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Hey, finally done with the trailer to our debut feature film at 55Media shot almost entirely on the Panasonic GH5 (some shots on the GoPro6 and P4P) in just 12 days. Our best work yet. Movie is still going through post-production. Production company: 55Media Director/Writer: Uche Aguh Director of Photography: Dennis Schmitz (me) Assistant Director: Ukairo U. Ukairo. Starring: Jarius Drew Sowells, Kayode Akinyemi, Vincent Ramirez, Thiree Pinnock, Julian Horton, Obum Nwankwo and J Shawn Durham as 'Daddy G' Editing done in Premiere. Colorgrading done in Davinci Resolve. Dealing with the usual quirks of this camera, but results are still great. More information: www.imdb.com/title/tt7928156 www.55media.net

I see a lot of "why didn't they have this at release" or "with Fuji you're buying a half-baked camera" comments across all forums. That's complete bunk. The XT2 was a great camera when I bought it shortly after release. It is much better than the a6300 it replaced. It got a Dpreview Gold award, and lots of praise from other reviewers that weren't on Fuji's dime. Fuji is never going to be cutting edge - especially on the video side. They've addressed bugs in a timely manner. Even without the feature updates its still a great camera. The fact that we're getting stuff like continued AF improvements, 120p and focus stacking without having to buy a new body like Sony is a bonus. Every camera I've owned in recent years had issues, including the Blackmagic Pocket, 5d2, 5d3, Samsung NX1, a7r2, a7s2 and XT2. Samsung fixed some of the problems and then abandoned the NX before sorting the obnoxious noise at 1600 and above. Blackmagic took too long to issue fixes so I sold it. Canon issued bug fixes and added 24p to the 5d2. Sony did a bug fix update on the a7's, but fixed everything else in the a7r3. Fuji has done the most, and its not close. You know damn well Sony could add PP's to the a9, improve the AF algorithms of all its cameras, or add features to its other cameras - but they do nothing except release new bodies. My a7r2 is now worth barely more than my XT2, despite costing twice as much. The continued refinement is one reason I'm in the Fuji camp. I buy what works for my needs, but its nice to have the camera get better over time. Chris

As everyone in these forums has already figured out, in the last few days, at NAB, we have 2 more contestants in the Best M43 Video Category, and suddenly in the sub-2k Category, we have now 3 Very Competent Cameras for the Ultimate Face-off for Features and Price. The bad part is that there is there is a lot of confusion, and some would want to own All Three (or atleast test them comprehensively). The Good part is, any of these 3 would be better than good enough. This is a face-off in terms of features, by way of Pros and Cons, between the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4k, the Z Cam E2 and the Panasonic GH5s. What is common is obviously the New Sony Starvis IMX-294 sensor and thus the excellent low light capabilities that come with it (Dual ISO) Here are the Pros and Cons of each. Please feel free to make corrections or additions. Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4k Pros: Cheapest of the 3 at $1295, which is approx. 35% Cheaper than the Z Cam E2 and approx 48% Cheaper than the Panasonic GH5s. Which is Huge TBO. The masters of post production colour and grade. Excellent colour science and the industry leaders in colouring and grading, and thus the ability to know what codecs, colour science and what bitrates would best suit cinema camera footage. The first guys to point out the fundamental flaws with ProRes RAW. I am betting on their Colour Science would be better than the other two. The only question would therefore be, by how much (considering how lovely the Varicam image it, I am guessing, by maybe a hair, in ProRes, though noticeable in RAW). Have a 5 year experience in RAW shooting Affordable Cinema Camera Manufacturing, with the Original Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera being a runaway hit, despite all its flaws, mostly due to its 13 stops usable dynamic range and its tiny form factor. The design on that one was superb even if the battery life a lack of ports was a major drawback. Bluetooth control Includes FREE DaVinci Resolve Studio thrown in, which itself is about another $299 alone It seems to be the only 1 of the 3, to have an onboard fan. Which seems odd, but Grant mentioned the advantage of a fan, saying that any kind of heat would adversely affect the image quality, having a degrading effect on the image. I am guessing it would introduces very visible noise, make the image soft, and also reduce dynamic range. This may be a clear advantage for the BMPCC 4k, for pushing slightly past the competition. Also, if the fan is anything like that on the MacBoom Pro, it would be very faintly audible, if at all. Right now, the BMPCC seems have the largest Codec options. Arguably the best Interface/ OS. Very predictive (like the Panasonic), with large clear button, and not insanely wide menus like Sonys, and everything very clearly laid out. A Bright and Large 5 Inch Screen Balanced Mini-XLR mic jack for some good on-board recording (though unlikely to replace a boom operator, or talents with lapels). 3 Onboard mic options (4 onboard mics, Mini-XLR and 3.5mm mic in options). SD and CFast Card option,s apart from SSD Dual Continuous Power options. One by way of USB type-C Limited storage options due to SD, CFast and USB options The Only one of the 3 offering RAW right now Cons: The largest in size of the 3. Though not the heaviest, and also, likely with the best ergonomics for comfortable long recordings. Codecs are limited to ProRes and RAW. Which, TBO is not a bad thing, considering the the sheer number of flavours of ProRes and RAW that are available, and the fact that ProRes starts at some very lot bitrates (PRoRes LT and Proxy). This could, though, be Incorrect, because I heard grant saying that it has HLG, which I am guessing would be on the H.264/ H2.65 platform (please correct me if I am wrong). It has a fan on board, which would mean that there is a possibility of it being heard, atleast in extremely quite environments. Also, the fact the heat wave may also be mildly distracting if you hold the camera in the hand Completely non-articulating screen. Most likely due to the dangers of a huge screen in a swivel design causing hinges to break easily or pushing into wires and ports. Also, tensile strength may be an issue with the carbon composite hybrid material. Panasonic GH5s Pros: Arguably one of the best weather sealing in a camera. Surprisingly a lot better than even some top end DSLRs. Superb battery life Fully articulating screen OLED Viewfinder Bluetooth Control Excellent ergonomics and very manageable shape and size of body 240 fps at 1080p Dual SD Card slots with swappable SD cards during recording, as cards fill up, to have almost limitless recording Continuous power option 3 Year Extended Warranty. Though, for me, the Panasonic after sales has not been terribly inspiring. I am sure, your mileage may vary, varying from region to region Being in the Cinema Camera industry for pretty long, despite the short hiatus when RAW was the new Cinema Camera Industry Standard Cons: Most Expensive of the 3 at $2500 Screen size is good by DSLR standards, but requires a monitor, especially for very fine monitoring Codecs limited to H.264, though from some reviewers, they seem at power or better than some flavours of ProRes 10-bit 4-2-2 Z Cam E2 Pros: The Only one among the 3, that is offering 120fps at 4k. which frankly is HUGE Claimed dynamic range of 13.5 stops (which is Quite Likely, if they use the QuadBayer pattern, this sensor is capable of). The 1/2 stop of dynamic range may even be noticeable to some some self-claimed experts of dynamic range and great camera testers. Presently the tinniest form factor Offers H.265 apart from H.264. Which would make file sizes noticeably smaller than the other 2 for the same kind of data While neither RAW nor ProRes are available right now, there was mention of a RAW flavour (could be DNG RAW) Deep Learning Engine (not sure how it fits into a Cinema Camera lineup, except for fancy lingo, used by all random smartphone companies nowadays) Gigabit Ethernet port for control setting & live streaming Cons: ONLY CFast storage options on-board No Screen to see the footage Tiny LED to check data only Missing most of the body, including LCD or monitor, handles etc etc The missing accessories could add substantially to the final price of a usable product Company that is relatively unheard of. Warranty and after sales may be a bet It only has the equivalent of a camera brain. Users would have to buy a host of accessories to be able to fully use the camera All there have autofocus, and if GH5s is any indication, it would absolutely dreadful. I am also guessing that Time Code sync, Waveform, Vector Scopes, and programmable Zebra patters (apart from false colour etc), may be common to all three. All the extra bells and whistles would be knows soon enough, I guess. .

Maybe Nikon should build a robot with enough AI to work out how to take mirrors out of their cameras

They're coming soon!

These bloggers have zero journalist skill, they keep asking 10 times the same question, if you are not the first on a news, take your time and try to ask different question or even if you can't record from the camera you have a big 5 inch display that you can zoom in. Take that fucking camera and comment at least what you are seeing. Take for example rolling shutter, I mean it is so easy to pan right left and have at leat an impression about rolling shutter, but until now zero. I don't know if he is an actor or what, it is as if he is chocking, when asking the price at least 3 times, as if the whole world didn't know it two days before.

Cinematographers use diffusion filters on the Alexa and it’s only 2.7K, 3.3K at open gate. The problem is camera resolution has been decided upon by monitor and TV manufacturers. Now if you don’t shoot 4K, your image supposedly doesn’t have enough resolution? In my opinion, I think a Pocket 2 could have had a 2.5K image and be equally as appealing. 4K at this price point, is usually best for downscaling, so it will be interesting for me to see what the downscale looks like from 4K P2 footage. But for the most part, I’ll shoot 1080p at the two base ISOs, on a clean sensor, with cheap SD cards. I already have a bunch of Canon batteries for my 5D3, so if battery time is bad (I suspect about 30-45 minutes) I’ll just swap them out. I’ll get a Rode NTG mic, and maybe a couple XLR lavs, for in-camera audio and have an amazing little, run and gun cinema camera... no need to rig up this little beast.

NAB was a blast. Just got back and wanted to share a quick video of my experience from a quick hands on with the Kinefinity cameras. I also had a chance to check out the Atlas Lens Co. Orions series of anamorphic primes. I have never seen so much camera related tech in one place. It was a great experience and I can whole heartedly recommend it to anyone in this group as a must do event. Check out the video below. I will post more as time allows. Feel free to post comments or questions.

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?167012-Update-4-12-2018 Heh, RED has been pretty bad in the past with delays (or straight up cancelling projects), but even still now in 2018 they don't meet shipping targets. I think we can give BMD a bit of slack! Even though I'm fairly optimistic they'll meet their November target.

There are two main ways sensor size can affect the maximum resolution: 1) The ability of a lens to resolve finer details than the distance between two neighboring pixels. --> There are plenty of lenses that support far higher resolution than 4K so that's not a limit 2) The ability of pixels to collect enough light. --> Current m43 sensors with large pixels offer ~13stops of dynamic range and excellent color information. So in short, in that article just suggesting that for 4K someone needs a LF sensor, is plain wrong and marketing bulshit. In general systems are far more limited by their processing pipeline than optics/sensor performance, and that's why offering RAW is such a big deal.

Don’t get me worried! I preordered a Hydrogen... But, I agree, the worship on those fora is fascinating - I could be wrong but I’ve always assumed that hardcore professional RED users don’t bother with reduser as they'll have direct access to those who count. It’s the aspirational types desperate to impress who lead the kneeling rituals. I still think that a photo of using the Hydrogen running the BM app to control the Pocket 4K will go down a storm on That site...

I'll take color and recoverable information over pure resolution any day.

I love the reactions on Reduser to bad news like that. They welcome Jim's announcements of delays with the same exultation as if he was the bank manager extending the date you have to pay a loan back. It always reminds me of that scene in Life Of Brian where Brian screams at everyone "OK, I am the messiah...now f*** off" to which he gets the response "How shall we f*** off Oh Lord?"

Yes, notice as video. What matters most is the effective color resolution, and in that the BMPCC2 will be better. Introducing more spatial resolution without also increasing color resolution results in the video look. Something looks off, and it is discontinuity in color gradient as it does not change at the same frequency as does the spatial information

I would like to see someone make a battery grip for the Pocket 4k that could somehow house something like the Samsung ssd drive within it, can house an extra one or two batteries and have a usb-c connector lock device like the mini hdmi clamp found on some dslr cages. Would sell like hot cakes! Not keen on that idea, makes media managing that much harder on busy shoots.

Honestly Idk. But I do know that Panasonic said it is possible. So if there is demand they might well enable it in a firmware update. To my mind this would make the GH5S the best all rounder.

For $$$___, Zacuto will provide a sub cage for that drive...

It might be a technical limitation? I'm just guessing here, but IIRC my 700D upscales 1920 from 1728 wide, which explains why the footage was so soft.. upscale + low bitrate codec = blurry mess. The reason I think that the limitation might be technical is that ML on the 700D is also limited to 1728 wide in RAW, so I'm guessing that they just take every third pixel - the 700D sensor is 5184 wide, and 5184/3 = 1728. The m50 sensor is 6000 wide, so if they took every second pixel it would be 3000 wide so 3k video upscaled. This is my guess as to what it happening.

What to say... when I feel shame just to click on Like button Above all, I'm so glad because of radiating spirit of great devotion and love between all involving crew. It must be that there's no any significant budget, but pure enthusiasm - otherwise you'd not shoot on GH5 Cheers to all of members - and thank you for the beautiful example how sometimes dreams are becoming reality! (I think that William Ernest Henley and all other unconquered spirits are proud of you

This looks REALLY good. You might mention though that it MIGHT be NSFW because of minor male nudity. I'm not a prude and it doesn't offend me personally, but someone might be working in a place that frowns upon this.

This looks amazing! Both in technical quality and content!

Yeah, even his conclusions are strange to say the least: "The only way the Blackmagic Design Pocket Camera 4K can beat the GH5 is in terms of sheer image quality – dynamic range and color science." But really, aren't all the comparisons of cameras that haven't been even released rushed?

Wolfcrow makes a habit of this. Rushing to be first. Rushing to be first wrong that is!!

Congratulations, you have just received my first downvote, and probably only downvote... something I swore I would never do because I really don’t find them productive and I believe they only create animosity... which is the exact opposite reason for visiting this forum. But I honestly don’t know what to say about your recent posts, Jon? I’m thinking that maybe you have some personal issues going on in your life because you used to be one of the most friendly, jovial, and helpful members of this forum. But now you are full of such vitriol, and vindictive behavior. I sincerely apologize for bringing this up publicly, but this is getting out of hand now. In this specific instance, you were asking DBounce for his review of the lenses, but then when you heard HIS honest impression, you went on full out attack mode... to the point of calling him a liar with ulterior motives?!?! C’mon man it’s just camera stuff, it’s not worth having a stroke over.

I agree with your list, but everyone should do their own tests with LT. The image quality there is pretty dreadful even compared with XDCAM and AVCHD, but for some content that's fine and it's much better than standard definition or something. While it's true that transcoding can't improve an image, I was comparing AVCHD vs ProRes variants from a clean (uncompressed) HDMI output. In my experience, AVCHD was still better overall than any ProRes codec below 422 HQ. Except with foliage. Here's a test that closely mirrors my findings, but theirs is much better!

I'm loving this M43 revolution... Got the GH5 (not the S). Pre-ordered the Pocket 4k. Will try out this E2 thing. The dawn of not having to spend more than £2000 on a professional level camera, ever again, is here. (more budget on lenses and lights then!)

It would be a first for BM. They have Never used a sensor that some one else has used before for any camera they have that I know of.

Take this from a hardcore FCP fanboy: you can blame that on FCP. Or I better put it this way: the fact that you have no WB and no ISO in the CC tools (I couldn't find the metadata for those either, only for codec, manufacturer and camera name) doesn't mean they are generally not stored with the video.

Strangely, you put almost identical words that I already wrote as answer And to add - because, just for one example, year ago Neuman's put their "Dies Somnum" short movie that received here unanimous acclamation for its "cinematic" quality.

Ursa Nano it is then

The same is true with lenses that you see not getting a great deal of love - or even outright contempt - and then you look at the Flickr pool for it and there is page upon page of great images shot with it. On that particular thread - amongst the pom pom waving about the delay - someone asked if anyone knew how he could edit his videos that he shot with it. I could hear the sound of the tumbleweed bouncing along the tarmac even from this side of the Atlantic I am intrigued by the Hydrogen but I'm a bit like a dog chasing a car in that I'm not entirely sure what I'd do with it if I caught it.

Cinematographers often use diffusion filters to make image more soft, film-like, less digital looking. So high resolution is not always the very important part of a good looking picture.

Apparently every time the original BMPCC switched frame rates it was rebooting! :-o But it was doing it pretty quickly.

The boot licking in that other forum is other worldly.

Just use velcro Oh snap!

Nothing beats the original, and if the worst acquisition codec - AVCHD - was used, then transcoding that to ProRes, no matter the flavor, it won't get any better. There's a useful rule of thumb: ProRes Proxy: for proxy editing, but never for export! ProRes LT: for editing of everything, for export of material up to 1080. Some report it as good upload codec for Youtube No recompression! ProRes422: for editing of everything, for acquisition of HD, for crucial quality check, for export of UHD. ProRes HQ: for acquisition of UHD, allows recompression.

I could easily imagine a future a decade or three down the tracks where AI robots have "stolen our jobs!" HOWEVER, I don't believe the way this would happen is by using an ambisonic mic that then "focuses" in on what is wanted. Rather it would instead by via liberal usage of lavs (and/or plant mics) which then gets agressively cleaned up via super advanced AI like we're already starting to see in the likes of programs such as iZotope RX (together with advanced automixing). Which then ends up producing quite usable dialogue even from sloppily used lavs. Saw this posted on FB, worth sharing on this topic:

Buy it in 2018!! By getting the Rode NT-SF1 instead for a fraction of the cost. Although the support Zoom (and soon in the future MixPre series as well) has for the AMBEO B format means I wonder if the extra cost makes it worth it. Oh hey, there is a secondhand one up for sale: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Sennheiser-AMBEO-VR-MIC-Microphone-3D-AUDIO-capture/183172958311 Ah good, we're on the same page in that regards then. As without that qualifier of it being "decades away" (and heck, who knows what might be happening then... movies as we know it might be dead! Everything tapped straight into our brain stem instead) then a person viewing this thread could easily get the wrong impression that this is relevant to something today. Even (or especially?) with 360 degree filmmaking you are carefully setting up and thinking about each shot. I worked on a 360VR shoot last month (doing sound for the crew, using an ambisonic mic) and each and every shot was carefully done, is why we did nearly a whole week of filming with full days. I think for your needs of run-and-gun with no crew, then you'd be better off chucking a lav on each person then crossing your fingers as you pray and hope for the best, than to use an ambisonic mic (where would you place it?! On top of your camera?!). For what delivery medium? For 360VR delivery? Or conventional HD (or 4K) 16:9? (or 2.35 aspect ratio or whatever) Are you a teeny bit part Canadian?

Well, if you think of it like a smartphone, where the phone ships with one set of features and new features are added with new OS revisions, then you get a roughly comparable situation. When the X-T2 came out 120fps wasn't standard amongst cameras of its type, so they develop what they can in the time that they have and they put it on the market to make the profits to plow back into making it better. As the development process goes on for new models, new software/techniques/efficiencies are created, and the company is at a crossroads -- do you keep new features it for new models (as almost every other camera company does) or do you release it to existing devices (as a lot of smartphone companies do). Fuji is probably the most "honest" about what a camera is these days -- an imaging computer. Computers can be improved with software, and unlike Sony, they actually follow up with feature updates.

You can send all kinds of data over a HDMI 2.0 port. The standard already has support for Ethernet over the cable, so no reason they can't send RAW. The problem is which part of the hardware of the GH5S is doing the HDMI out. Is it the FPGA? The processor? A dedicated ASIC?

meanwhile Sony adds a picture profile to the FS5 and has the nerve to call it a MK2.. the hype train is real these days.. getting back to BMD, this is how you do a real camera follow up!

I am an indie filmmaker, I shot my first feature on Sony HVR-FZ 1, back in 2009 and a year later Canon 5D disrupted the market. We toiled hard to get over harsh video look and deep DOF of HVR Z1 and then 5D made us look like fools. Even though many known filmmakers appreciated the screenplay, but harsh video look was stumbling block. Then every other indie filmmaker was coming out with "cinematic" 5D, 7D footage and our film looked amateurish. That got me started with DSLR and understanding them. I was shooting Panasonic GH2 till last year and finally I got GH5. I was absolutely loved it. I though 10 bit is new standard for indie filmmakers now, especially those who can't afford raw. Just few months later Panasonic released GH5S, which is even more suited for my work. I didn't need IBIS more than low light capabilities. I was anyways juggling between between GH2 and rented A7SII and then GH5 and A7SII. When I heard they already had GH5s in mind even before the launch of GH5, I felt cheated. Panasonic like any other camera manufacturer was trying to exploit market. I am Panasonic fanboy since Panasonic DVX100 days. And then comes BPCC 4K, it gives 12 bit raw, which even Panasonic EVA 1 can't deliver. If it has same or similar sensor as GH5s, I don't need A7Sii. I hardly go over 10,000 ISO even on AS7sii. And it is cheap. It will force Camera manufactures to reduce price on cameras like Canon C200, EVA 1, Sony F7 and F5. IMO Raw will be new indie film-making standard, if not already and 10 bit will be new prosumer standard. It may have lots of issues, but I won't shooting another indie on anything less than 12 bit raw. If budget permits I will go for C200 or even better. But in worst case scenario there is always BPCC 4k to fall back upon. Point is BPCC 4k will disrupt the indie film-making landscape just as Canon 5D did back then.

Oh stop acting all innocent. In another thread you made a bunch of snide comments about people’s grading of the Pocket II footage in this thread.

On the contrary, true professionals use the right tool for the job and do not rely on one camera to do everything. I've worked on high end TVC's where we have used an Alexa Mini, A7S and the old pocket cinema camera on the same shoot. Nobody cared what the clients would think (had 10 clients/ agency on set last shoot!) about the A7S, a 'consumer camera' being used. A professional sees the potential in any camera and just gets on with the job of making great pictures while people on forums bitch and moan because they can't find the camera that does it all. The pocket 4K will be an amazing camera at an amazing price. Sure, a tilting screen and internel ND Filters would have been nice but they are easy fixes.

Who cares about the GH5. The IQ was always a little overrated with great specs. I’ve seen some really nice work from it, but I’ve also seen a some poop. Who cares? Cameras come and go. They get refined and a better one is released. And then a different camera is released that’s better than that one. Get over it already. The best camera is the one you have with you... even if it does have plastic looking footage. Hahahahaha...

The more I look that video, the pocket 4K it´s more a BMCC mini, I really like that big screen.

Flying out today I’m afraid, but enjoy the show. It’s a huge event.

Do not know about this camera, but on Micro cameras, the air is not blown to the electronics, just to the cooling element and then out.

Just keep the GH5, is a good hybrid and it has lost a lot of resale value already, so no need to worry about that! Sell everything except the 20mm, and buy a cheap kit, or the 12-60, and call it a day. You are covered from 24-120mm and you have a modern camera to take you to the 2020s easily. The a6XXX cameras are some of the worst cameras I have use in my life, nothing I liked about them (maybe the 18-105 lens, pretty cool for the price and nice stabilization) but if you go for cheap, then the a6000 is ok for casual photo and a little bit of video. If you want 4K, then the a6300, but the 1080p is really bad, and soon you will get bored of their amateur-ish nature and shortcomings, especially in hot hot Southern Spain! I do not know about the lesser Panasonics, as I have only used the GH series. EDIT: also, as you go up the chain (from a6000 to a6500) as well as just keep the GH5, because the a6500 aren't that cheap either, and you have to check lenses prices.

Honestly, you can’t go wrong with a lot of the Canon lenses... even the slower “L” zoom lenses are amazing. I shot these with the 5D Mark iii and ML Raw using the 24-70mm f/4 lens... Of course with the smaller, Super 35mm sensor of the Ursa, the faster zooms will be better.