in time for dinner.
 

I agree with him, in the photography still world the technical performance has plateaued out, with only incremental improvements now.

When will we reach this in the video world?

I reckon the BMPCC4K could be the beginning of the end.

ecause with 4K 60fps raw, and even greater HD slow motion, and pretty high DR and good lowlight, what really is left?

Of course just like the folks in the stills world there is a never ending list of "more" wanted!


But I reckon just like the stills world we might get soon to point we can worry less about the technical quality of the image, and more about everything else. (such as ergonomics, or having built in NDs, I/O options, TC, wireless, or focus tracking, etc)
 
IronFilm said:
....we might get soon to point we can worry less about the technical quality of the image, and more about everything else. (such as ergonomics, or having built in NDs, I/O options, TC, wireless, or focus tracking, etc)
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Might, soon?

We've been at it for ever.
 
TheTrickster said:
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?
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If they both recorded RAW, yes, but it is impossible to get a moving image off of a GH5s without heavy processing. (Yes, even V-LOG-L)
 
Thomas Smet said:
Another thing to keep in mind about the display. BMD tends to not use the best quality the world has to offer. The 5" display might be nice for the camera controls and focusing but I would think twice about trusting it for color and contrast accuracy. There is still a pretty significant advantage to having a nice high quality 10bit 1000nit Atomos display. Not to mention you can never angle or position that Pocket display and have to stand directly behind the camera for decent results. I lost count how many times the articulating LCD on my GH1, GH2, GH3 and GH4 saved my butt.

Its cool that they added such a large display but once again I'm more interested in flexibility vs being forced to only shoot a certain way. Some of you will work around it with no problems but I am no longer shopping for a camera that requires work arounds.

Still tempted but every day past the initial press release my interest diminishes. By September I will likely no longer care.
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You can buy a PCC4K and an Atomos and still cost less than a GH5s alone.
 
joe12south said:
You can buy a PCC4K and an Atomos and still cost less than a GH5s alone.
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But I can't see it on a tripod above my head so actually need that Atomos to use it. Then have to buy a battery to last the 3 hours I use mine for and a SSD to record to for that length of time without stopping. If the remote application looks good it may work. Will assess when it actually appears but until then my GH5 and GH5S are great. Full remote control from the Android app ( do not have any Apple products so do not want to have to buy just to use for remote ) GH5 WiFi remote even controls the power zoom of the Olympus lens I have, touch focus anywhere on the screen etc .
 
I've been wishing for the Black magic Pocket 4k, people said it wouldn't happen but it did.

Now the the file sizes are probably going to be huge in comparison to the GH5s and lowlight will likely be no where near as good. But we'll see. The GH5 and GH5s are still going to be easier cameras to use I think. It certainly changes things though.

I can't wait to see sample footage from this thing.
 
Early reports (from the demo set/floor) say 6400 is very clean.

Blackmagic cameras don't use NR (unless anything changed in this new one), so I'm assuming Panasonic/Sony people will see an apparent difference in low-light capabilities right away, especially for those that don't turn off NR in their cameras (if you can even do that).
 
A clean 6400 would be great. The large screen on the BM 4k is really nice too. I wonder how the image will compare to the Ursa mini 4.6k, which I know struggles with moire.
 
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