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Yeah, I bought one last week. Every time I opened my gear closet, a lens stared at me with sad eyes. But in reality I picked up a great deal for a new body, Panasonic travel battery kit, plus an instant rebate... So I couldn't pass on it. Eventually I wanted to get an interchangeable lens camera anyway, so this saved me some money because I probably would have bought a used C100. Yeah, I agree, I think the GX85 is a lot cleaner in the shadows than the G7. ISO 800, SEEMS, to be completely noise free at 1-2 stops under. Of course I have been exposing differently since I picked up the XC10. With the G7, I used 100% zebras to expose to the left, with the XC10 I learned quickly that you need to underexpose... Or expose to the center for best results. So with the GX85, I have my zebras set at 100 to catch any glaring issue, but am really just watching the meter and trying to keep it under by about a stop. I've also found the camera plays well at 4400 Kelvin in mixed light. I've yet to test the A3/G3 theory, but I haven't done any skin tone tests yet... Probably today. I've been using it with only vintage lenses... Minoltas, Canon FL and a few c-mount lenses. They render beautifully and they are so sharp. Aliasing is a problem in 4K but it seems to go away once downscaled to 1080. The IBIS is fantastic... Not as good as the XC10, but not too far off either. With my 12.5mm c-mount, I get full coverage, but if I pan too quickly, the image falls off the sensor's cliff into the dark abyss. All in all, it's a fun little cam... Wish the grip had a touch more meat to it.

I'm so stoked to use the Alexa Mini this fall for a project. Plan on doing some A/B testing with the UM4.6K as well.

I was doing a little panning and the lens was at mid/wide length I think. I love that the XC10's HD mode is so good and I use it a lot, especially for the 5 axis stabilisation but also for the low bitrate and of course 50p/slowmo. However the 305mbps UHD is unquestionably superior not just for detail but more importantly to me for colour (4:2:2), for motion cadence (high bitrate intra-frame) and for grading. It's just a very, very robust professional image that also fills a few holes my C100MkII doesn't cover - 4K for detailed wide shots, small size, timelapse, basic stills, superb IS/IBIS. Also a big deal for me is that it automatically down-samples the 10bit 4.2.2 UHD HDMI signal to HD to my Ninja Star, so I'm not missing 10bit ProRes from my BMPCC (which I just sold. *sob*). I too use the Rode VideoMic Pro with Beachtec MCC-2 setup, but on the end of a SmallRig hotshoe top handle. This makes the whole package function much more like a traditional camcorder or mini C100. The MCC-2 allows running a wireless mic to the XC10 simultaneously too. The top handle is also great for using with the 5-axis for glidecam like shots. iPhone lens is making the Rode mic seem much larger than it really is. Not sure if anyone else has mentioned this, but another really useful trick with this camera gets around the lack of custom buttons: Set the top dial to ISO, then use the mode dial to switch from Manual to Aperture Priority and/or Shutter Priority - select the aperture and/or shutter speed you want - then go back to Manual. This saves digging into the menus. I set custom button 1 to toggle powered IS on and off, button 2 as the ND and leave button 3 as Magnify (I did have it as AF but didn't use it - if I want manual focus I just flick the lens MF/AF switch). Focus is still a little unreliable even after the firmware update so magnify is handy for checking as peaking isn't always visible). Point being it isn't a perfect camera and I'll be interested to see how Mark II turns out, but the issues it has can be worked around. The feature I'd like to see most in MkII would be DAF, as this camera is an incredible shot grabber that delivers almost 100% useable images for me, with the exception of it sometimes being hard to get accurate focus. Of the niggles I have with it: I'd love to see a constant aperture lens but not at the expense of size. The lens could be a little wider too. More custom buttons is a necessity in the next model as even with my workaround white balance has to be changed in menu (though I use Auto WB most of the time). An EVF would be nice - I don't mind the loupe at all but it's a faff to carry around and makes the camera a little less inconspicuous (i.e. it looks quite weird). Overall though it's a fantastic, hugely underrated little camera and a perfect complimentary camera to the C100.

I do kinda get his point though. There's always people that are going to complain that equipment is too expensive for them. Ok, we get it. He can't buy the 16-50mm f/2-2.8 S lens and 400 USD is a stretch too. What I don't understand is... if that's not your ballpark... then don't look at it and complain about it. That's unproductive. And what I also get is that stuff just costs money, from a designing and engineering perspective. If you want something that's brand new and any good, there's probably some money involved to make it. That's just how it works. Complaining about something that's already fairly priced might be regarded disrespectful to the ones making 'em, although I wouldn't really go as far as saying it's disrespectful to the art in any way, except from the fact that everybody is dealing with the fact something is a certain price and they either sacrifice somethings to get the funds or just forget about it already. I love cars, especially the fast and exotic ones. Yet you won't see me complain that a McLaren is too expensive. Or even the Audi RS5. If it's not in my ballpark, I'll just have to look at other stuff that gets me from A to B. Can't afford a car, like... any car? Look at public transport! Can't do that either? Take a bike or go on foot! I mean... you want a cheap f/1.4? Get a 25mm APS-C covering C-mount lens from AliExpress/eBay or something already. Or a nice vintage piece of quality glass. Sure I agree. Budget forces perspective, a new way of thinking and resourcefulness. But you've got to explore that. You can't just sit around moping. Be creative with what you've got on focus your energy on the right things. That's all.

Very interesting info. Thanks. A quick tap of the joystick brings you into the function menu which seems pretty simple to change ISO, shutter speed, etc...? I tried exposing in TV but found I could ride exposure pretty easily with my index finger while tracking people. I love that it's stepless. Good idea to set Custom 1 to powered IS, I just left it for Display because I wear the camera around my neck with a strap. When walking to another location, the screen would bump against my chest and change something. So by pressing Display Off, it solved that issue. Button 2 I made ND... Which kind of annoys me because it seems to be either not enough or a hair too much... Wish it had one or two more stops of ND... Maybe MKii. And then button 3 I made Push AF, it's great to have it right there at my thumb. I tried to just switch back and forth, but I like how I can be on the long end and hit Push AF and hit my focus in a sec or two, and then readjust manually real quick for a rack focus. Of course, on tracking shots, I usually will flip on AF. Andrew was right about the focus ring... It really is abysmal. At first use, I thought... It isn't so bad, it feels a lot better than a lot of other focus by wire lenses feel like, but then when you really start using it, you get to witness the strange erratic behavior. That is my one major gripe with the camera. They took the time to make a nice zoom ring, but then just crapped all over the focus ring. Doesn't make sense. All in all though, it is the best camera I ever owned and just a complete joy to use. In some ways it's too good... If I don't watch myself and stay on my plan, I could easily have a 20:1 ratio because I just keep finding new angles and running footage. Btw, I didn't know it downscaled to 1080p for HDMI. Obviously since you're using the Ninja Star, then the monitor stays on. That's awesome news. I just picked up the GX85, on the cheap, so I could use my lenses and I was thinking about picking up a Ninja Star to go with it, now I have twice as many reasons to get one. Also, I like your audio set up. I was planning on picking up a top handle and you seem to have a good configuration there. The beachtek seems promising too. Do you attach the Ninja Star to that handle as well? And finally, I get you about the BlackMagic, I was planning on keeping my BMMCC for more controlled projects, but after using the XC10 for the past few weeks, I haven't used the Micro once, so I will list it for sale this week.

I jumped in the pool and the water is great! I have a BM 4K, but like the files coming out of this C500 better. It is hard to beat Canon color science. In my opinion color science is the essence of the image. When they packaged the C500 with the 7Q+ for what seemed an incredible price of $11,000 - $12,000, then Convergent Design ran a Summer special on the Raw Codecs.... I could not resist and pulled the trigger. I have not played with it much yet, just shooting test shots side by side with my BM 4K, both in raw and Prores. They are both very sharp cameras, but the C500 brings much more to the table like better color, higher speed, in camera NDs, works with all my Canon glass, EVF for bright sun. no sun spots, almost zero noise, great low light work. This is truly a professional camera. The 7Q+ is a fantastic monitor as well as a recorder. When my brother (who shoots also) saw the quality of the 7Q+ oled monitor, he summed it up in one word...... Wow! So far everything works as advertised. I cant say enough a bout Abel Cine for helping me put it together. I have been busy completing the build with a Tilta/ redrock rig and should do more shooting soon. And I hope to put up some links.

I have a story for you all: I work in a small non-profit independent movie theater. We saw a trailer for documentary on the economy that was well reviewed and booked it. Not thinking anything was amiss, just booking the documentary because it was well reviewed. What followed was a certain political party in town going absolutely ballistic. Calls came in that they would boycott our theater, one of our employees walked out (they came back, but would only work for us, but would never see a movie in the theater again...way to hold to you principles.), the leader of the party said in a public email to all their members that we were in cahoots with the other political party, that we had talked to party leaders and we should have our non-profit status revoked. Emergency board meeting was called, to give them credit, everyone on the board took a stand "Fuck em', show the film!" It was attended by every single board member and they told all their friends to go, it was the highest grossing documentary we have ever shown. It did far better than it would have if no fuss had been made. We threatened to take the party representative to court for slander unless he retracted his statement. They agreed, but only if we showed a political film from their side! During which a political candidate spent 20 minutes talking about the bad things the other party had done before the film started. Now when people come in asking for documentaries that have even the slightest political ties (most requests come from this party) we tell them we are never showing political documentaries ever again. People are no longer rational about these things, cannot take critism, and have created a us vs. them mentality. It's going to get really ugly before it gets better.

amen! exactly why I just got the Lytro cinema camera as a b cam for my Alexa 65 #sickofamateurs

My dear Nikkor 35mm F2 AI-S on the NX1

Could you post some comparison? -15 contrast sounds really extreme. Anyway can't you just go back to 0-255 in premiere even if shot at 16-235?

I'm an hobbyist at the moment so yeah it's expensive

Exactly. Than see my answers below. Answers below are only for vasile's NX-Patch! Bitrate slots will be applied according to this table Slot pro1 on NX1 is for all 4K, UHD and FHD* (*only when shooting over 30 fps) PRO quality setting (see table above). You can actually use hq1 or nq1 slot for a higher bitrate if you want to. Use make persistent in NX-Patch menu to save bitrates to flash memory, this will make them persist between reboots. Otherwise they will only be kept until power off, then they will return to previous values.

I certainly don't think Red looks bad, not that my opinion matters (I'm one of those hobbyists you mentioned and admittedly far from an expert). I actually think Red looks pretty fantastic. I've just heard my favorite cinematographer (Roger Deakins) and others rave about the Alexa. But I'm sure there are some who love Red just as much.

Sorry, I meant color correct. I find it easier to correct the white balance on the GX85, especially in mixed lighting. Don't know why but it just seems easier to get it right. It also holds up a lot better in the shadows and mids. Another thing which isn't exactly grading is that if I shoot a scene slightly underexposed to protect the highlights at iso 200 I can easily correct exposure in post without getting any noise in the image. On my GH4 I would often get a little noise if I missed exposure or WB. With that being said I would never have sold my GH4 if the GH5 wasn't on the way. As many has stated before me it's a great production cam. In fact the only thing I disliked about my GH4 was the low light performance.

No idea where you read conflicting reports. The a6300's 1080p doesn't touch the detail of the GH4 (or other panasonic cameras) unfortuantely It's similar to Canon and Nikon DSLR's. Oh here's a useful chart from dpreview. https://***URL removed***/reviews/image-comparison/fullscreen?attr29_0=sony_a6300&attr29_1=nikon_d5500&attr72_0=1080&attr72_1=1080&normalization=full&widget=383&x=-0.1870641825970696&y=0.25664931499999993

Samyang announces a full frame 20mm 1.8. It with NXL it's a 24mm F1.4 WOW!!!!!! :-))))) http://briansmith.com/samyang-announces-full-frame-20mm-f1-8-lenses/

Here's a rolling shutter test: As you can see it's a lot better in 1080. @mercer did you buy a GX85? I haven't tried the G7 but I just sold my GH4 learned how out much easier it is to grade footage from the GX85. Will get a GH5 when it comes out and can live a few months with the limitations of the GX85.

Nooo... Don't do it.

What the heck? You live in Kansas or something?

It being a big company has all sorts of bearing on it because you're not screwing anyone over, and therefore shouldn't feel bad about it. Do you not understand that this situation is highly unusual, and unworthy of your puritanical rants on what you think is right? A camera had a GIANT price reduction during his 30 day grace period - that a big company benefits from. Adorama, or any other big company, MAKES MONEY on their 30 return policy via customer satisfaction and impulse buying. The situations like Dave's are rare, but this is a situation where the customer gets the benefit of that policy. This has no bearing on the separate issue of people buying cameras only to use them and return them, that's a totally different situation where there is an INTENT to take advantage, there was no intent here. It's a 30 day CUSTOMER SATISFACTION POLICY. Dave wasn't satisfied with it's value within 30 days, it doesn't matter why.

Hi, thanks for the feedback. I had some Zeiss MK3 Superspeeds that are T1.3. Perhaps you're thinking of those ? If you have specific shots you want to know about I can probably remember what I was doing. Thanks again. JB I agree, I think the Olympus cameras are highly customizable, once you spend the time to set them up and understand them. JB One thing that's not well know is that there IS a difference in the construction of the IS between the various bodies (some are magentic and fully float) The EM5II is the most advanced of all the current bodies :-) JB

So, is it confirmed that there is a new sensor in the GX85, or a tweaked sensor, because from my preliminary tests it seems to play in a different playground than the G7 does. Obviously, it's a whole lot sharper without the OLPF, but the colors seem different. With -5 Con, -5 Sharp, -5 NR and -2,-3 Sat, the results are almost perfect out of camera with still just enough room for some mild grading. I even tested my Canon FL 35mm 3.5 with the poorly reviewed Fotodiox Excel+1 focal reducer, and it's sharp as a tack with gorgeous rendering. If this is any preview of the GH5...

I hate talking politics because its a zero-sum game. Nobody wins. Every ideology is flawed, because we as humans are flawed. A liberal management unchecked will exploit capitalism and everyone suffers when free trade consumes their daily bread - like Uber to taxi drivers and AirBnB to hotel workers, or China and Mexico to automobile factory workers. A conservative management unchecked will end up exterminating... well anything that walks funny. But everybody embodies both ideologies at different times and in different situations. As a whole, people are stupid en-masse and selfish, but as Bronn said in Game of Thrones about Geofrey: There is no cure for being a cun*

John Brawley published another film with blog post shooting with only the Olympus E-M5ii handheld, flat film profile, and external prores recorder. Looks really nice! https://johnbrawley.wordpress.com/2016/08/10/intrigue-how-far-will-you-go/

Received my GX85 last week in time for a Friday wedding and just wanted to share my initial thoughts on the camera (being a GH4 and GX7 owner) and a short teaser film I made for the couple I filmed with the camera on Friday. Heads up: this is the same post I put on personal-view to avoid any duplicate reading time ;-) Firstly, operationally, this camera with its stabilisation is a gem. For a number of years now, every time I've wanted to go handheld at a wedding I've had to remove my baseplate and attach my Zacuto target shooter and z-finder (I don't keep the Zacuto baseplate on permanently as I value the GH4s flippy screen way too much). Weddings being as they are, this meant I only used my mini rig at strategic times of the day when the switchover meant I wouldn't miss anything. So having it built in meant I could go handheld whenever I wanted; and I did. I had it slung around my neck most of the day, operating my GH4 on tripod and mono as my A Cam and then choosing certain moments to use the GX85. As the day progressed I began using the GX85 more and more and it gave me a photography-like framing freedom to the height and angles I could get to without having to hoist up my beloved monopod or put my tripod down into low leg move. I can see the pitfalls of a device making shooting so easy... you get lazy... but on Friday I felt a freedom and creativity I haven't felt in a long time. I started looking with my eyes more knowing that my gear wouldn't stop me getting into position (and quickly at that). And the quality of the stabilisation? Well, you can probably already tell from the videos that it's incredible. And where I wouldn't normally go handheld with anything over 25mm on my Zacuto, by the end of the day I had my Nikon 105mm and speedbooster (making it 75mm) and it was fantastic, allowing me to grab shots that normally I'd have to set a tripod up for. And with some practise I felt quite comfortable panning gently with it too, it doesn't come to a hard stop like the Olympus stabilisation seem to, it tapers off nicely. I won't comment too much on image quality at this stage as I haven't had time to pore over the footage. My initial feeling is that in terms of DR, detail and colour it is on par with the GH4 with a slightly different colour signature. I feel it is definitely less noisy than the GH4 at high ISO (which is a boon for my work, although I'm really not afraid of noise as much as some people) but detail and DR like normal still seem to struggle once you hit 1600. Also, I don't think the slow-mo (50p/100 shutter on a 25p timeline) is as good as the GH4, doesn't seem as fluid. The GH4 has fantastic 50p. Again, please take this with a pinch of salt as I've scanned my footage for all of an hour and never have time or inclination to pixel peep (too busy editing bloody weddings!). It's just my feel. Now the cons to the camera.... instantly the moment I took it out of the box and put it up to my face I was disappointed. I love the left-side EVF, it means guests can see more of my face and I can smile to put them at ease and more easily talk to the bride and groom if doing any direction. However, that damned left strap lug just sticks into my nose. The GX7 has the correct placement of this lug and I cannot believe Panasonic engineers changed it and then didn't think about the consequences. Anyone else notice this? I want to hold the camera to my nose for additional stabilisation and can't do it comfortably now. I can live with it, but found myself pushing the viewfinder upwards into my eye socket so I didn't have red marks on my nose all day. It's workable, but the GX7 lug placement was perfect. Secondly, no battery charger included. You have to charge the battery in camera which is less handy when you want to have your second battery on charge while using the first. I do this a lot. Obviously it's a real shame it doesn't have mic input, but I understand this isn't a pro model. I just have to choose wisely when I use it for my work until the GH5 comes out as audio clips are so important to the way I edit (I use natural, candid audio whenever I can, especially in my longer edits). However, I really will have so much pleasure using it for my work in the meantime, and it is now the perfect personal camera for me too. So here is a mini teaser video I put together for my bride and groom from Friday. Shots 1, 2 and 4 at 50mm, shots 3 and 5 (cliff ones) at 75mm. Yes, I have slowed them down, but I would be more than happy (and will) use them at normal speed too. The 75mm on the cliff was a bit of a wow moment for me. With the wind the way it was, there is no way I would have been able to get the shot on a monopod that steady, and I would have never been able to get the variety of shots I did if I were using a tripod (there was no time for a tripod anyway). The GX85 is opening my mind up to new possibilities. All shots straight out of camera, natural w/ -2 contrast, -4 sharpness, -3 NR:

Here is what Standard default looks like on a sunny day (NR -2): To me, that's what I saw, and what I wanted to convey. If you want something unrealistic with a "look" then you may want to use Natural as a base. But it is not at all clear whether you should also drastically reduce contrast, saturation and sharpness in the camera when you shoot, since altering those in post forces you do it on a highly compressed, 4:2:0 8-bit video. Camera settings, however, are invoked prior to compression. I think you should get the look you want in the camera (whatever that is), but others seem to want to do more in post based on severely altered from normal settings in the camera. Why not try to get the camera to produce the look you want (there are lots of controls), and then tweak in post from there, rather than trying to get a "blank slate" out of the camera that needs a lot of work in post? No flat setting really mimics RAW video. In any case I am not advocating your videos should look like the one I posted; it is just an example of what one setting produces.