dustylense
Veteran
Both cameras will be better than each other in one way or another. Both will be worse than each other in one way or another.
GH5 Now with the BM Pocket 4K the GH5s seem expensive and obsolete
- Thread starter AndreyBlanco
- Start date
Polaroid22
Well-known member
Yeah I own a ursa mini pro, and a 5D III for stills. Now I want an pocket 4k, but I would need to sell my 5D III. Which I really love. 3 bodies for a hobbyist is a bit too much. Maybe I should buy a 6D instead for stills so I can still afford the pocket 4K. Mhua
SuperbeastPanda
Member
GH5 is probably due for a price drop soon, anyway. I bought my GH4 in Sept '15 for £880 with 200 cashback. It'd been out for about 18 months then.
joe12south
Veteran
When someone released a camera with even better specs for half the price.
joe12south
Veteran
At what point does Atomos just add a sensor and lens mount and jump into the fray?
joe12south
Veteran
The title of this thread refers to the GH5s, specifically, and I think that is an important distinction.
It is exceedingly difficult to compare the GH5, an all-around, try to make everyone sort of happy, hybrid camera, to the BMPCC 4K. The GH5s, though, is marketed as a video first – in fact, filmmaker first – camera. If you care about photography, it's difficult to consider *either* the GH5s or the BMPCC 4K as your only camera.
The reality is that in the narrow slot these two cameras position themselves in, on paper, the BMPCC 4K appears a stronger choice, at approximately half the cost. That's hard to ignore.
It is exceedingly difficult to compare the GH5, an all-around, try to make everyone sort of happy, hybrid camera, to the BMPCC 4K. The GH5s, though, is marketed as a video first – in fact, filmmaker first – camera. If you care about photography, it's difficult to consider *either* the GH5s or the BMPCC 4K as your only camera.
The reality is that in the narrow slot these two cameras position themselves in, on paper, the BMPCC 4K appears a stronger choice, at approximately half the cost. That's hard to ignore.
Matt Gottshalk
Resident Preditor
Again, by the time you kit it out to make up for it's inefficiencies, the price is almost identical, and inconsequential.
AJA tried that and failed.
BMD is unique here in having a similar background and succeeding.
Again, by the time you kit it out to make up for it's inefficiencies, the price is almost identical, and inconsequential.
Well no. By the time you add all the costs to the GH5s the additional costs are a lot more. DMW XLT unit - AUD $450. I would say the inefficiencies are similar if not less.
Well no. By the time you add all the costs to the GH5s the additional costs are a lot more. DMW XLT unit - AUD $450. I would say the inefficiencies are similar if not less.
stoneinapond
Veteran
They are not better specifications. They are different and depending on your needs, some of the features may be a better fit.
Very succinct, and should put these two long and tedious threads to bed.
TheTrickster
Well-known member
Panasonic are doing £200 trade-in on the GH5s until end of May. Makes it more acceptable pricing...
John Brawley
Well-known member
Making a camera is a whole level of more difficult.
Remember the Hyperdecks ? BMD figures they could just add a sensor and screen and they had a camera. It turns that its crazy expensive developing a camera because even an “off the shelf sensor” doesn’t come ready to work and takes a huge amount of effort and time to get it going and it THEN turns out you have to make subjectively good judgements about how things “look”.
It’s one thing to make a screen that hits specs for nits or calibrates to 2020. Another thing entirely to make something that makes nice skin tones. That’s a subjective judgement. And it takes a lot of time and money.
They are a candidate to make a camera for sure but developing a camera burns money. I’m surprised GoPro chose not to do it considering they already had cineform and knew how to make cameras !
JB
Thomas Smet
Veteran
If specs and price were all that mattered you would think BMD would have taken over the entire industry years ago. Forgive me if I'm a bit realistic when it comes to BMD delivering on the goods.
I am also very excited about the Pocket 4k but I'm also not completely sold on it yet. The lack of OLPF is a massive deal breaker for me and even with uncompressed raw I still consider it defective if it has aliasing and moire. I can eventually add an OLPF I'm sure but thats an added cost per camera and suddenly getting much closer to the cost of the GH5 which We can find sale prices for $1,800. The GH5S will likely drop in price by the time any of you actually get your hands on the Pocket. When factoring in the extra media and power cost I doubt the cameras are really any more affordable. At least no longer near the 1/2 price that everybody keeps tossing around. On its own that $1,300 camera is not very practical to use for budget users. The battery sometimes only lasts for 20 minutes and the media costs will be higher. By how much higher we will have to see when the Pocket is in our hands but without a doubt shooting formats 5x larger will cost more. It isn't very complex math to figure that out. So while users may save initially on the camera itself it is open to debate if they actually save money once they start actually working on projects and need power and media to record those projects.
One advantage to the Pocket of course is gradually investing in it vs paying the cost all up front. To each their own I guess but in the long run I doubt anybody is really saving all that much if anything at all.
John Brawley
Well-known member
The cameras are aimed at different users and the cost is one of the least interesting ways to compare them, because...they do different things for different people.
If IS, weatherproofing, AF, stills and small file size workflow are what’s important then this is obviously not your camera.
If you want big boy industry standard RAW, ProRes, in 12 and 10 bit and 8 bit flavours then this is Blackmagic’s bread and butter.
I understand you want to keep it real Thomas but saying it has a 20 min battery when no one actually knows what the performance really is, would be tipping your hat a little to a perception of bias. Let’s judge it when it’s actually out in the field and there are real pictures available from production cameras instead of images stolen from the show floor.
JB
#EDIT and PS.
I know this is not everyone’s situation, but the fact that these cameras are so damn cheap, both the GH and BMD ones makes it really easy for me to just have a foot in each camp. What’s great is the unifying MFT mount for me. I have a bunch of MFT glass from being an early adopter of the system and I have MANY MFT cameras now. A Z1, pocket cinema cameras, the BMCC in MFT, pretty much every Olympus E and E-M camera made. For me it’s great to be able to use lot’s of different cameras to do different jobs well. Not try and make one camera do it all.
If IS, weatherproofing, AF, stills and small file size workflow are what’s important then this is obviously not your camera.
If you want big boy industry standard RAW, ProRes, in 12 and 10 bit and 8 bit flavours then this is Blackmagic’s bread and butter.
I understand you want to keep it real Thomas but saying it has a 20 min battery when no one actually knows what the performance really is, would be tipping your hat a little to a perception of bias. Let’s judge it when it’s actually out in the field and there are real pictures available from production cameras instead of images stolen from the show floor.
JB
#EDIT and PS.
I know this is not everyone’s situation, but the fact that these cameras are so damn cheap, both the GH and BMD ones makes it really easy for me to just have a foot in each camp. What’s great is the unifying MFT mount for me. I have a bunch of MFT glass from being an early adopter of the system and I have MANY MFT cameras now. A Z1, pocket cinema cameras, the BMCC in MFT, pretty much every Olympus E and E-M camera made. For me it’s great to be able to use lot’s of different cameras to do different jobs well. Not try and make one camera do it all.
Thomas Smet
Veteran
I don't have a judge of a camera that isn't out yet. I'm just as excited about the Pocket as anybody else out there. Thats where I think we get into a bit more of an aggressive discussion here. I love the Pocket and what BMD has done here. I don't want anybody to think I'm negative towards the Pocket itself. What I'm upset towards is this highly negative attitude of this camera beat that one and game over for Panasonic. I think that is a very negative attitude that does little to help a lot of people to have a valid and serious discussion about a new and exciting camera.
We should all discuss all the pros and cons in great detail just like we would any other camera. I don't see anything wrong with that and just because somebody is concerned about one aspect of the camera doesn't mean they are hate the camera or less of a pro or clueless about quality.
This is not a competition. People need to use the camera that works best for them. For me that could be the GH5S or the Pocket. I don't mind getting either or both but I don't know which one that will be until the thing actually exists and a lot of people test it out and provide real world experiences with the camera. Nobody builds a camera like this for $1,300 without some level of compromise.
As for the battery life BMD themselves said at NAB that the life could drop to 20 minutes or so. I think that is based on using phantom power and other features that could draw more power. You don't keep a 5" screen on the entire time, provide phantom power and record 4k video with a battery that small and expect amazing battery life. Whatever the real world usage is it is somewhere between 20 minutes and 60 minutes and that is something for users to take into consideration.
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Bassman2003
Veteran
I find myself agreeing with both sides on this thread. One tipping point for me would be if they came out with a different design ethos and another option. I would be more interested if they would have continued with the Ursa Mini design but shrunk it way down with a viewfinder. Then offer a true pocket sized version along the lines of the current design but smaller. To me, this current design is kind of not the best of both worlds from a size feature point of view. Why keep the DSLR design without the DSLR-ness?
I find the GH5/s very easy to use and it comes with a viewfinder & stills. Just thinking out loud.
I find the GH5/s very easy to use and it comes with a viewfinder & stills. Just thinking out loud.
filmguy123
Veteran
We'll see about battery life in real world.
Well, the rep didn't say "it could drop to 20 minutes". The rep said 20-40 minutes battery, and the website says up to 60, it's hard to know what you're really going to get. Hopefully 20 minutes is really, in fact, WORSE case scenario. But if it's 20-25 minutes with the screen set to 75% brightness and shooting ProRes 422 internally with a small camera mounted mic (which it very well could be - we just don't know), and only goes up if you drop the mic, lower the codec, dim the screen - that pretty much rules out LP-6 batteries. A "handful" of batteries for 2 hours of b-roll is actually 6 batteries. That's 2 handfuls, to be exact. And if you are shooting an 8 hour day (pretty standard), that is 24 batteries (have fun recharging those - Obviously want a power brick at that point - and probably a few).
Not being negative. The camera is doing power hungry things - it's an Atomos + a camera, basically. So makes sense to have a large power draw. That's ok. It's not even *necessarily* a negative, just pointing out what we do and don't know, and the practical implications.
Well, the rep didn't say "it could drop to 20 minutes". The rep said 20-40 minutes battery, and the website says up to 60, it's hard to know what you're really going to get. Hopefully 20 minutes is really, in fact, WORSE case scenario. But if it's 20-25 minutes with the screen set to 75% brightness and shooting ProRes 422 internally with a small camera mounted mic (which it very well could be - we just don't know), and only goes up if you drop the mic, lower the codec, dim the screen - that pretty much rules out LP-6 batteries. A "handful" of batteries for 2 hours of b-roll is actually 6 batteries. That's 2 handfuls, to be exact. And if you are shooting an 8 hour day (pretty standard), that is 24 batteries (have fun recharging those - Obviously want a power brick at that point - and probably a few).
Not being negative. The camera is doing power hungry things - it's an Atomos + a camera, basically. So makes sense to have a large power draw. That's ok. It's not even *necessarily* a negative, just pointing out what we do and don't know, and the practical implications.
filmguy123
Veteran
Well, the GH5 generally lasts me a full 8 hour work day on two of those "anemic" batteries. And the EVA1, 3-4 of their sony size batteries. The smallHD focus will also go quite a long time on one sony NP battery. So, in comparison, it's definitely a power hungry little bugger!
I thought RAW formats involved very little internal image processing, so they should be uber efficient compared to over-sampled complex GH5 4K 10-bit 150 Mbps encoding ?