GH4 Panasonic GH5 coming in 2017

philiplipetz said:
Just spent a couple of hours one on one with Panasonic rep and a GH5, the grip holds only one battery. If you run out of power while recording you loose the last 4gb section. Up to four minutes.
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A (battery) powered solution through USB should work as an alternative right?
 
philiplipetz said:
Just spent a couple of hours one on one with Panasonic rep and a GH5, the grip holds only one battery. If you run out of power while recording you loose the last 4gb section. Up to four minutes.
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That seems ... extraordinarily unusual. Panasonic has been recording on SD cards since at least 2008, and has always had file-save protection in the case of a dying battery (at least on the pro line). In fact the batteries they introduced with the AVCCAM line were specifically engineered such that an imminent-failure warning could be given to the camera, thus instructing the file system to close the current file in sufficient time before the battery truly died. I recognize that it's possible that the GH series don't have that same capability, but... to lose four gigabytes? That would be over 20 minutes of footage if recording in AVCHD.

And why four gigabytes? P2 was engineered to close the file system and commit the contents to the card every two seconds, so the worst you could lose would be two seconds. Again, the GH isn't P2, but four gigabytes seems like an astonishingly loose spec. Was the rep proposing that it was because of the 4gb file size limitation on SDHC cards? Because if so, would he then also be suggesting that when recording on an SDXC card, you're subject to losing the last 96 gigabytes of a continuous recording (since the latest Panasonic SDXC cameras, the DVX200/UX180/UX90/HC-X1, all record in 96gb-sized files)? I simply cannot imagine that they would design it that way.

With all due respect to the rep involved, I would say that it seems unlikely that this could truly be the case. Anything's possible, of course, but I can't imagine that they didn't think this part through and recognize that not only could someone run out of battery during recording, but it unquestionably will happen to some folks, and I have to believe they engineered a better solution than just walking away from the last four gigabytes of recorded material. I do hope that when GH5's start arriving in peoples' hands, a few people arrange to test it; it certainly is a question that people will need the answer to.

In any case, it sounds like proper battery management is a skill that GH5 users had better be prepared to exercise.
 
For long uninterrupted shooting, just use the battery grip and set the camera to drain the grip battery first. Then when the grip battery dies you can hot-swap it for a fresh battery, as the camera will automatically switch to the battery in the camera while you're swapping the grip's battery. With two chargers running, and four OEM batteries, I could run my GH4 all day like this, easily.
 
Part of the problem with the grip is that the quick release plate for a tri pod mount is off center...so if you use rails/matte box/follow focus etc. that is an issue....so rigged I would use it with a v-mount....the great thing with the GH5 though, is that handheld is so stable...so unrigged, a couple of spares should easily get one through a day of shooting...
 
Also on another day, did some tests of Leica 12-60 vs Panasonic 12-35 V1. Different color cast, as expected. However, in this one test under these these specific conditions the 12-60 showed more detail in shadows and handled highlights better, especially in flare suppression and highlight detail. The store manager at Dodd Camera agreed that the subjective impression was that the camera, G85, had gained a stop DR. Please don't argue about where DR comes from. Subjective impression. Also the micro graduations of color gradients and contrast were more detailed.
 
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philiplipetz said:
Also on another day, did some tests of Leica 12-60 vs Panasonic 12-35 V1. Different color cast, as expected. However, in this one test under these these specific conditions the 12-30 showed more detail in shadows and handled highlights better, especially in flare suppression and highlight detail. The store manager at Dodd Camera agreed that the subjective impression was that the camera, G85, had gained a stop DR. Please don't argue about where DR comes from. Subjective impression. Also the micro graduations of color gradients and contrast were more detailed.
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" G85, had gained a stop DR"

compared to what?
 
philiplipetz said:
The store manager at Dodd Camera agreed that the subjective impression was that the camera, G85, had gained a stop DR. Please don't argue about where DR comes from.
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G85 gaining one full stop using the 12-60 over the 12-35, feel free to post proof of that.
Until then I don't believe it for a thing!
 
Optics have sort of self-DR ... their capacity to treat both highlight and shadows in the same focal plane ( and keep enough details (( contrasts or micro contrasts)) in both areas )
quite a well known effect named : flare factor...
 
We shot a car park at sunset. Sun hitting chrome to test flares while the undercarriages of the cars were in deep shadow. Difficult conditions designed to show performance when small details are at extremes. The 12-35 V 1 had much larger flares in addition to not showing detail and losing contrast near extremes of DR range. This was a torture test under real world conditions. However, I am am not suggesting that the 12-35 v 1 is a poor lens, just that the 12-60 could handle extremes better. Most kit lenses would have done much worse. We added the 12-60 kit lenses for indoor tests and the difference at DR extremes, especially highlights was obvious when compared to these two top end lenses.

And I left the SD card at the shop so I do not have it.

I have heard that the 12-35 V2 has different lens coating so thes results apply only to v1. My bet is they improved it significantly.
 
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philiplipetz said:
We shot a car park at sunset. Sun hitting chrome to test flares while the undercarriages of the cars were in deep shadow. Difficult conditions designed to show performance when small details are at extremes. The 12-35 V 1 had much larger flares in addition to not showing detail and losing contrast near extremes of DR range. This was a torture test under real world conditions. However, I am am not suggesting that the 12-35 v 1 is a poor lens, just that the 12-60 could handle extremes better. Most kit lenses would have done much worse. We added the 12-60 kit lenses for indoor tests and the difference at DR extremes, especially highlights was obvious when compared to these two top end lenses.

And I left the SD card at the shop so I do not have it.

I have heard that the 12-35 V2 has different lens coating so thes results apply only to v1. My bet is they improved it significantly.
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So are you saying (admitting) that you made these scientific findings by evaluating the images on the cameras LCD?
 
dustylense said:
So are you saying (admitting) that you made these scientific findings by evaluating the images on the cameras LCD?
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Dusty you consistently try to create controversy and approach being a troll. No, we looked at results on a monitor in the shop. And there is nothing in my statements to suggest that I used the camera LCD. That would be useless as you well know. You have a long history of making inflammatory statements after my posts. Please be civil.
 
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Just to add to this and backup philip, lenses affecting perceived DR is absolutely a thing. Microcontrast and handling of contrast is a huge characteristic of different lenses (and many would argue more important than all of the rage about sharpness these days). It's not that it changes the DR capabilities of the sensor, its that different lenses actually will create more or less contrasty images that are fed into the sensor. This is far from crazy. This is just straight up fact. Microcontrast is something that Zeiss is somewhat famous for, and I have no doubt and no surprise here that the Leica lens made a big difference in that over the Panasonic 12-35 (also a great lens in its own regard).
 
filmguy123 said:
Just to add to this and backup philip, lenses affecting perceived DR is absolutely a thing. Microcontrast and handling of contrast is a huge characteristic of different lenses (and many would argue more important than all of the rage about sharpness these days). It's not that it changes the DR capabilities of the sensor, its that different lenses actually will create more or less contrasty images that are fed into the sensor. This is far from crazy. This is just straight up fact. Microcontrast is something that Zeiss is somewhat famous for, and I have no doubt and no surprise here that the Leica lens made a big difference in that over the Panasonic 12-35 (also a great lens in its own regard).
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I have often wondered how much of the Alexa (or RED) "cinema look" is due to the obviously superior sensor or, ignoring lighting, the wonderfully expensive lenses commonly used in top end rigs. One advantage of the GH5 is that it lets you put money into lenses that are better long term investments. Time and time again I see "inferior" cameras delivering superior results when used with superior lenses.
 
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