How do you do video mode on the gx80?

[Sebastien]

Hi there,

I recently re-aquired a gx80 for a mere €180, because waiting for an update of the series by Panasonic is obviously futile (and a x-e5 costs almost tenfold). 
I'd really like to know in which modes you use or used the camera for shooting video. With the "VideoM" mode dailed in, and in "S" mode, the display reveals no information about which aperture or iso the camera is using, and whether the exposure is right. Same in A or P. When I stick to "M", I'll see if the scene is under or overexposed, but I have to operate Iso manually, on top of shutter, aperture and ND - this is a bit of a stretch in "run and gun" situations, which suit the camera very well, otherwise. I used to film in the A and S dial stills modes, but someone on this forum said that the camera won't stick to the values displayed when not running the video from the movie mode. 
What are or were your settings, especially when covering, let's say, L.A. riots or other environments in movement, with changing lighting conditions? Have you tried the Standard "S" or "A" stills mode?

[eatstoomuchjam]

10 minutes ago, Sebastien said:

L.A. riots

There are no riots in Los Angeles.  Get your information from a real news source.

[Sebastien]

5 minutes ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

There are no riots in Los Angeles.  Get your information from a real news source.

No offence, I am aware of that, and that wasn't the point I wanted to make.

[eatstoomuchjam]

3 minutes ago, Sebastien said:

No offence, I am aware of that, and that wasn't the point I wanted to make.

Using it as an example furthers the false narrative being pushed by the dipshit president and right-wing news outlets.  A better example might be "the large-scale protests planned all across the country this weekend."

As far as your other questions, as long as you're using a 180 shutter, once you become somewhat accustomed to the camera, your exposure controls are limited to ISO, aperture, and ND.  In you use a variable ND, in many situations, you'll be able to just set an ISO/aperture and dial in the exposure with the ND.

Otherwise, if you're less familiar with the camera and those settings, you might just use "S" mode and set the shutter to 180, put on an ND8 or ND16 if you plan to be outdoors, and just let the camera work out the aperture and ISO for you.

[Anaconda_]

When I had the camera, I basically just left it on A. Even when shooting on a Mediterranean island in the height of summer. I find that when documenting real life stuff, the 180 shutter rule is a bit more maliable than when shooting for narrative or performance.

In fact, I would go so far as to say for a protest, having a very fast shutter speed can even be advantageous as things move so quickly. You can pull crisp stills from your footage and any noticeable choppyness in the shots will emphasis the electric feeling of actually being there. 

With A you can just focus on framing and let the camera do the exposing. It will play with ISO and shutter speed, but keep you aperture locked to whatever you set it.

[newfoundmass]

When I had the GX85 I'd generally set the shutter and aperture and then leave ISO on auto when I was "running and gunning". I'd keep the shutter to the 180 degree rule, leaving only the aperture for me to adjust. Usually the camera did a good job adjusting the ISO. When it would occasionally get too noisy I'd add a little noise reduction in post and it'd be fine. I really only had that problem though when using zooms; the 1.7 primes (and even the 14.5mm 2.5) generally let enough light in that it wasn't a problem most of the time.

Great camera. I regret selling mine, though not having a mic input was always a bummer. If the S9 weren't out there I'd probably have bought another one, but I'll probably end up getting the S9 when the prices comes down even more.

[kye]

13 hours ago, Sebastien said:

Hi there,

I recently re-aquired a gx80 for a mere €180, because waiting for an update of the series by Panasonic is obviously futile (and a x-e5 costs almost tenfold). 
I'd really like to know in which modes you use or used the camera for shooting video. With the "VideoM" mode dailed in, and in "S" mode, the display reveals no information about which aperture or iso the camera is using, and whether the exposure is right. Same in A or P. When I stick to "M", I'll see if the scene is under or overexposed, but I have to operate Iso manually, on top of shutter, aperture and ND - this is a bit of a stretch in "run and gun" situations, which suit the camera very well, otherwise. I used to film in the A and S dial stills modes, but someone on this forum said that the camera won't stick to the values displayed when not running the video from the movie mode. 
What are or were your settings, especially when covering, let's say, L.A. riots or other environments in movement, with changing lighting conditions? Have you tried the Standard "S" or "A" stills mode?

Congratulations on your purchase! 

I have the GX85, which apparently is very similar to the GX80, but you might notice small differences perhaps, so I guess maybe not everything I say below will apply to you.

I shoot run-n-gun fast-paced stuff so probably very similar to the challenges you are facing.  Here is how I setup and use my GX85.

This is the screen, showing lots of handy info.

Going from top right, here's what I do.

I use the custom modes to store different configurations.  In this case, it's in C3 and that is fully-manual.  You can't set the mode (ie, PASM) once you've created the custom mode, you need to create the custom mode with the right PASM mode.  To do this you choose the right PASM mode that you want to use using the top dial, then save that configuration to the custom mode with the "Cust Set Mem" function, and then you can change to that custom mode using the top dial and then further customise that custom mode.

I use the standard profile.  I've done lots of testing and the standard profile is the most flexible if you're going to further tweak the colours in post.  If not, feel free to choose whatever mode you like.

I use focus peaking and have set it to a custom button to switch between the high and low sensitivities.  I use this in combination with making the display black and white so the peaking is more visible.

No flash.

4k 24p.

I've setup back-button focus.  This means the camera is in MF mode, but I have configured the AE/AF Lock button to enable AF while you hold it down.  The way I shoot with an AF lens is to push in that button, see what it focuses on (which is obvious because of the peaking) and then I release the button, then I hit record.  This means that the focus doesn't change during the shot.  This means the focus isn't hunting around all over the place, it's not focusing on the persons hand or on the person that walks in between you and your subject, it doesn't focus on the background if they move in frame, etc.
It won't follow them if their focus distance changes, which can ruin some shots, but my experience is that AF jumping around ruins more shots than the subject moving does.  Plus, if the subject moves slightly the aesthetic of them being slightly out of focus for a bit is far less objectionable than the AF jumping around for no reason.

IBIS is enabled.
IBIS gets a lot of criticism but if you stand still and hold the camera as still as you can then the IBIS will simply help you to be more stable and the jitters and jello effects can be reduced entirely.  Shooting in fast situations means that tripods and monopods are often too slow and cumbersome, but if you try and emulate a tripod by using IBIS (or better yet, combine IBIS with OIS from a stabilised lens) then you can easily get very stable hand-held shots that with a tiny bit of stabilisation in post can be perfectly locked off without and artefacts at all.

I set my AF to be in the middle of the frame, which combined with back-button focus is really fast and usable.  Even if you do the photography thing of putting the subject in the middle, doing AF, then setting up your composition, it all works perfectly.

I expose using the histogram.
Exposure is a big topic, but I have done extensive testing and have concluded the following.  
In the Standard profile, you can do quite significant changes to exposure and WB in-post, even with simple tools, if you keep the exposure in the middle.  The limits are that if something is clipped then it's clipped (of course!) and if it's in the noise floor then it's also gone.  Apart from that, you have lots of flexibility.

Audio meters show the levels.  I use auto-levelling, but audio isn't really a big part of what I do and if you only shoot short clips like I do then any variation in level that it introduces isn't going to be much over a short clip, and it saves more shots by adjusting itself than it ruins.  You can always set it to manual if you like.

Aperture and shutter speed.  I always use 1/50s when I shoot manually.  Adjust as you see fit, depending on if you want to expose with shutter speed and not use a vND.  Personally, I find that not having the exposure going up and down randomly is a good thing, and adjusting the shutter speed with the dial is just as painful as adjusting a vND.  
If you're using a manual lens then you can just set the camera once, and then all your controls are on the lens (vND, aperture, focus) so that's a really nice way of working.  Lighting doesn't change that much, especially in daytime exteriors, so it's not a big deal.  I've swapped to a high quality 2-5 stop vND and it's got enough range for daytime if you're willing to stop down a bit during the brightest bits.  In busy outdoor situations you don't want to blur the crap out of the background anyway, so stopping down is actually more relevant than isolating subjects to the point where the shot could have been taken anywhere.

The exposure meter is sometimes useful, but it's dumb.  For example if you're shooting a person and a white van drives past in the background it thinks that you should change the exposure.  Obviously that's dumb because you're shooting the person and not the van.

ISO200 = base ISO.  This camera doesn't have great high-ISO, so stick to base ISO when you can.

WB = 5600K.  I shoot exclusively in this mode.  After using auto-WB for many years, I've come to realise that while different lights appear different with a fixed WB, things look like what they are.  During the day things look right, sunset looks very warm but looks right, fluorescent lights look green but that also looks right.  I rarely change WB in post now, and if I do it's to even out and tiny variations between shots just to polish the final video.

My final piece of advice is to get a native zoom lens.  Either the 12-35mm F2.8 or 14-140mm F3.5-5.6 are great, but the 14-42mm kit lens is also very capable and not to be underestimated.  In complex situations you are often restricted in where you can move to, and will often want to zoom in to control your compositions.  Having AF speeds up your shooting substantially, especially when you might only have seconds to get rolling when you see a moment about to happen.

Happy to discuss further if you have questions, and I recommend searching around here, I've been posting lots of stuff over the years, including lots of tests and sharing what I have learned.

Also happy to talk about strategies for shooting coverage, etc.

Once you buy the gear and learn the settings you can make a video.  It's what's in front of the camera and what's behind the camera that determine how good that video will be.

[kye]

I forgot that for exposure I also use Zebras to show what is clipped.  

To expand on my exposure strategy, I try to expose to the right (ETTR) but making sure that the only things being clipped are things I'm ok with being clipped.  If the DR of the scene is significant, you have a decent ability to bring up the image in post, so underexposing high-DR scenes can be a good strategy.

This might sound silly, but when shooting in available light, having the sun clipped is just fine, at night having lights clipped is fine, etc.  The GX85 image can always be brought up in post, but you can't bring it down if something is clipped.

I have a good thread on testing the GX85 here.

Here is an example of the torture test I did with exposure and WB.

These are the test images SOOC:

Note that these are horrifically wrong in exposure and WB.  This is a torture test after all!

After correction:

Small adjustments in exposure or WB are completely possible in post.  

[Emanuel]

GX85 here too, just arrived from street back to my Lisbon place, 5 minutes ago, with one in hands... as casual shooter for covering this: https://www.portugal.com/activities-experiences/the-ultimate-guide-to-the-biggest-party-in-lisbon-santos-populares-and-santo-antonio-2024-edition/

+ FX30 with my new Sigma 16-300mm f/3.5-6.7 attached to 1.5x Clear Image Zoom and no complaints on ISO as far as low light concerns under street bulbs by night, go figure for 4K 25p always under ISO 1000;

+ Osmo Pocket 3 which didn't leave the case this time and it's one of my favs;

+ Insta360 One X2 in my shirt pocket, the same, despite its terrible low light/night shooting performance...

 

Its small form factor with the cheap kit 12-32mm f/3.5-5.6 lens makes it unique. Didn't even feel the need to use my Osmo, can you imagine?

And Panasonic batteries last and last... A single battery for all night long, two batteries for Sony.

 

Follow @kye's entry for everything else, it's for free and you have there more with him than whoever else here or anywhere out there ;- )