GH5 Game Over, Panasonic

Do we think BM raw will ever work seamlessly in premiere or is this going to remain platform specific?

Joe, what are your thoughts on the gripper batteries? And adding a small hd screen for swivel/tilt?

Lastly, it feels cheap, like the EVA1 - ok - I have the EVA1 and I don’t mind it feeling cheap since it’s also what makes it feel light. But my question for you, in so far as you can thus far tell, is while the pocket 4K feels cheap - do you actually feel that it’s cheap in build quality? I understand it has a carbon fiber frame. Do you think it will hold up well or would you say it not only feels cheap but IS in fact a bit overly fragile?

The EVA1 feels cheap but that body is tough like any other DVX/AF I’ve had.

Thanks. I’m still on the edge with this little bugger.
 
joe12south said:
I confess, I don't see the appeal of this product. It's as big as a mini v-mount, and less versatile. I can't really see a scenario in which seating my small camera on a big clunky box is appealing except on a tripod, and if I'm on a tripod...I'm back to v-mount. Now, if it were shaped to match the camera, utilized the 2-pin 12V input, and had a bay to mount an SSD, I'd be all over.
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lol
 
Do we think BM raw will ever work seamlessly in premiere or is this going to remain platform specific?
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It's hard to predict what Adobe will do, but BMD released an SDK the same day BRAW was unveiled. I've peaked at it, and it is well documented, so if Adobe does not, it won't be for lack of support from BMD. My guess is we will see an incremental upgrade in the near future that supports both ProRes RAW and BRAW.

Joe, what are your thoughts on the gripper batteries? And adding a small hd screen for swivel/tilt?
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I' forgot about the Grippers. Yeah, once the 12V connector becomes more commonly available (only Wooden Camera has an overpriced option right now) that would actually be a great option if you are on rails. (Nice way to counter balance a shoulder rig.) It would be very easy to add a SmallHD Focus if you need a forward facing screen. It would feel a little odd to have an external monitor no bigger than the one on the back, but hey, whatever floats your boat! ;-)

Lastly, it feels cheap, like the EVA1 - ok - I have the EVA1 and I don’t mind it feeling cheap since it’s also what makes it feel light. But my question for you, in so far as you can thus far tell, is while the pocket 4K feels cheap - do you actually feel that it’s cheap in build quality? I understand it has a carbon fiber frame. Do you think it will hold up well or would you say it not only feels cheap but IS in fact a bit overly fragile?

The EVA1 feels cheap but that body is tough like any other DVX/AF I’ve had.
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I can't actually say if the body is fragile or not. BMD claims it is a tough composite, and I have no empirical reason to doubt that, but I'm also not about to drop it on concrete. :-P I'm going to go out on a limb and say that from my limited experience the build quality is *not* of the same level we are used to from Panasonic. You know how every button is satisfyingly tactile on a GH camera? You know how the tolerance of every part, every latch, just feels right? That's not true on the P4K. While the button layout is great, the button feel largely isn't. The battery door feels fiddly. I don't think that it is problematically bad, it's just not "best in class" like the GH-series. To me the build quality feels more like Sony or Canon pro-sumer quality.
 
Shirozina said:
Except that ''the fact that the GH5 applies aggressive noise reduction, and you’re left with very little actual image detail in the shadows.'' is factually incorrect bordering on hyperbole itself ;)
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I stand by this statement, but please don't trust me:

1. Read the h.264 spec.
2. Record a scene with all of the data below 50% in h.264. Record the same scene at full range. Lift the first shot to match the second. (If you're really feeling groggy, apply a difference adjustment.)
 
Shirozina said:
Except that ''the fact that the GH5 applies aggressive noise reduction, and you’re left with very little actual image detail in the shadows.'' is factually incorrect bordering on hyperbole itself ;)
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I wasn't trying to take any sides - my statement was devoid of implicit meaning - I just meant that I objectively like that line, detached from any other context here :)
 
Shirozina said:
Except that ''the fact that the GH5 applies aggressive noise reduction, and you’re left with very little actual image detail in the shadows.'' is factually incorrect bordering on hyperbole itself ;)
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As to the content of that - my experience with the GH5 is that it forces certain internal processing items ON, even when set to -5, that can give the image a more digitized or plasticky feel at times. I've learned a lot of work arounds here and I think I've gotten some terrific images from my GH5, but there is no doubt in my mind that the more raw (not referring to codec here) processing that the BMD has does have a more appealing and organic look, at least to this subjective eye!

Regarding use of phrases aggressive and very little, I do suppose in terms of your guys' quabble here "aggressive" and "very little" are inherently subjective terms that might be better served by phrasings such as "noticeable, which appears aggressive to my eye" and "about a stop less detail in the shadows, which leaves significantly less image detail to work with when stretching".

I mean, I find the pickier you get with time, the "bigger" small things are. Like the super chefs I know who claim a "MASSIVE" difference in texture with a different technique, or a lemon squeezer that is absoluely next level... and 90% of people can't even tell the difference... or the audio guys that claim a massive sound improvement with one pre-amp over another... when you spend 24/7 in a field you learn to hear the little things and it's those micro changes that make a "world" of difference to the trained eye/ear/tongue/what have you.

As it is, someone posted a video earlier that clenched the deal for them that the GH5 was basically looking the same as the Pocket 4k. I watched the SAME video and thought "whoa... Pocket 4k steals the show". So, there ya have it. One man's hyperbole is another's man reality...
 
Regarding use of phrases aggressive and very little, I do suppose in terms of your guys' quabble here "aggressive" and "very little" areinherently subjective terms that might be better served by phrasings such as "noticeable, which appears aggressive to my eye" and "about a stop less detail in the shadows, which leaves significantly less image detail to work with when stretching".
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In this particular case, I'm using the term "aggressive" in reference to the relative magnitude of the mathematical transforms. h.264 compresses shadows a mega-f***-ton more than it does midtones. (How's that for hyperbole!) It throws away, reduces or averages many, many other aspects of the signal, as well, and it does so more "aggressively" in the shadows than the rest of the signal.

This is simply how h.264 is designed to work. If you don't lift those shadows (i.e. what you would expect when sending a file to Netflix or YouTube) then the compression isn't noticeable. But if you pull-up the shadows in post, you pull that compressed data it into a range that *is* noticeable.

Codecs like BMD's compressed cDNG or REDCODE don't behave this way. Because they were designed for acquisition, they impact the signal more or less evenly. This is one of the features that allows them to be more mailable in post.

Additionally, the GH5 and GH5S apply noise reduction before compression. If this algorithm can't differentiate signal from noise (which gets harder and harder to do the darker the image area) then it accidentally removes real image detail that is impossible to recover. Because our eyes aren't very sensitive to shadows, it's not particularly noticeable until...you guessed it...you try to lift the shadows. Conversely, the P4K effectively doesn't force noise reduction. The signal and the noise in the shadows is retained, allowing more sophisticated intervention to save image detail in post should you need to lift the shadows.
 
joe12south said:
In this particular case, I'm using the term "aggressive" in reference to the relative magnitude of the mathematical transforms. h.264 compresses shadows a mega-f***-ton more than it does midtones. (How's that for hyperbole!) It throws away, reduces or averages many, many other aspects of the signal, as well, and it does so more "aggressively" in the shadows than the rest of the signal.

This is simply how h.264 is designed to work. If you don't lift those shadows (i.e. what you would expect when sending a file to Netflix or YouTube) then the compression isn't noticeable. But if you pull-up the shadows in post, you pull that compressed data it into a range that *is* noticeable.

Codecs like BMD's compressed cDNG or REDCODE don't behave this way. Because they were designed for acquisition, they impact the signal more or less evenly. This is one of the features that allows them to be more mailable in post.

Additionally, the GH5 and GH5S apply noise reduction before compression. If this algorithm can't differentiate signal from noise (which gets harder and harder to do the darker the image area) then it accidentally removes real image detail that is impossible to recover. Because our eyes aren't very sensitive to shadows, it's not particularly noticeable until...you guessed it...you try to lift the shadows. Conversely, the P4K effectively doesn't force noise reduction. The signal and the noise in the shadows is retained, allowing more sophisticated intervention to save image detail in post should you need to lift the shadows.
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Come on Joe. I know you have successfully created a business centered around shooing with cameras based entirely on h.264 for a decade. I assume your business has seen great success and you yourself push GH camera material to impressive levels.

I get it isn’t perfect and there is a potential for better but 10bit from the GH5 is not a fragile turd just waiting to break. Lots of people including yourself a year ago graded the crap out of GH material and delivered impressive results that clients loved. You even did so with the GH4 which many here now consider to be about as bad as VHS if anybody were to believe the rhetoric around it.

I think we are all suffering from a bit of politics here on the subject. We all basically fall into two types of people here.

1. Those who will not accept anything less than visual perfection. Willing to sacrifice anything in order to get less compression.
2. Those that view the content as more important and are happy with good looking material even if it isn’t perfect or can’t be pushed as hard. They will just work harder to capture the image correctly the first time. Willing to sacrifice a little bit of quality flexibility for convenience and comfort during production.

The GH5 is not grotesque and it isn’t perfect. It’s just a very good video image. No more or no less. Some will love it, some will hate it and others will just think it’s ok.
 
One thing about increasing and changing standards is outside forces. It’s not that we weren’t happy, or clients weren’t happy, with the GH4 in 2014. It’s just that they wouldn’t be happy today, and so many competing cameras came out that offer higher quality at similar price points, and standards/expectations change. No one would say the DVX100 is good enough for most clients these days, yet many of us shot for years on it and were happy and clients were happy. But times change.

Recently, those changes are happening on an annual basis rather than a 5 year basis. The GH5 image was brilliant at launch and is already getting dated. But that’s not me being hard on the GH5 so much as the market being hard on it. I still use, and get some great shots with it. I do think turning out "the GH5 look" in a market flooded with Pocket 4K cameras is going to be a harder sell soon, though. That doesn't mean the Pocket 4K is the answer, or the GH5 won't get great shots that will make many people happy, I am just pointing out what should be a surprise to no one: By late 2019-2020, the GH5 won't quite be "good enough", depending on the client/project, at least for those competing to put out the best visuals and eye candy... which is what many of us here do (read: HAVE to do) in a such a hyper crowded market. Even with great story/content. And even if you're not in the top end (in fact, quite often especially if you're not in the top end, where lower end clients just want "the look").

As a middle player, I've got options here and I think the future GH6 has a lot of promise if Panasonic decides to crush the Pocket 4k with some key tweaks. The S1 is a really exciting prospect. Outside of Panasonic, Fuji is starting to kill it, and I'm half excited and half nervous for whatever NAB 2019 will bring but things are changing at a breakneck pace.

To compare to food here in Portland, cuz I love me good food, a few years ago PDX blew up on the food scene. Places that were AWESOME in 2012 are now barely passable and many have gone out of business. That food was already a cut above the rest. It was good. It still is good. It's just in comparison to HOW good everything surrounding it accelerated, the comparison points changed. It wasn't that restaurant VS red robin. It was VS 15 new hot spots from the most talented chefs in the region. Tastes changes, standards change, expectations change. Sometimes unfairly, and sometimes uncomfortably fast.
 
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Come on Joe. I know you have successfully created a business centered around shooing with cameras based entirely on h.264 for a decade. I assume your business has seen great success and you yourself push GH camera material to impressive levels.
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Way to butter me up. ;-) The truth is that I can't push the GH5 the way I could push film, or even the way I can now push the P4K. I couldn't push the Canon HV20 the way I could push the GH3. They were all useful tools in their own way.

I get it isn’t perfect and there is a potential for better but 10bit from the GH5 is not a fragile turd just waiting to break. Lots of people including yourself a year ago graded the crap out of GH material and delivered impressive results that clients loved. You even did so with the GH4 which many here now consider to be about as bad as VHS if anybody were to believe the rhetoric around it.
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The only "turd" I can think of in recent memory was 8-bit V-LOG L on the GH4. That was genuinely, needlessly inferior to the competition to point that I never used it after testing.

I can't say this enough ... I will CONTINUE to work with my GH5. I'm not selling it, I'm not throwing it in the trash. It's the right tool for certain jobs, and I agree that it yields a strong straight out of the camera image.

I guess the most frustrating thing about this whole scenario is that it is artificially manufactured by Panasonic. There is zero technical reason why the GH5 couldn't meet or beat the P4K's image quality, but Panny insists on not allowing the user to choose to record a less processed signal.

- Allow the user to turn off sharpening
- Allow the user to turn off noise reduction
- License ProRes RAW
- Create a log curve that actually matches the cameras's dynamic range and color gamut.

Hell, if Panasonic even did the first 2 I probably wouldn't have bought the P4K.
 
So since the 5d2 we all wanted a small formfactor large Sensor camera we dreamt of a 1080p 8bit 422 with a robust Codec. Panasonic delivers a 10 bit 4K 422 with ibis Electronic view Finder with peaking waveform log and what have you- no overheating no 29.9 seconds record limit. And no one is happy.


QUOTE=joe12south;1986770742]Way to butter me up. ;-) The truth is that I can't push the GH5 the way I could push film, or even the way I can now push the P4K. I couldn't push the Canon HV20 the way I could push the GH3. They were all useful tools in their own way.


The only "turd" I can think of in recent memory was 8-bit V-LOG L on the GH4. That was genuinely, needlessly inferior to the competition to point that I never used it after testing.

I can't say this enough ... I will CONTINUE to work with my GH5. I'm not selling it, I'm not throwing it in the trash. It's the right tool for certain jobs, and I agree that it yields a strong straight out of the camera image.

I guess the most frustrating thing about this whole scenario is that it is artificially manufactured by Panasonic. There is zero technical reason why the GH5 couldn't meet or beat the P4K's image quality, but Panny insists on not allowing the user to choose to record a less processed signal.

- Allow the user to turn off sharpening
- Allow the user to turn off noise reduction
- License ProRes RAW
- Create a log curve that actually matches the cameras's dynamic range and color gamut.

Hell, if Panasonic even did the first 2 I probably wouldn't have bought the P4K.[/QUOTE]
 
icarusfilm said:
So since the 5d2 we all wanted a small formfactor large Sensor camera we dreamt of a 1080p 8bit 422 with a robust Codec. Panasonic delivers a 10 bit 4K 422 with ibis Electronic view Finder with peaking waveform log and what have you- no overheating no 29.9 seconds record limit. And no one is happy.
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Exactly, the GH5 is near perfect!

The only bummer for me is that you can't record 10 bit 4k@60 internally.

I wish Atomos whould release a non-screen 10 bit 4k@60 recorder.
 
joe12south said:
I stand by this statement, but please don't trust me:

1. Read the h.264 spec.
2. Record a scene with all of the data below 50% in h.264. Record the same scene at full range. Lift the first shot to match the second. (If you're really feeling groggy, apply a difference adjustment.)
Click to expand...

I've got and had cameras (Canon XC10) that apply aggressive NR and the results are obvious and not the same as the GH5. The GH5 NR is light by any standards esp demonstrated by how you can clean up shadow areas with Neat image or Resolve NR quite well. I agree it has some NR and it would be nice to have the option of no NR but calling it aggressive and that leaves little in the shadows does not stand up to my experience. BTW - the GH5 sensor is inherently quite noisey as can be seen in any RAW stills image so maybe no NR would be PITA anyway.
 
QUOTE=joe12south;1986770742]Way to butter me up. ;-) The truth is that I can't push the GH5 the way I could push film, or even the way I can now push the P4K. I couldn't push the Canon HV20 the way I could push the GH3. They were all useful tools in their own way.


The only "turd" I can think of in recent memory was 8-bit V-LOG L on the GH4. That was genuinely, needlessly inferior to the competition to point that I never used it after testing.

I can't say this enough ... I will CONTINUE to work with my GH5. I'm not selling it, I'm not throwing it in the trash. It's the right tool for certain jobs, and I agree that it yields a strong straight out of the camera image.

I guess the most frustrating thing about this whole scenario is that it is artificially manufactured by Panasonic. There is zero technical reason why the GH5 couldn't meet or beat the P4K's image quality, but Panny insists on not allowing the user to choose to record a less processed signal.

- Allow the user to turn off sharpening
- Allow the user to turn off noise reduction
- License ProRes RAW
- Create a log curve that actually matches the cameras's dynamic range and color gamut.

Hell, if Panasonic even did the first 2 I probably wouldn't have bought the P4K.[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]

You would still be left with a sensor that has less DR than the P4k / GH5s (esp at higher ISO) and that would likley require NR to be applied to every clip in post. RAW with the GH5 would also mean a crop for 4k output like the ETC mode as I'm not sure the internal hardware could cope with full sensor output. HLG makes pretty good use of the the sensor's DR but not sure how this relates to the gamut?
 
Shirozina said:
You mean shooting RAW helps you or are you saying ProRes 10bit 4.2.2 is a lot better than the GH5 10bit 4.2.2 400mbps? I agree on your second point and intend to use both.
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The point was speaking to bit depth and compression.

There was an assertion posited that bit depth and lower (better) compression only became relevant and useful in "badly exposed" footage.

That's just wrong.

If it wasn't then a "correctly" exposed 8 Bit image would be all anyone needed, as long as all the important information falls into those 8 bits.

But we all know that's just not the case.

I also allude to the fact that Blackmagic cameras generally offer 12 bit options. And just like we all notice and love the jump from 8 bit to 10 bit. It goes the same again when you go 10 bit to 12 bit.

This is what makes them so compelling for me. The codec options are nice too, but it's not just a 10 bit camera. It's also 12 bit....Switchable. Shot to shot. Internally recording, not externally complicated by extra crap (unless you want that)

We all agree that 8 bit is crap.

10 bit is better.

12 bit is more better again...

Why's that hard to understand ? Yes we need more media and fast media, yes we need better post. Maybe it's not for all who don't need that, but to argue it's not is wrong.

Like I said, you get it all for not very much if you buy both cameras for very little outlay, but pretending 10 bit "panny" processed NR'd and cooked, compressed is the same as less processed 10 bit / 12 bit.....

they're not as anyone who's graded and shot those files will know....the same way you see the differences between 8 bit and 10 bit.


JB
 
You would still be left with a sensor that has less DR than the P4k / GH5s (esp at higher ISO) and that would likley require NR to be applied to every clip in post. RAW with the GH5 would also mean a crop for 4k output like the ETC mode as I'm not sure the internal hardware could cope with full sensor output. HLG makes pretty good use of the the sensor's DR but not sure how this relates to the gamut?
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I forgot about the sensor resolution difference. My wishlist comments in this regard really apply more to the GH5S than the GH5.

HLG does utilize a nice wide gamut. While I know that HLG gets a lot of love here, I do not like it for acquisition. From 0-50% it offers absolutely zero advantages of a log curve. It's nice for protecting highlights, but no better than REC709 for digging into shadows. For all of V-LOG L's faults, it is a more balanced curve than HLG.
 
Happy, nobody is ever happy! The GH5 is pretty close to perfect. For me, the GH5s sensor along with IBIS and RAW instead of LOG would be perfect. Add 240fps in 1080p and we are really perfect...

After working with VLOG I am not a huge fan. Would prefer a RAW implementation like the P4k. Panny has be very responsive with the GH series so I think they will be up for the fight.
 
Shirozina said:
I've got and had cameras (Canon XC10) that apply aggressive NR and the results are obvious and not the same as the GH5. The GH5 NR is light by any standards esp demonstrated by how you can clean up shadow areas with Neat image or Resolve NR quite well. I agree it has some NR and it would be nice to have the option of no NR but calling it aggressive and that leaves little in the shadows does not stand up to my experience. BTW - the GH5 sensor is inherently quite noisey as can be seen in any RAW stills image so maybe no NR would be PITA anyway.
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I should have phrased my original response better:
1. h.264 (and any similar codec) aggressively compresses shadows. It is supposed to by design. This is true on any camera that uses it, it's not a particular weakness of the GH5.
2. The GH5S uses more noise reduction than the GH5. An amount that, frankly, shocked me at higher ISO's. I think its noticeable even without a severe grade, and even after YouTube compression. YMMV.
3. I will never suggest that in-camera NR should be taken away. I will constantly promote that we should have the OPTION to turn it off if/when we want to.
 
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