GH4 Panasonic GH5 coming in 2017

Joe, I am impressed how much of your wishlist ( http://blog.josephmoore.name/2016/09...-gh5-wishlist/) made the final cut!!

To everyone - from Joe's wishlist, I am wondering about these items:

Better continuous autofocus – Does this work in Slow Motion VFR mode??

Optimized V-LOG – For the 7 people in the whole world that cared about matching GH4’s to Varicams, V-LOG <> V-LOG L compatibility was a nice idea. For the rest of us, it meant a severely crippled profile that wasted most of the precious, highly compressed bits. The GH5 needs a log profile tuned specifically to its capabilities, and that curve needs to make use of the entire bit bucket.

Accurate color science – Natural vs Portrait. Cine-D vs Cine-V. Standard vs whatever. The Canon look vs the Sony look vs the Arri look vs the Blackmagic look. Help! The endless testing and debate about how to squeeze the most PQ out of the GH4 has been exhausting. Panasonic, please just give us a profile (go and and leave all the others if it makes your marketing team happy) that has one goal, and one goal only: the most accurate reproduction of color. If I use full spectrum lights, white balance the camera and then point it at a chart, I want to see that vectorscope snap into shape. Period. We’ve got LUT’s to do the rest.

“Analog” highlights – When film is over-exposed, it doesn’t “peak” (hard cut off) to white, it gradually “rolls-off” into white. Neither is technically accurate, but the vast majority of people find the analog roll-off more “natural” or “pleasing.” (This is one of the reasons people like the look from Arri’s digital cameras.) Make this a toggled feature and make everyone happy.

HDR video – Take a play from Red’s book. Record two different exposures in rapid succession for every frame, and combine them into one shot with more dynamic range than would otherwise be possible. If the GH5 has enough bandwidth to shoot 4K @ 60P, then it has enough bandwidth to shoot 4K HDR @24/25P. Make the A image the correct exposure, and the B image exposure protection so that if the HDR frame isn’t usable because of extreme motion, the A images can be used as a standard frame.
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My questions are (and I think 1-2 have been asked)... Does anyone know the following:

Does the killer autofocus feature work in slow motion? I understand not in 180fps, but what about up to 60p in FHD? I shoot most of my gimbal work in slow motion, so having autofocus @ 48fps for example for gimbal work would be really important. In fact, no AutoFocus in any slow motion mode actually makes the feature almost worthless to me :/

HDR mode - I have seen a little about this on the GH5 and Hybrid log, etc. How does this work, and does it work in any slow motion modes (say up to 60p in FHD?) Does it do what you mention here, and basically extend DR greatly for certain types of shots?

Vlog - has anything changed about the curve? I read it was unchanged, but that people are seeing better results. Wondering if the profile is any better tuned to the GH5's useable latitude?

Color Science & Highlight Rolloffs - any news on either of these?
 
ozmorphasis said:
Don't care about 96khz, but 24 bit is pretty huge if the preamps sound decent and have a low enough noise floor. That would indeed go a long way toward bypassing external recorders. Having said that, I'm also still interested in the whether or not it can be extended off camera. Even with the cables tied off, the weight of xlr cables tugging on a hot shoe is definitely no bueno for daily professional use. That hot shoe will rip off for sure eventually. Could it be used on a cage, for example?
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No. It passes the signal through the hot shoe. A cage has a cold shoe. Not any hot shoe will work either. It has to be built to understand the signal from the audio adapter. Other video cameras have had such devices in the past that made use of the hot shoe as a special connector.
 
Regarding a few other comments brought up here:

It does indeed seem to be a bug with Premiere that when I drop 4K into a 1080p timeline and scale it to 50%, it just freezes up or stutters terribly. Changing it to 51% completely resolves this and it plays smoothly on my system.

I'm on Win10 and Desktop PC but once I figured out the Premiere bug have had no issues with clip playback in Premiere, 8 bit or 10 bit. If it matters, I am playing back the files from a WD 6TB Black HDD which has read/write performance close to 280mb/s. Make sure you are storing the large files on a fast medium as it's not just about how fast your system can decode, but about a bottleneck in the pipeline.

Re: the lowlight complaint on GH5, obviously I don't have it on hand, but Neumann Films (Off the Grid film everyone is playing with footage from) stated that the opening dark shots in the film (street, gear bag packing, car) were shot at ISO 1600 (he made this comment in the comments section on YouTube). The GH4 on ISO 1600 looks like crap IMO, and the ISO 1600 I am seeing from the GH5 looks very nice. I would anticipate being able to very comfortably shoot content at ISO 800 on the GH5, and use ISO 1600 when needed with good success and a little post denoiser.

While I agree there is no comparison to the lowlight in larger sensor cameras, I use a manual focus Voigtlander 25mm f/0.95 on the GH4... with ISO 1600 results as good as what I've seen in Neumann's film on an f/2.8 lens, I think that bodes well for what a fast lens on a GH5 could pull off. Especially when you consider the robust 10-bit 4:2:2 vlog and how much more you can pull out of shadows and push/pull in grading, that's a great combo. It's not life changing and of course the A7S will still give better results, but it's certainly a notable improvement, and even more so given the combination of improvements and what it practically means in post and for the final result.
 
filmguy123 said:
Vlog - has anything changed about the curve? I read it was unchanged, but that people are seeing better results. Wondering if the profile is any better tuned to the GH5's useable latitude?
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V-log itself will be unchanged. There is actually a lot going on that affected the internal look of V-log on the GH4 and it is way more complicated than Panasonic used a bad curve. The curve could have been optimized a little bit better but that was only one small part of the issue with V-log. The encoder in the GH4 didn't play well with V-log. External 8bit V-log looks much better although still not perfect. V-log in its current form really needs two things. A good encoder and 10bits.

On the GH5 not only do you now have 10bit as an option which helps make up for the limited curve but the encoder itself looks like it has been improved to reduce some of the ugly artifacts. The curve itself is the same but with a better 10bit encoder in the camera it is now much more usable for internal recording. I still think an external recorder would deliver the best image quality possible but for those who don't want to mess with that so far V-log on the GH5 looks much better.

So far the 8bit samples I have sen have been pretty decent as well and I would say greatly improved over the GH4. That almost 100% comes down to a better optimized encoder in the camera.
 
filmguy123 said:
Vlog - has anything changed about the curve? I read it was unchanged, but that people are seeing better results.
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The GH5 encoder knows how to process V-log footage, the GH4 encoder treated V-log like regular footage and thus created lots of noise in the process.
 
Thomas Smet said:
Why not wait to pass judgement when the camera comes out and is in its final version. The firmware isn't even completed yet on the camera samples out there. As to what he was referring to 2/3 of stop there were two questions asked in that chat and he didn't indicate which he was referring to or if he meant both. Also keep in mind judging an increase in sensitivity is subjective. Some people claim 2 stops, other 1 stop and now we have a 2/3. Kind of depends on the mood of the day and what you are shooting and what each person considers acceptable noise.
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Right, I will wait for the camera to be actually out (which is why I said "if it this is true"). As to what use scenario: I have a feature planned, where a very large part is happening at night in a forest, which means lights are going to be hard to lug and all battery operated (inconvenience and cost), many scenes in a small two person tent at night etc., which means fitting in lights is not going to be easy. I'm not talking about nonsense like "no lights" (don't like that aesthetic), but "fewer, smaller, less expensive", which advantages a highly sensitive camera. Rare is the camera that is optimal for all scenarios - my scenario just happens to unfortunately incline away from less sensitive cams like the GH4 (we'll see about the GH5), but for tons of other scenarios the GH5 I'm sure would be just fantastic.
 
Thomas Smet said:
I still think an external recorder would deliver the best image quality possible but for those who don't want to mess with that so far V-log on the GH5 looks much better.
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Would you put it on par with GH4 Vlog that was properly shot to an external recorder, or even better?

Crazy thing is, I find it very difficult to find good samples of GH4 vlog online. They are few and far between, and many state that they were shot internally. So it's hard to have a reference point. I've never shot vlog on my GH4 since I didn't have an external recorder, so I'm wondering how much of a treat I'm in for (or not in for).
 
OldCorpse said:
large part is happening at night in a forest, which means lights are going to be hard to lug and all battery operated (inconvenience and cost), many scenes in a small two person tent at night etc., which means fitting in lights is not going to be easy. I'm not talking about nonsense like "no lights" (don't like that aesthetic), but "fewer, smaller, less expensive", which advantages a highly sensitive camera.
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Two thoughts: One, this sounds like a right tool for the right job sort of scenario. a7sII with an external recorder for robust codec would be an obvious choice. Two, I actually think the GH5 could handle this if you didn't have the flexibility to own or rent or use 2 different camera bodies. LED lights are so small, low power (powered with sony batteries) and portable these days that you could fit the whole kit in a backpack.

If the GH5 seems better to you for everything else, I really don't think it's a problem. Maybe in 2005. You could literally buy a GH5, 3 decent color temp adjustable LED lights and a bucket load of sony batteries for less than the cost of an A7sII.

https://www.amazon.com/Neewer-Dimma...&sr=8-1&keywords=led+video+light+color+adjust

https://www.amazon.com/StudioPRO-Ph...sr=8-11&keywords=led+video+light+color+adjust

And :20-:40 were shot ISO 1600 on GH5... on an f/2.8 native lens with no speedbooster.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00AFU9IVQf0
 
Yep, those are my thoughts too after pondering it for a while. So I'm a bit torn now. But I think I really need to wait for the GH5 to come out so I can run some tests.
 
Thomas Smet said:
No. It passes the signal through the hot shoe. A cage has a cold shoe. Not any hot shoe will work either. It has to be built to understand the signal from the audio adapter. Other video cameras have had such devices in the past that made use of the hot shoe as a special connector.
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I undestand that. I'm asking about an extension. In other words, can there be an a cable of sorts that has the appropriate hot shoe connections, but takes the weight off of the top of the camera, whether third party or by panny. I don't really see plugging in two xlr cables into something hot shoe mounted in a professional enviromnent every day. It seems like it's asking for trouble.
 
filmguy123 said:
Joe, I am impressed how much of your wishlist ( http://blog.josephmoore.name/2016/09...-gh5-wishlist/) made the final cut!!

To everyone - from Joe's wishlist, I am wondering about these items:



My questions are (and I think 1-2 have been asked)... Does anyone know the following:

Does the killer autofocus feature work in slow motion? I understand not in 180fps, but what about up to 60p in FHD? I shoot most of my gimbal work in slow motion, so having autofocus @ 48fps for example for gimbal work would be really important. In fact, no AutoFocus in any slow motion mode actually makes the feature almost worthless to me :/

HDR mode - I have seen a little about this on the GH5 and Hybrid log, etc. How does this work, and does it work in any slow motion modes (say up to 60p in FHD?) Does it do what you mention here, and basically extend DR greatly for certain types of shots?

Vlog - has anything changed about the curve? I read it was unchanged, but that people are seeing better results. Wondering if the profile is any better tuned to the GH5's useable latitude?

Color Science & Highlight Rolloffs - any news on either of these?
Click to expand...

- Works at 4k/60P, but no word yet on whether it works in any of the VFR modes.
- Hybrid LOG is not the HDR mode I described. It does not allow more DR to be captured, instead it is another profile, like V-LOG L is a profile.
- VLOG-L curve still the same, no LOG curve optimized for DR of the GH5. 10bit 4:2:2 and ability to use a preview LUT makes it a lot more practical, though, compared to GH4.
- Color science is the same, for better and for worse. There appears to be new shoulder controls that may allow a more natural highlight roll-off.
 
ozmorphasis said:
I undestand that. I'm asking about an extension. In other words, can there be an a cable of sorts that has the appropriate hot shoe connections, but takes the weight off of the top of the camera, whether third party or by panny. I don't really see plugging in two xlr cables into something hot shoe mounted in a professional enviromnent every day. It seems like it's asking for trouble.
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Wouldn't be surprised to see such an extension made by 3rd parties as it should be stratight forward to implement. If I'm to replace my JuicedLink, I would need something like that in order to use a cage.
 
OldCorpse said:
Right, I will wait for the camera to be actually out (which is why I said "if it this is true"). As to what use scenario: I have a feature planned, where a very large part is happening at night in a forest, which means lights are going to be hard to lug and all battery operated (inconvenience and cost), many scenes in a small two person tent at night etc., which means fitting in lights is not going to be easy. I'm not talking about nonsense like "no lights" (don't like that aesthetic), but "fewer, smaller, less expensive", which advantages a highly sensitive camera. Rare is the camera that is optimal for all scenarios - my scenario just happens to unfortunately incline away from less sensitive cams like the GH4 (we'll see about the GH5), but for tons of other scenarios the GH5 I'm sure would be just fantastic.
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If you're doing narrative work (i.e. you shape the lighting) and you don't have to illuminate a large area, then you should actually be fine with the GH5 at night in the woods. If all you need to light is a tent, then you're definitely in the green. A couple of small LED's with good CRI and you'll have more than enough light. (You'll probably have to dim them.) If you need to shoot the forest unlit at night, then yeah, that's definitely a use case for a low light monster from Sony.

I don't know if you've shot with the Sonys or not, but if you haven't, be prepared to take a big step back in general usability. Menus, buttons, etc. just aren't video friendly. You can get the job done, but it ain't fun.
 
Regarding Hybrid Log Gamma, the DPReview preview linked this wikipedia article that talks about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_Log-Gamma

HLG defines a nonlinear transfer function in which the lower half of the signal values use a gamma curve and the upper half of the signal values use a logarithmic curve.
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HLG increases the dynamic range of the video compared to a conventional gamma curve by using a logarithmic curve for the upper half of the signal values. HLG also increases the dynamic range by not including the linear part of the conventional gamma curve used by Rec. 601 and Rec. 709. The linear part of the conventional gamma curve was used to limit camera noise in low light video but is no longer needed with HDR cameras.
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I still don't conceptually get how this will benefit what images can be made with the camera, but it sounds interesting. There's more details, including formulas and charts, at the wikipedia article.
 
ozmorphasis said:
I undestand that. I'm asking about an extension. In other words, can there be an a cable of sorts that has the appropriate hot shoe connections, but takes the weight off of the top of the camera, whether third party or by panny. I don't really see plugging in two xlr cables into something hot shoe mounted in a professional enviromnent every day. It seems like it's asking for trouble.
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https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1244608-REG/vello_ocs_op3ii_off_camera_ttl_flash_cord.html

There is something like this but nobody will really know if it would actually pass through the audio data to the camera. So I guess cables do exist but since the hot shoe connection for the GH5 is special I'm not sure what that would entail.

Also keep in mind the limited potential market share for such a device. Of those that actually buy a GH5 only a small subset will buy the audio adapter. Of that small portion only a small subset will want/need an external cable vs just mounting it on the hot shoe. So it could be possible but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for somebody to make one.
 
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