Phil A

Saw the pictures of your rig on Flickr, nice. Can't wait for after market eye-cups for the GH5 to come out. The LCD viewfinder way makes imho no sense, seeing how the EVF has quite a bit higher resolution (1.6 vs 3.6 mio pixels) Noticed that the Movcam cage has a pretty neat quick release with a hole in the middle so you can unmount the camera without removing the quick release from the cage. Alas, it seems it is a Movcam specific quick release, according to the product Q&A on BHphoto, so that's a no go. Does anyone know if it's a one off or actually Arca Swiss or so?

So what did people settle for by now? I'm considering getting a cage so I can mount a quick release plate via 2 screws but also to occasionally mount accessories like a field monitor, video mic or a top handle. Looking at the market currently has a bunch of stuff but some prices are just silly for what a cage does (is it so expensive to CNC a piece of aluminium?) or badly fitting. These seem to be the currently as of this post available cages I could find with a link to their product page (of existing) and a subjective opinion: 8Sinn http://www.8sinn.com/index.php/8sinn-gh5-cage.html - Around 199 $ for just the cage alone (ends up at 220€ in Europe). CameTV - 298$ but comes with a riser for rod and a top handle. Chrosziel http://www.chrosziel.de/neu-system-700-gh5/?lang=en - 295€ for cage and top handle, has an integrated Manfrotto compatible dove tail JTZ DP30 - Minimum configuration is the cage with a top handle, riser with rods. Very modular as camera to cage, cage to riser and riser to base plate have quick release connections (looks more Arca Swiss than Manfrotto though?). Difference to other cages is that the cage has electronic connections with camera and top handle (and optional hand grip kit, etc.). Starts at 359€. Lockcircle https://www.lockcircle.com/store/?p=robotskingh5 - Half-cage alone is already 439€, 539€ for full cage. Movcam - Looks like a copy of the slightly earlier released 8Sinn cage, also roughly same price it seems. Seercam http://seercam.com/shop/cube-gh5/ - Starts at 250$ for cage only. Has an integrated dovetail for their optional rod riser. SmallRig http://www.smallrig.com/smallrig-dslr-cage-for-panasonic-lumix-gh5-1965.html - I had the A6300 cage and that was great for the money but this one seems to fit rather poorly on the grip side. Is it comfortable to hold it? Also got mixed reviews regarding access to the top control buttons. 89$ Tilta https://tilta.com/shop/tilta-panasonic-gh-series-cage-es-t37/ - 350$ and comes with cage, top handle, rod riser, screw-on rod holder and HDMI clamp. Camera mounts into the cage via quick release plate. Varavon https://varavon.com/products/zeus-gh5-cage?variant=40977115270 - Cage only incl cable clamp comes for 219$. Zacuto https://store.zacuto.com/gh5-cage/ - Comes with a hand strap and is going to cost you 495$. ...and then there are of course all the generic cages and half cages that are just a aluminium square to mount your cam into or are two plates connected with 15mm rods for height adjustment. You could say there is something on the market for everyone, different form factors, features and prices points (~ 90 - 500$ for the cages alone). What is important though: not all of the cages allow to use the XLR audio adapter on top, especially when using the top handle. I really like what Tilta and JTZ DP30 are doing by having the camera mount into the cage on a quick release plate. This allows you to quickly take the camera out of the cage and slap it onto a gimbal where even the small weight increase of the cage might be a deal breaker. On the other hand there is something to be said for really form fitting cages like 8Sinn and Movcam.

Did anyone try this under better circumstances? The GX800 would be a great (= small & cheap) cam to shoot 4k24 from a small gimbal. I told my girlfriend that I'll buy her a camera so she can practice photography, while sharing my lenses (GH5). Secretly I actually want to buy a dedicated camera for my Crane so I don't have to take the GH5 out of a cage/handheld rig. With the GX800 being so light, I could use a quick release and the 14mm f/2.5 lens and still downgrade to the smaller Crane-M. If it does Cine-D would be amazing, but I guess I could also settle for Natural. Really love what you're doing @BTM_Pix , stuff like this makes me wish I had paid more attention in university

After playing around with the Panasonic 12-35 f/2.8 and the Olympus 12-40 f/2.8 in a store I opted for the Olympus, based just on the sole fact that it has solid, repeatable manual focus due to the clutch mechanic. The way manual focus is executed in most mirrorless systems' focus-by-wire implementation is just awful. Wish there was (per firmware or camera setting or whatever) an option to have it mimic normal manual focus behavior without odd acceleration characteristics based on your focus speed. Wish there was also more prime lenses with the feature (and not necessarily as expensive as the Olympus 25mm f/1.2). I love the Voigtländer lenses but my gf struggles bad without auto focus.

If you plan to de-noise in post production, 4k would definitively be advantageous.

You can't imagine how happy I am that it was the case of me just being dumb. Thanks, I have no idea why I was so blind not to figure that out. Love it.

That's how it's supposed to work.

Question GH5 people. Maybe I'm just too dumb but when you mount a lens that has no electronic contacts, you get prompted to enter the focal length. Below that, there are 3 preset focal lengths you can pick via touch (24mm, 35mm, 50mm). Is there any way to customize these 3 preset focal lengths to show something different? I can't find how but it would be a big flaw if not possible.

Voigtländer 10.5mm f/0.95

I've bought the 17.5mm after considering getting a Metabones SpeedBooster and some fast adapted lens and can only say I'm happy I decided this way. It's a great lens, both from a mechanical as well as an imaging standpoint. The downside? I now really lust to have the others!

I feel like the GH5 isn't really an ideal combination with the Zhiyun Crane when it comes to convenience. Currently I have the GH5 with the Panasonic 14mm f/2.5 as my gimbal setup and I directly screw the camera on the crane. This way I can still fully rotate all axes, as well as "fold" the Crane flat to put it into my backpack. I tried to balance it with my Manfrotto and Cullmann quick releases but that moves the center of gravity far enough that I have to move some adjustments so far that they will lose full range of motion on some axes because it'll eventually collide. I also balanced it with the Olympus 12-40mm f/2.8 but then decided to buy a smaller lens for the gimbal, just simply for fatigue reasons. I didn't manage to balance it at all when using the Voigtländer 17.5mm f/0.95 and a quick release plate because the roll axis ran out of adjustment range before I could get it to balance. This could probably be overcome by adding some additional weight (maybe with strong velcro) behind the motor that is responsible for tilt but my goal isn't to make the Crane as heavy as possible to loath even bringing it.

I used the SmallRig 1138 clamp ( https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B00SIRAYX0/ ) and added this quick release ( https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B01LXOJTU4/ ) between the clamp and the magic arm. I have the same quick release on my handheld rig, so I can quickly change the monitor between the two. For the Sony a6300 I just used a rather small Cullmann Revomax quick release ( https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B00NHCMG6O ), have the same on the bottom of the Crane. With the A6300 you can't use the HDMI and the remote cable at the same time, there's just not enough space. That's a lot easier with the GH5 now. Also I've replaced the HDMI cable with a Sanho Hyperthin cable.

You're not really supposed to manually focus while flying the camera on the gimbal. So you basically have three choices: A) a lens with auto focus (which rules out the vintage lens you want to use) on a camera with reliable auto focus (which rules out the A7sII) B) set the lens to a small aperture with enough depth of field and use hyperfocal distance C) set the lens to the desired aperture, focus it (you can put the gimbal into sleep for that if you fear it strains the motors) and keep the distance to what you film consistent

Using the GH5 for quite a bit of photography and some little video clips. Using it with a combination of the (really great) Voigtländer 17.5mm f/0.95, Olympus 12-40mm f/2.8 and the Samyang 35mm f/1.4 & 85mm f/1.4 both on a dumb adapter and a focal reducer. My personal opinion: it's maybe one of the least emotional/passion inducing cameras I ever had, I don't feel any excitement about it... but... it's probably the most usable camera I ever had. Can 100% approve and would recommend to 95% of all DSLR/MILC users without hesitation if asked. It doesn't have mind blowing dynamic range, the low light is just ok, the colors are good but not Fuji good, it's comically big for a camera with such a small sensor. But it just is very well thought out (nothing is perfect). The swively screen, high quality EVF, touch screen works well, WiFi function very usable, AF-S perfectly fine for my photography uses, focus peaking & magnification very well implemented, rather good battery run time (eh, I come from Sony!). I had none of the issues people complain about on the internet so maybe I'm just lucky. I think the only drawback is the native lens system if you come from an APS-C / FullFrame system with a good choice of fast native lenses and are completely set on that look.

I don't think that's actually possible on any system but Nikon. There was talk about a non-speedbooster adapter that can do some level of auto focus but there was never much talk about it and it might have been only for e-mount.

I quickly went to search their FB feed, here's the post from March. I bought mine via Amazon when they had a sale on it back in November, so it was way before that whole "authorized dealer" mambo jambo. From the stores that have it in Germany, I had good experience with Marcotec in the past, I also think they're an authorized dealer (they had the official Smooth Q pre-order in Germany).

A while ago Zhiyun Tech informed on their Facebook page that they will not honor any service/warranty issues when not bought via the official importers. I'm not actually sure if that stance is even legal in the countries with strong consumer protection laws but it might be unnecessary hassle in any case. So maybe check that beforehand.

Wow, GH5 so bad. You can see the auto focus pumping all the time in the video of the moon. Are they using face detection? Just kidding

So I tried to use an "iPad only" workflow last weekend when traveling with the GH5. The iPad Pro can import the 10bit 4:2:2 1080p files (I shot in V-Log L) via the Apple USB-adapter kit but you can't play them. So far so good. I tried to open the files in the "Video LUT" app but they don't work. So you can't put a LUT on the 10bit files this way. I tried to open the files in iMovie and they actually open AND play in it! So I exported them from iMovie again and as expected it converted them to 8bit material that can be played/used in other apps. With the files exported this way I went back to the Video LUT app and tried some LUTs. I have 3 LUTs from FilmConvert and one of the Osiris LUTs imported so I tried these. Unfortunately I got crazy severe banding and block artifacts in the sky, I can't judge though which step is at fault: the Video LUT app, the actual *.cube LUTs or the (probably low quality) export from iMovie. My guess is the latter. Tl;dr: There seems to be no working 10bit workflow on the iPad/iPhone. 8bit might work (didn't try) but then you need separate source material than for the actual edit on your computer.

The Ursa is like 7.5kg without a battery, no? How do you have tripod, etc. to stabilize that efficiently? And the v1 sensor doesn't have the same slowmotion frame rates like the v2. Plus as Geoff mentioned, you will lose dynamic range and you're strictly bound to ISO400 compared to the BMMCC.

The sidefinder only works with the 501/502 (I think they're 500 NIT) and is quite bulky. When using it you have a lower rez (720p I think) and I read some reviews that were not too impressed by distortion and light leaks.

I have searched the forum for quite a bit but couldn't find anything regarding (even though I'm sure I saw such a discussion somewhere before), so bear with me: What's wrong with the V-Log L View Assist feature? I have installed the V-Log L update last weekend (makes you wonder if they couldn't manage to deliver it on a floppy disk with following code activation via fax to go full retro) and played around with it. I'm used to the View Assist of the Sony a6300 which brings the image back to Rec709-ish colors and contrast but I'm kind of baffled by the implementation on the GH5. The pre-installed Rec709 LUT doesn't bring back same level of contrast as using one of the regular picture profiles. So I exported my standard setting from FilmConvert in the V-Log L specific preset version, converted it to *.vlt with LUTCalc and put it into the GH5. But it still lacks contrast to what I get when using the FC profile in Resolve or when using the exported LUT in my SmallHD 501 for monitoring. Is this working as designed, is it a bug, is I dumb?

I have to agree regarding the new Leica kit lens. People seem to be very positive about it but all I care for is what the picture looks like in the end from an aesthetic point of view (I don't need perfect sharpness, don't really care about vignetting, I can live with some mild distortion, etc.) and no one would get excited about a 24-120mm f/5.6 - 8 lens for his 5D III regarding what the results look like. I bought a cheap, used Olympus 12-40mm f/2.8 but I find to only use it at the both extreme ends of the range (might sell it and get a small wide angle for gimbal work + one of the 42.5mm lenses instead). m4/3 only really works with the primes in my opinion but, as I probably mentioned multiple times before, I also wouldn't want to shoot lenses slower than f/2.8 on a FF camera when it comes to photography. Then there's the blah quality of many m4/3 lenses that gets tarted up in-camera or automatically in most raw converters. I always heard in the beginning of mirrorless how lenses could be smaller, cheaper and better because they have to cover less sensor real estate. But then you get examples like the Olympus 12-40 f/2.8 with a smashing 8.5% distortion at 12mm (maybe they can even increase it and market it as a fisheye zoom?), that by far exceeds the 4.3% of the Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L which by most regards is considered a rather mediocre lens in image quality. Most of the really good lenses are anything but cheap & small.

https://***URL not allowed***/photo-video-apps-mobile-creator/ Article by Cinema5D about "9 Must-Have Photo and Video Apps For The Mobile Creator". Last weekend we had an Instagram story thing going in parallel to a cooking video we work on. Basically while shooting the video I also shot short snippets in vertical orientation. Threw them on the laptop into Resolve, smashed FilmConvert und another LUT over it, exported and transferred to an iPad. Used Video Rotate & Flip to change the meta tag about the orientation to vertical to put it into the Instagram story. Obviously day and night quality difference to shooting your story snaps with the phone, very little effort though. Next step is now to see if I can get the video quickly to the iPad (SD adapter or Lightning-to-USB adapter) without using the laptop and use the Video LUT app to smash my exported FC profile & stylized LUT as *.cube files straight over it. Wish I could upload to the IG story from Windows.

Made up my mind on lenses