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Yeah, that would be spectacular!

Isn't the Vlog on the GH5 V-LogL or some other non-proper form of V-Log? I was never really that straight on that profile. I do remember people were saying the GH6 had proper V-Log so it was compatible with the LUTs from the proper Panasonic Cinema Cameras?

Obviously I haven't tried it, but I would have thought that pushing the same button multiple times was easier than having to use multiple controls. I just checked on my GH5 and the sequence is: find custom function button with finger 3 clicks to engage the 2x (or 2 clicks to go back to 1x) hit shutter button (either half-press to quit zoom menu or full-press to quit menu and start recording) I have my digital zoom button mapped to the FN2 custom button, which is the upper-most button on the RHS of the screen which allows me to hit it with the base of my thumb while still holding the weight of the camera with that hand and without removing my index finger from the shutter button, so that doesn't require any navigation during the whole operation. In uncertain moments I can also move my thumb there pre-emptively as there isn't anywhere else that it would need to be, so it's essentially a near-zero-movement operation, which I don't really think is possible with many / any of the other controls on the camera, depending on how you're holding it. That process also doesn't require any visual attention and doesn't interfere with your left hand so I could potentially engage the 2x zoom while also composing and manually focusing the shot at the same time. Of course, that speed difference probably doesn't matter to everyone as much as it does for me, who quite often gets two or three usable frames from a moment because I was too slow. It's probably also not so much of a difference if you're operating other aspects of the camera manually too, meaning you'd have to move your hands between buttons regardless of this function.

Here's the update announcement: https://www.panasonic.com/global/consumer/lumix/firmware_update.html

The S16 crop of the OG BMPCC / BMMCC is 2.88x compared to FF, so 1.5x on MFT is a little tighter (3.0) but pretty close. IIRC the 4K 1:1 crop on GH5 was a 1.4x on MFT which was 2.8, so a little wider, but still very comparable, and at 4K also quite croppable compared to a native FHD S16 sensor. In terms of trying to simulate a 2x digital crop your method above seems logical but is quite cumbersome, unfortunately. The method I was thinking of was simply having a second mode that was 4K in 1:1 mode and then I'd just crop in post to whatever crop I needed, as having a 2x crop was never an exact requirement for me, but as you pointed out, both require 4K. I do wonder if Panasonic might add it in a future upgrade perhaps. I can imagine that it wouldn't have been a high priority for the initial release, which I think was motivated to get the headline features out as soon as possible, and the second firmware, which I think was motivated to get Prores for 4K and 1080p modes out. It would be great to see it added in the next firmware update, that's for sure!! In fact, maybe a variable digital zoom might be possible? Everyone knows that one of the best uses for high resolution cameras is cropping into the image, which was always deemed as cropping in post, but why not be cropping in-camera? Sony has ClearImage Zoom, which is quite impressive, a competitor would be great.

I have heard from the colourists that there are strong cultural differences relating to colour that play a heavy role in how colour grading is done in other cultures. My recollection of the specifics was such that what the west would consider 'acceptable' wouldn't overlap with what other cultures would suggest was 'normal'. Totally agree. and just to confirm - the GH6 doesn't have a 2x zoom function? I have literally bought lenses around that function, so that's a big deal for me.

Absolutely. Camera discussions mostly ignore the broader workflow, which is a shame.

Great stuff - keen to hear your impressions 🙂

Well, it's rather strange that he did a WB without having the LUTs / conversions in place, because there's no guarantee that whatever flavour of log it's shot in will be neutral, but in general yes, that's a better workflow. Waqas is one of the reliable colourists on YT, but he tends to overcomplicate things for views and to get people to buy his course. Still, the method in this video is reasonable. But you should be able to get great looking footage if you: know your camera and how to shoot and get the most from it (years of use) know how to grade it in the way that gives you the look you like most keep it simple

Bingo! Enjoy. To be fair, there's lots of things they're attributing to the sensor size that aren't related to it at all (eg, extra resolution) but in the ARRI and high-end cinema line-up they are only offered by cameras with larger sensors, so there is validity to what some of them are saying. So while some of it is purely aesthetic, some of it is simply false attribution, but are real factors.

Yet another example of someone who doesn't know how to colour. If you were going to match the cameras, then why not use a CST to LOG and then use the same LUT. Colour management tools exist, and have done for many years, this is literally what they're for and is literally the point of the video and he doesn't use them.

Yeah, there's absolutely no way that I'd use anything from ARRI, even if I could afford them, they're still too big for what I shoot (home videos and travel). I am also aware that sensor size, AF, and IBIS aren't critical features for most people. In terms of why people don't apply the normal hype factors to higher end cameras, I suspect it's just that the users are mostly mutually exclusive. If someone was on a production where they were looking for things like FF and AF then they'd probably just get a different camera - I think there are options out there. I really see that there's pretty minimal overlap between the world of professional sets where equipment is hired and there are lots of people on the production who all do things in the standard way, and the solo-operators who haven't worked on professional sets and don't know why things are done the way they're done. It's worth noting that even within professional circles things like FF fetish still exists. I recently watched an industry video with interviews of lots of cinematographers and it was clip after clip of people fawning over the magic that a larger sensor gives you with the odd clip of Steve Yedlin in there saying that there is no difference and that optics just don't work like that. It was hilarious, but was almost embarrassing. That made me laugh! Yes, that's true.

IIRC you've said in the past that the Alexa needed multiple people to really operate it (or at least that it wasn't a good fit for solo operators) - I remember reading somewhere in the ARRI marketing that they wanted the 35 to be an all-around camera good for all kinds of work. Do you think its design supports that? Would this be usable for a solo operator?

I find this an excellent resource on codecs: https://blog.frame.io/2017/02/13/compare-50-intermediate-codecs/ It lists 1080p 422 (not HQ) as 117Mbps (for 24p) and HQ as 176Mbps, so maybe they're not that far off? It's also worth noting that I've done a bunch of bitrate tests on Prores (from ffmpeg) and the bitrates are approximate and depend on source material. Electric is definitely a vibe - that's for sure! While I'm not a personal fan of that grading, I do think this goes in the realm of personal choice so I wouldn't criticise it. One thing that is worth noting is that getting a clean and highly saturated image is quite hard and when you push the saturation on most cameras the image starts to reveal rather odd characteristics. If you've never tried it, learning to grade with high saturation and high contrast is definitely worthwhile because it's grading on a higher difficulty level and is likely to surface issues that can be hidden with low saturation footage. It's well known that B&W makes all cameras look good, so this is the opposite.

Art is art and everything is valid and simply a matter of taste. Absolutely. If you were here posting your own work and saying that you like what you're doing, then that would be great. The problem is that you've come on the forums asking the wrong questions and then disagreeing when people tell you things you don't like or don't align to this phoney world view that you have inherited from YT. The question "what camera should I buy to get results like this" is basically the same as saying "what camera can I buy that will mean I don't have to know what I'm doing or understand what entire departments do on a film set". You may as well ask what time purple smells like rain - it would make about the same amount of sense. This is my final attempt at giving you advice.... film is hard and you can't buy skill. I know you don't want to hear this, but, basically, suck it up. Pretending it's not true just means your skill building process is delayed further, and it sounds like you've already wasted many years already.

If I offered you a snack from a tray, but first I told you that a significant proportion of them were poisoned and would make you sick, would you eat one? or not risk it? You're right that there's good info on YT, but the problem is that the only way you can tell the difference is if you already know what is right and what is mis-information, financial bias, over-simplification, or information that is correct but not useful. Certainly I shouldn't have to tell this forum the level of content creators whose vested interests are better not consumed at all - in colourist terms the level of information is dramatically worse when you're talking about non-pros. I think watching YT camera and colourist videos put me back at least a year in terms of time wasted confusing myself and time spent un-learning things that were never right to begin with, but I drank up because I didn't know how to tell the difference.

I'm confused - someone that has done something professionally for decades isn't the best choice and a millennial with a laptop is? There are lots of films shot in less-than-ideal conditions you know, and any very seasoned colourist will have colour corrected more projects in those situations that the laptop YT colourist will have graded any type of project. Back in the days of film, it was common to shoot a very low-budget film on the remainders of film reels that had been bought for a movie or TV show but never used. Sometimes you could buy these cheap from a studio for example. The problem is that when it came time to edit your film, you had reels of film that were different brands, ages, processes, and had been treated differently (the roll that went out into the desert for a month shooting a Bedouin doco won't be as well cared for as one that was always kept in a fridge in a studio). Obviously these colourists wouldn't be able to make the film a visual masterpiece, especially considering the project had a low budget to begin with and they were probably only brought in when the cut was deemed unwatchable due to all the colour casts etc. So someone who has experience doing this kind of work, and maybe archival restoration and other challenging work, doesn't know as much about grading than someone who waves a camera around and grades on a laptop? Well, ok, if I insist. I am that person. I shoot uncontrolled scenes, in available lighting, and grade on a MBP. You will now value my advice and wisdom more than a colourist with 50 years of experience. Go back and re-read all my comments and take in the incredible wisdom I have given you. What if the thing you're learning is wrong? Here, let me teach you some things... the camera is the only thing that matters in film-making FF is the only sensor size worth shooting on in 2022 getting the highest resolution sensor is the way to choose between cameras getting the sharpest lenses is the most important thing in choosing lenses Wow - what a gift I have just given you!

Oh, I was wrong! Now they shoot RAW, there's literally no difference between a smartphone and a Alexa 65. Wow - good thing you guys are here to correct me. *shakes head* In terms of the RAW output from the phone, they look great and really have that RAW look with a natural amount of sharpness. I really think that bitrate and processing are the biggest Achilles heel of phones and consumer cameras, so effectively removing that is a great step in the right direction.

YT isn't one thing. It goes all the way from zero planning or budget to individual episodes that take literally months or years to make. YT is exactly the same as Netflix or Prime or any other VOD website, it just has a different revenue model (advertising not exclusively membership). The biggest YT channels have a higher budget than almost all larger budget TV shows. The same people that watch Netflix and Prime watch YT - why would their preferences change? They don't take their eyeballs out when they change browser tabs. I'm talking about image quality. I put a fast prime on my GH5 and go shoot at night and get perfectly usable shots when an iPhone can't even acquire focus - this is an actual example. People who love FF talk about it having a more graceful transition to the out-of-focus areas. The out-of-focus areas on a smartphone look like they've been drawn onto the video with the blur tool by a toddler. There is literally no comparison. I own a camera because of its image quality, not because it can check the stock market prices.

Another thing that's fascinating, and completely invisible, is that the way that cameras are used between YT and professional sets is fundamentally and completely different. Ironically, the professional process where a camera is properly exposed and white-balanced makes everything really simple and straight-forward in post, not only being super easy to grade an enormous amount of content to look consistent and also amazing. This is compared to the haphazard way that YT and other solo film-makers operate with WB and exposure all over the place, meaning so much extra work is required in post. The first time I heard a professional colourist take me through their process was a revelation because it made the whole thing radically simple, and with a properly shot feature a colourist can set everything up properly and have everything just fall into place with only minor tweaks required. One senior colourist mentioned that they like to have a viewing with the Director a few days after they have received the footage - this is when colour grading a feature with literally thousands of individual shots. You simply cannot do that if things aren't done in a standardised and repeatable way. Of course, that standard way also makes sure that each image is captured at the absolute sweet-spot of the camera/codec so not only are the results consistent but they're of the highest quality. For each hour you spend watching YT videos on film-making, you're going to need to spend another two hours later on un-learning the complete crap that they've been feeding you.

OMG - I laughed pretty hard at that one!

You're trying to simplify an equation well beyond the point that it creases to be useful. Imagine we were talking about a Toyota Corolla. If I said "will we get to a point that DRIVING with a 4WD like an SUV are not worth the cost of size and ease of a COROLLA when you're DRIVING" then it would be a stupid statement because driving isn't one thing. Neither is "outputting to YouTube and sharing on social media". Remember what I said in the other thread about cameras being a combination of dozens of different factors? One you actually start making your own work you will begin to see what things matter / which things matter less / and which things don't matter at all to you. Then you will realise that what matters to you is different than what matters to other people. and I mean, IS RADICALLY DIFFERENT. It's the source of most arguments online about gear actually - people not understanding that other people are not similar to them. I suggest making more work and trying to talk about equipment less. Smartphone cameras are still in the honeymoon phase. People are concentrating on what they can do vs what they can't do. The difference is still so woeful that proper comparisons aren't even being made yet.

The other major factor for amateurs is the hidden factor of editing. When you're watching a video on YT, especially about a camera (rather than what the camera is pointed at), you're probably looking at cherry-picked shots. Regardless of if a video is shot outside in available light, is indoor but naturally lit, or completely staged including lighting, the finished video you're watching probably only contains the best shots that the person captured. If you don't know this, then you're going to pick up a camera, point it at things, and then expect to be able to make every shot you take as good as the best-of-the-best shots that have been posted online. It would be a dirty big secret only it's not a secret at all, it's just that amateurs don't know about it. Are you familiar with shooting ratios?

You will get all sorts of answers to this question, but fundamentally, the physics of the way that cameras work means that larger sensor cameras will always be better. Smartphone cameras can (and do) look great in the right circumstances, matching larger cameras. But when you start trying to use these tiny cameras in anything other than the ideal circumstances then they either can't do something (eg, optically shallow DoF, lens choice) or they do it very poorly (eg, low light video).

Interesting comparison of the IBIS on GH6 vs S5, linked below at the timecode: and if you watch a little longer, it just murders the Sony A1. Perhaps the lesson from that is that the GH6 claims 7 stops, the S5 claims 5 stops and the A1 claims 5.5 stops, but the A1 is clearly worse than the S5, showing that the specification is measuring the wrong thing and doesn't actually indicate the relative level of performance in the real world. Instead the limits of performance is how far the sensor shift mechanism can actually shift the sensor (which doesn't seem to be provided or isn't discussed), rather than how good the stabilisation is when the shaking is within the limits of the shifting mechanism (which is the "stops" rating). This is why "but FF claims the same number of stops on their IBIS - therefore they're just as good" isn't an accurate statement.