studiodc

4 hours ago, seppling said:

Has anyone tried the hack with the latest body firmware?

Yes. It works fine for me. I had to handshake twice. The second time it said "connected, encrypted" and that worked. 

Absolutely fantastic. Thanks @BTM_Pix for the work to make this happen. It's proof that not only is the profile actually loaded in the camera but that it's quite a good one too. I'll be setting this and trying it out under some, er, "trying" conditions hopefully in the next week or so.

@jonpais I have to say that while the Natural profile looks pretty darn good to me when exposure is set I'll definitely concede the point that Cinelike D appears to have higher DR. I'll have to poke at the actual bits to see if this is an actual new mapping of light to bit value or if it's because Cinelike D has a different contrast curve, because that's almost exactly what, to my eye, this looks like (speaking about DR or the appearance thereof, specifically). In other words, I'm curious as to whether the actual 255 maps to an actual higher EV of light, or if we just remap in between the same extremes we were already capturing. One would be increased DR (able to actually capture in a meaningful way brighter brights and darker darks in the same scene), the other would simply be playing with contrast and digital level mapping to give that appearance. 

Of course it's also curious as to whether Cine-D has different NR settings at higher ISO too... 

10 hours ago, jonpais said:

There's a lot of misinformation out there about Cinelike D, and from reading these pages over the past several years, it appears that Lumix users mostly choose to go with either Natural or Standard photo styles, or Vlog if they've got the GH4 or GH5. I myself had avoided Cinelike D because in the past, reviewers had said it was too orange, or it looked as though there were too many conflicting thoughts on what the best settings were for contrast, saturation and so on, so I just stuck with Natural. Natural was also the profile of choice for those of us wanting to use many LUTs but didn't have a log profile in camera. But Cinelike D has a significantly greater dynamic range than any of the other profiles save V-log, and it is flat enough that there's no need at all to reduce contrast in camera. As for whether or not you like the colors, if you set white balance correctly, you've got yourself a great starting point for grading or adding LUTs for the look you're after. So, before you write off Cinelike D because of the lack of documentation online, or just because you read comments such as, "I like Natural better", or "I like the work of X, Y or Z, and they shoot with Natural", why not ask to see the work of those with the expert opinions? Incidentally, I love Jase's work, too, but he doesn't have the option to use Cinelike D, and I'm sure he'd prefer it if he had the choice. And for anyone still trying to decide whether to go with the G85 or save a few hundred dollars and get the GX85, I'd unhesitatingly recommend the G85. Here are a few screenshots from a test clip I shot over the afternoon in mixed tungsten/daylight using the X-Rite Colorchecker.

Just to be clear, I've got nothing against Cinelike D, when used properly. On my GH4, I preferred it to V-Log, at least with internal recording. The dynamic range is great. I did find, however, that in changing lighting conditions, it was non-linear with colour (especially skin tone) in a manner that made it very difficult to grade shots to match. Tracking white balance on a partially cloudy day with roving patches of daylight, for instance, either in manual mode or in AWB (I prefer not to shoot in AWB), just seemed to be smoother and easier to match when I didn't use Cinelike D, for instance. Since that's 90% of the stuff I'm using the GX85 for (and the G85 is already bulkier than I like), the lack of Cinelike D isn't a huge loss for me. That said, more options are better and it would be amazing if I could use the GX85 for more controlled shoots and get maximum quality out of it too. 

3 hours ago, Hene1 said:

How do you attach GX80/85 to tripod? I can't fit the GX80 to Manfrotto tripods when using Olympus 7-14 2.8 Pro. Makes the camera a little bit useless.

Both Smallrig and Hondo Garage make a variety of rod adapters that function beautifully as a standoff for this sort of situation when you don't want to run the rods, and of course are useful for rods when you need 'em. 

3 hours ago, jonpais said:

Pretty much my feelings exactly, concerning the lack of Cinelike D. It was only when I started shooting Cinelike D with my G85 that I felt the DR range of the Lumix was beginning to approach that of my X-T2. The lack of a microphone input is another thing as well. The Zoom is a good workaround, but it's nice to be able to plug a Rodelink directly into the G85. For those in the market for a new midrange mirrorless, I'd still highly recommend the G85 for those reasons, as well as for the fully articulating screen. 

I never liked the look on Cinelike D and found that shooting natural or standard, with a few modifications (actually quite similar to Jase) worked the best on the GH4 and still work fantastically on the GX85. Of course, I colour with either Colorista IV or Resolve, depending on the shoot, so that might have an effect on the ability to pull the grade out of the final image - colour maths really differ widely between apps and plugins. That plus a little Magic Bullet Denoiser III and you're good to go. I'll be picking up the professional Resolve 14 when it's on sale, no question, and checking out if it's denoise is as good. I like Denoiser III as much as what I've seen from Neat Video (and better, in some cases) but for sure it's FAST and does the job. I always liked a little grain in my images, and the GX85 actually has a fantastic noise structure - very fine and almost filmlike already, as long as you're not into the smudgy super-high-iso stuff where in-built NR kicks in. 

Not to be pedantic but it's a Trojan, not a virus. It doesn't spread to other computers unless you download and manually give it admin permissions. That said it's still bad news!

6 hours ago, Thpriest said:

So what is the benefit of E stabilisation? 

What I think some people are missing is that there are three main modes of image stabilization.

1. The default "stabilization" is 5-axis IBIS - as in, physical mechanical movement of the sensor to compensate for unintended camera motion.

2. The "dual-IS" modes use the physical stabilization of the lens (usually 2-axis) plus additional stabilization of the sensor (usually the other 3) to accomplish the same thing, but because the lens handles some of those axes optically the correction can appear more natural. 

3. E-stabilization is nothing more than applying something like 'warp stabilizer' to the footage coming off the sensor digitally, just in-camera. As a result, all of the issues with that sort of stabilization (including the crop and focus issues, if you're pulling very tight focus) are going to be present, because you aren't physically moving the sensor.

This is true for all Panasonics with 5-axis IBIS in-body.

Combining e-stabilization with physical stabilization is not usually a good idea, as it can introduce these artifacts. On the other hand, if you absolutely need the centre of your shot to be as steady as possible, combining the two may do that in some cases (but I can guess, though I don't have proof, that in some other cases it might make the problem worse). 

Usually the only time you really want e-stab is when you are turning OFF IBIS, e.g. because your lenses have a very small image circle and the IBIS exceeds that. In that case e-stabilization can be better than nothing, although honestly most of the post solutions are likely to be more effective and allow you the option of choice of stabilization method before baking the image into your file. 

On 2017-04-27 at 7:40 AM, dahlfors said:

If I didn't have a CC subscription through work, I'd probably give the open source Darktable a try: http://www.darktable.org

Actually the buzz from my pro photog friends is that Capture One Pro is the best Lightroom replacement (and better at pretty much everything). The raw processing there is astounding and it uses resolve-style colour wheels and HSL qualifiers for grading. Best colour workflow for photos that I've seen yet. I'm switching literally today, as version 10 has really impressed me in demo so far. So, I've found a replacement for everything except After Effects and I'm by no means a strong compositor - shoot, cut, and colour are my focus. As for graphic design and audio, I've already got great tools for those that suit my needs to a T. I've prepaid the year on Adobe so I'll let it run out, but I won't be funnelling any more money their way. Trapcode was tons of fun to play with, but honestly I get way more enjoyment for my hours just shooting and making simpler, more poignant things than trying to create sci-fi or alter reality too far. 

And, I'm a die hard FCPX fan too, but even with great plugins like Colorista IV, I still vastly prefer Resolve's workflow for colour, LUT, and image tweaking. If Resolve 14 edits anywhere near as well as FCPX does, I'll probably be starting some projects there just to see how it goes, rather than finishing only. 

1 hour ago, Sedazin said:

Do the pants of the guy look pink? At least on my screen they do. I have the same problem with Pro Color for Panasonic and my G81. While skin tones look really great all of my footage gets a pink color cast after applying the LUT even if I use the recommended camera settings and a white balance that look fine in the original footage.

Yes, that's a deliberate part of the grade - warm glow look to the footage. It's easily cancelled but I was going to add it anyway to match the rest of the shots. Looks "pink" against a white website, but in context of the film your eye easily adjusts to the colour balance and it seems "warmly neutral" in context.

Edit: Also, that's not a "guy". 

Doing some wonderful things with the footage I've been working with. This is with the alternative LUT in place - could even out the exposure but I was going to grade it darker anyway, so this ended up perfect for my taste. I love the original colours but the LUT really put the feels on the grade. The before is what the grade would have looked like without starting from Andrew's LUT - so in both cases the artistic grade is kept constant. This way you see a more legitimate before/after of the LUT alone, without my edit being a factor.

"Colour" me thrilled.

P.S. the blacks are definitely NOT crushed - I just wanted a contrasty grade here. The LUT is doing it's job beautifully and I can pull TONS of shadow detail back out.

You can actually count to 10 bits (or much higher, even) with just your 10 fingers !   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger_binary

42 minutes ago, Stanley said:

Some people on DP Review are reporting that the quality of1080p on the GX85 isn't the best, so I'm wondering if anyone has found this to be true, and is it the same with the G85?

Can't say for the G85, and I just got my GX85, but on a 4K camera I never shoot in 1080p unless I need slomo and in that case it's not a big deal if it's a little soft as the slo-mo I shoot (unless I'm renting a seriously capable rig) is going to be for dreamy stuff anyway. 

If you plan to work in 1080p, do yourself a huge favour, shoot in 4K and use something like EditReady to transcode to 1080p ProRes as part of your ingest step (possibly applying Andrew's excellent LUTs at the same time). You'll end up with roughly equivalent to 4:4:4 colour and the downsampling will increase sharpness and decrease noise by a lot. You get basically 4x oversampled 1080p (2x horizontal, 2x vertical) for your trouble, and not horribly greater file sizes. 

@mercer I think we're all in agreement that it exists, if in perception only. It may mean different things to different people. Personally, in the (admittedly unscientific) studies I've done on the subject, it's got to do with things like precise frame timing, proper frame exposure (there was a bug in the original C300 - not sure if it's still there, I haven't shot on that camera in a while - where footage shot as 24p would always have a 1/60 shutter speed, reducing motion blur from the expected 1/48 by enough that was noticeable - it made all the footage feel slightly less "smooth", for instance), and of course ensuring that playback was at a matching frame rate. For others, it's got more to do with colour, for others, bokeh or lack thereof, film grain or noise "feel", and the anamorphic effects, etc. etc. and of course any/all of these in combination. This subject has been beaten to death and we could still talk about it, but I think it really comes down to how you, personally, define it, and whether or not you can, in post, create that effect or if it's purely the result of the in-camera hardware and encoding. 

That said, I'd argue you could make stuff that very nearly everyone except a small percentage of other filmmakers finds entirely "cinematic" or "filmic" with nearly any decent video-capable camera these days, and that it's not as much of a hardware thing as people think. Can you do it on all cameras, straight off the card, in available light? Not easily, and certainly not with as much success. 

My personal perspective on the whole thing is that we've failed to carry forward actual cinema production technique and style and values. The importance of lighting and light modifiers. The use of colour for symbolism and message. The practice of motion. The importance of DOF (not low-DOF) and when/how to use it. Traditional framing versus unconventional. The language of editing. The incredible contributions of the art dept. (even if it's just one person) and wardrobe/makeup. Having a good colourist. To me, these contribute FAR FAR more to the feeling of "cinematic" or "filmic" than any of the gear you shoot with or what LUTs you slap on the footage, and my own eyes, in blind viewings, have held that up so far.

9 hours ago, Cary Knoop said:

Modern monitors should have no problems using refresh rates for 24p or 23.976p.

This is true, but the monitor refresh rate doesn't change just because you're playing a video on it.

The refresh rate stays high (60-120hz, variable depending on settings, card, etc...) and the video is displayed at the closest frame interval that matches. You have to be using custom hardware out (like a BlackMagic mini monitor or other dedicated video apparatus, or set your video card's output explicitly) to drive a monitor at a dedicated refresh rate that matches the frame rate of your project.

So, yes, if you're doing that and you set the output of that device to a matching frame rate, the monitor will adjust, absolutely. But if you're viewing it in, say, the preview or fullscreen window of Premiere on your standard desktop monitor, it doesn't change the refresh rate of your monitor to match, it applies pulldown and/or frame blending rate conversion to match the current monitor refresh rate of that display. This keeps your UI working smoothly while video of differing frame rates plays back. Play a 24p and a 30p video side by side on your display and watch, it's quite obvious. 

2 hours ago, Zak Forsman said:

My understanding is that it's a codec issue, but I'm far from an expert. I just know what i see. the GH4 handled it better than most low-cost cameras, but it still often rendered motion with a "doubling" or "tripling" of the fast-motion portions of the image in single frames. It was always easiest to spot on specular highlights on passing cars. Take a look at the car's grill in this image from a clip I shot many moons ago. You see how fast motion in this frame is rendered in three "steps", rather than one smooth motion?

I can definitely understand what you're talking about - but that's not something I would at all class as "motion cadence", which to me implies a) regularity in frame exposure duration and b) regularity in frame exposure timing. Judder is a big factor here - the playback interpolation of frames during 24p -> 60p telecine pulldown to match most modern monitor refresh rates makes a far bigger difference in the viewer's perception. For instance, when shooting GH4 footage at 30p it will often be described by clients as more "cinematic" when in fact, they are discussing video shown on monitors versus what they see in projected 24p theatres. So, there's a big perception difference in frame rates, pulldown effects, and frame timing (which is provably inaccurate on some cameras at certain frame rates), all of which I would classify into perceived motion cadence issues.

The "quantized in-frame capture" you mention on the other hand... that's odd. I'd noticed it before on some footage (can't remember which camera) and wrote it off to perhaps the lighting in the studio (60hz AC versus 23.97p) doing something a bit funky, but now that you mention it outdoors, I'll have to comb through the footage again. This said, I can't say that would make a significant difference in "motion" perception, although perhaps if it's randomized frame to frame instead of consistent it could lead to a flicker effect. But of course I've seen 35mm film in fast pans or fast cross-frame motion "flicker" too, thanks to our inherent perception of the motion differences versus blur in those large-delta situations, so it's entirely possible.

Then again, I did a lot of my GH4 recording externally direct to ProRes... might make a difference.

Edit: thinking about it: are you sure this isn't including telecine effects of frame interpolation? It sure as hell looks like it, some modern telecine implementations (in FCPX, for instance) frame blend instead of just blandly repeating...

Agreed, I'm curious too. The GH4 has always had a very filmic motion cadence in 24p 4K if you ask me, and I've been crew and DIT on productions with Alexas and C300.

57 minutes ago, fuzzynormal said:

Yeah, let's not let a half year thread that lists for over 70 pages go off on a tangent. ;-)

Haha, especially not here! ;-)

But seriously, there's a lot of good info in that thread and I didn't want to re-start it here, partly for selfish reasons having just bought this camera I'm interested in this staying on-topic. :-D

My next big decision is going to be EM-1 Mk II or GH5, but you know why I ended up deciding for the GX85/80/7mkII instead of the G8/80/85? Honestly, it was because waaaaayyyy back in the day I had a GX1. And damned if it wasn't a useful little bugger that I literally kept in my bag at all times. I didn't do GREAT stuff with it, but I did good stuff, stuff I'm still happy with. Hell, I shot my first commercial short on it. And since then (since it was my entry into Panasonic cameras), I've gotten into nicer and nicer bodies, ending up with a GH4 with which I've done some fantastic work that I'm very very proud of. But along the way, since I'm not getting paid for squat for my work (long story - my day job keeps food on the table), I've had to sell off my other gear in order to be able to afford the next toy to come along. So, this GX85 has been out for what, more than 6 months now? And I was finally at the point where I've deliberately left the GH4 at home enough times thinking "it's too big and heavy", "it's just not worth the space in my bag", "I'll never really care about rigging it up to shoot anything", "I want to be present, not behind a camera" enough times that I decided to say screw it, I'm going back to the compact rangefinder format that I used to actually love, that I've definitely taken with me everytime and always. There's enough info out there on this camera to say it's definitely not a dud, and there's really no competition for it in the compact rangefinder-ish format (by this term I mean specifically cameras which don't have prism humps, evf protrusions, or pronounced hand grips) that I can tell - the A6300/6500 are close but not what I'm looking for and the PEN series just don't strike me as interesting. So, it's still quite a lovely little bugger, even if it's not the fad of the moment.

That said, if Panasonic pulls a Sony and pops a GX90 or what-have-you on the market at CES I'm going to be slightly annoyed. In the meantime, all the lovely goodies I bought for the GH4 are still perfectly useful on this beauty, and damn if I'm not excited about taking this places I would never chance bringing my GH4, as much as I love that camera.

@Huey, @fuzzynormal Let's keep this discussion focused on the GX85, there is actually a perfectly good topic to read on this specific lens in this specific case, even. Let's move this topic there, shall we?

That said, I've just ordered a GX85, and am putting my GH4 up for sale. The main reason is that I need a compact, discreet camera more than I need a full video workhorse, and that I love the rangefinder format for the bulk of my personal work which is candids. However, I'm concerned that I may have bought too early. Is anyone anticipating a successor to this camera (in this format) for CES in January?

17 hours ago, Huey said:

I just picked up a GX85 with the 12-32 and 45-150 kit lenses.  I'm trying to figure out what lens line up to get.  Does the GX85 (and other Panasonic cameras) have automatic lens correction for Panasonic lenses when shooting 4K?  Right now I'm leaning towards the Olympus 12-40mm but I may go with the Panasonic 12-35 if it corrects for CA and distortion automatically when filming.

Hi Huey, I can't answer it definitively, but in general all Panasonic bodies correct for their own lenses automatically, at least in photos mode. Not sure about video mode which is your question. That said, correcting for a lens is trivial and most lenses have correction details available which can easily be put into your lens correction plugin if that really matters. Keep in mind, though, that the distortion of a lens is part of it's character and it's usually something I choose my lenses specifically for, or is so small that it doesn't matter. 

The big advantage for getting the Panasonic 12-35 (and the reason I'm responding even though I can't definitively answer you) is the fact that 5-axis stabilization with the lens handling two of the 5 axes is even better than the body-only stabilization. You'll get even smoother motion, better correction, etc. with the Panny lens which is a big plus.

12 minutes ago, kidzrevil said:

Do you apply that before you start grading or after ? I've tried this before and recovered highlights but I am not sure if it is compressing from 0-255 to 16-235 and then stretching it back out to 0-255 on export. Huge mystery I hope someone can explain to me !

All processing is done internally in 32-bit high resolution colour.

You'd do this before you start grading, to tell it how to interpret the footage (e.g. where to map the 8 bit signal into that 32-bit space). After that, until you export, it's in the very large 32-bit colour space. 

Just ordered! To go with my still-in-transit GX85. Opted for that over the G80 as it will become a B-camera to the GH5 and I wanted something TINY and unassuming. Very excited since the GX85 doesn't have CineD or CineV or V-Log L to use - this is a very very lovely profile and will easily grade into my style of final image. Thanks so much for this work, I was really hoping you'd come up with something like this - and to have it referenced against the 1DC is perfect. 

I'm a big fan of the RedRock Micro lens adapter flanges. They are designed to be "dedicated" to a lens and lock down (gently but very firmly) with setscrews. Eliminates wobble, focus is bang on, and they don't get lost. Plus they are cheap enough to keep one on each lens you want. I have them all for Canon EF, have an EF speed booster, and a variety of lenses (Contax, Nikon mostly) that they stay on permanently. 

Fantastic. Just pre-ordered it myself. Can't wait to try it out, even if it means I need to put a PIX-E5 on order too.

JazzBox, LUTs are resolution independent. You can shoot at any resolution and apply it.

Andrew, a few questions now that I've purchased this pack and looked at it more closely:

1. If we use an external recorder to go straight to ProRes, should we still use the master pedestal you recommend? My understanding is this lifts the definition of "black" and that the camera won't record a true black (e.g. pixel luminance of 0) if you raise the master pedestal. By doing that we lose the bottom X percent of our 8 or 10 bits. With an external recorder hopefully not overly compressing the blacks, is this still necessary?

2. Do you notice a significant difference when recording externally at 10-bit versus internally when shooting for this LUT?

3. (Goes along with 2, in a way) If I'm going to do a downres to 1080p, is it higher quality to do that first (and "boosting" the colour information per pixel) before the LUT?

Interesting, but can we see a GH4 -> "Log" -> CLog LUT applied comparison, too, at full res?

I'm especially interested in what that transform gives us for skin tones and foliage.