Cinegain

A great to see you here, Steffen, I had linked to your article in the other LX100 topic a week ago:
 
 
I agree with SteffenH and tosvus. You should not make assumptions based on a couple of videos where people either didn't understand how to shoot proper video, people that wanted an out-of-the-box-test, or those that just happen to like the very sharp detailled footage and embrace that it's 2014/15 and don't see anything wrong with that. You know, we're not used to all this new stuff yet. People still like the Canon softness and complain about The Hobbit being shown at high frame rate. But maybe all we need is a little time to adjust.
 
But anyways... there's a reason people dial back their settings. For example: contrast... you can not get back detail from blown out highlights or crushed blacks. Unless you're working in journalism and you need quick turnarounds or something, you'll want to put the contrast to its minimum setting. Same goes for sharpening, out-of-the-box the Panasonics are a little harsh on sharpness. When you dial it down your footage will start looking more natural and pleasing. This also should take care of most moire that usually is induced by applying sharpening. And remember, you can always add a little sharpening in post, but good luck getting rid of any picked up moire. So yeah, personally I like to dial sharpening all the way down. And like SteffenH said, that doesn't mean your footage becomes super soft, the detail is still there and it's still pretty sharp enough. You'd do the same with a GH4 and for the LX100 it's no different, really.
 
And then of course the 180 degree shutter rule, which basicly means you use double the value of whatever your framerate is... so 30fps you'd want to shoot at 1/60th (2x30). You can't use 1/48th for 24p, but 1/50 is close enough. This allows for natural looking motion. Movements within the frame start to look really organic, whereas high shutterspeeds will make motion look rather jittery. So basicly... first you decide at which resolution and framerate you're going to shoot. Then you use aperture to control depth of field, shutter for motion blur and a ND filter to control exposure. Lastly, when working in low light conditions you might want to ditch the ND filter, open up your aperture considerably, accept the narrower depth of field that gives you, keep the shutterspeed according the 180 rule and then use ISO to increase sensitivity to a point that you deem the scene properly exposed. And again, pick a picture profile that goes easy on the footage and take the effects of certain settings into consideration. Use common sense... if you see something you don't like, ask yourself 'can I do something to change that?', probably: 'yes, you can!'.
 
A camera is not a magic box. There's some science to it. But a camera has no soul (although I bet there's some people with Leica's about to hit me in the head for that), it has no taste, it has no consideration of certain factors. It's not telepathically connected to you. It needs you to work together, it needs you to give it instructions, tell it what it is supposed to do. And when the two of you work together in synergy, beautiful things will happen! But don't expect the camera to do it all without you, straight out-of-the-box. You need eachother. Be a team. If you suck, the LX100 (or any other camera for that matter) will suck. If you know your own limits and that of the camera, you're probably good to go, though. To me there's no reason for putting off buying the LX100 if you're worried about quality, in my opinion the LX100 is very capable of taking stunning footage.
 
But oh well, it's too late and I'm rambling. Sorry. :P I'll stop now.

The fact you can buy an imaging device for $900 that trumps most gear film making masters from the 70's and 60's would have loved to have is incredible.

Look, if you can't do creative stuff with a piece of gear like this, you got the problems, not the camera or lens.

I love technology and equipment too, but if you want to actually do something creative with motion picture making, fretting so much about which camera does this or that the best-- man, it is such a complete waste of time.

Although, to be honest, If you want bragging rights and affirmation that you own the latest and greatest imaging kit, that's something else, I guess. It does seem to be a popular pastime on tech-centric blogs.

I'm just amazed though--and what a wonderful time for real legitimate filmmakers (the ones that actually do stuff) -- for less than 2k one can easily buy a camera, editing system, light kit, and audio package.

What to do with all that capability? Use it or talk about it?

No wonder the footage is so jarring. Those values are insane. They might make some sense if you are using 4K photomode and only want to extract a single frame, but for video footage, that is fairly useless to look at. In this case, it would have made much more sense to run at 1/60 (since it is 30 fps), and the aperture should be a higher value to ensure all the footage is in focus. (Again, if it is all indeed on a narrow plane across the frame, and the intent was to look at a single frame for sharpness problems on the side, that makes sense, but looking at this for video quality makes no sense at all). If it is too bright still at say aperture 5.6 or 8 w 1/60 shutter speed, put on some ND filter. It looks like a bright day.
 
It is also clearly oversharpened, so he should experiment with less sharpness for sure.
 
It is fine to give opinion if it is based on a good foundation, I think. However, this clip, once I look at it in Premiere, shows:
-Oversharpened due to settings
-Corners seem a bit soft, but it could be the aperture chose makes this to be out of focus. In any case, while I have found this camera has good corner sharpness, it is not incredible. It can't compete with my gh3 and Nocticron there..
-I don't see any significant issue with moire. The little I see is likely from the fact that he shot very fast shutterspeed, and did handheld, so the jittering between each frame makes is stand out.
-Generally unpleasing picture, but again, due to settings. 
 
Conclusion: Don't base anything on this footage. Have you tried it yourself?? Have you seen all the great footage out there?

It is certainly not a toy for photos, I prefer it over GH3 for instance. For video, it is not a replacement for the GH4, and nobody ever said that. It takes almost equally fantastic 4k video, but lacks the features (that you must have repeated about a dozen times at this point).  You seem to have a problem grasping what the term "Compact camera" means. This is overall, everything considered, perhaps the best compact camera ever created. (At least if you are a hybrid shooter).  If you want to lug around a GH4, or even a FZ1000, that is a whole different segment. The FZ1000 cannot compete on stills, especially lowlight either.

Well, with the smallest system I know, the Velbon QRA-3, you'd be looking at something like this, so forget using any Q/R systems:

And mind you, that's mounted sideways even.
 
If you put a thumbscrew through a hole next to a cage cutout you're looking at something like this:

You can just barely get the SD in and out. If you'd use it like this, you'll be needing a screw that doesn't block the cutout, but it could work.
But then you're stuck with the camera on the cage more or less, because you haven't got a Q/R system and the screw would probably require a tool to remove.

A lot of parrots in this thread, repeating things it seems. The moire comes from your non-4K display scaling the footage. It isn't from the camera.

It is funny how different needs do people have. LX100 is currently the best camera on the market for my needs (ordering this weekend). It will be my only camera (for both video and photo) for next few years.
 
You should say: "For my needs LX100 is overrated and overestimated.". When you say "The camera is bad.. It is my opinion." it sounds like you think that it's bad for everyone (or almost everyone). If you think like that - you are wrong. If not - you should correct your statement to cool emotions.

It wasn't though. (And, eh... in-body stabilization as a firmware upgrade? That's something hardware related... so... unless magic is involved that's a no)
 
I'm still going with...
 
So unless 2015 tech innovation suddenly finds a way to improve significantly on data infrastructure and cooling (hardware; new camera), I don't really see this happening just yet?
 
That's also why I'm taking this: (FT3) Few tidbits on the new OMD (4K with 24/25/30p, weather sealed)... with a fair amount of salt. They refuse to give the E-M1 anything other than 30p, although there's quite a bit demand for 24p and 25p... and the 4K rumors turned out to be bollocks anyway. So suddenly they care? Haha, well, we'll find out, but better not trust any anonymous sources, 43rumors, and Olympus to come thru for you. Just sayin'.

I'm kinda stunned how many people are using any auto settings when filming.

I agree it is bad they do not have live HDMI out, and I can see that in your situation it is especially frustrating, but they are a FAR cry from Canon!
 
Worst case, you can start the recording before you take off, and mount a tiny camera w/transmitter on the quad copter - I have heard others are planning on doing this. Yes, it's a pain, but at least you can get the shot. Try to get 4K out of anything portable and affordable from Canon :)

Yeah, you guys are right, in addition to not fitting in your jeans, it also isn't a video camera. Just look at it, it just oozes 'modern retro photo camera'. Just everything about it screams 'take photos with me!'. Except for the fact that it dóes take video. And does that very well so and in 4K. What other camera does that? None. The RX100 doesn't take 4K video. Yeah, maybe your smartphone shoots 4K... but it does so with its tiny sensor, crappy optics/range and shitty bitrate. Great degree of manual control? Forget it! So in fact the LX100 is definitly NOT like every other camera out there.
 
So it doesn't have an audio interface. Well, record externally or if you're just shooting some scenic footage, put some music under there.
So you need to manually select shutterspeed by turning a dial and if you don't want 1/60th but 1/50th of a second, turn two dials. That takes you maybe one whole second, wow, yeah, that's aweful guys, don't buy this, it takes you a second to change shutterspeed. Can you just imagine?
It's not flat enough, I need my flat cinematic profiles. Well, just dial everything back, the colors will stay nice, but yeah, gradeability is slightly effected because it isn't thát flat and doesn't let you push it as far as let's say a BMPCC. Well, you should've gotten that one instead then. Except, unlike the LX100, it doesn't take any stills and 4K video for example. There's compromises lurking around every corner!
 
Nobody's telling you to ditch your current gear and buy the LX100 as your exclusive camera for video! Nobody's telling you the LX100 is ideally designed for video shooting... but again, at the end of the day it does enable you to take very nice 4K video. And what other camera can say the same for 799 EUR? I already have the GH4, if I know I'm gonna shoot video, I will make sure to use that one. If I'm out and about and I'm not planning on shooting any stills or video, but when there's a moment I wish I did, it's nice that I don't have to settle for my smartphone's quality, I can take out the LX100 and shoot awesome stuff! When shooting video with the GH4, the LX100 becomes one hell of a B-camera! Like Andrew said, if you need another angle, the LX100 will help you out greatly! It also intercuts nicely with other footage. At the end of the day... isn't it all about getting the results you're after... or even the ones you before never dreamed of?
 
It's not designed with the main feature being video. So they went with the clickety type (although a declick button would've been a nice feature). Just gotta use a variable ND-filter to gradually control exposure instead.

Yeah, you guys are right, in addition to not fitting in your jeans, it also isn't a video camera. Just look at it, it just oozes 'modern retro photo camera'. Just everything about it screams 'take photos with me!'. Except for the fact that it dóes take video. And does that very well so and in 4K. What other camera does that? None. The RX100 doesn't take 4K video. Yeah, maybe your smartphone shoots 4K... but it does so with its tiny sensor, crappy optics/range and shitty bitrate. Great degree of manual control? Forget it! So in fact the LX100 is definitly NOT like every other camera out there.
 
So it doesn't have an audio interface. Well, record externally or if you're just shooting some scenic footage, put some music under there.
So you need to manually select shutterspeed by turning a dial and if you don't want 1/60th but 1/50th of a second, turn two dials. That takes you maybe one whole second, wow, yeah, that's aweful guys, don't buy this, it takes you a second to change shutterspeed. Can you just imagine?
It's not flat enough, I need my flat cinematic profiles. Well, just dial everything back, the colors will stay nice, but yeah, gradeability is slightly effected because it isn't thát flat and doesn't let you push it as far as let's say a BMPCC. Well, you should've gotten that one instead then. Except, unlike the LX100, it doesn't take any stills and 4K video for example. There's compromises lurking around every corner!
 
Nobody's telling you to ditch your current gear and buy the LX100 as your exclusive camera for video! Nobody's telling you the LX100 is ideally designed for video shooting... but again, at the end of the day it does enable you to take very nice 4K video. And what other camera can say the same for 799 EUR? I already have the GH4, if I know I'm gonna shoot video, I will make sure to use that one. If I'm out and about and I'm not planning on shooting any stills or video, but when there's a moment I wish I did, it's nice that I don't have to settle for my smartphone's quality, I can take out the LX100 and shoot awesome stuff! When shooting video with the GH4, the LX100 becomes one hell of a B-camera! Like Andrew said, if you need another angle, the LX100 will help you out greatly! It also intercuts nicely with other footage. At the end of the day... isn't it all about getting the results you're after... or even the ones you before never dreamed of?
 
It's not designed with the main feature being video. So they went with the clickety type (although a declick button would've been a nice feature). Just gotta use a variable ND-filter to gradually control exposure instead.

I guess we got that... but please, keep saying how you don't like this camera, you seem to enjoy it.

TCSTV had a nice video on the Ronin about a week ago, looks nice...


 
There's a topic on EOSHD about these type of 3-axis systems: '?do=embed' frameborder='0' data-embedContent>>  ( >and ).
And there are already some cheap solutions availlable...
 

 
Of course, everything that's a little bit more DIY and cheap will come with challenges. That's the price you pay if you don't want to pay the price.

Yeah, the sensor inside still is four thirds. But in order to keep the lens as small as it is, in order to get the sharpest results without vignetting, they decided not to use any of the edge pixels of the sensor, so that leaves you with certain crops different for each of the aspect ratio modes. But you'll never get a full readout of the sensor installed, that's very true indeed.
 
 
You're right, it's not a pocket camera, it's a premium compact. If it's too big, get the RX100M3. Although personally I still think the RX100M3 isn't much pocketable either (unless wearing really baggy cargo pants putting it in a pocket located around the hips, just above the knee). Anyways. I don't care that it doesn't fit a jeans' pocket. It still fits a coat pocket perfectly fine and you can throw it in a messenger bag/shoulder bag very easily with all of the other stuff you're carrying around on a daily basis, such as a tablet or whatever, without taking up all the space to a point that you'd rather not have it with you unless you know you're going to be using it. Since I already carry a bag around or outside of summer usually will be needing to wear a coat (it's no sunny southern California around here), I will have it on me always! I can't say that a FZ1000 would fit in my coat's pocket or that a GH4 with 20mm f/1.7 wouldn't add any bulk to my bag (besides, just the pancake would be a little limiting). But the LX100 is very compact.
 
As I said in my first post of the thread, to me the essence is that I have a camera that takes considerable quality stills and videos in a small package. That doesn't mean I can fit it in one of my pants' pockets, it means that it is small and light enough to carry around without being a burden. If you carry it in your coat or bag it doesn't take up much space and you'll hardly notice its presence. But it is always there! So that means, that if you normally don't have your camera with you, because you'd have to carry it on a strap around your neck, which could be rather uncomfortable, especially if you're not even sure if you'll need it, or put it in a bag where it weighs you down and takes up quite a bit of space, now you can. Again, to me this is the answer to the use of the cameras on smartphones. Now, they're getting better, sure, but wouldn't you rather shoot something with the LX100? That's to me where the LX100 kicks in, because I would. And I very much prefer the LX100's handling, features and performance over the RX100's. But to each their own of course. It's just a bit silly to keep picking on the LX100 for not being RX100-sized. Yeah, we know... nobody's saying you can't buy a RX100... there's a good reason there are so many different kind of cameras. Everybody's looking for certain qualities in a camera and that all results into different cameras.

It's always been a FT sensor in these cameras. Only the mounttype is called differently to make a distinction between SLR and mirrorless, the mount these days is a MFT/M43 one, it used to be FT when the cameras where still using mirrors (to allow light being redirected to the optical viewfinder). So it still uses a 4/3" sensor (1.33"), but the mount flange focal distance due to being mirrorless (no mirror, so no optical viewfinder, that's why mirrorless cameras have either no viewfinder or a digital one) is greatly reduced.

But hasn´t Andrew just proven that it does not really count if a camera is technically 8 or 10bit if the end result is of good quality? Sure, this is not an Alexa, it´s not 4:2:2 ProRes recording and no 14bit raw video .. but it shoots damn good pictures you have to go quite far to find something similar in 10bit. With stills capability. That size.
 
Wrote a little bit more about mixing LX100 footage with 10bit raw(log) footage here: http://hackermovies.com/panasonic-lx-100-vs-5d-mk-iii-english

By all means, constructive posts are fine, and maybe you can contribute to this thread by being clear about the points in the camera labs review that concerns you the most. I'm sure there are valid concerns that could/should be addressed in a FW update for instance, or if you need to point out certain uses the camera is not going to be great for.
 
The posts that I referred to were either *a* Complaining that a $899 camera doesn't have 4K 10-bit, when Panasonic is pretty much revolutionizing the compact segment to even include 4K. and *b* People that practically cut and paste their own post several times saying why they don't like the camera and another camera is better. That adds nothing to the discussion after the first time.... 

Just found how to set the framing of live-view to video without enabling 4K Photo Mode. The option to try is Rec Area. You can toggle between the framing for stills (2.2x crop) or video (2.4x crop).

Wow lovely dreamy look and great low contrast. Me likey. ^_^
 
 
Yeah, those are some nice shots indeed. But I'm just not that artsy myself. :P

Yeah, the FZ1000 has 5-Axis hybrid OIS (mind you, not in 4K or high speed recording), the LX100 just Power OIS (not sure how many axis that is specifcally).
Yes, 4K recording starts countdown from 15mins.
 
No, you cannot use it like this unfortunately.
 
They have to provide some kind of clear separation. Yeah, I know that it's fixed lens solution against an interchangeable lens system, but as someone that invested in a GH4 I would be pretty pissed if a camera would come out with almost the exact same features but put in a smaller and much more affordable package. So I guess that's one side of the story: cutting down on features as to protect the value of higher-end products. Everybody is crippling their lower priced products, it's just how things work at companies. And then on the other side of course it would bump productions costs and bulk of the camera a bit (it will take money and space to implement). And remember, the LX100 and FZ1000 aren't really targeting filmmakers and video enthusiasts per se. There probably only is a relatively small percentage of users actually finding use for these kind of features, although I have to say, some kind of optional connector unit with mic-in and headphone-out would be welcome... but again, that would narrow the gap between lines. I think it's the same reason why they won't give the LX100 a touchscreen. And who knows perhaps they could've given the GM5 4K video as well, but why would someone then still buy a LX100 or GH4?
 
Pretty sure you'll love it! Enjoy!
 
Actually, it hasn't. Because it has no dedicated videomode you can set auto-ISO, but as soon as you start rolling video this sticks with the initial ISO (unless that's what you meant, yeah it does pick that all by itself). Also, the feature completely disappears in 4K Photo mode.
 
It doesn't do anything.
 
Yes, it does indeed! It also features the same accessory ring you'll find on the LX7.

 
Personally I would never put a RX100M3 in my jeans pocket. Maybe it would fit, but it would be uncomfortable and awkward looking. A thin 5.0" smartphone and a filled wallet is what I would carry around maximum... a camera? Don't see it happening. Not even with the LX7, although maybe if you're wearing baggy cargo pants.

LX100 has a 43mm filter thread.

I would never put a camera into my pockets, that place is full of dust and you won't get it out a camera with fixed lens. You also don't want to stress the aligment between lens and sensor.

Maybe you'll find this useful:

 
Caleb on Variable ND's: 'mweh' (paraphrasing): http://dslrvideoshooter.com/filters-video-part-filter-types-uses/

Great write-up!
 
 
I couldn't agree more! To me that's the essence of this camera.
 
 
Great tip, thanks! Hadn't thought of that!