Robert Collins

I have also arrived and will be available for ongoing hot dog updates as long as I get on the right train to the show.
Otherwise you can expect updates about Cologne cathedral.
And hot dogs within it's immediate vicinity.
 

When the GH4 launched in 2014, Panasonic "obviously" had faith in their autofocus system. Yet when it came to video, the CDAF looked pretty bad compared to the PDAF on the 70D, NX1, and a6000. The GH4 was a fantastic camera, but it was clear back then that Panasonic needed to include PDAF if they wanted to achieve good video autofocus. So in 2017 when the GH5 was realeased, a lot of people were disappointed that PDAF was again missing from the specs. Panasonic "obviously" had faith in their autofocus system, but real world usage found the GH5's "Advanced CDAF" was still not as good as the PDAF in some 3 year old cameras, much less some of the latest models from other manufacturers.
Now in 2018 with Canon, Nikon, Sony and Fuji all producing cams with really good video autofocus using PDAF, I think it's easy to see why critics are disappointed that PDAF will again be missing from Panasonic's next generation of cameras come 2019.

Here are a few thoughts on the Mavic 2 after a week or so of use. Mostly points that I have found that dont seem to get much mention in the youtube stuff.
1) There has been no firmware update so far for Crystalsky monitors, so you cant use the Crystalsky with the Mavic 2 yet. Pretty disappointing for an expensive accessory.
2) For some inexplicable reason DJI has removed quite a lot of the intelligent flight modes that were on the original Mavic Pro. The two that I used a lot - Course Lock (great for panning) and Waypoints are both gone.
3) Theoretically you can pan the camera from left to right (unlike the Mavic Pro) but in practice this has fairly limited practical use because the props get in your shot.
4) So you are likely to shoot quite a lot of video while flying left or right which is fine apart from the side obstacle sensors dont work (unless in intelligent flight mode or tripod mode.)
5) The DLog-M 10 bit h.265 profile is a huge step up from the Mavic Pro and is great in post. Unfortunately, the footage in DLog has horrendous lens distortion. Its easy to fix in post but rendering h.265 is pretty slow. (I am wondering whether it is best to transcode first for Premiere Pro.)
6) I like the 2.7k 60p footage. It is FOV and I assume pixel binned - so isnt the most detailed - however the 60p really helps smooth out the footage.
7) I never used 'autoexposure' with the Mavic Pro because of exposure flicker but I havent noticed any with the Mavic 2 when shooting shutter priority.

This lens rather neatly shows why Panasonic is heading into FF. It is a big heavy, expensive fast zoom designed to appeal to those users that see the need to make up for the lack of light and DOF inherent in a smaller sensor. At some point you inevitably conclude that a larger sensor makes more sense.

Well apart from the fact that EF lenses have motors designed for pdaf focusing and the L mount doesnt have pdaf.

Maybe, maybe not.
The Panasonic cameras are really just announcements of things to come next year.
Sony may still surprise with an A7siii that slips in BEFORE the Panasonic cameras are actually released (if the Sony is coming at all that is)!
The issue for me with the Panasonic cameras is that unless you are a shareholder in Panasonic, these new cameras will be as alien to M43 users as Canon, Sony
or Nikon (actually for Canon even more so since Canon EF lenses can be adapted with near native AF at least for AFS).
Think about it, a set of M43 lenses will not work on these new cameras and I doubt the Leica L mount lenses will work anytime soon on a GH5 or other M43 camera
so you would need two sets of lenses if going with Pana FF and M43 but with Canon EF lenses you can go FF AND M43 (and Sony E can too and more).
These Pana/Leica/Sigma cameras will want to be light years better than anything else to be successful since for all but a very small number of people it means an entirely new and expensive system aimed at pros and high end users and a VERY expensive switch.            IF Sony puts out a A7siii, it will be usable along with all
the other Sony stuff right form release so unless they stuff it up big time, I would think it is going to be good (again, assuming it does actually arrive).
 
Choice is good and getting better but it is coming to the point there will be too MUCH choice for them all to survive.

Well sort of. But we do now have 20 different live mounts selling a total of just 10m ILCs.
As Thom Hogan says 'I see dead mounts....'
http://www.dslrbodies.com/newsviews/i-see-dead-mounts.html

I am not sure this will really work. Sigma tried to create FE mount versions of its lenses by essentially swapping the EF mount with an MC-11 adaptor rather than actually redesigning the lenses and including step motors that are fairly essential to the efficient use of CDAF. The result is that they dont  focus particularly well on the FE mount. It is likely that the SL mount wont have PDAF at all which would make them less suited without a redesign.

Worst bullish I have seen in a long time. I liked this guy videos, but now I will be more carefull. T
- First of all, the sharpness on the MP2 should be turned to +1 because they have turned down the digital sharpness compared to previous drone.
- Secondly, the guy uses AF which is known to suck. Just go MF and click on infinity symbol and all your footages will look sharp and no focus issue. Someone tells him? 
- Third and MOST important: the diffraction on the MP2 is enormous past F5.6. Best sharpness is achieved at 2.8, and best corner sharpness at F/4. Sweet overall spot is F/4. Shoot in either manual either aperture priority and always between 2.8 and F4. I am sure the aperture was higher in his shot. 

Do the 3 steps above, re-compare, and the guy will order again the Mavic. When you put out videos like this for the world and you are popular you should do the work properly. 
Picture from the Pro 2 from this weekend. Shot in JPG. 

Great stuff. Makes me want to go there - never been....

I filmed this over 5 weeks in Colombia on a personal trip. I brought along minimal gear... well as minimal as I could  Let me know if you have any questions and if you are thinking about visiting Colombia I would highly recommend it!
 

It's because using the term ISO is relatively tricky in an age of digital photography:
 
 

That must be Leica's contribution to the joint venture....

That must be Leica's contribution to the joint venture....

That must be Leica's contribution to the joint venture....

Personally, I dont think there is an underlying problem here. The drone is pointed almost directly into the sun - the brightest possible light source and the bottom left (especially) is shielded from the sun and receiving very little light. There could easily be 30 stops of dynamic range in this screenshot - which might look good to our own eyes but wont look good to a 1 inch sensor (especially with video.)
If you look around you will see plenty of sunset/sunrise videos taken with something like a Mavic and they tend to look pretty terrible because in order to get decent detail in your shadows you have to blow out your highlights.
As an example here is a screenshot of a photo taken with the A7riii in raw (which obviously has a lot more DR than a Mavic sensor.)

The red areas show the clipped highlights and the blue shows the shadows with no detail - the shot is obviously unusable.
Typically you cant get decent video from a Mavic shooting directly into the sun.

I am looking forward to the DJI offering....

I have hard time believing they would risk sell us upscalled 2.7K as 4K. 

Anyway I have flown the Mavic 2 twice and it's a beast. Great IQ both in photo and video. 0 noise unlike my mavic 1 and mavic air in daylight. DLOG 10 bit Full FOV is fantastic. 
Biggest disappointment for me at the moment: when using the amazing quick-shots (orbit, spirals, ...) it seems it can only record in normal color mode h.264. What a shame... 
I never used those modes before but realized they do things better than you can do yourself. For example on a mountain summit, you wan to orbit around the subject standing on the summit. It will orbit a lot better than you doing it manually. But the lack of DLOG and 10 bit in this mode is a shame... 
Overall amazing drone. IQ is incredible, range and signal quality and battery life are phenomenal. Super stocked. 

Supposedly the major annual update to Premiere Pro CC will arrive in the next few days. These new 'curves' for selective color adjustment look super intuitive to me.
 

Looking at the 'mode dial' on the Z7, I see there are U1, U2, and U3 available for custom settings. So presumably it is easy to say set one for 4k video and one to 1080 slo mo. Then it becomes easy to switch between stills and video.

Supposedly the major annual update to Premiere Pro CC will arrive in the next few days. These new 'curves' for selective color adjustment look super intuitive to me.
 

Something like this makes most sense to me. It also would explain Panasonic's 'need' for a high mega-pixel sensor. At 50mp for FF - you have 12.5mp for M43 - in other words a GH5s sensor capable of 4k video.

I use the one that you can download for free from the foot notes with this video. It works well.
 

I use the one that you can download for free from the foot notes with this video. It works well.
 

I thought I read that there is a strong rumor suggesting 16mm flange distance and a 2x crop mode, so in M4/3 crop mode, with an adapter, m4/3 lenses will work. Not a bad idea to keep existing customers that may be interested in moving to FF.
Unless there is some type of internal/external Raw or internal ProRes, I don’t really see the point of a FF Panasonic. It seems like they’re grasping at straws here... especially if it doesn’t have IBIS.