GH4 Panasonic GH5 coming in 2017

[combatentropy]

Tony Northrup just did a long episode on the "why are there are no more consumer cameras"....

We are in fundamentally different roles. There will always be producers and consumers. I myself slide into those two roles depending on the situation.

I have said in another long post, long ago, that most people would not take a $70,000 set of Cooke prime lenses if you gave it to them (assuming, theoretically speaking, that they could not just turn around, sell it, and pocket the cash).

 

[aldolega]

To be honest, the battery grip is really less about the extra battery time, and more about how the battery compartment is oriented. Having to take off a quick release plate to access the battery door under the camera is a major no-no when time is of the essence. With the battery grip, everything can stay where it is (baring a cage, of course) and the battery compartment can just slide out for changes. I'm mainly looking at the YAGH for the XLR audio and SDI, but needing external power for that is kinda lame (Seeing as how mixed the reviews were on this, I'll actually be a little surprised if its compatibility carries over to the GH5). I was originally going to be getting an Odyssey 7Q+ for the 10bit external recording, but now that it's rumored to be internal with the GH5, that's on hold (unless the longshot rumor of 12bit external ends up coming true).

FYI, the GH4 battery is accessible with a Manfrotto 501 plate on the cam, or with the camera in a cage and the plate on the cage. If you're gonna have a rod mount on the cage it may or may not interfere, depending on the cage.

I don't have any experience with the YARRRGGHHH but I thought I remembered reading somewhere that it would run off the camera battery (although I'm sure much quicker than normal). Not sure about this. Personally, if I was looking at a recorder and/or monitor anyways, I would skip the YAARRGGHH and go for a PIX-E5 with the PIX-LR addon. The PIX-E5 isn't quite all that the Odyssey is, of course, but it is cheaper and handles everything the GH4 does, and matches the size/weight of the GH4 a lot better. And the PIX-LR preamps will be a lot better than the YAAARGGH, an Atomos, or the Odyssey.

 

[Vesku]

My Panasonic GH5 feature wish-list:
- 5axis stable, no steadicam required for perfect handheld
- super fast and reliable auto-focus modes in 4K (my GH3 auto-focus is terrible)
- h265 4k 30fps@50mbitps 60fps@100mbitps (with higher bitrates and h264 also available), the h265 4k should be compatible with direct YouTube upload
- in camera edit, quick/auto adding intro/outro, join/split, transparent watermark overlay edit
- multi wireless mic support built-in, I dunno if BT/WiFi or other RF or all supported
- gigabit ethernet dongle, fast wifi direct upload to youtube
- USB Type-C, multiple docks (gig ethernet, multi USB3 HDD auto backup...) supported over 10gbit/s USB Type C
- multi-camera easy setup, somehow sync each camera over WiFi or cabled, and easily split/join real-time and post edit in camera of multi-camera setup, possibly real-time and post edit on tablet/phone using app and render all in-camera, if sync multi-camera I guess over fast WiFi or gigabit ethernet or something else. Live stream compressed 720p/1080p/4K and record for later upload at higher bitrate.
- easy use external hard drive for storage, on top of dual fast speed SD cards for secure recording and easy safe backup to external HDD directly from camera, easy backup to second external HDD before auto clearing space on SD cards

Impressive list.

Lets hope first that GH5 could show shutter speed, aperture and iso in video recording I think most users would benefit seeing those numbers.

 

[jlpskydive]

Impressive list.

Lets hope first that GH5 could show shutter speed, aperture and iso in video recording I think most users would benefit seeing those numbers.

Considering the 4 does, pretty sure the 5 will also.

 

[TheTrickster]

Considering the 4 does, pretty sure the 5 will also.

Alas in Creative Movie Mode, while in P, A or S modes - the camera does not show the ISO its selected (if AutoISO) nor the shutter speed (if in A mode) or the aperture value (if in S mode)

These values appear if using the same modes while taking photos, but not if in creative movie mode.

 

[jlpskydive]

Alas in Creative Movie Mode, while in P, A or S modes - the camera does not show the ISO its selected (if AutoISO) nor the shutter speed (if in A mode) or the aperture value (if in S mode)

These values appear if using the same modes while taking photos, but not if in creative movie mode.

Never shoot video in those modes so I guess that's why I didn't know that. Video mode manual, all the values are there.

 

[roxics]

The sad (or interesting, depending on your point of view) thing about these feature wish-lists for DSLRs is that they really should not be so unrealistic as to cause eye-rolling. Because think about it - phone cameras are evolving leaps and bounds... obviously, they will always be at a handicap just due to sheers size compared to DSLRs, but by the same token, DSLRs should be that much better. And the gap between the phone cams and top DSLRs is way too small - with phone cam engineers way ahead of the stodgy DSLR design teams. The phone cam folks are moving much, much faster, especially on the software side, but even on the hardware side. DLSR makers must step up, or there will be less and less reason to splash big $ for big DSLRs that don't have much advantage over mere cell phone cams.

Once you see people in a line wrapped around a shopping mall on the first day release of a new DSLR, that's when you'll begin to see major improvements in them.

 

[Charbax]

Tony Northrup just did a long episode on the "why are there are no more consumer cameras". The gist of it was that, with Instagram and Snapchat, you click on your smart phone cam to take a photo, then click on the corresponding icon and it's all uploaded to the relevant site and you're done in a flash (which are also present on smart phones). And that's basically what the consumer wants - expediency and convenience. He doesn't want to adjust the curves in Photoshop.

BTW, it was one of his highest rated shows if one looks at the likes/dislikes ratios.

Nice I am going to watch this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGp3JXKtHBM

I think it's sad that people have been taking all these crappy quality pictures and videos using their smartphones over the past decade, the space in our culture that instagram and their lousy filters have, it's a total disrespect towards our next generation, babies grow up to hate their parents for having taken such lousy quality pictures and video. And that generates a next generation that cares even less because they don't even know that it was possible to care about photography and film making.

The lack of innovation is a failure in marketing teams at big camera companies to define ambitious enough innovation and to push that towards all consumers, instead of letting Apple make worldwide campaigns "shot on the iPhone", it's just a disgrace how these marketing people just give up against the profit machine that is Apple.

And in some cases, like Samsung, it's even internal in-fighting between the NX1/NX500 team and the Galaxy S7/Note7 team, how they can not make sure to develop NX as a massive mass market product, they just abandon it and they just give all the marketing resources only to the Smartphone team. It's just sad.

It's not like improving the User Experience, adding Android type smart functionality into higher quality cameras, those things aren't that complicated. It takes peanuts for a company like Samsung to implement that. They tried, but then they were forced to just give up?

Anyways, I want to have hope that the Japanese will not give up and will turn around and stop being stubborn and implement massive smart innovation and then push it in the right way. Hopefully Japan isn't quite dead yet.

 

[Charbax]

Once you see people in a line wrapped around a shopping mall on the first day release of a new DSLR, that's when you'll begin to see major improvements in them.

Apple's manufactured scarcity is just a marketing trick. And it would be such a piece of cake for Panasonic to create the same "fake" scarcity and make it look like their GH5 sells gangbusters, to hype things up, make it clear that nobody should take pictures of important people family/friends in their lives using a smartphone. And no flat optics can ever compete with a proper M43/DSLR optical digital system.

Panasonic's marketing department simply needs to be smart and cunning.

 

[roxics]

My point was that not as many people want cameras as they do phones. To many people, phones already have cameras and do a lot more for less money and fit in your pocket. Convenience typically wins over quality for consumers, just look at the mp3.

 

[DLD]

An average Joe with a camera has no more inclinations of becoming a pro photographer than an average Jane has of becoming a professional chef just because she happens to own a frying pan and a spatula. I sometimes tell friends and acquaintances to remove their sunglasses before posing for a photo but they seem to be quite content with posing for a masquerade ball. "Mary has such a lovely forehead. She's had it since she was a teen".

In any case, a smart phone camera specs exceed most of its owners' ability as shooters. I reckon someone could make a mint teaching the very basics of photo- and videography to the masses. And one doesn't need to be a Shane Hurlbut to do it either.

PS. Cooke just announced its sI/4 Mini for the DSLR mounts. Still the same $7,000 a pop though.

 

[Peter Berry]

Never shoot video in those modes so I guess that's why I didn't know that. Video mode manual, all the values are there.

But only for the first minute in all creative modes including Manual, when they go !poof! for more extended clips. And are not visible with in-camera playback or otherwise AFAIK.
Peter

 

[Gweilo66]

"I don't have any experience with the YARRRGGHHH but I thought I remembered reading somewhere that it would run off the camera battery (although I'm sure much quicker than normal). Not sure about this."

Nope. That was a major sticking point for many. Buying that necessitates costly external power infrastructure and (cumbersome) rigging.
likely a large part of its drastic price reduction(s)..that, along with inescapable echo in the audio monitoring implementation.."YARRRGGHHH!"

 

[Charbax]

My point was that not as many people want cameras as they do phones. To many people, phones already have cameras and do a lot more for less money and fit in your pocket. Convenience typically wins over quality for consumers, just look at the mp3.

The problem is that marketing people in the consumer camera industry actually believe what you just said. It really is up to Panasonic or Canon themselves to educate the consumer and to provide to them what they believe the consumer needs to buy. A $700 iPhone is not convenient. It's terrible at taking photos and videos and it's way overpriced for the phone that it is. It would be a piece of cake for Panasonic and Canon to convince the consumer that a $200 Smartphone + a $500 Panasonic GX85 is a much much better choice for any consumer. Or Panasonic should continue to develop and to improve their Lumix Phone Camera product, develop a CM2 that could be $500 and include optics, image stabilization, all to take much much better pictures and video than any iPhone, yet still be cheaper and all the while could fund Panasonic by the Billions of dollars if they sell it correctly.

And it should be a priority for Panasonic, Canon, Sony and co to kill off Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter and other of these platforms that really destroys photography. It would be such a piece of cake for them to support other platforms that are much much better for photography and for film making.

If they don't do anything, then for sure they just do as they do now, they just sit back and they look at Apple and Instagram destroying photography and film making.

 

[roxics]

The problem is that marketing people in the consumer camera industry actually believe what you just said.

Because it's true. You'll have to come to terms with the reality that most people just don't care about the quality as much as you or I.
For example, everyone has the ability to shoot horizontal video on their phones. How many people actually do? How many people are lazy and want to hold their phone in the more comfortable vertical position when shooting video? Apparently a lot of people. When you consider that a good majority of the consumer public is like this, how can you come to the conclusion that they will care about most cameras and higher end features on those cameras we care about?

You're right in that a good marketing team can make people desire things they'll never actually use and aren't important to them except when purchasing. But I think it's also a balancing act where those companies are not going to try and push those features into lower priced consumer goods if they don't feel like most people will ultimately care, even after an initial marketing push.

I'm right with you in wanting awesome features on DSLR-like cameras at reasonable prices. Slowly we do get better features once the technology matures enough and comes down in price. But certain features will never make it onto lower cost cameras because demand just isn't big enough for it and they apparently don't see any reason in creating that demand.

 

[NorBro]

The picture quality from an iPhone (or other phones) is so good for everyday life, I sometimes think how could it get any better and why would people ever need anything else.

 

[Bassman2003]

The picture quality from an iPhone (or other phones) is so good for everyday life, I sometimes think how could it get any better and why would people ever need anything else.

I don't know if you are serious or not, but this is why I go on about wanting the cameras WE buy to be better. Because we are trying to sell products to the people with these phones. Give us the tools to male something that could catch attention for looking great. I know 10bit 4:2:2 with 24bit audio is not the be all end all but 8bit 4:2:0 is not really helping the situation.

 

[DLD]

The picture quality from an iPhone (or other phones) is so good for everyday life, I sometimes think how could it get any better and why would people ever need anything else.

It's better than what most people could achieve with any film cameras. My parents used to own a point&shoot film model. On trips, my mom would just point it at something and push the red button. She often did this from inside the vehicle without even lowering the window - because she didn't like the wind gusting in her face - so what she got was the blurry reflection of dad and I. Plus something unrecognizable outside, so we'd have to guess what exactly it was that she saw there. I say she was an average photographer because she actually took the camera with us.

PS. Kill Snapshat, Flicker, Twitter and Instagram? I don't think Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin combined can do it. Besides, there's an old American saying - if you can't beat'em, build in the WiFi.

 

[John Godden]

The picture quality from an iPhone (or other phones) is so good for everyday life, I sometimes think how could it get any better and why would people ever need anything else.

This is exactly what killed the consumer P&S camera. That market is dead or nearly dead.

 

[NorBro]

Just wait until phones start shooting shallow depth-of-field easily...or maybe they already do!