Panasonic Lumix G7 vs. S5II, used as camcorders

[EduPortas]

10 hours ago, John Matthews said:

I'll credit @Andrew Reid for the look with EOSHD Pro Color. I only tweaked it a little.

From what I've understood about Panasonic in that era, even their pro video division was surprised by the hacked GH2. I remember many videographers were saying the 1080p out of the GH2 was WAY too sharp and digital. Some of the hacks even offered less sharp versions. After with 4k, it didn't seem we had to worry so much about detail anymore. IBIS meant we could now actually see the detail because with no IBIS, it turned to mush. 

Nice.

Out of curiosity, could you unsharpen the included profiles in the GH2 in video mode?  

[Andrew Reid]

The GH2 is pixel binning to produce the 1080p, so the digital-edge comes more from that than the built-in sharpening algorithm.

When you view the image at a longer viewing distance on a larger screen, it looks a lot better than up-close on a laptop.

[John Matthews]

Quick question: Is the G7's 4k line-skipped or pixel-binned? I cannot seem to find definitive information on this. I can easily get it to moiré but usually in the blue channel.

[ac6000cw]

I don't have a definitive answer, so this is an 'engineering opinion':

For UHD (3840 x 2160) the G7 crops a slightly larger area out of the centre of the sensor, around 4100 pixels horizontally. Someone on Reddit estimated it to be 4130 x 2323 - see https://www.reddit.com/r/PanasonicG7/comments/3zfu0f/comment/cym5c9j/ - which is very close to 4096 x 2320 (and both dimensions of that are divisible by 16).

If you take 4096 x 2320 and multiply each dimension by 15/16 you get 3840 x 2175, and I suspect because of the low scaling ratio it's most likely using 'nearest neighbour' re-sampling (line-skipping in camera speak) to generate UHD from it.

So my educated guess is that its reading out a 4096 x 2320 region of the sensor, de-bayering it and then using line-skipping to down-sample it to 3840 x 2160.

[Matt Kieley]

I actually came back here after I don't know how long to figure out what camera to get. I've loved my Panasonic S5, until the LCD broke. The frame is now off-center and stuck in selfie mode. Very weird, especially since I babied this camera. And it's past the 6 month warranty from mbp. I bought a nice new external monitor, bit I hate rigging it up. I was thinking of selling it and putting the (probably) meager amount I'd get for it on ebay, now that it's faulty, to another S5, but now I'm afraid any copy I get can break down on me like that. So I'm trying to figure out what to get instead.

Recently I finally upgraded to Resolve studio and I've been remastering old projects in 4K. I'm surprised how good I can make old footage look. I have shorts shot on the GH1, Nikon D5100, and the Sony a6300, which I can make look really good in spite of the "old, bad" Sony color science. Even the short on the D5100 looks great. I've already thought for a while that we've had great image quality for a long time now, and the advancements in software have extended the life of these old cameras.

All I really want is something compact, with good 1080p that doesn't have horrible artifacts or chroma noise, uncompressed internal audio with good preamps, enough dynamic range that highlights don't blow out so easily (I can live with dark blacks and even kinda prefer it) and long battery life and is easy to use without rigging it up. Oh, and doesn't overheat. I've been trying for a while to pare down my gear and see how far I can go with minimal equipment, which can be burdensome.

I totally get why my favorite director, the late David Lynch (RIP) loved shooting with the Sony PD150. He knew it looked like shit but he loved the creative possibilities it gave him. He could shoot stripped down without a crew and cumbersome equipment to slow him down. He called the PD150 his "ugly, beautiful little thing". It's why I loved shooting with camcorder and the GH1 int he first place. I want to try and de-program myself from the cult of pixel-peeping and dynamic range charts and just embrace the "ugly". 

Any recommendations? I liked the G7 a lot when i had it.

Here are some old short (and sample footage) remastered:

"Ballad of Crazy Pete" was shot with a hacked GH1 (100mbps hack although it never yielded bitrates that high, some shots in that short are as low as 10mbps)

"Crappy Halloween" was shot with the Nikon D5100 (or was it the 5200?). I don't think I used nay flat or special picture profile.

I'm still remastering Chicken but here's a grading test I did with resolve. Shot on the a6300. 8bit Slog 2 with the "old, bad" Sony color science. All of these have film grain applied. Without it the remastered images were pretty clean after light NR (not all shots needed it).

Just for fun here's an old G7 test video from like 2017. Shot in 4K, but I don't have the raw footage anymore so this is just the original 1080p export scaled to 4K in Adobe Media Encoder. 

Another thing to note, I recently did a paid video gig with an old Canon HF100 consumer camcorder. I bought it for like $60 just for fun "vibes" and the client, who is a young woman in her early 20s, got really excited when I said I could shoot with an old camcorder, and requested I shoot with it. So times you don't need the latest and greatest.

[Emanuel]

8 minutes ago, Matt Kieley said:

Just for fun here's an old G7 test video from like 2017. Shot in 4K, but I don't have the raw footage anymore so this is just the original 1080p export scaled to 4K in Adobe Media Encoder. 

 

Love this camera! : ) Right now, I have a crew to start working with my arsenal based on 4x units... What C mount lenses used there?

[Matt Kieley]

1 minute ago, Emanuel said:

Love this camera! Right now, I have a crew to start working with my arsenal based on 4x units... What C mount lenses used there?

Kern Pizar 26mm 1.9, Cosmicar 12.5mm 1.9 (some shots are punched in to crop out the vignetting).

[Emanuel]

13 minutes ago, Matt Kieley said:

Kern Pizar 26mm 1.9, Cosmicar 12.5mm 1.9 (some shots are punched in to crop out the vignetting).

That's what I always say to my people… This camera is a gem. Lets you use unique glass that’s nearly impossible to mount on anything else unless another MFT format device but what cam? ; )

This is what cinema is made of — and still made with ;- )

[Emanuel]

PS — Just to answer someone else out there to whom I’ve sent this link:

Nothing against it looking like video, if so.

Video is cinema : P 

If this means looking like it was made for the big screen in terms of narrative — well, docs are usually made in a different form.

But docs are also cinema ; )

That narrative form, usually made for the big screen, can also be reached through distinct ingredients such as cadence, dynamic range, lighting, framing and their respective language each element carries. Not to mention editing, pacing, sound design, and how it all aligns with intention.

That is, further to that — narrative intent doesn’t depend solely on medium or format.

Whether fiction or documentary, cinema arises from how all elements are orchestrated: rhythm, texture, spatial composition, sonic atmosphere. The so-called 'cinematic look' is less about resolution or gear and more about coherence — how lighting interacts with story, how movement informs meaning, how editing shapes perception. A documentary can be just as evocative, immersive, and crafted for the big screen as any scripted film — sometimes more so, precisely because it plays with reality through an authored lens.

Think of the slow-burn, meditative tempo of Chantal Akerman’s News from Home, or the hyper-composed observational poetics of Gianfranco Rosi’s Notturno and Fire at Sea — all undeniably cinematic. Or the emotional montage and reflexive voiceover of Agnès Varda in Les glaneurs et la glaneuse, merging essay film and personal documentary with formal invention. Even in cinéma vérité — like Frederick Wiseman’s institutional portraits — the framing, duration, and soundscape create a cinematic rhythm far beyond "capturing reality."

Lars von Trier’s The Idiots (Idioterne) and one of my favourite ever (as you well know ; ) offers another perspective on cinematic form, blending the boundaries between staged drama and spontaneous behavior. Shot with a raw immediacy and handheld style that can resemble documentary, it challenges traditional narrative structures and pushes cinema toward an exploration of social taboos and collective behavior. The film’s use of naturalistic lighting and unpolished texture contributes to its unsettling, immersive atmosphere, underscoring how cinematic expression can emerge from both form and content in provocative ways.

Closer to us ; ) Portuguese cinema brings its own deep contributions to this idea of documentary as cinema. Pedro Costa’s Vitalina Varela or No Quarto de Vanda / In Vanda’s Room unfold in shadow and stillness, shaped more by presence than plot — fiction and documentary blending until the line dissolves. And Manoel de Oliveira — whose films stand almost outside time — gave us a cinema where documentary, poetry, theatre and metaphysics cohabit the frame, inviting reflection instead of reaction.

Also worth noting in the video I’m commenting on here (shot on the Panasonic G7 with cheap C mount glass such as Kern Pizar 26mm f/1.9 and Cosmicar 12.5mm f/1.9 lenses) is the distinctive grain structure — a tactile, organic texture that enhances its cinematic feel. This film grain, far from being a flaw, enriches the image’s atmosphere and adds depth to the visual narrative, demonstrating how video can carry a rich, sensory cinematic language all its own.

All this just to say: the tools of cinema aren’t bound to fiction, nor to any one format. If it resonates, constructs space, breathes rhythm, and asks something of the viewer — it’s cinema, regardless of whether it was shot on film, video, or through a window.