GH5 sharpness / NR in GH5s - and photos ?

C

coutard

Well-known member
Hi there !

got my GH5s since a week now and I'm still testing things

Kind of pleased with the low light sensitivity even if I found that when pushed quite a bit (from 10 000 ISO), even if noise level is very decent, sharpness seems to be quite strong, and the footage looks like a small video camera...I have the same feeling when shooting maximum slow-motion, I find that the 4:2:0 8bits + cropped sensor is kind of harsh-looking...making slow-motion almost unusable in low light (I would have thought, hey great I can push up the ISO so far that I'll do slow-motion in low light !)

got there same feeling when taking pictures. I know the amount of pixels is quite low, and I know its the point of the camera. But I still thought I could take some decent pictures, and I find them looking, again, quite videoish, meaning with a feeling of added sharpness like in the first digital cameras few years ago !

I tried Vlog and HLG for videos, and for photos I was looking as something more baked in, like cinelike V

in general, does anybody changes the sharpness or noise reduction settings ?
other thoughts about the things I mentioned ?
 
It's pretty common for people to dial down the sharpness and NR settings for Pany cameras. I personally keep NR at -5 and sharpness -3 to -5 depending on the glass I'm shooting with. The default settings definitely produce a more "video look" IMO. I suggest doing some of your own testing to see what you like.
 
coutard said:
Hi there !

got my GH5s since a week now and I'm still testing things

Kind of pleased with the low light sensitivity even if I found that when pushed quite a bit (from 10 000 ISO), even if noise level is very decent, sharpness seems to be quite strong, and the footage looks like a small video camera...I have the same feeling when shooting maximum slow-motion, I find that the 4:2:0 8bits + cropped sensor is kind of harsh-looking...making slow-motion almost unusable in low light (I would have thought, hey great I can push up the ISO so far that I'll do slow-motion in low light !)

got there same feeling when taking pictures. I know the amount of pixels is quite low, and I know its the point of the camera. But I still thought I could take some decent pictures, and I find them looking, again, quite videoish, meaning with a feeling of added sharpness like in the first digital cameras few years ago !

I tried Vlog and HLG for videos, and for photos I was looking as something more baked in, like cinelike V

in general, does anybody changes the sharpness or noise reduction settings ?
other thoughts about the things I mentioned ?
Click to expand...

Are you shooting raw pro jpeg stills? If raw how the heck are you doing anything with them? I still can't find a way to open GH5s raw photos. Jpeg will always look a bit over processed compared to raw on the GH cameras. I make it a rule to only ever shoot raw photos so I can adjust the amount of processing in post. Sensors on their own are not the "videos" problem, it is the amount of fancy processing done in camera. Shooting v-log can help reduce some of that processing for video. The noise reduction in camera is also responsible for that heavy processed look. Turn that down as much as you can for video. For photos again thats why I shoot raw only, it is the only way to have zero image processing done in camera. You can play with the noise and detail with the raw photos later but I tend to keep them off completely. I prefer a more organic look and let my choice of glass and lighting determine how good my photos look. Adding sharpness to compensate for softer glass is never going to be as good.

Slow motion in low light is difficult for everybody including Hollywood. If you are shooting 240fps you need a 1/480th shutter and that really suffers to pull in light. Cranking up the ISO to compensate is always going to yield sub par results. Having slow motion in these new cameras is fun and an amazing feat of engineering but we are not yet at the 4k perfect quality level when dealign with slow motion. Someday we will get there but instead of enhancing the 72fps and 120fps values companies keep pushing the slow motion abilities of these cameras to higher frame rates. Personally I would rather see a solid clean 4k 120fps vs a crappy 240fps but thats just me. For others the joy of shooting 240fps is well worth the quality loss.
 
I did not try to open RAW photos because my intentions were, as I bought it mainly to shoot videos, just to be able to do some quick baked in photos as well, for family and friends stuff, so don't want to put any post processing for those.

For Video, Its just that I bought the GH5s because I was seeing on vimeo some films made with the GH5 and GH5s, and I really liked the softness of it, I found it gentle and subtle...and I'm still not really getting there.

But since I have it I left NR and Sharpness to 0. I'll try to put those way down then. Thanks
 
coutard said:
I did not try to open RAW photos because my intentions were, as I bought it mainly to shoot videos, just to be able to do some quick baked in photos as well, for family and friends stuff, so don't want to put any post processing for those.

For Video, Its just that I bought the GH5s because I was seeing on vimeo some films made with the GH5 and GH5s, and I really liked the softness of it, I found it gentle and subtle...and I'm still not really getting there.

But since I have it I left NR and Sharpness to 0. I'll try to put those way down then. Thanks
Click to expand...

Set sharpening and nr lower than -5.













Not possible sorry.
Even at -5 the sharpening is still on the strong side...
 
mcgeedigital said:
Put a black promist in front of your lens and use old glass.
Click to expand...

Already doing that. Still can't get rid of that harshness added due to strong postprocessing in camera.
The EVA-1, ARRI, A6500, RED Helium etc... look way smoother.

Panasonic clearly ignores the issue.
 
DeeZiD said:
Already doing that. Still can't get rid of that harshness added due to strong postprocessing in camera.
The EVA-1, ARRI, A6500, RED Helium etc... look way smoother.

Panasonic clearly ignores the issue.
Click to expand...

How dare a $2000 DSLR not look the same as a $7000-$30,000 cinema camera. What the heck is wrong with Panasonic...
 
DeeZiD said:
Already doing that. Still can't get rid of that harshness added due to strong postprocessing in camera.
The EVA-1, ARRI, A6500, RED Helium etc... look way smoother.

Panasonic clearly ignores the issue.
Click to expand...

It is only an issue in your mind. A lot of people love the look of the GH5. Just because you don't doesn't mean it is an issue.
 
DeeZiD said:
Already doing that. Still can't get rid of that harshness added due to strong postprocessing in camera.
The EVA-1, ARRI, A6500, RED Helium etc... look way smoother.

Panasonic clearly ignores the issue.
Click to expand...

If one didn't read the entire thread and only read this post, they would surely think you're being playfully sarcastic.

Although, you did include the 6500. Speedbooster'd or not, I find the m43 sensor to look different than the larger sensor. Whether that's "smoother" or not is for you to decide. Not an "issue" for Panasonic to fix.
 
ahah
I was not saying that I found that the GH5 was looking generally videoish (I do appreciate the Alexa look of course :) )
I was just saying that I saw other videos made with it, and I found it was really soft, which I liked, thats why I bought it. So I didn't knoww what the results seemed different with mine...

Regarding filters, I use a lot of them when shooting other kind of projects (short films, music videos, series) but for those I usually rent Alexa Mini's or F55 or REDs, fully rigged with matte boxes which allow me to use blackpromist, hollywood black magic, glimmers, soft fx etc etc..

but for my GH5 documentary work I want it very light so no mattebox ! no baseplate, no rods, no nothing :)
 
filmguy123 said:
A lot of people loving the look doesn't make it a non issue.
Click to expand...

Thats exactly what that means. Something is only an issue if it is true for everybody. Like a bug in software design. If only one person has an issue it isn't a bug. Not everything is a fault, issue or defect just because somebody doesn't like something. The GH5 is exactly as designed. If one doesn't like something they don't have to use it. It really doesn't get much simpler than that.

I'm also not saying the GH5 isn't overly sharp for some people. I'm only stating that saying Panasonic is ignoring the issue implies it is some kind of defect or faulty feature of the camera and that is not true at all. The GH5 is doing exactly what it was designed to do. Like it or not it is by design.
 
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