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I've been a production partner on Youtube since 2006, back when they had human content curators and we had to sign paper docs to be part of the program. The problem is that an algorithm can't see "quality" it can only see data. Since Google is all about the algorithms they are unequipped to help viewers find the quality content that is/was being posted to their service. The human curators were great. I could tell them that we had an exclusive review of a new car (one that might not even have a lot of search requests yet) and they would put it front and center. Most of our videos trended on the platform as a result. Once they were replaced, that ended and I stopped seeing YouTube as a reliable platform for distribution. Ideally, YouTube would incorporate a mix of content; Some, algorithm based, with section editors that could curate key sections: automotive, film, drama, comedy, etc. However, that is directly against the Google-way, which is unfortunate.

While low-light is a plus, I'm really more curious about dynamic range and highlight roll-off. I am currently on the fence with investing in a C200...awaiting Monday.

Back in the day lots of filmmakers would shoot on older-tech film stocks 'kuz they were cheaper than the less grainy stuff. Or, they used older film stocks because it gave them a look they were going for. Not much different from deciding what sensor to use now-a-days. The thing is, technology advancement blew through the financial barrier about a decade ago. At this point anyone that's deep into wrangling the best IQ out of something...is probably just doing it to wrangle the best IQ out of something. There's literally about a hundred consumer cameras for under 1K that will allow a "Filmmaker" to go out and capture awesome footage. Hell, to support a school's volunteer filmmaking club, I just bought a GH1's for $95 and a Pentax f2.8 prime lens set 18mm, 24mm, and 50mm for $50. A laptop to edit 1080 footage can be had for, what, $250? If that's not the doors wide open, what is? Someone with skill in the craft could make that look not only fine, but exceptional. It will never look AS GOOD as a better camera in a good craftsman's hands, but people don't watch narratives to pick at the technical details. Accomplish the goals of good storytelling with decent cinematography and you're on your way. Love new gear stuff, but there's so much else to concentrate on, just can't get excited about it anymore. One more anecdote: I'm on a film festival committee, one of our selected films was shot on the GH5, another on the Arri. Hand to god, while I can certainly tell the difference, the IQ is such a non-factor it's ridiculous. The lighting in the GH5 film was creative, the Arri film lighting was boring...

Obviously, the GH2 has a little bit of a head start but yes, there seems to be a different level of filmmaking that occurred 4-5 years ago compared to today. I think it’s a combination of beliefs and methods that forced people to be creative with what they had, the limitations created aesthetic opportunities, but these limitations also kept the membership much smaller... Now with the advancements, a lot more people have decided to give it a try. On eBay alone I have seen about 6 GH5s up for sale in the past month where the seller said they bought it because they decided they wanted to make music videos or short films but have since moved on to other interests. When the tech becomes more important than the content, there will be an influx of mediocrity. With that being said, I have seen a ton of nice GH5 work, but I’ve also seen a ton of nice t2i work and with all of the tech and visual enhancements of new cameras, I cannot say that the GH5 videos are better than the t2i or the GH1 videos I’ve seen. Hell, look at Kendy Ty... his films have gotten worse since he moved on from the t2i. Other’s films have gotten better. Interesting post.

Where Netflix has invested billions in content, YouTube is happy to leave it up to Logan Paul. Read the full article

Please take my headline with a blinking eye:) With the GH5 a whole new crowd of videofans are doing their short seqences of slowmotion and IBIS demonstration. But indeed most of these pieces in my opinion don´t show subjects of visual interest but random results of moving hair and moving girls heads and lips and eyes from all so common angles with nothing in the frame but the slomo victim, may it be human, flower or the elements of nature. Any of these shots taken as a still put on a wall would make a mediocore choice. Here is a video showing what the GH5 does not seem to enable shooters of the vimeo universe to achieve: simple choice of subject, disciplined lens and framing choice, intriguing but simple editing. Here it goes, the magic of GH2 makes it possible: staying true to the form, perfection in length!! , framing, subject and rhythm, composition in color and geometry. With the most common choice of subject, the human gestalt and the very common context of fashion.

Lots and lots of good points @mercer! All things considered, combined with a speed booster the GH5s should be enough for 90% of people (who don't need DPAF) and I applaud Panasonic for pushing forward like they are. But you're right, there's just no way to substitute for sensor size at the end of the day. There's a reason RED, Arri, and Sony are going "full frame" with their high end cinema cams, and it's not just marketing hype.

keeping the 5D3 for sure. full frame RAW for $1600 (bought a used one) is hard to beat. selling my BMCC and BMMCC.

Well, until Panasonic moves up to a larger sensor size, specifically full frame, one can argue they’re two steps behind Sony.

Yeah, I've had an EVA1 for quite a while. It's a plastic shell around a magnesium alloy frame. You can see it if you watch Wooden Camera's video for swapping the EF mount with their PL mount. No complaints about build quality here.

After you, my friend!:) @Goose I second that!:)

This video proves that GH5 "S" is not only a low light camera, but a lowlight sea MONSTER. It also works underwater, as the scene gives us obvious clues to this feature. Also the use of boats suggest that it will be shipping soon.

@mercer exactly, profound analysis. It took cinegain digging into 6months old vimeo posts to find a decent GH5 video. I found the cinematographer with the GH2 on the first page with vimeosearch by date, just searching for GH2. @Cinegain, first example is long, and seemingley milking the concept without offering much visual interest in doing so, 2min seems bloated to me. Tonal gradation more nuanced in the hightlights than what typical GH2 videos show. It is not offering cinematography but photography rather so, with all that slow and unspecific movement. Second video looks colorwise like osiris lut has been used. I have seen only super few GH5 videos that have wowed me due to the generic approach in all departments of cinematography, lack coming from users side. Here is another nice one from the same cinematographer. 36 seconds of well chosen angles, framing, subject distance, distinct choice and parts of movements. Even in slomo:) Also Shows great understanding of the basic graphic principles and works them to the best effect.

Hmm, my techniques for avoiding certain social media's content must be working. I've never heard of him before your blog post.

As anybody who reads my comments already know, I bought a 5D3 last Spring and instantly fell in love with the images I was getting. After almost two years of searching for the right camera for the stuff I was looking to shoot, I found it in the 5D3. But... I am the first person to admit that the post process of ML Raw can be a little tedious and requires a massive amount of storage. Since I am a hobbyist with narrative dreams, I’ve been searching for a second camera to shoot fun little vignettes in between shooting days with my 5D3. Shooting is a form of meditation for me and instantly calms me. After a couple of cameras, I ended buying an RX10ii on the cheap. Now I had the camera last year but struggled with getting good color from it. This time around, I’ve decided to mostly shoot in sLog2 and Cine2 with monochrome and I am pleasantly surprised by how good the images turned out on my first outing with it. I’ve always loved B&W photos and movies, but I’ve never really shot much with it, so I look forward to learning and experimenting more with it. Now, I have been posting around here for a few years and color science, correction and grading are all popular discussions but there is rarely mention of B&W. Does anyone shoot in B&W anymore? Does anyone have any video or screengrabs that were captured in B&W or turned to B&W in post that they’d like to share? Or even strong opinions for or against it? I’ll start off with a few screengrabs. The first two were shot in sLog2... And this one was shot in Cine2...

I think your frustration is misplaced, Andrew. I fail to see how it is up to google and FB to kill their own platforms by curating (censoring) content. If they did that then they would be overtaken overnight. Period. I work full time in marketing at a company that sells 90% online and I can tell you that YT and FB are perfectly oiled machines that serve consumers exactly what they want to see. That's why they are worth billions. What you've overlooked is that if consumers truly wanted different content, then YT and FB, using the exact same algorithms, would serve up that different content. It's that simple. My own YT and FB feeds don't show me the crap you're upset with because I never interact with it. It shows me camera stuff, exercise stuff, and puppy videos lol . That's it. If you really want content that's curated (again, censored), it already exists: It's called TV and nobody wants it.

I definitely see why you are angry. Andrew. And i think it is our duty to look and see and point out the problems we see in our society. Like you have. To create discussion. Words (typing) are powerful, and when people come together things get done. The "everything sucks so F**k it, i dont care, nothing matters" attitude, is so 6 grade. I wouldn't say Youtube is the greatest but i have to say there are some amazing talented people that produce great work on the platform. There is also the opposite. Some of the worst people and crap has been produced for youtube but also some of the best. In a way its the price of free speech. Our freedoms are being challenged everyday. Youtube is one of the few places someone with no money can succeed for good or bad. TV channels are censored and controlled by multiple agendas. Try sway your opinion in the direction they like. I feel it is more the peoples job to change how things are. On the web and on youtube. But NOT censorship. Youtube doesn't care, but they do if we make them care. Corporation don't care, but they care if we make them care. You created EOSHD and you do with it want you like. May people thank you for it! i do. Just like the EOSHD forum I'm glad that geniuses, idiots, asshole, artist, awesome people and everyone in-between can say what they want.

The GH2 holds up incredibly well considering it was released, what, 8 years ago now? I shoot with the GH2 and GH4 all the time. I pretty much prefer the GH4 100% of the time, but the difference isn't massive. I can't imagine that the GH5 isn't better in every way but I guess the question is, who cares? I know it's a tired old argument at this point, but talent and creative choices matter way, way more than gear. Most of the content out there, the cameras used are overkill and a GH2 would service them just find. Take a professional hollywood level set, turn on a GH2 and I think people would be utterly shocked with the result. Because ALL OF THAT OTHER STUFF is what actually matters.

For the most precious population of serious GH users (documentary and first-time, stepping the game indie art-shooters ), GH5 is in fact first major step above hacked GH2 - because of IBIS and enough advanced color science (very plastic or deeply sculpting color possibilities). Next major step for that population has to be just one: RAWs - i. e. to finally integrate BMPCC (BMCC) and Canon ML into functionally extremely+ competent Panasonic body... Everything between (incremental software games with rollofs, lowlight, slow motions, even impossible inclusion of ND etc.) are postponement (and sucking GAS-money ) intermediate steps. Anybody who once upon a time shoot and fall in love with early BM (or Canon ML) cameras wait for the first brand who will give also functionally completed experience - most probably it will be Panasonic.

Why do you think there needs to be quality and expensive content on Youtube? It sounds like you are trying to turn a generic video blogging platform designed for one kind of content into something it wasn't designed to be.

I will say Bloom’s example video, “The Telescope,” is some beautiful work and definitely shows what the camera can do... Not the 5D3? Your footage was gorgeous! Some of the nicest ML Raw samples out there.

Agree completely. Just such sort of improvements for me could make formula GH5s > GH5 = 1000e (grey market price) acceptable. Anything else is +/- seductive gimmick and GAS dron attack...

Wow so much anger Joachim! If only you were as angry about "everything feeds us shit and always has"... or "money makes the world go round"... Because normal human response to this is to be angry and try and change things. Maybe you are not human? A Russian troll perhaps?! Anyway it sounds like your opinion there is pretty similar to what I said in the article if you think YouTube is feeding us shit and always has. By the way... It's not a "trivial rant". The only thing trivial here is your response. A resigned *sigh* rather than a call for quality content. This is a very simple problem to fix. YouTube takes editorial responsibility, ditches the algorithm driven trending home page and ranking system, actively promotes good quality stuff so that people sees it, starts investing in content like all other TV networks do. YouTube is not just a platform for hosting videos, it is a mass media channel. Time they took responsibility. And if you don't understand that Joachim or what's at stake... why the fuck are you a filmmaker? You may as well not be.

Yep, it is my experience that those who throw out the word fanboy are usually the most guilty of the behavior. Now I’m sure the GH5s will be an amazing camera and the majority of this forum will make quality work with it, but it still won’t match what can be achieved with a FF camera and it will never be as good as an Alexa or even the lowest level of actual cinema cameras. Although, judging by what Luke has been sharing, it should bridge that gap. But Sony, Canon or Nikon could release a FF, 10bit, video monster tomorrow, if they wanted to, and the nature of sensor size would leave Panasonic with their dork in their hands. But for today, in a lot of respects, Panasonic is narrowing the benefits of a larger sensor with the benefits of video features. Now if Panasonic pulls a rabbit out of their hat and gives us internal 1080p Raw or 4K ProRes with exportable 4K Raw and IBIS (or built in NDs) then it will be a very hard camera for me to ignore and I may trade up when I am finished with my current project. But at only $2499, those things seem unlikely and I suspect some software/hardware magic will be delivering the best lowlight camera for Micro 4/3. And for those invested in Micro 4/3, or those who enjoy the benefits of the sensor size and freedom of the mount, it should be a great upgrade. It won’t be long now.

Viewers empathize with children and childish behavior. Spielberg is probably my favorite director, and he often chooses children as protagonists for this reason. (His adult protagonists are childish in their own way.) This isn’t any different. These guys know what they’re selling and what they’re doing. It’s not even that different from the appeal Trump has on the Apprentice: childish, impulsive behavior, enabled by seemingly infinite wealth–a kid with a blank check and no parents at FAO Schwarz, who you can both enable and live vicariously through just by watching. Which isn't really so bad or so different from what's come before. To me this stuff does seem worse, but I'm old and out of touch. Reality tv seemed bad in its time. Home Alone seemed irresponsible. Unless you want to censor speech on moral grounds, it’s on the viewer to choose something else, and the producer to self-censor in response to community boycotts or reduced viewership. This is what happened with the MPAA. This can work. Pewdiepie’s racism and antisemitism have already cost him financially, though not by much. It’s on the viewers to choose. Just as it’s on the voters. If you see content you like, share it and support it financially. If you think something is wasting your time, turn it off.

@kidzrevil well said! Unfortunately, consumers are impressed and motivated by bigger specs. For instance, 10bit video... although great for a lot of users who want to bend and shape their color in post, for most users, 10bit video is overkill and the benefits are minimalistic at best. To be clear, the footage I’ve seen from members of this forum looks great but Panny is right, if you scour YouTube and Vimeo, the overwhelming majority of footage shot in 4K 10bit, should be more visually compelling. And the majority of those folks’ videos would look just as good if they shot it in 8bit. Hell, I’ve asked almost a dozen times on the various GH5 forums about the 10bit 200mbps all-i 1080 up to 60p and all I get are crickets. To me that is the most interesting spec on the GH5. Actually, I just found some casual 1080p footage from the GH4 that is as good as a lot of the casual GH5 videos floating around... Now I’m sure that guy would make great GH5 videos as well, because obviously the GH5 is an amazing camera, but I can’t wait until more of it starts popping up. For now, I’ll continue to check out old videos from forgotten cameras.

EVA1 is winner here with more modern codec, lowlight with much less chroma noise and artefacts, higher resolution, fatter additional 400mbps codec and Varicam color science. It´s a true indy cinema camera whereas FS7 is an ENG workhorse. The test above is not showing significant footage, it´s like the cat shooting game from the DSLR days, not revealing anything about the quality of the camera. It´s wordy but not showing its assumptions. FS5 codec is has been proved to be crappy a lot of times. FS7 240mbit codec is old and full of artefacts in lowlight. IT´s still the top choice for every day ENG work, because for that it offer great ergos, approaved broadcast quality and most of all workflow. For indy cinema EVA is an awesome choice for the reasons I gave above about cinematic image with Varicam colors and filmic noise structure and high resultion with superior codecs. The GH5 is such a hit, that zillions of beginners shooting with this powerhouse. It´s been so popular for every videoshooter, so many beginners shooting with it. Thatfore vimeo gives us dozens and zillions of beginner level footage. Believe me, GH5 in 8bit HD REC709 is already giving cinema experience quality color within three nodes of a quick grade. That´s why it´s a megaseller, because of it´s potential and technical prowess. Buyers just don´t know how to take advantage of it and shoot everyting in LOG without having an idea about the workflow. You guys know what I mean Footage please Why did you sell it?

Fine. Simple and useful. Any decent/old 2.8 on an M43 camera are perfectly acceptable as far as I'm concerned. Really, for less than $200 you're shooing with capabilities that any filmmaker from a generational ago would have killed for.

Probably not too great if he’s giving them to a bunch of needy kids... Seriously though, Pentax primes are amazing... especially for what they go for.

You do realize you just confirmed that the GH5 is better than the Arri...

I feel the need... the need for L.Monochrome.

Some great examples on this thread; learning a lot. I love B&W and have been playing with the L Monochrome mode on my GX80:

Or maybe was just "Sony is selling, let's copy them'. But I think it is a good move.

You need to change your username to "Sherlock Holmes"!

I suspect the availability of more affordable cinema cameras such as Blackmagic also has a lot to do with the lack of higher quality artistic GH4/5 short films compared to the GH2 era.

And the approach to the whole "being a filmmaker" has changed since the GH2, not for all but for a lot of people. It feels like the majority of people who bought the GH2 with video in mind spent more time learning about the image and the tools to grade it than the majority of GH5 buyers do today. As a result Youtube is filled with GH5 stuff that looks meh. Lets say you're 14 year old. You want to become a star like them other big Youtubers. But your concentration span is about as long as it takes for a Tesla to reach 60mph. What would you rather watch? "Learn the basics of cinematography - 10 parts, 1 hour each" or "INSTANT FILM LOOK IN 1 MINUTE, AMAZING RESULTS, EASY PEASY, JUST BUY THESE LUTS" Nothing wrong in using LUTs, or auto features of a camera. But things have changed, just saying.

Here's an idea- teach your children to identify and resist manipulation in advertising (ironically the opposite of what I do for a living). Don't depend on the fucking iPad, television, Hollywood, Madison Ave, or the government to raise your kids unless you want them to become a case study for the american college of pediatricians. As a fan of the obnoxious nostalgic nonsense that is 80s hair metal, it's funny watching the parallels between Twisted Sister, Poison, PMRC, and today with YouTubers. Same crap just different generation.

I must play my tiresome part here Of course a lot of GH2 footage, from years ago, looks better. It's before the mass over-use of V-LOG gamma profiles that kill color tonality. That said, the GH5 4K in a standard, or very gentle LOG gamma, is a sweet image indeed!

Yes, the native GH2 color (with Smooth -2 and Flomo 2) is better than the GH5s native color. I will never sell my GH2, just because of its significance to me. Maybe I will do a GH5 > GH2 conversion for a bit of fun & nostalgia haha

@PannySVHS I think think what you're noticing is more a change in the type of projects you're finding on Vimeo over anything which reflects the cameras themselves. Everything you mentioned in your original post is to do with behind the camera or in front of the camera, not the camera's actual capabilities. The GH5 is obviously a vastly superior camera in virtually every aspect. However it has become more common to shoot and upload short, no budget, aimless camera tests / home movies these days than it was in the days of the GH2. I know because I do it myself. I also think it's very hard to judge a camera based on what you find on Youtube or Vimeo. The projects where the camera is used most professionally are probably commercial or professional productions for brands which don't put 'GH5' in the tags. Again I know this from experience. None of the higher level professional work I do goes on my own channels, and the last thing big brands are concerned about is tagging the make of the camera it was shot with. Speaking for myself, if you do this for a job, 5 days a week, what goes on your personal Vimeo channel tends to be a bit more slapdash and aimless because you're doing it to experiment and relax, rather than produce your best work. Having said that, I was looking at some old GH2 footage the other day and was struck by how natural and beautiful the colour was straight out of the camera.

Should check out some fashion films on Vimeo... e.g. Thing is... at the time of the GH2, normal folks weren't really looking for an 'in' to cinematography, just us enthusiasts and perhaps professionals that would love to either get into it affordably... or just because of the compact factor. And that was pretty close to the 5DmkII and T2i/550D boom that made us focus on these kind of cameras. These days, especially with vloggers using DSLRs and mirrorless cams, we've been seeing everyone doing test videos and that's the thing that get searched for most as well, because people are still looking for their 'in' right now, now that this method of shooting has evolved. Andrew, Caleb, Dave didn't have a GH5 guide out that quick, so then every n3wb had their chance to play important and release reviews and recommendations about stuff they actually hardly know a thing about. And it has become way more accessible as well, so there's just more people getting into it... but nobody really knows what they want to do with it... so you have people with 0 knowledge and 0 experience, but this camera and all they can come up with is shooting test videos, figuring things out. That's not a very good measurement to base anything on however. The GH5 is undoubtedly more capable than the GH2 was and WILL in the right hands, be a much better tool with better results. Though yeah, when there was this 'pick one camera for the rest of your shooting' or something, the GH2 was the one I picked. Just because you only had the basics to worry about and because it really was my first interchangeable lens camera, which I bonded with and learned from so so much. But nostalgia has little to do with how a camera actually performs or what it is capable of. That's still down to the person operating it.

Any good documentary maker would likely keep on filming too. Many war corespondents will of course tell tales of exactly the same situation, where they couldn't put the camera down but had to pick it up to capture the story even under horrible circumstances (often quite the reverse, as the more horrible it is, the more important it is they report on it!). Now of course Logan Paul isn't a doco maker, he is a "YouTuber". But in a way, that is kinda sort of the "same thing"? As a vlogger he is making a mini documentary, every single day. Look on the upside perhaps? He is bringing more attention to Japan's terribly high suicide rates, maybe will do his tiny part in helping open a discussion to do something about it. Oh, and as for censorship, I don't believe in any of that. "We don't have free speech to talk about the weather".

If you've ever suffered 5 minutes of Youtube Kids, your "algorithm" statement is completely correct. Watch Sonic the Hedgehog drive Lightning Mcqueen off a skyscraper 1500 feet onto a farting velociraptor with breasts and Don Johnson loafers... while "Daddy Finger" repeats in the background. I kind of hate that social media has given literally everyone a voice when I see Logan Paul as an example. -Since feeling special and accepted is an ingrained part of every human being's natural make-up, social media, Youtube, etc.. - keeps us buried in our phones, constantly seeking value in "likes" and whatever trivial bullshit virtual currency there is. It's a breeding ground for ill-advised priorities and narcissism. Even if it’s just subscribing, you’re piggy backing a sense of community for the almighty motive - attention. Everything is literally based on attention. It drives the motive of most media "outrage" these days with a voice that says "Judge this motherf---er. It's trendy." or some idiot's default response to go full LiveLeak on a dead body. F'king Nightcrawler. He's done.

When the NX1 came out Philip Bloom bought it but didn't use it very much as he said the dynamic range was limited. I thought it was a bit limited too, turns out we were both wrong... Here is the effect of Fast Colour Corrector in Premiere changing output levels to 16-235 for NX1 clips recorded in 0-255 RGB range mode. Original file - blown out clouds... And here is an additional 1-2 stops in the highlights from enabling Smart Range + in-camera - I'd put this camera right up there for image quality now... Right near the top of the pile. Both sample images shot with the superb NXL adapter by the way with Canon 50mm F1.2L full frame FOV and DOF. Thanks Luca