ac6000cw

Towd - I think that's a perfect summary of how a lot of us feel about m43 versus the alternatives. A much more interesting post than people constantly ranting about AF performance.....

The important (management) question for Panasonic - who don't have a market-dominant position in cameras like Canon do - is 'can we make a sensible return on investment' with a GH5 successor? Making development prototypes isn't necessarily a big investment (I'm sure they've got all sorts of prototypes in the labs) but putting it into production and marketing it is. Obviously there is less investment required if they just 'warm over' the GH5 and make it even more video-centric e.g. update the electronics, IBIS and DFD to G9 standard, switch to the GH5s sensor for better low-light, maybe replace the mechanical shutter with some sort of internal ND filter. Much beyond that it's probably a rather bigger development effort and is going to be a harder sell to the higher management in the current economic climate. This wouldn't be a direct GH5 replacement, but personally I'd like them to put as much as possible of the GH5/G9 tech into the smallest possible camera body - a GX9 size body with 4k60p (even if it had to be cropped a bit) and a mic input would almost be my perfect camera. Combine lens IS with just EIS if IBIS is too space hungry. They could probably get away with dropping the mechanical shutter as well to save space - phones don't have them after all. Small size with good performance is the original ethos of m43, isn't it?

I don't own any 'S' series cameras, but If you use dpeview's 'video stills comparison' tool, you can clearly see the 1080p from the S1 and S1H is softer and has more aliasing & moire than the GH5. They haven't added the S5 to the list yet. To me, the 'S' series 1080p looks like it's using at least some pixel-binning and/or line skipping, versus the GH5 using proper down-sampling from the full sensor output.

Exactly, and it's also priced be potentially attractive as an alternative to the A7S III and SH1. It's pretty obvious with the releases of the R5 and R6 and now this that Canon are going all out to defend their low/mid pro-level market against further inroads from Sony. It's going to be an interesting battle to watch...

£4,799 body-only at Wex in the UK, £529 for the EF-EOS R 0.71x adaptor - https://www.wexphotovideo.com/offers/canon-c70/

DFD generally works better at higher frame rates (so 50p is better than 25p), also sometimes choosing a slightly faster shutter speed can help since there is less motion blur e.g. try 50p with a 1/120 shutter instead of 1/100.

The 'S' series version of the 'Lumix AF Guidebook' might be worth a read - https://www.panasonic.com/global/consumer/lumix/technologies/af.html

You might find the GH5/GH5s/G9 'Lumix AF Guidebook' useful, download it from - https://www.panasonic.com/global/consumer/lumix/technologies/af.html

Yes, I know - I have my G9 setup like that, I use it a lot for wildlife video 🙂

I've never used a GH5 so I can't compare them as a user of both (I own a G9). The G9 is supposed to have better C-AF, has better IBIS/EIS, and it's cheaper. It does not support the XLR audio adaptor, does not have any 'All-I' codec modes (there is nothing above 150 Mbps), maximum record time is 30 minutes (10 minutes for 4k50p/4k60p) and doesn't have waveform monitors/vectorscopes/shutter angle control (and some other 'professional' video-specific features that are on the GH5). It gained a range of long-GOP 10 bit, HEVC and high-bitrate 1080p codec modes in the recent firmware updates. If you need to check for a specific feature etc., it's probably best to download the User Guide and have a read. Effectively, it has a more stills/less video orientated feature set, but with the same basic video capture quality as the GH5 i.e. excellent 1080p and no-crop 4k up to 60p.

If you have 'Extended Tele Conversion' enabled all the time, then changing the 'Picture Size' should do that (and 'Picture Size' can be mapped to a function button, as far as I can tell from the user guide). I don't own an S5, I'm just a long-term Panasonic m43 user.

It looks like it's the same as on the m43 cameras - for stills, set the 'Picture Size' to be less than full resolution i.e. M or S, then enable 'Extended Tele Conversion' (which crops into the sensor to give you a 1:1 pixel mapped image of that resolution). So picture size 'M' gives a 1.4x zoom/crop, 'S' is a 2.0x zoom/crop (with FF lenses) when 'Extended Tele Conversion' is enabled.

I've noticed that too - I bought my G9 about 18 months ago in the UK (new but cheaper than used at the time, due to very generous cashback offer and v.good price from dealer), and used prices have been steady or slowly edging up since then. I suspect due to new camera sales being well down (so fewer trade-ins/private 'upgrade' selling) there is just less used product around to buy which is pushing prices up. It's noticeable that some of the big dealers in the UK have been actively advertising to buy used equipment during the summer, including some selective cash buying offers where normally they would only take trade-ins. I suspect that used prices on the G9 will only drop substantially when it gets replaced by a new model, but I don't see any sign of that happening any time soon (and it's already a very feature-packed, high performance 'hybrid' m43 camera anyway).

I'd agree - if you want to stay with m43, the G9 is the way to go, it's a great hybrid stills/video camera with superb quality 1080p and no-sensor-crop 4k up to 60p, plus outstanding IBIS/EIS.

That's very low bitrate for 4k (only about 10 Mbit/s) - 4k25p files from the camera are about 100 Mbit/s for the EM10 and G80, so 22 minutes would be about 16 GB.

Correct. If you are in 'creative video' mode (the 'movie camera' icon on the mode dial) the LCD/EVF screen will show you the correct 'field of view' (FOV) for the movie setting in use (1080p or 4k) all the time. If it's in any other mode it will normally show the 'photo' FOV, then change to the correct 'video' FOV when you hit the video record button.

I agree with Kye that top-quality 1080p (e.g. GH5/G9 level) isn't very far below 4k quality, particularly if your final output is heading for YouTube etc., and it is a lot faster to work with 1080p when editing. But the quality difference is more noticeable with a lot of cameras due to lower-quality down-sampling/scaling from the full sensor area to 1080p. The GH5 & G9 have the processing capability to do it properly.

Yes, absolutely - I've been using them for a while, at up to 4k60p (150Mbps) in a Panasonic G9 (and other Panasonic and Olympus cameras). I normally use SanDisk 'Extreme Plus' V30-rated micro-SD cards, but you can sometimes get the faster 'Extreme Pro' version for not much more money. I shoot a mixture of 1080p and 4k. Using 4k allows for re-framing in post while retaining enough quality for good 1080p output. I'd also seriously consider a used Panasonic G80/G85 if you are thinking about a used EM-10 III - below the 'GH' level cameras, it's probably one of the best all-round cameras Panasonic have produced. Only real downsides are the crop in 4k and noisy audio from the internal microphones (but it has a mic socket so that's easily solved).

...also the G9 is not compatible with the DMW-XLR1 XLR adaptor unit.

The G9 has no 'All-I' compression modes (in fact nothing above 150 Mbps) but it did gain various 10-bit and 4:2:2 modes in the 2.0 firmware update. It might be that the GH5 IBIS sensor movement isn't accurate/repeatable enough to do a good 'high res photo' mode - or it's just market segmentation. If you look closely at the recent firmware updates for the GH5, GH5s and G9, a few changes have been only for the GH5s and G9 (the two more recent cameras) so I assume they have different (probably faster/more powerful) processing electronics than the GH5. As I don't own a GH5 I can't compare it against the G9, but I don't think you would be disappointed with the G9 - it's in a different league to the G85, GX85 and earlier cameras....

The EM-1 II has a 20MP sensor, no-crop (full sensor width) 4k video, plus phase-detect autofocus, weather sealing, mic and headphone jacks, bigger battery, better IBIS etc. etc. (it's a professional-level stills camera with very decent video and excellent build quality, basically). But it's bigger, heavier and somewhat more expensive than the E-M10 III (in the UK at the moment a used EM-1 II is about twice the price of a new E-M10 III) I seriously thought about buying a new E-M10 III a few months ago, but decided to spend the extra money and get a used EM-1 II instead as I wanted the extra features/weather sealing/build quality.

It's 8-bit

What's the problem with H.265/HEVC licensing - it's handled by MPEG-LA in the same way as MPEG-2 & H.264 as far as I know (and it's quite cheap - free up to 100,000 units per year, $0.20 per unit over that - see https://www.mpegla.com/wp-content/uploads/HEVCweb.pdf )

Minimising the cost of media storage and distribution (bandwidth cost) is what has always driven the development of data compression. It is the reason that broadcast TV originally used interlaced image scanning (it halves the transmission bandwidth compared to using 'progressive' frames at the same picture update rate).

What is your budget? You seem to be looking for the perfect camera but that doesn't exist, so you have to compromise to get as many of the features you would like and put up with things you don't like (especially if the budget is fairly limited and you want it small and light). I'd prefer the G9 to be smaller and lighter, but I put up with that to get the features I want (like excellent IBIS and 4k50p) because they are important to me. If I want to take out a smaller, lighter camera I'll take my GX80 instead and put up with 4k25p, worse autofocus, worse IBIS and shorter battery life in exchange. It's choices and compromises...like life generally...