GH4 GH5 Autofocus Test

Ron Evans said:
The setting he showed at about 9:19 I think is the exact opposite for what he wanted to have happen. He wanted the GH5 to respond rapidly to his changing views and the two settings are to refocus slowly and the second to stay on the initial focus position. Looks like that is exactly what it did. Maybe the problem is giving too much control rather than having the engineers just giving a couple of settings.
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I think the terminology used in the menu settings is confusing people.
 
filmguy123 said:
I'd like to see the Barry Green GH5 AF test to set this to rest.
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Not gonna happen. Don't have a GH5, don't intend on getting one any time soon, and I believe it is completely dependent on the lens itself. All I was reporting was that lenses operate at different speed and different efficiency, and I can say that the two menu items have an ENORMOUS impact on the focus efficiency of a DVX200/UX180/UX90, so I suspect that they will have substantial impact on the GH5 also.

I don't have a GH5, so the subject doesn't affect me so I'm stepping out of the discussion, y'all test or vilify or celebrate it however you want.
 
You can use the C series and certain Sony cams in a limited number of professional scenarios with basically no futzing. Period. It works.

If you fiddle and tweak and pray and have just right scenarios you might get barely acceptable results for your kid's soccer match or your vlog that nobody watches from the GH5. Maybe. Sort of.

I mean, sorry, but that's the actual state of affairs. I had hoped that maybe Panny pulled a rabbit out of their hat, but I didn't really expect it, nor do I really have many actual shooting scenarios in which I even WANT the camera to take over focus.
 
If it turns out that this is indeed the case, tests are accurate, and a FW update doesn't correct sometime on the software side this is disappointing mostly in the advertising sense. For me personally it's a minor disappointment as I focus all manual and had some limited use cases where this would have come in handy or allowed for some cool creative tricks. But it's really disappointing to see a manufacturer tout something if it doesn't live up to their own hype by a long shot.

So, here's hoping, I'll give the benefit of the doubt until I have run my own tests and seen what the April FW update holds.
 
filmguy123 said:
If it turns out that this is indeed the case, tests are accurate, and a FW update doesn't correct sometime on the software side this is disappointing mostly in the advertising sense...
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You should watch the video that Ron linked to on top of this page.

This one -

 
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jjneff said:
"As Max pointed out, if you do not record in camera, the AF is fast. Otherwise, horribly slow, and depends if you are recording or not. And... You aren't recording in camera like 95% people will do. So unfair test. Sorry...! And when you pretend it works well.. Eww.. Sorry, it hunts back and forth and it looks ugly. Even a 80D has a better AF lmao." I agree
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The 80D has superior AF technology so there's no question.
 
I have not seen any tests of the normal continuous auto focus. All the tests have been of the AF custom settings. These I feel are intended to be set for custom use so would be different for different scenarios. For the Photo menu there are several presets for example. Has anyone seen the GH5 performance with just the normal auto focus ?
 
DLD said:
You should watch the video that Ron linked to on top of this page.

This one -

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He recorded everything externally, because the focus works way faster and better when using an external recorder. It must have something to do with the processor having to write to the card or something vs. just transmitting the feed. BS test. Most shooting will be done in camera, and in addition the AF, was a major feature of the camera that was heavily promoted.
 
Sheldon Charron said:
He recorded everything externally, because the focus works way faster and better when using an external recorder. It must have something to do with the processor having to write to the card or something vs. just transmitting the feed. BS test. Most shooting will be done in camera, and in addition the AF, was a major feature of the camera that was heavily promoted.
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But even so, if this is the best case scenario, who would use this for anything mission critical?
 
Ron Evans said:
I have not seen any tests of the normal continuous auto focus. All the tests have been of the AF custom settings. These I feel are intended to be set for custom use so would be different for different scenarios. For the Photo menu there are several presets for example. Has anyone seen the GH5 performance with just the normal auto focus ?
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I'm not sure what you mean by "normal" but if you mean letting the camera pick from all-zones, it's noticeably worse.
 
joe12south said:
But even so, if this is the best case scenario, who would use this for anything mission critical?
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That's my point. I have a shoot for television coming up in three weeks and although I have a cameraman hired for two days of shooting, I will be staying behind to shoot a more intimate bio doc with one of the characters and will need to work alone, and I hoped to use the GH5. It's sitting on my desk right now. I even bought three new native panasonic lenses, which arrive today, to make sure that the AF performance would be at its best. I have been shooting Canon since 1986 but for hunting show content and interviews, especially when working alone, AF is a huge benefit. I've been focussing manually and dealing with it, but I'm ready to move to AF for those that call for it and I want to shoot 4k 60p as well, so I was really hopeful that this was the answer. Alas it's not. I could get a second Sony body, but then none of the native lenses will fit, and I have thousands ties up for one body. I might send everything back, or perhaps just the lenses and stick with Canon with a metabones that I can use on an a6500 or something with an adapter for interviews at least. Perhaps we'll see something at NAB. In the meantime for my shoot coming up, I may just stick with my Canon at 1080p.
 
-griffy- said:
That video is weird, he was in AFS mode the whole time as you can see in the upper right corner, rather than AFC.
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If I'm reading the manual right, the continuous AF in motion picture mode is a menu setting only and overrides the button setting (see page 167 of the advanced manual). P 89 says AFF & AFC work same as AFS in "creative video mode". It was obvious the af was hunting throughout the test despite showing AFS on the monitor.
 
Has anyone extensively tested out different lenses? On the GH4, my old 14-42 has pretty snappy and responsive autofocus, but the 20mm f1.7 is very slow, and sometimes just gives up altogether.
 
Zim said:
That looks pretty good to me. Did you say you had it in face detect mode?
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Yes, as soon as a face comes in range it goes to that. I haven't tried it out in the woods or in a crowd to see how it works in different environments though. I think this might work well for doing don Juan steadicam shots where you simply can't rack focus going backwards on a gimbal.

Cheers,
Pete
 
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