Phil A

@Emanuel You keep saying they should use tap-to-focus and AF-S but I fail to see how one would use that one a gimbal? The big advantage of AF in video in my eyes is when you can't actually manually focus (and remote follow focus is really expensive and hard to do as one man crew when it quickly requires a bigger gimbal) and just put in AF-C (maybe even with face detect) and the camera takes care of the focus while you take care of framing and composition. Yesterday I've watched the "Should the GH5 be compared to a Sony A7sii?" video by Leftcoast Media House and once you notice the autofocus pulsating (the poster in the background goes sharper and softer all the time) you can't unsee it. If I'd get a GH5 I'd probably prefer using manual focus for the time being.

As long as there is no IP rating (I guess IP65 or IP66 would be a possibility with cameras like these?) that the manufacturer gives, nothing guarantees anything. Weather resistant / splash proof are just marketing phrases.Good luck getting a camera replaced by the manufacturer because their "weather resistant" camera has water damage.

Seeing how there's big discounts on the A7s II and A7r II I'd guess it's indeed very likely a A7 III series camera will be announced at NAB. Sony already has some ingredients around like the great AF-C of the A6x00 line or the way the screen articulates on the A99 II that would help make the next camera better. On the other hand it is to be seen if they can overcome the technical issues (rolling shutter, heat/energy management) or the marketing based hurdles (10bit color depth, higher bitrate codec). I'm really curious. I'm still considering a GH5 but I'd much rather buy another Sony.

Obviously that "everyday life vlogging" is really big and to be honest, like most of you, I can't really understand the appeal. My girlfriend watches Jamie&Nikki a lot and I just can't get over how that's basically just watching two random people do their every day blah. They have a million followers who care about what boring, regular things they do. I mean, I can kinda get why people watch Jon Olson, he's at least a ka-razy semi-celebrity, blowing money and living the life, so you watch him do stuff most of us will never do (still working on saving up for that lambo). You'd also think there's only so many ways you could go about contouring but make-up how-to channels are such a huge thing. At the same time you can see that usually production value is of no real interest to a lot of people. Same with Instagram, there's a lot of people with hundreds of thousands of followers with just the same composition of iPhone pictures over and over and over again. It's more about people's voyeuristic needs and identifying with the content creator than with the actual content. When it comes to technology, I kinda get why less might be more. I wanted to see how the GH5 fares by looking at what gets uploaded to Vimeo and YouTube and by god, if I have to see another video that is 100% slow motion flowers / dogs / people shopping I will scream! It's approaching "cooking video with ukulele background sound" territory. It seems that a lot of people who care about "filmic, cinematic videos" exclusively produce camera test videos. Gear is the purpose in itself, there will never be any output. That's actually also fine as a hobby but there's the tendency that these people only criticize and never create/contribute. I'm actually really re-evaluating what I want in a camera. Maybe I can do with "worse" image if it actually means I'll shoot more due to better usability?

It's an APS-C lens (1.5 crop) and with the SpeedBooster XL it's used on a sensor that behaves like it had a 1.3 crop so I think it's probably the IBIS moving the sensor into the outermost parts of the lens where it has the worst quality and that wouldn't be used on an APS-C sensor. Probably better off with the SpeedBooster Ultra instead of XL when using APS-C lenses?

@wolf33d Different strokes for different folks. I really couldn't get into Mac OS, my girlfriend has a MacBook Pro and I loathe using it. I'm a windows man through and through. I agree that it's great how Mac is such an integrated system, the energy saving functions are a lot better than on windows with its non-standardized hardware support woes. But then when you run the system at high load with active dedicated GPU, you suck every mobile system dry in no time. I decided to opt for a heavier and higher performance laptop in the willingness to always be plugged into the wall when I actually do work (Lightroom, Photoshop, Davinci Resolve, ...). Apple has the lead when you use optimized software, but that often gets lost when you use cross-platform products (Davinci Resolve for example is a resource waste, it's not optimized in any way. The system requirement manual is basically a huge "buy better hardware" flyer). I think it's nothing but personal preference. For me, give me Windows with file explorer, etc. But then I have an IT related degree so I don't mind to spend some time setting up a system from scratch to run well (I also don't fill them with garbage so I'm not one of the "format C:\ every 12 months" crew). I'd love if Apple came out with new, more performance oriented systems. Just like the Intel vs AMD thing, competition is good for consumers.

You do, it's just that that's how VLog L is specified according to the white paper apparently, the other profiles use the full 10bit.

Duet Display also works under Windows, I've used it in the past.

@Philip Lipetz If I understood their article right then yes. The issue is not the compression (as compared with the external recording remark) but the fact that the GH5 puts the DR within the 10bit, but it spreads it over the same area as the VariCam would use for that DR, leaving some space empty that is "reserved" for the additional DR of the VariCam. Hypothetical example, not accurate: OOOOOOOOOO 10bit VLog with 100% DR of the VariCam, filling the complete 10bit OOOOOOOOO_ 10bit VLog with 100% DR of the GH5, filling only slightly over 9bit out of 10 But behold, it's still double the values of 8bit. People in the know have to test if - and even more important when - that makes a real life difference.

@Turboguard But deciding is not only the weight but also how it is distributed. If it is a long and heavy lens, the momentum will be too big for the Crane to compensate. The Sigma is 12cm long and weighs 800g-ish, in comparison it's impossible to balance a Samyang 35mm 1.4 which is 11cm long and 750g on a Sony A6300. The video Axel linked to shows in my opinion that this is just a odd setup. He had to use x things to weighten down the camera, then even tape additional weights to the gimbal to balance it. If you have seen videos where people used Canon 6D cameras and alike, you know it won't be as smooth but have more quirks in the balancing. Plus you now get to weight levels where I would really prefer a two handed gimbal because I doubt you will be able to hold this for any reasonable amount of time.

https://www.slashcam.de/artikel/Ratgeber/Panasonic-GH5---Like709-Profil-das-bessere--und-kostenlose--V-Log-.html Another (german) article from Slashcam, this time about V-Log L and how good it fills the 10bit color depth on the GH5. Due to compatibility to V-Log on VariCam, the V-Log L apparently only uses ~545 of the available color values (so slightly more than 9 out of 10bit) in contrast to other profiles.They say Like709 is a very interesting alternative.

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I have seen some videos shot in ClassicChrome by Michael Evans and that must have been some of the best colors I've seen ever. Skin tones were a thing of art. Amount of blown highlights was a thing of horrors though. Makes me wonder how ClassicChrome with highlight and shadow reduction might be as a base for grading? Obviously less DR than F-Log / ProN all -5 / SLog but the colors on those shots were gorgeous. But then no IBIS and no OIS with the lenses I like and I have really shaky hands.

If it was true (which I'm 99% sure it's not), we would probably see a new "worst rolling shutter" champion, dethroning the a6300. The 5D iv has quite bad RS, reading out even more of the sensor will make it even worse. Also how would they suddenly manage downscaling and and XF-AFC (does that mean XF-AVC I guess?) with the same processors and encoders that only managed 1:1 read out and MJPEG so far? Not even the C700 can downscale but uses windowed mode if you use a resolution but full sensor raw and that thing is huge, expensive and has active cooling. Which is the last point: "installing a new heat sink". Like what? Do you think Canon left a huge empty space in the 5D iv body just so eventually a year down the line they can install a bigger heat sink? Sounds completely fabricated. Manufacturers don't run their product at 60% performance to then suddenly go "surprise mofos! We got a firmware update that makes everything so much better!". If this was Fuji, well maaaaybe, but Canon? Did they ever bring anything meaningful in a fw update except the one to extend the 7D sales cycle?

The A6500 is a good upgrade over the A6300, makes me wonder why they even bothered to bring a model for such a small time between. Override option for the overheating warning and IBIS together is worth the premium.Extra Fn button and touch screen are icing. I wonder what the next APS-C Sony will be like? But I feel like it will be quite a while until a better model will come out to fix the rolling shutter and screen dimming (my two main complaints).

135mm f/2 on a speedbooster, easily available.

I'm sitting here grinding my teeth reading this. The price question: how bad is the dimming compared to the A6x00 / A7s II?

Indeed. Seems to be still unavailable in Switzerland. Would have gone and bought one today to use on this weekend on a city trip (leaving tomorrow morning), now I'll wait and see the independent user reviews first. Germany is available, when I checked earlier there was even two kits left on Amazon Germany.

It's not an official kit but Foto Mundus offer a lot of combinations typically, for example they sell the BMMCC with different M43 lenses as kits. Ordered from them once in the past, was quick and ok.

Thanks. The moire still looks okish, should be doable. And about the rolling shutter, well I read a bunch of places that it's more than X-T2 and probably in the NX1/A6300 area. For example the Cinema5D review mentioned "Severe rolling shutter when shooting in 4k. (comparable to the Sony a6300) but much better in HD". Normally I trust on the measurements by Samuel H on DVXuser but there are none for the X-T20 so far. Interestingly he also measured the X-T2 at 30ms with his method and so far he has been quite accurate (got results that were also confirmed by manufacturers), but Cinema5D says the X-T2 has low rolling shutter (I think 21ms-ish?). GH5 really sets the new standard with 15ms plus the really good IBIS.

@Inazuma I read that and I have seen some beautiful videos on YouTube that had the ridiculously good Fuji colors that were shot with ProNeg and Classic Chrome. If the X-T20 had good rolling shutter like the X-T2 I would have already picked up one of those to try out but it is basically the same issue like the a6300. I'm kinda reluctant to sell the a6300 and get the X-T2 because then I'm still stuck with 8bit (which migh be ok, seeing how you have to bend them less with the good Fuji colors and I also get satisfying results out of the unpopular SLog2/SGamut3cine already) and no IBIS (I want to be able to handhold the camera for once in a while). The 23mm 1.4 is such a outstanding lens for an APS-C system though. I'm curious what NAB will bring. But realistically Sony A7 3rd generation or a A9 will be out of my budget, there won't be a A6500 replacement to fix the usability issues any time soon, the GH5 needs Speedbooster and f/1.4 lenses for my photography tastes and god knows what if anything will come from BMD. I always have the urge to not wait but I'm afraid of miss-spending money I could better invest on traveling or something. By the way, how is the 1080p60 in regards to moire and aliasing?

You're right, forgot about the time difference ;-)

http://www.fujirumors.com/fujifilm-officially-announces-new-firmware-x-t2-x-pro2-33-improvements-full-list/ The firmware update to be announced tomorrow has been leaked. The EVF-LCD switching once you are recording seems to finally get fixed, that's great I think because a lot of people complained about that. Kinda surprised though that there is still no internal F-Log.

Digitec in Switzerland has 10% discount on Panasonic products until 27th of March so pre-ordering the GH5 would bring the price to 1790 Chf (1800 USD). Unfortunately no shipping date announced yet. I will go to Paris this weekend and Reims in April. Should have planned my vacations for after NAB

I'm using soundstripe.com which works well for me. It's a rather new platform but selection is growing consistently and the music is good (enough) for what I want to do with it. The community is super friendly and replies from staff are borderline to instant.They seem to get new composers frequently and also add improvements to their website every once in a while. I appreciate the fact that everything about the licensing and cost is transparent in contrast to a bunch of other platforms. I understand that the artists who make the music want to make money too but when you want to do videos as a hobby you can't afford paying 3 diggit dinero every time you want another track. I make no money with our videos so unfortunately I can't afford spending a lot on soundtracks (maybe that changes one day but I doubt it).