Beritar

I agree, never had any issue with my GH5 AF when using PL lenses and "1 Area". I can say the same with my GH6 below 48fps.

Yes but this is not true. Undone has always found something to say to fault Panasonic in the past, like he did with the reviews of the 10-25mm saying the 18-35mm had better AF ... And saying the S1 IBIS is much better than the S5 without even comparing them to Sony cameras is doubtful to say the least, especially when he was the first to say the AF was much better on Sony than on panasonic (which was true). Both the S1 and S5 are very comparable for IBIS. The S1 is very slightly better. Even with a 85mm lens, I must really looking closely to see the difference with IS BOOST enabled. An exemple : When walking there is a bit more "jump" on the S5, but the difference is very slight. I used and still use the S1 and S5 a lot and they are really close. I saw some comments saying the S1H had better IBIS than the S1 but I never made a comparison with both so I don't know. The real upgrade was with the S5II, especially when walking, the S5II is noticeably better than the S1 and S5 but it can sometimes look more "digital". By exemple when shooting in 6K or Open Gate with a 85mm and IS BOOST, the S5II seems a bit more stable than the S1, but when cropping I can see a bit more micro jitters on the S5II like if the S5II was applying a stronger correction. This make me think the S5II uses more processing power for the IBIS, and maybe lower the overall image quality compared to the S5 and S1. However when walking, the S5II is clearly better past 24mm, both the S5 and S1 show visibly more "jump". I suppose we can't get a more perfect camera till Panasonic will drastically change the processor and the sensor of their full frame cameras (they still use the same Sony sensor from 2018).

He also said the IBIS in Open Gate and 4k have the same performance, but on his GH7/G9II video he only tested a 8mm lens but even my A7IV has a not so bad IBIS at 16mm. Owning the GH6 and G9II, the difference in IBIS performance is obvious while walking with most lenses.

I agree, even it will maybe harder to make this AI shallow depth of field for videos. But the lenses I like the most are not the ones with the deeper bokeh. I love the Leica 35mm F2 APO Summicron SL or the PL 25-50mm f1.7. Not because of their deep bokeh but because of their rendering, the way how the light convert on the point of focus, the highlights/shadows transitions and contrast. I think it will be harder to mimic the look of some lenses than adding some blur to mimic deep bokeh.

I never use tracking mode on either my S5, S1, GH5 and GH6. I always use 1 area with relatively small square. When using this setting with my GH5 with speed at +5 (sensitivity depends of the lens used), the AF is very fast most of the time, by exemple with the 12-60mm PL or 10-25mm, the focus is sometimes faster and more accurate than my old A7III. The only issue is with low contrast scenes. However even with 1 area, my S5 and S1 have sometimes an hard time to find focus if my subject is moving a lot, even more if the contrast is low or the DOF shallow.

Same here. With better IBIS, I would have pulled the trigger immediatly. The in camera Proresraw, which mean almost zero noise reduction and sharpening along with the 6K 60fps are really tempting.

Yes, I think it's possible, 5,7K needs more processing power. I see the same thing with my S1 and S5II, 4K and C4K are more stable than 5,9K, the difference is pretty noticeable when I walk while recording, 5,9K has more "jumps". Maybe it is why 4K and C4K on the S5II have a so good IBIS compared to the S1 and S5, because the level of details is worse and need less processing power.

But C4K uses the same part of the sensor than 5,7K. And if you look closely, 5,7K is even (very) slightly more croped than C4K. But for 5,8K Open Gate yes it makes sense.

The IBIS of the GH5 is very similar to the GH6, people saying the GH6 is a lot of better never used both cameras (or they are influencers). In 5,7K the IBIS of the GH6 is worse than on the GH5 in 4K, much more "jumps" while walking between 15mm and upward. The real upgrade in IBIS performance is on the G9II (and probably the GH7). However I still get a lot of wooble between 8-12mm on my G9II. The new EIS mode suppress the wooble but also lower the level of fine details because of the crop. About the S9 I'm not sure, I still don't like the S5II internal video engine and I think the S9 has the same. Also the rolling shutter is probably the same than the S5II, though I'm not sure since I have not used the S9. For me the big selling point of the G/GH (outside of IBIS and RS) is the lenses weight and size. Even the tiny 20mm f1.7II has very fast AF on the G9II (though a bit noisy), this combo is a joy to use. And when I want the best quality, it's always with the 25-50mm, I just love how this lens renders (colors and contrast), I think even more than my most expensive FF zoom lenses.

Yes, it's 8 bits ... I think lot of people don't agree, but for me most of time 8 bits files are enough. If I don't need fast AF, 90% of the time I even prefer to use 8 bits 4K H264 files on my S5 instead of H265 10 bits on my S5II.

I agree and most of influencers never speak about these things, they are very enthusiastic about the GH6 4K 120fps or 5,7K 60fps but at no point during their reviews they speak about the drop in detail quality or the lack of Open Gate 60fps compared to the GH5, in the same way they never speak about the drop in IBIS performance when using 5,7K.

I confirm, my GH5 has Open gate 3,3K downsampled 60 fps. Even my GH6 and G9II have not Open Gate 60fps. The GH5 is still the best Panasonic m43 cameras for a lot of things, including detail rendering and Open Gate 60fps.

While the S5II H264/265 uses temporal noise reduction as opposed to the S5 and make the fine details worse especially in 4K/C4K. I think the GH6 being softer than the GH5 in 4K/C4K is mostly due to a more agressive IDP (Intelligent detail processing). In order to reduce moiré, it smooth fine details (making the image more organic for some people) but also reducing the level of fine details when you crop a bit. So if you want to get the same impression of sharpness of the GH5 and tries to add digital sharpening in post on the GH6 (this is rarely a good thing to do but it can help to see the differences of details between different cameras/recording mode by highlighting them), the image becomes very bad with some apparent details looking oversharpened and some very fines details looking smoothed out. The GH5 just keeps more details and even if this camera still use a good amount of sharpening in 4K, this sharpening looks less rough. In 5,7K, the GH6 is much better (and closer than the GH5), fine details looks less rough than 4K/C4K, however the IBIS takes a good hit when walking producing more "jumps". Open gate is very similar to 5,7K on the GH6, maybe the fine details are slightly better when there are not a lot of motion, but the rendering is very similar. However the GH5 in Open Gate is the best I've seen, the level of sharpening is almost the same than a raw picture file, making the image the best you can get on from a Panasonic m43 camera about detail rendering and in my opinion this mode is much better than any mode inside the GH6 or the G9II, even in Prores. Of course I don't speak about DR and colors, for me the GH6 has the best colors of any Panasonic cameras.

Too bad, do you think Proresraw on the Z6III is better ?

Can you elaborate how the 8K H265 files from the A1 are better than the 6K Z6 III N-Raw or Proresraw ? Despite the bump of resolution (6K vs 8K), I would have thought the internal raw of the Z6-III was better because of the unprocessed image (no NR or extra sharpening). I never used the A1 but I had the A7SIII, A7III and A7IV, I don't like how Sony uses details filtering like temporal noise reduction and sharpening. This is why I prefer old Panasonic cameras like the S1, Panasonic has added too much video processing on their recent cameras like on the S5II.

To notice you need to watch footage on big/high resolution screens, or cropping a lot (to make zoom or pan in the image by exemple). Skin textures by exemple looks more mushy. The S5II also has worse detail rendering than the S5 and S1, but this time the S5II uses a lot of sharpening to try to hide the lack of details. Honestly, in 4K and the standard profiles, the S5II image sometimes look like a bad oversampled 1080P. I was always interested by Panasonic because they always had very good detail rendering like on the GH5, G85, GX85, S5, S1 etc. But now, I only seek cameras with internal raw because most brands use too much sharpening and noise reduction to get a better DR score. Yes I agree PDAF is essential, but I didn't think the GH6 could have worse AF accuracy (below 48fps) and worse pulsing in Open Gate than the old GH5. Especially when most youtuber said the AF of the GH6 was much better. At first I thought I have a bad sample of the GH6, but after using 3 GH6, I confirmed it was a general issue.

Yes I use the AF-ON (or the shutter) button everytime on the GH6, even when I record in AF-C. I always did this with the GH4, GH5 etc. But it's not very convenient in some situations.

Currently, I use the GH5, GH6 (two bodies), G9II and most Panasonic L mount cameras. I love the colors of the GH6 as well, for me no other Panasonic m43 or L cameras have better colors. The skintones are perfect and even profiles like standard, portrait or cine-V are great. I was pretty disappointed when I bought the G9II because I think the colors are really not as nice. And sadly, it seems the GH7 has more or less the same colors of the G9II, which is a disappointement. But, I don't agree about the GH6 looking super organic. For me it often looks digitally soft, even more in 4k and C4K. In addition to the Panasonic IDP (Intelligent detail processing, which simulate an OLPF reducing moiré, smoothing fine details and even reducing noise in low light), the main reason is an out of focus issue making the image very soft when using continuous AF (AF-C) below 48 fps with 4K, C4K and 5,7K. 90% of the lenses I own are affected including the 12-60mm, 10-25mm, 25-50mm, 100-400mm, 25/45mm Olympus Pro etc. A few lenses like the 25mm f1.4II has not the issue. Most of the time, this feeling of organic image is just the effect of the out of focus bug, it's like making a blur filter on the image. It is not what I think of an organic look. What is really surprising is Panasonic never adressed this issue, also before pressing the recording button the image is prefectly in focus, but as soon as you press the button, the camera tries to re-focus and literraly lost the point of focus. If you don't crop inside your video to see how bad this out of focus bug is, you can see it even while recording in assingning a button to zoom inside the video on your screen. On the GH6, G9II and S5II, you can use this function while recording, but this can lead to some bugs. On the GH6 while using Prores, the colors can be badly altered about every five times. Or when plugin the camera to a computer just after recording, the camera can freeze, this last bug happens to my GH6, G9II and S5II, shutting down the camera before plugin it to a computer prevents the freeze). Exemple of the out of focus AF-C : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HdV8UQdgNA As you can see AF-S on the GH6 has no issue and when using it, the focus is perfect and the level of details and digital sharpening is the same than the G9II, as opposed to some Panasonic ambassadors on Youtube saying the GH6 is softer and the G9II sharper. I didn't speak about Open Gate, because the issue is different, there is not the out of focus bug, but again the GH6 is very disappointing, like you can see in this video, the GH6 is much slower than the GH5 and pulses more : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5h8f9qCrs3c However, when using AF-C in 5,7K 48 or 60fps, image is very close to the GH5 in 4K. The details are a bit rougher than on the GH5 (more digital sharpness) and the IDP is still going on, but the image is not soft, there are plenty of details and they are less rough than in 4K or C4K. The best mode is Prores 5,7K because it use almost zero NR, however the IDP is still going on and sometimes smooths textures in low light. Also it is only available up to 30fps, so with most lenses, AF-S is required to prevent the AF issue. The G9II has solved much of the GH6 AF issue, it also has improved IBIS to the point than even 5,7K is closer than the IBIS of the GH6 and GH5 in 4K, but I hope the GH7 Proresraw mode will be free of any of the processing Panasonic uses since the GH6.

I'm more and more interested by the Nikon Z system. I'm a hardcore Panasonic GH and S user but I'm disappointed by the S5II and the S5II(X), they improved the AF and the IBIS a lot, but the image quality in video is not there anymore for me. The only advantage they have compared to other system is the IBIS now. Of course the 24-70mm, 70-200mm and 50mm S Pro are great lenses, but where are the 24,35,85,135 S Pro ? And I don't even speak about f1.2 lenses.

Do you shoot with the standard profiles or in V-Log ? A lot of people don't really see the difference in V-Log, but the standard profiles are really much worse, especially in 4K or C4K, a very bad mix of over-sharpening and chroma noise reduction. This is why I use most of the time 6K or 6K Open gate V-Log on the S5II. But on these resolutions, the IBIS is much worse than on 4K and C4K... Walking while recording is very difficult because the cameras makes more "jumps".

Each time I apply blur to my footage on the S5II, it becomes unatural, some textures look good and some don't. The sharpness is not the only issue, like I said. The S5II/X have more spatial chroma noise reduction, leading to loss of colour detail, like in skin texture and foliage, about a value of 20~25 in Resolve is required to match the S1/S5 chroma detail to S5iiX. But yes some people are prefectly fine with the internal output of the S5II, especially if they don't crop a lot inside their videos, but to my eyes, the S5II internal recording is really not as good as the S1, S5 and S1H. I am not even talking about the standard profiles in 4K or C4K, one of the worst image I've seen between every Panasonic cameras I owned (almost all since the GH4), the difference with the S1,S5,S1H is huge, very excessive sharpening and smoothed out details (I think I've posted some videos about the issue).

Yes the image is much nicer in my opinion. But outside of the AF, the IBIS of the S5II is also better, I can almost walk with the S5II with my 85mm S, you really can't on the S1 and S1H. And some features are great on the S5II too, like the zoom while recording. I hope the new S1II/S1HII will get the best of the old and new Gen.

You can't use H264 with 5,9K/6K/Open Gate. I don't see any crushed black on the GH6 between H265 or H264, the crushed black is only with Prores, it's because the levels are not set correctly.

If you blur the S5II, it will not get the same level of details of the S1. And vice versa, adding some sharpening on the S1 footage still make it nicer than the S5II. The S5II shows really harsher edges + more spatial chroma noise reduction, nothing comparable to when you add in camera sharpening in the S1 or when you add sharpening in post in Premiere or Resolve. I don't understand why Panasonic messed up their internal video engine like this, they were so close to perfect before. I don't want my image to be soft, I want details, but organic details, unprocessed. If I want a soft image, I still can shot in 1080P and upscale it. This is where I'm lost when I see some people buying 6K or 8K camera to finally destroy most of the fine details to look like 1080P footage I think the S1 has a really good balance between organic and sharp. For me it is still one of the most underated hybrid camera. The case of cameras like the S1H are different, they don't blur anything digitally, and while they make the image softer for both photo and video, they are most of the time free from moiré while still having a lot of details.

Agreed, it is not because PDAF because the external BRAW is flawless. However, unlike you, I see the difference with the first S cameras almost each time, maybe because I use big screen with high resolution, I also crop a lot inside my 6K video to make some effects. Yes V-log is less impacted than the standard profiles like you can see in the comparison, but for me it still not as good, it also has more spatial chroma noise reduction even in V-log.