(Rumored) Panasonic FF mirrorless

jbregar said:
Pretty sure the variable ND on the FS5/FS5II/FS7II and Sony's other camcorders with it is electronic and not based on two polarizers like lens-front ND filters are... so the electronic variable ND isn't going to be subject to the compromises from polarizer-based variable NDs.

That's not to say that the electronic variable ND doesn't cause image issues--I haven't seen any on any of the FS5 or FS7II footage I've looked at or shot--but the technology is completely different, so it's not really something you can lump together like that.
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I'm just basing it on comments I have read from others. I've only shot with the FS7 MKI, not the FS5 or 7 MKII. And it does seem interesting that they left it off of the Venice, at least a bit.
 
puredrifting said:
I'm just basing it on comments I have read from others. I've only shot with the FS7 MKI, not the FS5 or 7 MKII. And it does seem interesting that they left it off of the Venice, at least a bit.
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I think that’s just Sony Sonying. They do weird crap like that all the time.

I’m currently demoing an FS5II and Shogun setup and I’ve had zero issues with the VariND... except it spoils the crap outta you for other cameras without it.
 
Thomas Smet said:
2. The quality of the down conversion is not as good. Typically pixel binning or a form of line skipping is used to dump down a full stills sensor down to HD resolution. The scaled version is not the same caliber as the quality of 4k or HD shot at normal frame rates.

When one shoots 60p with a Panasonic camera they are shooting what the sensor and DSP were designed to handle. So 4k is scaled as well as the camera can provide and the same is true for HD. The image quality of the 60p is just as good per frame as the 24p or 30p. This is why I prefer to use 60p for slow motion vs the VFR formats. Yes it isn’t a lot of slow motion but it’s clean.

So I don’t view the lack of 10bit as a huge deal breaker for VFR because frankly it’s just not a professional format to begin with. This is also why I greatly prefer cameras with cropped slow motion options like the Pocket 4k. 120p cropped HD may be more difficult to shoot but it should be vastly cleaner and better looking than 120p from the GH5.
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Thanks Thomas.

For clarity, are you saying that when shooting an HD format 24/30/50/60 the DSP is designed to properly scale the full sensor size down to 4k or HD resolution, but when shooting VFR, some other form of scaling is happening which is lower quality? I guess I'm still just a bit confused about what makes HD 50p (PAL) format, native, cleaner than HD 24p with 48 fps VFR mode (if all else was equal - assuming both could be 10-bit 422).

Is this true for all cameras, or just the GH5? For example, the GH5S is either 1:1 pixel ratio or close - would the VFR modes be "off"? What about the EVA1 VFR modes?

Why does VFR require an odd form of scaling where a higher base frame rate does not?

Do you expect this to be the same in the Pocket 4K when setting a VFR mode to say 4K 36fps with a base of 24p? I am excited about the prospect of the BMPCC 4K allowing internal 4k 60p recording at 10-bit or higher, with VFR. Not even my EVA1 can do that - even with an Atomos!
 
filmguy123 said:
Thanks Thomas.

For clarity, are you saying that when shooting an HD format 24/30/50/60 the DSP is designed to properly scale the full sensor size down to 4k or HD resolution, but when shooting VFR, some other form of scaling is happening which is lower quality? I guess I'm still just a bit confused about what makes HD 50p (PAL) format, native, cleaner than HD 24p with 48 fps VFR mode (if all else was equal - assuming both could be 10-bit 422).

Is this true for all cameras, or just the GH5? For example, the GH5S is either 1:1 pixel ratio or close - would the VFR modes be "off"? What about the EVA1 VFR modes?

Why does VFR require an odd form of scaling where a higher base frame rate does not?

Do you expect this to be the same in the Pocket 4K when setting a VFR mode to say 4K 36fps with a base of 24p? I am excited about the prospect of the BMPCC 4K allowing internal 4k 60p recording at 10-bit or higher, with VFR. Not even my EVA1 can do that - even with an Atomos!
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I believe it has more to do with how many frames are read out from the sensor. Reading frames takes energy and generates heat. A video camera is designed for a 60 image based world and the quality is optimized for such. Once the frame rate goes over 60 however tricks have to be done to pull less data from the sensor and keep up. Some cameras use a cheaper form of down conversion like line skipping to make that happen. Others like some cinema cameras will crop. Cropping gives a cropped FOV but it also provides a 1:1 pixel ratio which means its cleaner than simple line skipping or pixel binning. This is why I would gladly take the 120p cropped from the new Pocket 4k over the 120p from the GH5 any day. It’s harder to shoot due to the crop but quality wise it should be superior.

It is possible to have a sensor that can readout and scale faster than 60 frames but it’s harder to do on a DSLR due to all the extra pixels. That’s a crap load of image data for the processor to chug through. I had hoped the GH5S could handle at least 120p with the full sensor but the fact that 4k video is limited to 60p tells us the sensor just can’t pump out 120p at the same quality level. Perhaps the GH6s will be able to if such a camera ever happens.

I should also point out the scaled quality isn’t absolute garbage. Up to 120p on the GH5 uses a form of scaling similar to how all HD video worked on the GH1,2,3 and 4. Not horrible but not perfectly clean either. I shot hundreds of projects on the older GH cameras with that form of HD and clients were very happy. The problem today is the HD no longer looks like that from the GH5 or GH5S so there is a different look.
 
Thanks Thomas. Actually, I'm talking about minor slow motion frame rates in VFR like 36, 42, 48 fps. What is the problem with those VFR modes? These are the ones I wish had VFR, and I do not understand why it was omitted on GH5 (even though it can do 50p/60p, which should be "harder"?)
 
filmguy123 said:
Thanks Thomas. Actually, I'm talking about minor slow motion frame rates in VFR like 36, 42, 48 fps. What is the problem with those VFR modes? These are the ones I wish had VFR, and I do not understand why it was omitted on GH5 (even though it can do 50p/60p, which should be "harder"?)
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Yeah anything under 60p shouldn’t be lower quality. Isn’t VFR up to 60 still in 4k? I believe it still uses the better quality scaling as well. It is anything over 60 that drops to HD that is in question as to how it scales down to 60. The higher the frame rate the worse the scaling like 180fps on the GH5 which uses horrible scaling and crop since the full sensor just cannot readout that fast.

This is why for now I prefer to stick with 60p and under for slow motion. 120p would be great but not as the reduced quality and HD limitation. If I absolutely needed 120p I would do it with the Pocket 4k and use as wide of a lens as possible and hope I can get back far enough. I would also shoot it raw if possible as raw would scale up to 4k better than a 4:2:2 format will for obvious reasons. 2k raw scaled up to 4k could actually pass as a softer 4k in a lot of situations. At least vastly better than GH5 2k slow motion scaled up to 4k would look.
 
Gotcha! I see, lol, ok so where this all started was:

The GH5 shoots FHD (1080p) 50p/60p timebase modes in 10-bit 422. It will not, however, shoot HD VFR modes in 10-bit. 36, 42, 48 and other in between slow motion frame rates are all stuck at 8-bit 420 codec.

4K VFR (36/42/48), as well a higher speed 4k (50p/60p base) are also 8-bit.

Hence my original point of frustration: I do not understand why the GH5 shoots, in 1080p FHD mode, 50p/60p in 10-bit 422, and 24p in 10-bit 422, but *NOT* VFR modes with a 24p base such as 36, 42, 48. I emailed Panasonic on it multiple times and they said "nope". Super annoying, as I love shooting 24p base with VFR modes between 36-48 and really want those in 10-bit 422 or higher.

Now, the BMPCC 4K can do this it appears - even in 4k up to 60p!! Internally!! Excellent. Not even the EVA1 can, not even with an external Atomos - those VFR rates don't pass through to Atomos even on an SDI raw connection, and the EVA1 codec in FHD for VFR is 10-bit, but 50mpbs, which is just really bad.

Long story long: I hope the S1 shoots 10-bit VFR modes, and ideally in 4k up to 60p - but even a decent 10-bit HD codec would best anything Panasonic offers on that at the moment!!

Any thoughts, Thomas, as to why 10-bit FHD VFR modes do not exist on either the GH5 or GH5s despite Panasonic being made well aware of the issue by pestery me?
 
filmguy123 said:
Gotcha! I see, lol, ok so where this all started was:

The GH5 shoots FHD (1080p) 50p/60p timebase modes in 10-bit 422. It will not, however, shoot HD VFR modes in 10-bit. 36, 42, 48 and other in between slow motion frame rates are all stuck at 8-bit 420 codec.

4K VFR (36/42/48), as well a higher speed 4k (50p/60p base) are also 8-bit.

Hence my original point of frustration: I do not understand why the GH5 shoots, in 1080p FHD mode, 50p/60p in 10-bit 422, and 24p in 10-bit 422, but *NOT* VFR modes with a 24p base such as 36, 42, 48. I emailed Panasonic on it multiple times and they said "nope". Super annoying, as I love shooting 24p base with VFR modes between 36-48 and really want those in 10-bit 422 or higher.

Now, the BMPCC 4K can do this it appears - even in 4k up to 60p!! Internally!! Excellent. Not even the EVA1 can, not even with an external Atomos - those VFR rates don't pass through to Atomos even on an SDI raw connection, and the EVA1 codec in FHD for VFR is 10-bit, but 50mpbs, which is just really bad.

Long story long: I hope the S1 shoots 10-bit VFR modes, and ideally in 4k up to 60p - but even a decent 10-bit HD codec would best anything Panasonic offers on that at the moment!!

Any thoughts, Thomas, as to why 10-bit FHD VFR modes do not exist on either the GH5 or GH5s despite Panasonic being made well aware of the issue by pestery me?
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I know the processor just can’t handle 10bit for anything over 30fps. Doesn’t matter if it’s slow motion or not. The camera just isn’t going to use 10bit for anything over 30. Slow motion takes extra processing and even if a format is HD there is still a ton going on with the processor to make that slow motion happen, buffer it and stick it in a video format. Doesn’t matter if the VFR is 31p. That’s still one frame over 30p which means the camera is 8bit. I dont see Panasonic being able to change that.

The GH5S I believe can record 1080p 60p in 10bit but again I think the extra processing involved in slow motion may require a little too much processing.

It is a huge bummer but knowing how little I like the slow motion on the camera to me it isn’t a big deal really. I personally would rather just record externally 4k 60p and stick to 2.5x slow motion in post. VFR is cool and an easy solution but being a cool and easy solution also means we may have to accept it as 8bit only. At least for now.
 
Both the GH5 and GH5s handle 60 frames a second in 10-bit 422; you're saying the way the software is written in camera makes doing 36, 42, 48 more processor intensive than 60p where I then conform in post?

It's not about easy - even 50p is slower than I want. I love to shoot my clips with a hint of slow motion, its a fantastic look to shoot b-roll at 36 fps. It doesn't look like slow motion but it doesn't look like normal motion and makes everything extra beautiful - a little ethereal and dream like, but without being "slow motion" footage.
 
And let's be honest, higher than 60 fps rates(talking about slow-mo) aren't really necessary for most on a day-to-day basis. I can go up-to 180fps in-camera with no-cropping on my F55(240 w/R5 or R7 recorder) and the bulk of my slow-mo is still 60fps. When you start to get into these 100fps+ rates with 24fps playback, you have to have something pretty interesting or something that happens really fast in real-time, to really make good use of rates that high.
 
filmguy123 said:
Both the GH5 and GH5s handle 60 frames a second in 10-bit 422; you're saying the way the software is written in camera makes doing 36, 42, 48 more processor intensive than 60p where I then conform in post?

It's not about easy - even 50p is slower than I want. I love to shoot my clips with a hint of slow motion, its a fantastic look to shoot b-roll at 36 fps. It doesn't look like slow motion but it doesn't look like normal motion and makes everything extra beautiful - a little ethereal and dream like, but without being "slow motion" footage.
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I shoot all of my gimbal without sync sound at 30fps for a 24p edit, same reason, just looks cooler but doesn't look "slow". I'll try 36fps too!
 
filmguy123 said:
Both the GH5 and GH5s handle 60 frames a second in 10-bit 422; you're saying the way the software is written in camera makes doing 36, 42, 48 more processor intensive than 60p where I then conform in post?

It's not about easy - even 50p is slower than I want. I love to shoot my clips with a hint of slow motion, its a fantastic look to shoot b-roll at 36 fps. It doesn't look like slow motion but it doesn't look like normal motion and makes everything extra beautiful - a little ethereal and dream like, but without being "slow motion" footage.
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They only handle 4k 60p 10bit when recording externally. Externally is different than internal because the processor isn’t encoding to h.264 which is a massive CPU hog. Just think how long it takes your edit syst m to encode 4k h.264 and then imagine a tiny processor in a camera doing the same without exploding on melting in your hands. External will always be easier on these cameras and that’s just a law of physics. Internally to h.264 the GH5 and GH5S can only handle up to 30p in 10bit and that means internally even 31p is not an option in 10bit. This is likely why Panasonic has said it’s just not possible.
 
Thomas Smet said:
They only handle 4k 60p 10bit when recording externally. Externally is different than internal because the processor isn’t encoding to h.264 which is a massive CPU hog. Just think how long it takes your edit syst m to encode 4k h.264 and then imagine a tiny processor in a camera doing the same without exploding on melting in your hands. External will always be easier on these cameras and that’s just a law of physics. Internally to h.264 the GH5 and GH5S can only handle up to 30p in 10bit and that means internally even 31p is not an option in 10bit. This is likely why Panasonic has said it’s just not possible.
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I've never said anything about 4K - I have always been talking about VFR modes of 36, 42, 48 in FHD, which are not available in 10-bit 422.

Internally, yes, the GH5 does record 50p and 60p in 10-bit 422. In FHD. But not 36, 42, 48. Why?

I understand the interest and point in 4K, and the higher quality, but it has nothing to do with what I am talking about :)
 
filmguy123 said:
I've never said anything about 4K - I have always been talking about VFR modes of 36, 42, 48 in FHD, which are not available in 10-bit 422.

Internally, yes, the GH5 does record 50p and 60p in 10-bit 422. In FHD. But not 36, 42, 48. Why?

I understand the interest and point in 4K, and the higher quality, but it has nothing to do with what I am talking about :)
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That I don’t have an answer for other than we don’t know what extra processing takes place to run at a non standard frame rate and buffer those frames to pack into a VFR video clip which is no longer a real-time clip. VFR at 60p renders differently or takes a different path vs shooting in HD at 60p due to how the frames are buffered and packed into a 24p video. The video is no longer a real-time timebase and there could be numerous technical reasons why the same 10bit path just wouldn’t work. There is no legal or marketing reason for Panasonic not to provide it if they could so the sole reason is likely more of a technical limitation as to how VFR works at its core.

It is a bummer that there is no way to get 10bit slow motion directly out of the GH5.
 
Agreed!

Yeah - VFR options are very limited even on the EVA1.

The BMPCC 4K is the first to “break that” and so it’s exciting.

I’m hoping the S1 does not disappoint here, it could be a real beast depending on specs and might make my EVA1 extinct before I barely got attached...
 
filmguy123 said:
... The BMPCC 4K is the first to “break that” and so it’s exciting. I’m hoping the S1 does not disappoint here...
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I wouldn't count on it. The Pocket has vents for cooling. I've always been mystified how Panasonic is able to do what they do in such a small package with hardly any room for cooling.
 
Paul F said:
I wouldn't count on it. The Pocket has vents for cooling. I've always been mystified how Panasonic is able to do what they do in such a small package with hardly any room for cooling.
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yup we'll see... its why I haven't pre-ordered Pocket 4k ;) I'm waiting till Dec 31, ha!

As for S1, depends. Mobile processing is still following moore's law. iPhone XS is down to 7nm now.
 
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