herein2020

Don't waver....unless it has something other than DFD AF...😄

Oh I get why they don't have it, but for the run and gun work I do; those missing features eliminate them from any serious consideration for me; which is kind of funny since I have no AF now with the S5 and EF adapter but IBIS and lowlight performance is incredible. I think if BM ever made a more prosumer version with a more rugged body, better form factor, and a few tools for us run and gun shooters like IBIS and AF, they would sell a ton of them.

I agree, but at least for me there's still one problem....I got mostly manual lenses because I couldn't use the AF in the GH5, I imagine there are plenty of other users like that that would still have to go back and buy the AF versions after spending $2K+ on the body. I'm not saying the GH6 wouldn't be great especially if they fix the AF, I just don't think there would be enough die hard MFT shooters to justify the razor thin margins Panasonic would have to sell it at or if they would ever get back their R&D costs. @bjohn I 100% agree MFT has plenty of great benefits, and I was all in on the MFT and GH5 just 2yrs ago...if the GH6 had come out with all of these features instead of the S5 I would still be using all MFT equipment. My only point is; a piece of equipment can be the best thing ever made...but if the company selling it can't make a profit off of it either they won't make it at all or it won't last long and that's how I feel about the GH6. Lets not even mention the fact it is DOA if it ships with DFD AF.

IMO it just needs one thing.....PDAF. But on a serious note, everything you just listed is also already in the S5 except 4K120 and good AF all for less than $2K USD. I just don't see how a GH6 makes any sense. If Sigma would get CAF working with their L-mount to EF mount adapter the S5 would finally be perfect for me. Also, I saw some upscaled 1080P at 120FPS mixed in with 4K footage and it actually looked pretty incredible, so there is a way to get 120FPS on a 4K timeline with the S5. So I say all of that to say I just don't see how they could possibly pull off a GH6 since it would have to beat the GH5, GH5S, and the S5 in every way including price.

Every time I see a BM Pocket camera I just shake my head and click Next. I know it shouldn't be that way, I love Davinci Resolve......but their camera form factor is pretty horrendous. They also seem to have no AF, not great in low light (this may have improved though), and no IBIS. For me a BM camera has never even been a consideration to date.

They only needed one thing to make the GH5 II actually interesting....PDAF....but they couldn't even do that. The GH5II with PDAF would have restored my faith in Panasonic and I would have felt better about a potential S5 II release with better AF but still no sign of PDAF. I feel like Panasonic is just trying to get rid of their old GH5 components prior to shutting down the production line for M4/3. I just don't see how Panasonic could possibly bring a GH6 to market when their FF S5 is only $1700.00. No matter how many features you crammed into a GH6 body, it still wouldn't be able to compete with the plethora of features in the A7SIII, the R5, or the coming R1....yet it would be close to their price point. And if Panasonic really does have a written agreement with Sony to not use anything but DFD...the GH6 would be DOA with DFD combined with a $3000 price point. The other irony of the M4/3 conundrum is that many of us now have a bag full of manual lenses since the GH5's AF was unusable...so even if they did release a M4/3 camera with PDAF, how many of us would be prepared to go back and buy more lenses for a camera that is a dying breed? To me the Voigtlander lenses have no equal when it comes to their particular look and they are still the main thing I miss about the move to the S5; there's simply no way I would go back to M4/3 and start buying new lenses on top of buying a $3000+ body with a 2x crop after buying the S5. Panasonic is without a doubt my favorite camera maker for video...but I've said it before and I'll say it again.....it really feels like they will exit the camera business soon. Canon and Sony are releasing incredibly advanced products at a breakneck pace with all of the right boxes checked (color science, features, menu structure, AF, etc.), and all Panasonic has managed to do is dig into the parts bin and come up with a GH5II. If Panasonic had AF that was even close to Canon's I would probably have two S5 bodies and L mount lenses right now.....instead I'm reading about a rehashed GH5II and thinking I'm glad I'm not still sitting here waiting for a GH6.

This story sounds so horrible that I am glad that I never tried to sell anything through eBay. I have bought a few things over the years and gotten some pretty good deals on used items, but since I've never sold anything I have no sellers feedback so I never saw the point in trying to sell on eBay; also it always seemed like such a hassle. I've sold a few items using Craigslist over the years, but like everything else its gotten worse and worse. At least with Craigslist its a cash only transaction and you meet face to face. The downside of course is that the more expensive the item is that you are trying to sell; the less likelihood that you will find a buyer in your area on Craigslist. eBay really is my last resort even when it comes to buying things and the higher priced the item the worse it gets. I tried to buy a used C200, I won the bid and everything.....and the seller suddenly pulled the listing stating it was defective. The next day it was relisted for a higher price. Apparently there's some trick to get more buyers to bid on your item if you list it with no reserve, but if the final bid is too low eBay lets you claim it is defective and start the process over without penalty. I have absolutely no time for BS like that. I ended up buying it at full retail because even that was cheaper than losing my sanity on eBay. I also had a seller try to scam me through PayPal by trying to get me to send payment without even having the actual item. I knew I was covered by Visa and PayPal so before I knew it was a scam I submitted the payment information through PayPal and it was blocked which was my first red flag. The "seller" then tried to get me to use a different payment system at which point I immediately reported the account to eBay. Somehow the seller had a 99% rating, I'm guessing they were using a hacked account. I know some sellers on eBay and they all say never try to sell electronics on eBay or high priced items; its simply not worth it. The people I know who make a decent living off of eBay all stick to really simple items like used books, fake jewelry, clothes, etc. Not one of them sells anything over $200 on eBay or sells any electronics. I have been considering selling my GH5; I'm definitely not going to use eBay and even Craigslist is a royal PITA with lowball offers and flaky buyers who back out of the sale 10min before they were supposed to meet you somewhere local. Honestly, after your story I might just take the hit and practically give it away to one of the camera resellers just to keep my sanity and at least end up right side up.

Of course you are right, but I am never going to like audio 🙂. Trying to prevent audio peaking is the worst to me...how on earth am I going to know ahead of time that the speaker will suddenly get more animated or louder? The MixPre has 32bit float audio which is wonderful but it still can't fix background noise, echo, or hair rubbing the mic. I think my biggest problem with audio is I'm always stuck recording it in bad conditions (noisy, windy, etc). To me video and photography is way easier....for video to me there's really only two options 4K60FPS or 4K30FPS pick your lens based on the look you want pull your focus set your lighting use your stabilizer of choice (handheld, gimbal, tripod, etc), check exposure with the WFM, and press record. I know video is technically more complex, but with audio I always feel like you only get one chance at it, and for some reason it always sounds better on set than when I start editing it in the NLE. I'm truly impressed that Hollywood always has perfect audio no matter what the movie scene; middle of a hurricane and their voices are perfect.

haha, I think if it were the only thing I had to worry about I actually could grow to like it....but when its just one more thing to pile onto the project after camera gear, lighting, working with the talent, etc......its like the last straw for me. Good audio is so important too...you can get away with mediocre lighting, slightly out of focus talent at times, basic camera movements, etc....but if the audio has an echo, or the mic hit the clothing, or the audio peaks or there's too much background noise, the video is ruined. Fortunately the only audio I typically deal with is sit down interviews indoors with a single lav mic; and to me that's still difficult....add a second person and I suddenly need my MixPre, two lav mics, a stereo mix, etc. Totally a PITA. In post, no matter how much fiddling I do, I still can barely get the audio to be useable. Lets not even talk about the cost of quality audio gear.

I do the same. I know everyone loves the shallow DOF look for interviews, but I'd rather give up a little of that than risk AF. I tend to stick around the F2.8 or F3.5 mark when I'm shooting interviews to give me some wiggle room. My main focus is getting the subject as far away from the background as possible and if that's just not possible then its just not going to be as out of focus.

As a matter of a fact I do:

I would rent the C70 first to ensure you like it before buying it. I have read that the IS on the C70 isn't that great (no idea if its true or not) but if I were considering the C70 I would definitely rent it and test it out especially with my gimbal and handheld before I bought it. For the work I do, the S5 perfectly meets my needs.....except for the terrible AF but the IS is nothing short of amazing. My gimbal is literally gathering dust now and I truly enjoy shooting handheld with it far more than I ever did with the GH5. The only time I use my gimbal now is for walking shots everything else is handheld. The S5 combined with IS, lens IS, and a VMount battery was a game changer for my relationship with shooting handheld.

Strictly speculating here, but I think you will have a long wait. Camera sales are slower than ever, there is a global parts shortage, and Canon is pumping out cameras like there is no tomorrow. At a minimum they will definitely wait until the C70 hype has died down. There are also rumors that a C50 is coming as well, and an R1 and an R3. They just released the C70, C500 II, and C300 III. I really think you are looking at at least a year out. I don't even see how the C200 fits into the current lineup. Knowing Canon, they may have decided if you want full size XLR ports that you need to get the C300.. The C70 is even the same price as the C200, so I'm not even sure how they would fit it in price wise between the C70 and C300 III. The last thing Canon wants is for someone to get a C200 II when they might have gotten a C300 III instead.

I have never had a problem with 8 bit. To me they are nearly identical to the eye except in certain lighting scenarios. The main thing that I know 10bit gives you is the ability to push the mids which is where skin tones usually sit without losing color as fast as 8bit. My C200 only has 8bit and CLOG3 combined with 8bit still looks as good to me as the S5 with VLOG and 10bit. As @ac6000cw stated, the S5 has a built in 30min recording limit for the 10bit modes. I believe this is to control overheating. It does let you start recording again right away, but if you need unbroken recording times longer than 30min you have to use 8bit.

I'll admit, I love VLOG, couldn't imagine shooting any other profile and I'm all about KISS as well. Seeing that WFM show an entire scene within the DR of the sensor makes my smile every time. In post it literally takes me seconds to color grade each clip. I use pretty much the same starting settings in Davinci Resolve: I create 3 nodes: Primaries, Curves, Skin. I disable the Curves and Skin nodes and add a false color LUT to the skin node. I then set Contrast to 1.17 and Saturation to 100%. I then pull down the Lift until it just touches off of zero and push up the Gain until it just touches below 1023. If the scene has people in it, I then enable the false color LUT and check for skin exposure. I make slight adjustments to the Lift, Gamma, and Gain until the skin has the exposure I want then I disable the Skin node. I then create a color grade still and use that for every clip with a similar scene. I typically just have to make very slight adjustments to the Lift and Gain from clip to clip depending on the highlights, shadows, and lighting on the skin. After I have graded each clip I then add an adjustment clip over the whole project and apply a creative grade to the adjustment clip for the whole project which ties together the different cameras and gives the project the same feel throughout the video. For me the biggest benefit of VLOG is being able to recover from just about any lighting condition and matching other cameras such as drone cameras etc. I don't use it with the XLR module. I do use it with the shotgun video mic. When I'm using the XLR audio module I have time to do a mic test and tune the input levels. With the video mic going into the mic port its a free for all picking up natural audio so I have no idea what levels I could run into.

Good point. I've actually never once since owning the camera pressed that button; didn't realize it worked like that in MF mode. It's almost comical that this camera has so many focusing settings and buttons yet focusing is its biggest weakness.

For an interview I would just shoot in 8 bit. I would much rather 8bit than lose the ability to punch in and recompose in post. I shot tons of content with the GH5's 8bit and clients never cared or noticed. My C200 also shoots 8bit and somehow it looks just as good as the 10bit out of the S5.

I was thinking something along those lines, like the phantom power should be turned off first. That's why I think I should read the manual to see if there is a startup sequence. I just don't remember these problems with the GH5 but of course there could be different tolerances with the S5. I have the Sigma EF adapter and EF mount lenses so it may work slightly differently with L mount lenses. But for me, I keep the dial in Movie Mode (M with the little camera beside it), the EF lens is set to AF on, and the back button focus selector is set to S(ingle) or C(ontinuous). Continuous AF doesn't work with the adapter, so when you have the adapter mounted and an EF lens attached S and C does pretty much the same thing. You can also use M but then you can't use the half press method to AF. So the three different ways you can use Hybrid One Shot AF with the S5 that I have found is: Focus Mode Dial set to S or C- The EF lens has to have AF turned on (switch on the lens) and the top dial in Movie mode. With it set this way I can then half press to AF both while recording or before starting to record. I typically pick 1 area for my focus mode. Focus Mode Dial set to M - The EF lens has to have AF turned on and the top dial in Movie mode. This is where it gets interesting. With this combination of settings. half pressing the shutter button doesn't do anything, the only two options are to turn the focus ring to manually focus, or you can tap the screen where it says AF and it will focus one time for you. What I like about this mode is for the EF lenses that support it, the camera will automatically punch in to help you MF when you turn the focus ring on the lens (as long as you set it up to do this in the menu and as long as you haven't yet pressed record). For the other two modes, if you want to punch in to check focus you have to press the center button on the focus mode selector switch. Lens AF Mode Off or Fully Manual Lenses - If you switch the lens AF mode to off, then you are 100% responsible for pulling focus. What is pretty cool about this mode is that the focus selector switch doesn't matter anymore. S/C/M all automatically punch in to help you set focus as long as you have it set that way in the menu and as long as you haven't yet pressed record and as long as the lens reports to the camera that the ring is being rotated (most of my lenses do). I'll admit I've gotten kind of lazy with focusing now that I have the S5. With the GH5 all of my lenses were manual so I used to have to focus everything by hand. With the S5, the focus peaking is so hard to see (IMO worse than the GH5), that I've found manually focusing much harder so I tend to rely more on the hybrid method. The only problem is the camera completely fails to focus sometimes in this mode so then I still have to do some manual focusing. I like many others truly hope Panasonic does something to improve their AF. I would literally buy an S5II if the only improvement was a working AF system.

I will need to try that, the hardest part of that test is finding somewhere actually quiet enough to be able to isolate the signal noise. I tested my lav mics with my MixPre and couldn't believe how hard it was to find a truly quiet place to test the circuit noise. I ended up in the bedroom closet with the AC off and clothes stacked against the door. You are so right about audio too, it is more noticeable to people when it is bad audio vs bad video. You can get away with slightly out of focus or under exposed or over exposed video; but if the audio has a pop or hiss or too much wind noise its far worse. My biggest problem right now is figuring out how to get the XLR module to consistently turn on when mounted on the S5. I feel like its something in the pins in the hotshoe that is causing the issue. I had to toggle the Phantom power switch before it finally started working; this is obviously not always an option if you are plugged into something that doesn't need phantom power (like my Sennheiser wireless receiver). I'm going to check the S5 manual, maybe there is a startup sequence or something that you are supposed to do to make the module startup every time that wasn't required with the GH5.

I have the exact same setup for all of my lenses and the S5. Typically this feature is called one shot hybrid AF. I half press the shutter to get initial focus, once it locks you are still free to fine tune with MF, or leave it where it locked. I use all EF lenses and have noticed that the PIP box doesn't work for all of my lenses. I think some of the lenses don't report to the camera when the focus ring is turned. My biggest problem is that lately it seems like the one shot AF part of the hybrid focusing is having a hard time focusing. I've had to go to pure MF for both the Canon EF 25mm lens and the Sigma EF 50mm lens in different situations even when there was plenty of contrast and good lighting.

It works perfect on the GH5. I'm not an audio person, so to me the audio sounds fine. I've never had a problem with noise from the module and anything minor I've been able to clean up in Fairlight; but since I'm not an audio person it is possible what sounds good to me isn't actually that good. The XLR module was one of my favorite GH5 accessories, and the fact that it worked with the S5 was a major selling point for me. I do wonder if maybe the lav mics I am using is causing the issues. But I remember I had a problem with the module and my Sennheiser wireless receiver as well. Very annoying problem to say the least. I am going to do a lot more testing before my next job to see if it is something that is my fault. Personally, I've always found audio the most difficult part of videography, between placing the mics, dealing with room treatment or lack thereof, trying to keep the audio from peaking, trying to keep the mic from rubbing against clothing, trying to block ambient noises like the wind; etc......its very obvious why it is a whole specialty in and of itself.

That is correct, I use it with a VMOUNT adapter and battery all the time, with 1 VMOUNT I can run for about 6hrs or more non stop. A PC USB port probably doesn't have anywhere near the required level of amperage.

Ok, its official....the XLR module combined with the S5 is a finicky setup. I had a shoot today, very important to nail the audio and the XLR module just wouldn't turn on. The talent was already mic'd up, I ran an XLR cable because I didn't want to fiddle with wireless in addition to the XLR module....and it took a good 5-10min of fiddling to get the XLR module to even turn on. I never had these problems with the GH5. I double checked my connection in the hotshoe, the XLR cables, the XLR jack for the mic....absolutely nothing. I then unplugged the XLR cable from the XLR module...and it turned on immediately. I turned off the camera, plugged back in the cable, turned on the camera....XLR module dead again. I then toggled the phantom power switch on the module to off and the module turned on. I turned it back to +48V and it stayed on. It turned off one more time, I toggled the phantom power switch and it then stayed on for the rest of the interview. This is not good, I just don't have that kind of time on set to fiddle with an XLR module. AF is starting to bug me too. During the same shoot I couldn't get it to focus on even large items like cars and houses. I had to MF one of the scenes because it simply would not focus on the car at all. This of course is with the EF mount adapter and a Canon 24mm lens so I can't entirely blame the S5 in this situation; but my perfect little setup is starting to get quirky which is not good when I need reliability.

I have the edelkrone SliderONE....its a pos. App won't connect most of the time, no way to control it without the app, fiddly to set up when you finally get the app to connect; it looks high quality, feels high quality in the hand, but I'll never buy another edelkrone product. I shot one real estate job with it and spend more time trying to get the app to connect and the slider to work than I did on the entire rest of the job. I now have a Syrp Magic Carpet Pro and couldn't be happier.

So very true; I haven't experienced Panasonic's customer service yet and if its that bad I hope I never have to because they are currently the only brand left that I still view favorably. It does irk me how they ensured the GH5's batteries would not work with their S5 but beyond that (and AF of course), no other brand seems to check as many boxes. I was a Canon fan and had every intention of getting the R5 until the complete overheating fiasco. I know what you mean about Wordpress too, I've been running my websites on Wordpress for years now and can count on one hand the number of times the developers were actually helpful (twice to be exact); the rest of the times they completely blamed me for problems with their themes...to this day I am stuck with a theme that will not do certain things that I need because the developers refuse to fix the issue. Unfortunately it will only get worst as society's expectations get lower and lower; everything is disposable and quantity is more important than quality. If you buy something that lasts 3yrs it is "high quality" and you recommend it to all of your friends because it lasted "so long".