GH5 Game Over, Panasonic

filmguy123 said:
- GH5 doesn't have OLPF
- File sizes = more expensive recording options so that's 2 items; but a big sell of the GH line is the addition of 400mbps ALL-I. Recording to ProRes is similar size requirement. And largely seen as a plus. Except it doesn't require expensive v90 SD cards
- Stills / Flash - don't use, don't care - GH5 can add a flash but doesn't have one on body anyway
- Anamorphic - as another user requested, you should need a license to shoot this... I think few people will care
- Baked in - as others said, add a LUT in camera and easy to adjustment layer add or copy/paste add in post


(not criticizing your list - just thinking out loud!)

Is there anything else workflow wise on the camera? I've been reading through all the specs and features and looking at buttons etc. and it really doesn't seem like too much, but it's always in the details. One thing I like on the GHx line is how I can quickly rotate the top dial to go to presets IE a VFR HD preset, a 4K ALL-I preset, an indoor high ISO cine-D profile preset, etc.

What else?
Click to expand...

Correct the GH5 doesn't have an OLPF but the GH5S does which is the more logical camera to compare the Pocket to. The GH5 also has an over sampled sensor that uses a high quality form of down conversion to help compensate for the lack of the OLPF. The form of bicubic scaling helps average out the pixels to eliminate some high frequencies. Panasonic went this direction so the stills could be super detailed while still providing a very clean 4k video. My only point about the OLPF is it suddenly increases the cost of the Pocket from $1,300 to $1,800 and its a PITA to buy it and add it yourself. Still much cheaper than the GH5S but getting closer. We are also not sure how long we will have to wait for somebody to make an OLPF for the Pocket. I would assume not very long since the 4k Pocket is going to be hot. (successful not stolen).

I don't think the formats on the Pocket are a problem at all. I need to make that clear. I have used ProRes myself for many years and will likely continue to do so. I love the fact that the Pocket uses ProRes and raw. My only perspective is for those users that are concerned about file sizes. Not a lot of people use the 400mbps on the GH5 and Gh5s for this very reason. Same goes for the EVA1 even though it just got it a lot of people are finding it to not really provide any better quality. Even the VFX supervisor Stephen Fleet found this to be true for VFX work. Shooting a green screen never has a ton of detail or intense random motion so it makes sense that the 150mbps would be just as good as the 400mbps. Shooting dirt bikes kicking mud might be an entirely different story but I have yet to see anybody actually compare the 150mbps and 400mbps for that type of shot. If I see one more Youtube video comparing formats with a still life scene and a locked down camera I'm going to scream. ProRes is not similar to 400mbps. It is more like 800mbps for HQ which I would highly suggest using if one is using ProRes. ProRes is not a very efficient codec and LT and regular ProRes start to show DCT based macro blocking in high detail areas like grass. HQ exists for a reason. Sure thats only double but again I think you will find a ton more people prefer to use 150mbps on the GH5(s) vs the 400mbps. That is a 5x difference. Not a big deal to you, Joe or myself but it is a realistic valid concern for some people.

I agree that the formats are the huge benefit to the Pocket but not everybody is going to see it that way. Especially if the 150mbps and 400mbps from the GH5(s) do in fact deliver the same overall quality as ProRes. I was also excited about the Pocket until I told my colleagues I wanted to get one and they were the ones that told me I was nuts due to the file sizes needed. I'm just passing on the concerns many have shared with me.

I do shoot stills a lot so I personally have to decide if I want to get the Pocket and keep the GH4 for stills of just go to the GH5s which I' also kind of concerned about when it comes to stills. John Brawly just mention 4x3 sensor which is the first I have ever heard of it. The specs for the sensor indicate 16x9 but of course that could be wrong. The sensor could also have been 4x3 but they are only using a 16x9 center of it. Guess we will have to wait and see but honestly the stills on the Pocket are kind of an after thought and really only though because it was easy to add the ability to just shoot a single cDNG frame .
Adding luts is awesome and I'm glad they did that. Thats a big advantage over the GH5 that only previews luts.
 
NorBro said:
According to B&H's 'Best Sellers' list (if this means most units sold), the 4K Pocket already outsold both - the GH5 and GH5S - which I honestly find hard to believe, but not sure what else it would mean. Maybe most cameras sold in a certain time frame or most cameras recently sold, IDK. (And preorders in this case would mean sales.)

I can easily see hundreds of thousands of preorders by September.
Click to expand...

Kind of hard to do since nobody paid for it yet.
 
NorBro said:
According to B&H's 'Best Sellers' list (if this means most units sold), the 4K Pocket already outsold both - the GH5 and GH5S - which I honestly find hard to believe, but not sure what else it would mean. Maybe most cameras sold in a certain time frame or most cameras recently sold, IDK. (And preorders in this case would mean sales.)

I can easily see hundreds of thousands of preorders by September.
Click to expand...

Almost all of the GH4 owners I know 'like' the GH5 but it's not enough of a difference for them to justify buying a whole new camera. And the GH4 sold a TON.

Yeah, the 4K Pocket is gonna sell zillions.
 
DPStewart said:
Almost all of the GH4 owners I know 'like' the GH5 but it's not enough of a difference for them to justify buying a whole new camera. And the GH4 sold a TON.

Yeah, the 4K Pocket is gonna sell zillions.
Click to expand...

Did you get the cables I sent you?

(I thought it was a good time to ask, lol.)
 
I wonder if Blackmagic is going to put the new ProRes RAW format in this camera at some point. Seems like a no-brainer and it should be able to handle the bit rates.
 
Thomas Smet said:
John Brawly just mention 4x3 sensor which is the first I have ever heard of it. The specs for the sensor indicate 16x9 but of course that could be wrong. The sensor could also have been 4x3 but they are only using a 16x9 center of it. Guess we will have to wait and see but honestly the stills on the Pocket are kind of an after thought and really only though because it was easy to add the ability to just shoot a single cDNG frame .
Adding luts is awesome and I'm glad they did that. Thats a big advantage over the GH5 that only previews luts.
Click to expand...

Actually be careful.

I said they have a 4/3 (as in m4/3) sensor, not that they have added 4x3 as a shooting ratio. But it’s a detail they have mentioned, even though as you say you have to crop the sensor to get 1.78 from it and that’s all that’s been talked about so far.

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmagicpocketcinemacamera

“The Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K has a 4/3 size sensor, 13 stops of dynamic range and dual native ISO up to 25,600. ”

JB
 
Batutta said:
I wonder if Blackmagic is going to put the new ProRes RAW format in this camera at some point. Seems like a no-brainer and it should be able to handle the bit rates.
Click to expand...

Someone on BMCuser said BM doesn't sound like they want to in random NAB interviews.

Someone once said (JB - if you're reading this - was it you?) that Blackmagic never wanted to include ProRes in their cameras. They wanted RAW-only shooting cameras and had to be convinced to include a "normal" format for people.

Would it compete with CinemaDNG? Not sure...don't think so but you never know what's brewing with this format over at Apple.

When RED - whose current REDCODE dominates the RAW world in FCP X - found out about PR RAW months earlier, they said..."Hey, want to sell one of our cameras in your store?" (Lol, j/k about the quote...but REDCODE does dominate in FCP X as far as RAW is concerned, and they do sell the RAVEN in the Apple store.)
 
Last edited:
DPStewart said:
Almost all of the GH4 owners I know 'like' the GH5 but it's not enough of a difference for them to justify buying a whole new camera.
Click to expand...

I stopped using my GH4 as soon as I saw footage from my GH5. For me the difference between these two cameras was huge, especially when it came to overall image quality and color. I really noticed how much better 10-bit footage was when color correcting skin tones shot under crappy fluorescent lighting.

When you add on IBIS, dual UHS-II card slots, 400 Mbps ALL-I, 5.2K Anamorphic, and a proper XLR audio block, the GH5 was a massive improvement over the GH4.
 
John Brawley said:
Actually be careful.

I said they have a 4/3 (as in m4/3) sensor, not that they have added 4x3 as a shooting ratio. But it’s a detail they have mentioned, even though as you say you have to crop the sensor to get 1.78 from it and that’s all that’s been talked about so far.

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmagicpocketcinemacamera

“The Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K has a 4/3 size sensor, 13 stops of dynamic range and dual native ISO up to 25,600. ”

JB
Click to expand...

Heh, that link..... videographer wearing heavy winter jacket at sunny skateboard park and background guy is in shorts. ;)
 
NorBro said:
Someone on BMCuser said BM doesn't sound like they want to in random NAB interviews.

Someone once said (JB - if you're reading this - was it you?) that Blackmagic never wanted to include ProRes in their cameras. They wanted RAW-only shooting cameras and had to be convinced to include a "normal" format for people.

Would it compete with CinemaDNG? Not sure...don't think so but you never know what's brewing with this format over at Apple.

When RED - whose current REDCODE dominates the RAW world in FCP X - found out about PR RAW months earlier, they said..."Hey, want to sell one of our cameras in your store?" (Lol, j/k about the quote...but REDCODE does dominate in FCP X as far as RAW is concerned, and they do sell the RAVEN in the Apple store.)
Click to expand...

The first versions of the BMCC didn't have ProRes and only did DNG. IN those days I don't even think Resolve actually supported it. The camera development was so secret the Resolve team didn't even know about it until launch.

Remember, Blackmagic started off as a post company. They launched an uncompressed capture card for FCP (was it V1.25 ?) that allowed uncompressed SDI SD recording. At the time that was so revolutionary because the competition was a AVID that was 180K for the uncompressed version and systems like Pinnacle wave for 80-100K and Media 100 for about 60-80 K and that was for at best 2:1 or 3:1 COMPRESSED video editing. Grant quickly dropped the price of the capture card to 1K. And put pretty much everyone out of business aside from AVID.

Grant has always been anti-compression and high bit depth. That's what got them to where they are. It's in their DNA.

So that was the same thinking with the first camera. To use an open standard (DNG) and then make it high bit depth, high dynamic range and uncompressed to open standard media.

One day I'll show you all those first tests :-) Let's just say they seem pretty underwhelming by todays standard, but as they made progress they really got better and better. They were very exciting days.

They've learned a lot since then, but philosophically, they are anti compression. ProRes is there because they are very tight with Apple and they realised how unwieldy uncompressed DNG's are !

ProRes RAW is intriguing. I've seen some development implementations of this that worked really well, but I'm still not really across how the Apple version of this works as published. At the moment it's only Atomos that have this, and by their marketing, they wanted this and took it to Apple. I think it's a natural extension to have ProRes RAW added to ProRes capable cameras.

I've no doubt Resolve will support it before long because they're always good at being current.

As to BMD getting on board for cameras I think it depends on the way it's implemented and if there's any real advantage. Right now, if you don't get RAW controls (like ISO and WB) then I don't really see any) but it does mean that you get a performance bump for any Apple device over DNG.

JB
 
Tom Roper said:
I agree it is important to understand customization, the assumption is that everyone already knows that. But "same sensor" is not an overly simplistic term because it is the foundation of the camera, no getting around this. The premise that BMD customization for a camera not shipping at the earliest until September spells doom for a camera already well into its second year is nonsense. I'm sure that with Panasonic marketing advantage, sales and distribution channels it's going to have handily outsold the BMPCC over its run, and in the end it will have run its course and into the next generation without the BMPCC having been more than a footnote. That's what game over means. Debating the applicability of features, usefulness for a purpose is perfectly appropriate but "game over" is an inflammatory term and the sole reason this thread is 23 pages of bloat.
Click to expand...

The GH5s is a niche camera if there ever was one. I think it's ludicrous to think that the BMPCC4K won't substantially eat into the market of a competitor that costs twice as much for inferior PQ.
 
Regardless of their current stance or desire - if, and I mean *IF* they enable ProRes RAW with internal recording ability to v90 SD card and CFast... this camera will really go out of the stratosphere... this seems like a no brainer to me, even though the rep denied it in the interview (but that might have been because they were out of the loop and need time with the engineers).

If they can pull that off (seems like a no brainer) to be supported both on the camera and in Resolve, then I see very little standing in the way of this camera. RAW recorded internally and more affordably... convenience, cost, size/weight/power all reduced... that's killer.

The OLPF is interesting having that brought to attention. But I also didn't know that one could be added for only $500... so, maybe not a real drawback then.

The external powering options from Core & Hawkwoods seem compelling.
 
filmguy123 said:
Regardless of their current stance or desire - if, and I mean *IF* they enable ProRes RAW with internal recording ability to v90 SD card and CFast... this camera will really go out of the stratosphere... this seems like a no brainer to me, even though the rep denied it in the interview (but that might have been because they were out of the loop and need time with the engineers).

If they can pull that off (seems like a no brainer) to be supported both on the camera and in Resolve, then I see very little standing in the way of this camera. RAW recorded internally and more affordably... convenience, cost, size/weight/power all reduced... that's killer.

The OLPF is interesting having that brought to attention. But I also didn't know that one could be added for only $500... so, maybe not a real drawback then.

The external powering options from Core & Hawkwoods seem compelling.
Click to expand...

How so?
 
joe12south said:
The GH5s is a niche camera if there ever was one. I think it's ludicrous to think that the BMPCC4K won't substantially eat into the market of a competitor that costs twice as much for inferior PQ.
Click to expand...

Where have you seen output from the BMPCC4K to say it has better IQ than the GH5S ? Not even available yet.
 
Ron Evans said:
Where have you seen output from the BMPCC4K to say it has better IQ than the GH5S ? Not even available yet.
Click to expand...
There are a couple of stills floating around, but even without, based on every other BM camera we can make some pretty safe assumptions about what a RAW image utilizing v4 of their color science will look like.
 
Might I suggest that a lot of the people buying the GH5S may not be interested in RAW and are more interested in the other features the GH5S provides. Me for one. Most cameras these days are more than adequate to make video for the screens that the viewers will watch on. Yes if your market is high end advertising or feature films then the added quality of RAW is useful. However if you are in that market wouldn't you just use a RED to impress the customer !! If you need to shoot in low light a 2 or 3 hour show then the GH5S is a much better choice. And in comparison the BMPCC4K may actually cost more to assemble all the pieces necessary to do this. Different tools for different jobs.
 
joe12south said:
The GH5s is a niche camera if there ever was one. I think it's ludicrous to think that the BMPCC4K won't substantially eat into the market of a competitor that costs twice as much for inferior PQ.
Click to expand...

Discovered time travel, have you?

So please share what the GH6 will bring us.........:2vrolijk_08:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top