aldolega

EU cams have the recording limit. Cams from other PAL regions and NTSC regions do not.

The GH4's crop factor in 4K is almost the same as the Pocket's, FYI.

The Nikon lenses' VR wouldn't work on the Speedbooster as it does not supply power to the lens. Your shakiness with the 5D vs. the Pocket might just be as simple as the crop factor on the Pocket (even with the Speedbooster) making your lenses effectively longer.

At equivalent FOVs, sensor size has nothing to do with how steady/shaky your footage is. Other than the correlation between sensor size and body size/weight, I suppose. This probably seems like the default answer around here lately, but I would go with a GH4 for your stated wants. Bigger and beefier than the Pocket, does 1080 up to 96fps, under $2k, batteries last forever, AF, photos, goes flat and you'll be able to stabilize the heck out of its 4K while maintaining a 1080p finish. You also seem to think that for stabilization, it's a big-bucks robo-gimbal, or nothing (handheld)? That's an odd perspective. A simple $200-300 video monopod can make a massive difference and you'll still be very mobile and quick. You can get a glidecam/steadicam for similar money. Or you could even stay under $50 with a simple cheap Polaroid shoulder rig or GorillaPod, and at least go from jittering to swaying...

A used GH1 would be a better choice than a T1i.

For this market segment, Canon is well-deserving of some dressing-down, and I'm glad Andrew and now some others are giving it. The 5D3 is only competitive in this market with Magic Lantern Raw- an unauthorized, unstable hack! And even that is only practical for short-take narrative or dilly-dally personal shooting, with lots of time and space allocated for storage and processing. Complaining about EOSHD being "all-GH4" right now is just silly. The GH4 is the big news in this market right now. When the 5D3 came out that's all EOSHD seemed to cover for a while. Same with ML Raw, the GH3, etc. In a month the A7s will be out and it'll be A7s fever here. A7s vs. GH4! Full-frame vs. Speedbooster! Low-light! Rolling shutter! Then the Shogun will come out and it'll be time for endless comparisons with that. 8-bit vs. 10-bit! Start-stop triggering! How flat can you limbo under the dynamic-range bar?! It's just the nature of a news/gear blog, not to mention the internet itself. Don't be offended if your chosen gear isn't the flavor du jour.

I haven't watched this, but as for the Panasonic rep seeming uncomfortable on screen (assuming this is the same rep as earlier videos): I much prefer his honest, factual style to the cheeseballs Panasonic hires to be their "Lumix Luminary" shills. He's knowledgeable and seems to actually shoot at least occasionally, and understands that the market these videos are reaching (serious amateurs/indie folks as well as pros) knows its stuff and just wants specific questions answered and problems addressed.

IMO the 4K on the GH4 isnt really about delivering/finishing in 4K. It's about getting really really good 1080p. The 100Mbps bitrate isn't really that large and it seems like any decent computer that's less than two years old or so will be able to handle editing and playback. The price difference between the GH4 and the other cams is indeed pretty large though; it's up to you to evaluate your gear situation and see if that money would be better spent on lenses, support, lighting, etc.

I would think that the Pocket booster would fail to cover the GH2's larger sensor, or at least vignette heavily.

Can I get a can opener on there?

It's simple economics of scale. The more you make of something, for longer, the cheaper each unit will be. Canon and Nikon sell many many many times more lenses than Panasonic. I think m4/3 shooters often forget just how small of a market we're in. And m4/3 video-specific shooters are an even smaller subset of that.

There is no electronic m4/3 speedbooster yet. All of the boosters currently available are "dumb", in that there is nothing electronic going on. However, the Metabones (and possibly now some of the off-brands, not sure) DO have a clickless aperture control ring built in. This is possible because Nikon lenses use a little lever to communicate aperture position to the body. The Metabones interfaces with this lever and gives control of it via a ring on the adapter. Your most-compatible option is to get a Nikon-mount lens, the Metabones speedbooster for use on the GH4, and a simple Nikon G-EF adapter ring (many are available with the same type of aperture ring as the Metabones) for use on your friend's Canons. You will have on-lens control of aperture on both systems, but no autofocus on either. Going with an EF mount lens will give you AF and in-cam control of aperture on the Canons, but no aperture control on the GH4- you would have to remove the lens, put it in a Canon body, turn the body on, change the aperture, hold the DOF Preview button down while turning off the body, remove the lens, and re-mount it to the GH4... every time you need to change aperture.

I would actually expect Sigma to be able to do an active version sooner than MetaBones. The holdup on the MB active SB seems like it's on the m4/3 side, as their EF-E version works fine. Sigma is a member of the m4/3 consortium, I'm assuming that means they have full documentation on the m4/3 electronic protocols. They also already make m4/3 lenses so they have direct experience with building for the system. Not to mention that their engineering and manufacturing capabilities are much larger than MetaBones'.

I would say that the 50% improved rolling shutter and super-high stock bitrate for All-I are both strong talents of the camera. Unfortunately neither are available in 4K mode. So they may not be the fan's flashiest talent, or your personal favorite, but they're talents nonetheless. Jello reduction and motion rendition are high priorities for some people, and forgoing resolution in their interest wouldn't be wasting any talents at all for those users. Don't get me wrong, I'm super excited to use 4K for great 1080p finish- when I can get away with it, motion- and jiggle-wise- but let's remember that the GH3's 1080p modes are already very, very good. Assuming the GH4's are at least a nominal improvement on that, it is still a worthwhile camera outside of 4K mode.

Yep, fast-moving shots with a fisheye or ultrawide, mostly. Usually following/next to the skater, or getting right next to an obstacle and doing a fast pan/tilt motion, following the skater as they perform the trick.

Ease of editing/processing is not the "only advantage" of All-I: its motion also looks more natural (and yes, "filmic"). Yes, long-GOP's image quality looks better (at these two compared bitrates) with static or near-static subjects, but not everyone shoots such subjects, or is able or willing to limit their camera moves to a snail's pace. Personally, shooting an action sport (rollerblading), I am concerned with not just motion rendition, but also rolling shutter, so I expect I'll be using about 20% 4K, 40% 1080p IPB, and 40% 1080p All-I.

OH HAI BEN

Isn't the A7s not coming out until the fall? The GH4 is out now.

I bet it's a version to take the 2.3x 4K sensor area to ~1.5x. Maybe using the optics from the BMCC booster?

The Shogun uses 2.5" computer drives (SSDs or HDDs), not cFast. The Ninja Star uses cFast.

The only additional tax in the US would be sales tax, which varies from state to state, most are around 5% to 8% or so. But most people will be buying the GH4 online, and you generally only pay sales tax on online purchases if the store is in the same state as you.

Keep in mind that the GH4 is about $1k cheaper than a 5D3. With that some of that money you could grab a HyperDeck and some SSDs, and be getting 10-bit 4:2:2 1080p, in an immediately-editable format, with near-unlimited record time, and still have all the other advantages of the GH over the 5D (flip screen, zebras/peaking/etc, better lens adaptibility, AF with native lenses, great battery life, etc).

The G6 probably won't handle high motion as well as the GH3 due to its lower bitrate. I would wait a couple months till the GH4 is readily available and people start dumping their GH3s to upgrade, the used GH3 price shoul drop a bit.

The GH4's sensor is standard m4/3 size, not s35, and all of its video modes are 16:9 save for Its C4K mode, which has a slight additional crop and is a slightly wider aspect ratio (1.85 I believe).

Not from what I've read- the 30-minute limit just has to do with where you buy the camera. If you buy an EU model it will have the 30-min limit, all others will not. All the cams from anywhere can switch between NTSC to PAL. So EU people who need unlimited record will have to import a cam from the US or somewhere else.