zetty

I am not sure splitting them from pro video division is a necessarily positive thing either. However, if they had an intention to ditch MILCs, they wouldn't have put so much resources developing and marketing GH5 (and the predecessors, like GX85 and G80) -- neither the CEO nor the circumstances have changed so drastically for the Panasonic to suddenly take a u-turn.

It must be IBIS, they even warn about it in the manual. There is some noise in mine as well, even if I hold the strap connectors in place while shaking it. BTW, reminds me I'll have to remove those..

If I cancelled the order, I'd miss out on the Panasonic's £200 cashback offer, which for the price of that camera really makes a difference (potential cause for backlog too) -- and in fact when I checked around at some point it was depleted in a number of stores, the-body only offers anyway. Bundled were in abundance. Now, the venodor (Fotosense) is promising 100% next week, so two new pannies to break in!

Yes, that's really surprising as I actually ordered mine less than 2 weeks ago.. So couldn't be far up the preorder queue and Jessops is one of the biggest UK photography retailers, so there must have been lots of preorders. On the other hand, though, the GX85 affair has been ridiculous.. Ordered mine at the end of December, still waiting! The vendor says Panasonic keeps screwing with them, unable to fulfil the backlog for 3 months. Maybe all the resources went into the launch of GH5

It actually seems to be in stock at Jessops and I just received an sms that my order is being delivered tomorrow :o That was quick! Never thought I'd receive GH5 before my GX85, haha.

Thanks! Indeed, haven't seen this combination anywhere else :o I'd like to get a body only though. Probably should call some stores in London, see if they have have any locally.

Let me know if you find a channel in EU I only preordered mine like 10 days ago in the UK and wouldn't really mind having it sooner, especially since I have to send off GH4 for repairs. If I see an opportunity to get one earlier elsewhere, might easily cancel my order. Not very optimistic though, seeing as I still haven't received GX85 I ordered back in December from a vendor that actually listed it as in "stock" :|

My point was that the focus pull between A/B is such a basic feature that there is absolutely no reason why it shouldn't work as long as focus of the lens can be controlled from camera, which in obviously the case with working AF. So it would be an artificially imposed limitation from Panasonic if it is only "supported" by native lenses. But enough of that -- indeed, we'll see.

Then so should the A/B focus pull.

That would be an artificial limitation. What "lots of communication going on"? It's just reading and setting two focus points. Extremely simple, doesn't even need AF as such, just the ability to control focus distance from the camera.

Obviously it can only work on AF lens as it needs to pull focus electronically. If the adapter supports AF, I see no reason why wouldn't it work.

I just ordered mine from them a couple of weeks ago and their response to me yesterday about the availability was: "I can advise that we are expecting to start shipping our pre-orders for the GH5 within the next few weeks. However, we have not yet had a more specific delivery schedule confirmed by Panasonic so I would be unable give an estimated delivery time for your specific order."

What's your point? I see people excited about great value for money and a great niche tool that fits their needs and workflow, with both its limitations and advantages when it comes to other competing cameras. Frankly, I don't care what some fiction cinematographer says about mirrorless -- if I was shooting narrative features, of course I wouldn't be using GH4/5/whatever. Neither I would use 5D.. Hurlbut sounded biased from the get go too with all this "out of the box" nonsense, which is a typical consumer attitude (5D doesn't have Magic Lantern "out of the box" either). Besides, as far as I recall Hurlbut did another test of VLOG where he sounded much more positive.

I wonder what the vendor margins are on each unit, if they can easily afford giving £150 in cashback..

This I am interested in as well. I don't want to jump on the preorder if I can safely buy it later, after deciding if I want to got with the PL 12-60 or maybe XLR box bundle. Not in a huge hurry to get it either but if it really takes like months of wait until the preorders are satisfied, I might as well jump in the queue.

@Neumann Films Million dollar question: can you zoom in to check focus while recording? Can you monitor VLOG recording in REC709? Is there really a waveform monitor implemented?

Yeah, mine has broken twice on the GH4 -- once my own fault, breaking it off physically, and just now the touch stopped working when flipped out for no good reason. Good to have 4 year warranty Still 33 minutes till start!

Yes. I also hope there is a choice inbetween. But will have to test how the 150mbps holds up, maybe it's plenty enough for what I do.

Considering the stated bitrates, I assumed they are still having h264.

Bit disappointing but hopeful. My preferred range would have been 200-250mbps as a good compromise between quality and size for documentary shooting.

Less rolling shutter, better colour science, better codec, better ergonomics, flip out (better) LCD, etc..

People speak of XLR as the end of it all but in my view XLR itself is nothing but a chunky connector standard that should have never left the studio. If anything, it's the mini XLR that should be used on the field cameras. But then there's really no need for balanced inputs if the cable run is not very long and prone to interference -- and also phantom power is not something that is necessary with every good mic to be found, e.g. Ambient TinyMike is great and it doesn't require phantom power neither a battery. Feed from commonly used wireless receivers such as Sennheiser G3 also doesn't need phantom power; neither it is balanced, so a 3.5mm jack is totally fine. All you need is a decent preamp/ADC. NDs and good AF have also been implemented in the mirrorless form factor -- and so if the heat isn't a problem, I really don't see any reason going for a bigger body. The ergonomics of GH4 with a few programmable buttons and touchscreen works great for me for the run and gun type of work.

Apologies for being anal, but "pro level" to me implies a level of expertise. The skills required in different fields are -- well, different, so you cannot universally say that a cinematographer who uses lighting is on a higher level that the one who doesn't (although it might well be the case).

Not universally. There are fields where lighting is impractical, impossible or unnecessary.

I mentioned these compromises -- and they are actually not necessarily related to the form factor. I record audio externally, have a set of screw-on ND filters and definitely can live without AF, even on a gimbal. I'd rather say 80% for me is getting on the location, being able to film and engage the characters, and the portability and inconspicuousness of mirrorless certainly helps with that a lot.