wildrym

I got sick of these terrible test videos so I decided to go out and make a quick video. It's an amazing camera. 
 

They are different. The Micro nails a filmic look that none of these modern cameras achieve out the box. Its gritty, raw, and has a very organic feel to it. But, it doesn't have IBIS, does not shoot photos, shoot 4k, etc. The S1H has a very nice cinematic look to it as well, but it's not as "filmic" and gritty like the micro. Colors of the S1H still amazing though and I prefer the colors of the S1H more than the Pocket 4k/6k new color science (I owned both).
With all that said, the S1H has so much going for it that my micro will only get used for certain situations and most likely not run and gun anymore. I have to use the micro on a ronin-s as there are way too many micro jitters hand held. Coming from Blackmagic and Sony cameras, I can't stress enough how unbelievable the IBIS of the S1H is, especially dual IS with their 24-105. There is no need for a gimbal unless you need slider like shots or walking shots. For stationary, short walks, pans, etc., there is no absolutely no need for a gimbal/monopod/shoulder rig, that's how steady it is. The footage looks incredible, especially if you know what you are doing and how to properly expose vlog and convert it rec. 709 with the proper varicam LUTs.
More importantly for my decision to make this my main camera is that I take photos as well and the one thing I was pleasantly surprised about with this camera is how good the autofocus for photos is considering all the complaints. The autofocus for video is horrible, but I manual focus for video. But for photos, it was MUCH better than I thought after listening to everyone complain. Eye auto focus works great as well. Not as good as my A7R3, but still really good. Another thing I haven't heard anyone talk about is how fast it can switch between custom modes, for example I have a video mode on the dial and a photo mode that I switch between. Video mode has vlog, 180 degree shutter, different settings etc that I keep static and photo mode has none of that. When I switch between them it is seamless, no loading, no screen blackout, none of that. It is instant and quick and I can switch back and forth instantly. 
To me, I look at the cost of $4000 different than most. Unlike when I shot with a pocket 4/6k or even the micro - I don't need to carry a gimbal or shoulder rig, I don't need to mount a heavy v-mount battery on the back, I don't need an external monitor if I want to tilt or rotate it (I still do for the large screen, but its not necessary), and I don't need to bring a second body and lenses if I want to take photos. On top of all that - I prefer the video image over the blackmagic pocket 4k and 6k. It has a nicer highlight roll off, seems like better dynamic range, and I prefer the colors. All this without shooting RAW yet. I know that was way more info than you needed, but we are so lucky to have all these tools as filmmakers now days and this is the first camera in a very very long time that has me excited like this. I have owned or shot with the Canon C200, URSA Mini Pro 4.6k, Micro Cinema Camera, Pocket 4k/6k, Red Raven, A7R3, A7S2, A73. This is the first camera out of all of those where I can simply pack the camera and a lens and have what I need for a day of video and photos without a bag full of stabilization gear and photo gear mixed with video gear. 

Update: Here are my initial impressions. First off, these are first impressions - they can easily change as I get more real world usage. It could be a rollercoaster of emotions here on wether I am keeping it or sending it back, possibly changing my mind daily. $4,000 is expensive and with the A7S3 looming in the future, I want to make sure I make the correct choice. I will do my best to gather up some footage to share by the end of the weekend. Cameras that I own or have owned that I am comparing against: Pocket 4k, Pocket 6k, BMMCC, A7S2, A7R3. 
Build: I am a new Panasonic full frame user. I have never touched an S1/SR or even seen one in person before my S1H arrived today. I absolutely love the build quality and weight. I am not a fan of super light cameras, though I know some are, as I feel there is too much shake when handholding light cameras. The screen swivel, top status display, viewfinder, buttons, etc., all feel great. 
IBIS: First off, the IBIS is insane. I have never seen IBIS this good and though I am late to the party, I had my holy shit moment for sure. This was a very large reason I bought this camera (asides from its specs). I am a hybrid/ run and gun shooter. Taking my ronin-s with me everywhere is just not practical. I do this is a hobby, with light paid work here and there. I want to be able to do mostly handheld and this is the first time I have used a camera where I feel that is possible for me. It's truly remarkable how far ahead this IBIS in comparison to my Sony. I can't imagine how good dual IS is, as I am just using regular IBIS. 
Footage: Not going to lie, I wasn't expecting much. The promos were good, but they were big budget and used anamorphic lenses. The S1 has limited time with VLOG and is not a very popular camera to begin with, so footage from that is also lacking. But I was honestly...kind of blown away. The colors look fantastic and the highlight roll off is better than that of the pocket cameras. In fact, I like the colors overall better than the pocket cameras - obviously they have RAW out the gate - which is a huge bonus. I like the older Blackmagic colors better then the new ones so maybe its just me. Dynamic range also seems better to me over the pocket. I am really not trying to hate on blackmagic or create a fanboy war - but to my eyes the colors are a bit more neutral, dynamic range seems a bit more, and the OLPF creates a nice softness coupled with my contax Zeiss that is very pleasing. The motion cadence is also very "cinematic" in its movement, MUCH better than that of the GH5 which I hate. Grading was very easy as well. I was not expecting it to look this good and in the right hands, we should seem some fantastic short videos coming out soon. Hopefully I can have one out to share.
Final Thoughts: The blue clipping issue is either fixed or will be fixed and I am sure the ghosting issue will be fixed as well. I did not experience any of these yet, but its just day 1. So far it checks off a lot of boxes for me. Internal 4k 4:2:2 10 bit full frame, IBIS good enough to not need a gimbal in most static scenarios (still need one for lots of movement/walking), good cinematic motion cadence with a subtle softness, great colors, good battery life and a swivel screen. I think like a lot of folks it seems like the perfect camera, minus the autofocus. If I do decide to keep the S1H, only an A7S3 with these specs or better coupled with great autofocus will make me part ways with it. But I am just not sure if Sony can match this IBIS or if they will give their new color science to the alpha series. We shall see!

The camera was just released in the US today, so you really need to give it some time. Pocket 4k had garbage promo videos and took a long time to start getting good well thought pieces, so you need to at least wait more than 24 hours from release. I did think kepler was fantastic though and so was the bowling one. That wobble has to be in software warp stabilizer, none of the footage I have seen online has that happening. I received mine this morning and will put it though its paces. I had a pocket 4k and a pocket 6k. So I will be comparing to those as I still have their original files/clips on my computer. I will be doing all handheld shots with adapted lenses Contax Zeiss lenses. I will report my honest feedback and if the camera does not impress, it will go back.
I have no horse in this race as I only use adapted lenses anyways, so I am not defending this camera blindly. But I will say the footage you linked is pretty much all wide shots, set at infinity, with not much of a grade happening. Most cameras with that won't look impressive. I just think it has not been in enough hands yet to expect great footage yet - especially since good projects take weeks/months. A lot of the folks posting clips up seem to have no idea what they are doing, as they dont even have the proper shutter speed. Give it some time. 

Like this one ? 

Like this one ? 

Like this one ? 

Like this one ? 

Like this one ? 

Like this one ? 

You won't see many GH5s in productions like this. This is a showcase, made specifically to promote GH5s. Of course you don't need IBIS if you are using a gimbal and a dolly, but why would you use a GH5 on a shoot like this, where only the daily cost of renting the rig is much more expensive that the camera's price? Why on earth would anyone make a custom set with expensive lighting setups, cranes & remote controlled gimbals to shoot with an MFT camera which hardly delivers 12 stops of DR in a compressed format?

Rod Gotfried : https://vimeo.com/157995688
https://vimeo.com/191130528

Joshua Morin:

https://vimeo.com/159937841
https://vimeo.com/118014639
https://vimeo.com/113397445

Casey Wilson:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIzhGCzBtUQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY0D-oocp7s

Oliver Astrogolo

https://vimeo.com/181612110
https://vimeo.com/126747807
https://vimeo.com/137925379

Rod Gotfried : https://vimeo.com/157995688
https://vimeo.com/191130528

Joshua Morin:

https://vimeo.com/159937841
https://vimeo.com/118014639
https://vimeo.com/113397445

Casey Wilson:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIzhGCzBtUQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY0D-oocp7s

Oliver Astrogolo

https://vimeo.com/181612110
https://vimeo.com/126747807
https://vimeo.com/137925379

I've been using 5D3 Magic Lantern RAW for a few years now and it's my personal gold standard for image quality as I'm very familiar with it, can predict the results I'll get in various situations and have developed my own look that I like using in post. I do a lot of documentary and corporate stuff and wanted to do more handheld, so I got the GH5 for its IBIS, 10bit V-Log, 4K and general ease of use. Although the GH5's colour is an improvement on its predecessors, the 5D3 is nicer looking to me. So I wanted to see if I could tweak the GH5's VLog colour to be more similar to the colour I get from Magic Lantern Cinelog-C, processed via Adobe Camera Raw (other debayering workflows will give different results).
I shot a chart with both cameras, extracted the squares and put them side by side in Resolve. V-Log on the left, ML on the right:
 

 
I used Hue v Hue and Hue v Sat to line up the signal on the vectorscope:
 

 
Here you can see the effect of this correction.This is accurately white balanced V-Log (default colour) with a curve and saturation added:
 

 
And here's the same shot with the colour correction applied:
 

 
Skin goes from green-ish to pink-ish. Reds become more saturated, blues are pulled back. Foliage separates out into varying shades of yellow to green to blue-sh green, rather than being one big block of pure green. So next, I wanted to test this by comparing the same shots to Magic Lantern RAW. Would this correction really turn my GH5 into a handheld and more usable version of my 5D3?
I stuck the GH5 on top of the 5D3. I shot the 5D3 at 3520 x 1320 (the maximum resolution I can get that's both continuous and at a sensible aspect ratio) - this has a crop factor of 1.63x. ISO was 100, and aperture at f5.6 on the Canon 24-105. The GH5 was 10 bit V-Log, Cinema 4K, ISO 400, aperture f4 (roughly equivalent) on the Leica 12-60. I used shutter speed to control exposure, so motion blur is different between shots. It seems like the GH5 has around 0.66 stops more info in the highlights at the same exposure as the 5D, so I shot it one stop over to maximise DR.
 
 
First I corrected the 5D shots to the way I wanted them to look. Then I tried to get the GH5 to match. It's not a perfect match by any means, there are individual hues that tend to go awry a little, especially in the first shot. But for me the exercise is a success: the GH5 footage looks more like Canon Magic Lantern than it would straight out of the camera. And I would be happy to intercut the two, or to use the GH5 in situations that are more suited to its features. The take home message is that V-Log has a lot of grading potential - you're not necessarily stuck with Panasonic's colours on this camera.
A nice surprise for me was how much detail is in the 3.5K 5D files compared to Cinema 4K GH5, especially when sharpened. However, it's not very practical to shoot in its high resolution modes at the moment, due to the slow refresh rate of the LCD preview.
If you want to check out the files yourself, here are a series of matched pairs of 5D DNGs, and GH5 V-Log TIFFS.
FOLDER:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1exEpCRAfgFdi1FZ3hma09YZms
ALL FILES ZIPPED:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwzsbjMgrAwzTFJZby0xSTV6VmM

Yes I get it, but what I mean is that instead of using almost 1024 values, it is limited to only 600ish. In 10 bit files, it is ok i guess (even though non optimal), but in 8 bit files it becomes only 160ish values. So using Vlog in 4k 60p may lead to severe banding.
In comparison here are two waveforms from a7s 4k slog2 footage. The second is the same as the first one with superwhite pulled down. Third is GH5.
As you can see, sony files use roughly IRE from 10 to 109, so approximately 230ish values in 8 bit. It 10 bit it would be 950ish values which would give better tonality than GH5 Vlog files.
That is why I find it quite disapointing (tell me if I'm wrong with my reasoning!)
 
 
 
 

The same nomads of Mongolia family as in Brandon li's video!
 
 

The same nomads of Mongolia family as in Brandon li's video!
 
 

I was really hoping for a 4k ninja star annoucement...
I own an a7S and I mostly do Run and Gun shooting, you may think I'm crazy, but i'm on the edge of buying an 4k external monitor/recorder to put it in a backpack/or attached on belt, screen turned off. And occasionaly use it as a monitor too.
My concern with this method is overheating, especially in a bag! It kills the purpose of being low profile with a backpack on fire!
Is it possible, or is it completely stupid ?
If possible, which recorder would be the best (atomos assassin or pix-e5h or this BM 4K) ?
 
Thanks!  

So I decided to look at 1080p a bit since that question has come up. I shot a boring subject - the contents of a cabinet - because its raining outside. Everything was shot at ISO 6400, same shutter speeds, same aperture, STD profile 0,0,0 and AWB because this crap takes time and I didn't feel like messing with it. I have three images of combined screen caps. The first is 1080p from the A7rII in s35, FF and 1080p from the A5100 to compare. The second is 1080p quickly downsized from 4k on the A7rII in s35 and FF. The third is the full rez 4k frames.
Note - all the 4k was shot at 60mbps because I took the day off and I left my U3 card at the office. I used the FE 70-200 to try and match framing as close as possible. I left it at f/8, despite the differences when moving between FF and crop modes.
S35 is the cleanest in either 4k or 1080p, and downsized its clearly better than the others. Its a push between the s35 1080p on the A7rII and the A5100. FF is the worst at high ISO's, its much better at 1600 and below. 4k to 1080p really pops compared to 1080p in cam.
Its not the best scenario, but it gives you an idea of what it looks like. I don't have anything else to test it against. Right now the A5100 and A7rII are all that's in the bag.

Regarding a7rii vs a7s, it seems that a7rii 4k S35 mode can rival a7s 4k quality, even in low light (with a speedbooster).
However it is not clear wether a7rii 1080p s35 60 fps mode is on par with 1080p 60 fps from a7s, especially in low light?
Does anybody have a clue? It is an important consideration for those who use frequently 60 fps for smooth slow motions.
Is 1080p downscaled from 4k internally in a7rii, as it is supposed to be in a7s?