markr041

Yes, Samsung phones are waterproof and have a headphone jack. Leaving out a headphone jack is not innovation (I was joking above). More importantly, no wireless connection that I know of can carry high-resolution (uncompressed, 192 kHz, 24-biy) audio, so its just another degradation of sound quality. It would be an innovation if hi-rez audio, uncompressed, were transmitted wirelessly.

What do you mean, Apple doesn't innovate - they left out the headphone jack. No one else has done that. Now, that's innovation.

Hogwash. The GX85 has IBIS in 4K, no extra crop when using IBIS, and no 30 minute limit. And it is much smaller than the GH4. It does not overheat, ever. In fact, Panasonic engineers have revealed that one of the reasons the GX85 is so heavy given its size is that there is a massive heatsink inside.

The new Sony action cam (FDR-X3000), out already in Japan, has BOSS stabilization (full sensor and lens) - no digital - in both 4K and 1080120p. This new GoPro is a big disappointment, after two years.

It is longer than I like too. But, is that how you assess build quality of equipment, by what happens when you drop it by five feet? I do not expect any of my equipment to withstand a drop of five feet. Is the build quality of the Leica Nocticron bad because it breaks with a five-foot drop? What matters is lasting through normal equipment handling. Tell us how your Little darling does when you drop it five feet :).

One is not going to mount an H2 on the GX85. One really needs the smallest size. It may be ugly and cheap-looking, but there are actually few reports of any problems with it, and the H1 has been around for more than 5 years. It's also not like you have to go through settings a lot - set it to 24 bit, 48Hz wav once (say) and forget. Then push buttons to set the levels. That's it; ergonomics are almost irrelevant. Anyway, for fun (An H1 audio track, GX85 video):

The LS-5 and LS-7 are discontinued models. The current cheapest Olympus one is the LS-12. And it is $140. It is heavier (e.g., it uses two AA batteries, not one), but a little smaller, than the H1. You can get an H1 (BHPhotoVideo) for $80 or less. Its plastic build makes it lighter - very good - and has no effect on audio or longevity. The body is sensitive to handling noise, but if it is mounted on the camera and you do not touch it, it is ok.

I cannot get quotes to work. So, I will just respond to the questions about the audio track comparison. First, yes, the lens I used was using dual-IS - both IBIS and OIS working. I do not hear the effects of that on the Zoom track, but outdoors there is plenty of other ambient, low-level noise. So this was not a good test of that issue. On mic placement, sure it matters always, but for outdoor amplified speaker concerts it is less of an issue than wind. When the camera and mic are attached, mic placement gives way to camera placement anyway, which is why in most cases they should be separated physically. If you think you can get good audio using the mic preamps in hybrid cameras, even with good mics, I'd recommend you seriously reconsider :).

Thanks. I mounted the H1 on a flash mount attached to the tripod mount of the camera. The entire video (30 minutes after editing) was handheld (45-150mm (99-330mm eq.) Lumix lens).

How bad is the GX85 in-camera audio? This video compares the audio track from the camera to that from a Zoom H1 (with dead cat) recorded at an outdoors opera recital, with full orchestra. The concert sound was, of course, amplified, so mic placement is not the issue. What is the issue is wind noise and compression (AGC and the low audio bitrate (128 kbps). The H1 soundtrack is 24 bit, 48Hz and uncompressed (1560 kbps). The first clip is with in-camera audio; the second is the same clip with the H1 audio: You will note that the H1 track is at a lower level; that is because it has the full dynamic range (the peak is -1.0 Db) while the in-camera audio is pumped up and leveled In-camera). How bad is the GX85 audio? Real bad.

Everything is a "look," including Standard. The camera (or attached monitor) shows you exactly what the scene interpreted by it "looks" like. The point is not that Standard is the "look" you want, only that you can get a "look" out of the camera. There are lots of profiles and tweaks of profiles, and even curves, in the camera. All of which gets you different looks without the downside of artifacts from pushing around highly compressed 4:2:0 8-bit video. Tweaking in post from something the camera produces that is close to the look you want is the point, not no post. But also not such a flat profile that all the "look" comes from radical post manipulation. The GX80 crops in less, not more (the crop factor is less). Tests at 4K show no more artifacts from the GX80 than from the GH4 (despite the lack of anti-aliasing filter on the former, which is what helps resolution), and indeed higher resolution and much better low-light performance from the GX80. The picture is simply better. But, sure, the GH5 will likely have no worse picture than the GX80 and provide more flexibility in some way. But you may have to wait 4 months to get it, even if it is "announced" at Photokina.

Which is why the GX85 is so appealing - all those fast prime lenses can now be used handheld on a small camera, with good 4K video. Sure, RAW is more creative, but not if it inhibits what you can shoot. Which is why the BMPCC was not the only camera used on this movie.

This will do nothing but discourage, as the results are conspicuously awful, even worse viewed in a VR headset. The video from this will look so much worse than from your "bigger/better 360VR rig" that it will ruin the video by distracting the viewer. If you can afford "a bigger/better 360VR rig" costing 4 figures then you can spend the $349 for the Samsung Gear 360, which is just as easy to carry around, is fun, and gives substantially higher quality photos and videos than this piece of junk. Who is your post aimed at? Not relevant for you, evidently, with your big rig. Or are you just fantasizing? I thought people here care about quality, and I don't see people here acquiring junk, or recommending it. No, $349 is the minimal amount (right now) you need to spend to get just passable 360 video that won't embarrass you (the Gear 360 stills are pretty good).

FullHD from each lens from the Elecam 360 will produce horrible 360 video. Even 4K from each lens (the only available one to actually do that is the dual Kodak 360 4K) produces a just barely watcheable movie. This camera on the web site shows a 1920x960 360 video. This compares with that produced by the GoPros, the Samsung Gear 360 and the dual Kodaks of 3840x1920 (although at that resolution you can see the quality difference between them). The resolution in stills is really low too. Cameras like this will give 360 video and stills a bad name, and turn people away. This is pure junk. The best 360 stills - Samsung Gear 360 (7776x3588); the best 360 video - the dual Kodak 360 4K's (not very different in quality from the multiple GoPros).

What he says in that video and what his video shows are completely the opposite. As many commenters on that video said, the GX85 shots looked much better than the Sony ones.

Here is what Standard default looks like on a sunny day (NR -2): To me, that's what I saw, and what I wanted to convey. If you want something unrealistic with a "look" then you may want to use Natural as a base. But it is not at all clear whether you should also drastically reduce contrast, saturation and sharpness in the camera when you shoot, since altering those in post forces you do it on a highly compressed, 4:2:0 8-bit video. Camera settings, however, are invoked prior to compression. I think you should get the look you want in the camera (whatever that is), but others seem to want to do more in post based on severely altered from normal settings in the camera. Why not try to get the camera to produce the look you want (there are lots of controls), and then tweak in post from there, rather than trying to get a "blank slate" out of the camera that needs a lot of work in post? No flat setting really mimics RAW video. In any case I am not advocating your videos should look like the one I posted; it is just an example of what one setting produces.

This makes use of many of the features of the GX85 - inconspicuousness, handheld stability, small and fast lenses, low light prowess, fast focus, dof tricks, touch-screen focus pull: Lumix 25mm f1.7 and 12-32mm lenses. RealLUT.

I once shot RAW on my EOS-M, at 1280x720, 30 fps!, before moving on to the BMPCC.

Not handheld.

Lumix 23-32mm + 45-150mm lenses + ND. Graded with Real-look LUT.

Some friendly questions: Same lens? Or if not the same lens, same focal length, or what? What picture profiles? I know if you name them, then you give it away. But clearly I could get more differences than your samples from the same camera by just changing the profile. So, what did you do about profiles? Standard for each? the flattest for each? I also don't understand "same grade", since the colors are very different across the shots. Do you mean you applied the same corrections in post regardless of what the final "look" was like? I think of a grade as the final look, not the corrections, but I just want to understand what you did. It is actually quite difficult to compare cameras. Yes, this beats whining about internet purchasing foolery (for this forum).

I think Sony, in their guide to Picture Profiles (including S log), explains it very well why getting it right *in the camera* is the best way to get high quality video that looks like what you want. This is especially true for 8-bit 4:2:0 video: "Picture Profile adjusts colors and the vividness of the image during recording. You can make similar adjustments by using nonlinear editing software after shooting. But there are the following differences. To fit massive amounts of image data in a limited memory capacity, this camera compresses image data when recording. No matter how advanced a compression format is, any data compression inevitably deteriorates image quality somewhat. Applying sharpness, gamma curve correction and other video effects to recorded images by using nonlinear editing software worsens the image condition further by processing already deteriorated images. For example, if video compression leaves the image with poor contrast or block noise in some areas, applying video effects often make the problems more noticeable. Because Picture Profile processes video signals before compressing, it changes the gamma curve and corrects colors before image quality is damaged by compression. This makes it possible to carry out highly precise image adjustments while keeping the quality of the subject intact. It should also be noted that recording images with proper contrast is crucial. If image contrast in dark and bright areas is not recorded properly, this will result in underexposed dark and overexposed white areas with no gradations. This means you cannot change image contrast properly later on with nonlinear editing software no matter how hard you try because there will be no gradations to work with. If you intend to process your video with nonlinear editing software later, it is important that you record your image in the right way. Nonlinear editing software is a very powerful tool, but can’t fix everything. If you adjust various settings to make sure your video is recorded in a way that matches your ideal as much as possible, you will be able to create a video that will be closer to what you have in mind with minimal processing via nonlinear editing software. It will also keep rendering time short and make video editing work more efficient." The italics are mine. Color Profiles.pdf

Comparing at ISO 6400 the GH4 and the GX85 in 4K (UHD) - same Lumix 25mm f1.7 lens, at f1.7, 1/60th shutter, AWB, ISO 6400, NR -2, histogram used to equalize exposure by manipulating the light source. No re-compression was applied to the files, so they are exactly what the cameras produced. You can see the greater crop factor for the GH4. GH4 is first.

The new model works with dual IS on the GX85 (80). The old model does not. It could be that dual-IS eliminates the jitters problem, and you get a faster lens too.

I was about to stop watching when the dog dream sequence came on - brilliant. The color scheme before the dream seemed much different than after. Not sure what the intent was there. I think maybe it might be more effective if the dream sequence was highly saturated and black-crushed and over sharpened :).