Leaderboard

It's so self sabotaging, because by doing this to your customers pretty much ensures that they're never going to buy your products again. I love my GH5. I love the XLR adapter. It is such a compact set up. I use it for everything from filming pro wrestling to interviews. I don't have to build up a rig unless I want to... just throw a lens on, connect the XLR adapter and you can get excellent results. No fuss. I WANT to stay. Give me a reason to! Can't lead the pack with specs now that full frame has caught up? Fine! Innovate in other ways! What's stopping you from putting a GH5 into a GX85 body? I'd buy two, along with a GH6! Nothing would delight me more than even smaller, lighter cameras! I'd carry one with me pretty much at all times! And I don't believe this notion that you can't sell a kick ass GH6 for less than a S5 because the truth is there's a segment of the full frame market that won't consider a M43 camera no matter what the specs are. Go for broke, fuck it! Or just give people what they want: I mean just adding phase detect AF alone to decent bumps in specs would sell a bunch of new M43 cameras!

I'd advised Panasonic to go full frame, but I was asking for this about 5 years ago and they moved too late. Sony had the chance to mature - expand the lens line ups and get prices down, they even got round to reorganising their menus. Shocking I know. The Panasonic S1 was great but now people are too heavily invested in Sony E mount lenses or even Fuji. The autofocus situation didn't help. The S5 is fantastic bang for buck but the body feels like a G100. Too consumer, evem compared to the A7 III. And it has to compete with the X-T4 and Fuji branding / film simulations too. Tough market. Here's what Panasonic need to do now... Cull almost 90% of the lower-end Micro Four Thirds line and focus on a big exciting GH6 launch, make it do what only the GH6 can do - unique sensor size, fast frame rates, no rolling shutter, add what was missing from the GH5 (phase-detect AF and ProRes / RAW) - pitch it against Blackmagic and sell it for around $2200. Rebrand it CINEMA GH6 INSTEAD OF LUMIX GH6 FFS. Even a mini-XLR and SDI port could help sell MANY GH6 bodies. Stills is a different matter - in my opinion the market is pressing heavily toward full frame. It is in video too, but with stills cameras all being so similar, it is harder to give a small 2x crop stills camera enough 'uniqueness' to make it a viable alternative to full frame, especially now there are small full frame mirrorless lenses and the lower price Sony stuff like A7C. So the size and cost advantage of M43 is being whittled away even on the lenses side. Sigma 28-70mm F2.8 for L-mount anyone? Clearly Panasonic is 99% committed to L-mount now. I honestly think the writing is on the wall and there will be no GH6. It would be a huge mistake. My Kern Switar 26mm F1.1 is very tearful today.

They have the best full frame camera on the market right now though. Which is why I’m sticking with them.

As it seems more and more likely this is real, I'm just filled with disappointment. I've got a hard decision to make soon: do I run my M43 kit until I have to switch systems or do I sell my kit now while it still has decent monetary value that I can put towards a new system? And what system do I go with? Ugh.

I’ve said this before multiple times and will repeat it again and that is, like several others above, I wish camera companies would be a bit more up front about what is coming and when. When they don’t, I imagine someone in a black & white boardroom meeting somewhere is whispering in the bosses ear, “let’s not tell them anything and build the mystery for them”. We are not children that need to wait until Christmas morning to see what’s under the tree. As a hybrid user (approx 90% of my work these days is hybrid, building steadily over the last 15 years from my roots as a pure photographer) and 4/3 never cut it for me in that regard. Fuji APSC had been my sweet spot for the last 10 before going FF with L Mount at the end of last year. I would seriously consider a GH6, or any 4/3 camera providing it ticks the boxes I need. The Olympus OMD EM1iii for video does in every regard except to 4K 60p. The current GH5 does in every regard except no PDAF. Both just shy of my needs. Other than the new FP-L, no L Mount camera has phase, yet I recently bought into it. Why? Because there is so much other good stuff with it but I wish wish wish it had PDAF. Summary: If Panny do not release a GH6, 4/3 doesn’t die. It simply continues to die. It’s been doing that for some while now, but then so have total sales of all cameras regardless of sensor size. if they don’t bring out an absolute banger of a GH6, they need phase on every new L Mount camera going forward or Panasonic especially amongst the alliance, will also die. Leica should be fine for other reasons. Sigma also because they are 99% lenses. But Pannyboy needs more than the Pony of Hope for even medium term survival. A final note. My S1H is the best camera I have ever owned bar none. It’s fkn fantastic in every regard except tracking AF and if it can give me 3 years of service beyond 2021, it will be enough for me, but I fear for even their medium term stay in the camera business. I also have the S5 but it’s not even slightly close how much better the S1H is in almost every regard. However, if Panny bring out a PDAF GH6 by Spring 2022, I would buy one for my pure video needs I am pretty sure.

Controversy is brewing! Ever since 2017 the very significant army of Panasonic GH5 fans and Micro Four Thirds users have been waiting for the GH6. They did not all go out and suddenly change to a $4000 Panasonic S1H. Our feedback has been continually piped to Panasonic HQ in Japan about needing a professional editing codec like ProRes, phase-detect AF, 6K, 8K or preferably 4K/120p would be a reasonable expectation versus the Sony A7S III and even an internal RAW codec like Canon now has on the EOS R5. Alas our dreams are probably ended by the fact our dream GH6 camera would have to cost $3000 with all that, minimum – and in the current market who is going to buy a 2x crop sensor camera for that much? Alas the never inaccurate Nokishita has leaked specs which suggest an almost identical camera will be re-released instead, with the same 20 megapixel sensor as 4 years ago. This strongly suggests there will be no GH6 for eager Micro Four Thirds punters to look forward to. What’s going on? EOSHD takes a closer look. https://www.eoshd.com/news/disappointing-panasonic-gh5-mark-ii-specs-leak-in-japan-where-is-the-gh6/

He wasn't lying 🤓

Let me point out a few things that could have been updated without needing a new sensor (and which, other than I think Canon for HEIF, none of the other manufacturers support, so this is hardly exclusive to Panasonic): HEIF as an option or in lieu of JPEG. That’s easy to add since HEIF is just a subset of H.265. DCI P3 or ProPhoto RGB image space for HEIF or JPEG. Apple’s ProRAW, a demosaiced DNG with tags for tone mapping, as a raw format. One thing specific to Panasonic I’d like to have seen — other than a new sensor, phase detect autofocus, and the viewfinder and monitor from the S1 — is Bluetooth 5. They’re still using Bluetooth 4.2 from 2014.

Some Angenieux 75mm glory, c-mount for S16 format. covers full m43 sensor with some light vignetting. Another gem to support the yearning for a GH6 with prores, oplf, sdi out, internal nds, super16 glory, 10bit HD up to 240fps, etc. 🙂 Lens has a glorious glow wide open at f2.5, which is like a light source of its own. I love everything about it. Hopefully it will become more thant just a magical item but for pratical use in a short film or wait, why not shoot a paid gig with it for some talking heads footage! Photo taken with the beautyful GX85. Hope that body gets the GH5 sensor and codecs some time. Now that would make m43 my format of love again. I saw a Nikon 35mm f2, a lens from the 60ies vignette pretty strongly on a S1H in 16to9 video mode. So this little lens is doing pretty okay in that regard I think. And it´s my first and only Angenieux lens.:)

I would buy a gx85 with gh5 internals Ive been loyal to Panasonic but i think they want me to leave for sony so badly i be a fool to keep believing now

Yup. This is and has been my concern as a user. It’s almost as if owners/users are in the know in regard to the capability of the kit, but the rest of the world just mostly poo poos the tracking AF. And quite right in regard to the latter, but their whole marketing department and advertising etc just seems to lack mojo. But then again, maybe I like the fact that they are an underdog... Their customer service department sucks balls based on my dealings with them, UK and France. Utter contempt for their customers. I almost sold the lot a few months back on sheer point of principle.

Tricky to define but the summary would be as follows... Since moving from full frame Nikon D3s 10 years ago, I was all about compact and lightweight kit. For the last couple of years, hybrid in a single body type. I was put off anything S1 flavored for the last year or so due to I will admit, YouTube content creators repeated mantra of, “they are so massive and weigh a ton”. I swallowed that. Until I got one. My ‘dream’ camera is a Leica SL2 for photo and a SL2-S for video, paired up to fulfill my hybrid needs. Why? The caché, the legend, all that shit. But then there is the reality... Could I justify the cost? Nope, not really. Is the lack of a tilt screen an issue? Actually, stop kidding yourself, yes it is. Is the S1R a better all round proposition, badge aside, over an SL2? Probably yes. Do I really really really need 47mp or for 99% of my needs, isn’t 24mp better and then there is the tripod hi res mode for uber-detailed landscape shots so... OK, so S1, S1H or S5 then. I like and almost love the S5 but it falls short in 2 areas principally and these are; the flip out screen (the S1H’s is perfection) and once you have used the EVF on the S1H, the S5’s is really like stepping back in time. The S1’s on off switch is in the wrong place and the top screen is like a 1990’s digital watch. The S1H just feels right in the hand and doesn’t just feel like the premium product that it is, but has that ‘specialness’ about it that some stuff just has and some stuff just does not. It is now without question my A camera for both stills and video and it’s only...and I mean ONLY flaw (in my opinion) is the less than stellar tracking AF. Could be a bit cheaper maybe, but then it’s a premium item so IMO, worth it. My S5 is now very much my B cam. Still hybrid, but not my primary camera. Oh and just to conclude on the whole size and weight thing...the IBIS is superb, the rear screen is superb and for my needs does not need; a cage or additional grip, a monitor or a gimbal and when paired with Sigma’s new 28-70mm f2.8...well ha, it’s smaller and lighter than anything with bits added to it. Apologies for the GH5.5 digress, but it’s kind of related as the S1H is my ‘GH6’. Apologies if you now want an S1H but it’s just fucking superb.

Some further thoughts on this Mark II rubbish... Buck stops with Panasonic really... https://www.eoshd.com/news/panasonic-has-not-managed-our-expectations-gh5-mark-ii-gh6-controversy/

So an external monitor/recorder with usbc instead of HDMI? For what it's worth, I can record 4k braw to SD cards with a video assist and Sigma fp.

To the OP...Methinks the whole camera-manufacturer crowd are missing the mark on what the consumer market wants and needs right now, internal RAW recording. Having just traveled down the path you're on looking for the same RAW recording solutions for my Panasonic S1's I've walked away from the whole idea for the time-being as the market choices for recording RAW are extremely limited at this moment in time...as you yourself have discovered, Ninja V or VideoAssist 12G and, then, all the attachment/mounting gadgetry and compatible SSDs and cables, ad nauseam. Wish I had better news to report. Ideally, if internal RAW is just too difficult a problem for the camera manufacturers to solve, then I'd like to see an outright ditching of the current HDMI mindset and an embracing of USB-C/TB4 ports on cameras which would allow external recording of RAW directly to smartphones and tablets and directly into one's mobile NLE...screw all of this extraneous gear and drives and doodads just to accommodate the unnecessarily-expensive and overly-complicated HDMI workflow! One could be shooting and streaming on-the-fly or immediately editing on-scene with a Camera>USB-C/TB4>smartdevice setup. I'd be wet-my-pants-giddy and love to record ProRes RAW straight to a new 2TB XDR iPad Pro (or upcoming 1TB XDR iPhone 13)...heck, someone could market a camera cage with a swivel screen apparatus for mounting the smartphone-or-tablet/recorder for use as a fully-articulated display! (Patent pending, ;) ...Haw!) Stoopid easy and stoopid smart. Anyhoo, best of luck on your search for answers, sorry I couldn't have been more helpful.

You wouldn't catch me hoping that a 60k investment in a rapidly changing technological industry was still good in a decade! I think the entire film and photography industry grew up in a little fantasy bubble about the way the world works because they started with film. Film was standardised and so that meant that any advancements were compatible with your camera and you were going to have to buy new film as you used it anyway. Cost of upgrading image quality = 0. Film was standardised and so that meant that your old camera was still good, basically forever, and was (almost) immune to obsolescence through innovation. I say almost immune because stills camera manufacturers started inventing automatic features like auto-exposure and auto-focus which made people buy their cameras and lenses over and over and over again, but the film industry was immune even to this due to the manual workflows that the industry was based around (and still is). Obsolescence of old equipment = 0. These two things disguised the fact that buying cameras and lenses are investments in technology and technology is the most fertile ground for planned obsolescence that exists. No, ARRI aren't deliberately driving the value of your investments into the dirt, but every manufacturer that makes TVs certainly is. The evidence of this is the slow-motion car accident that is happening which is slowly bankrupting cinema chains, a computer company getting into the telephone industry and sending photography companies bankrupt, and the rise of online streaming services and decline of TV, etc.

A GH6 with Pro Res, a GH5s-style sensor---with Panasonic proprietary Speed booster for L-mount lenses, that great stabilization, and DPAF---BIG success IMHO. These features would go a long way to eliminating the GH5's double Achilles heel: AF and noise. I LOVED my GH5s....but no stabilization took its toll---but what a great camera with a beautiful image. Dare I say Panasonic has very much caught up with Canon vis a vis color? I love the colors out of the S5---they have an embarrassment of riches for the video shooter---but it all needs to be crowned with Pro Res and DPAF---the Pro Res would draw a lot of both Canon and Sony shooters. My 2¢ Always inciteful and provocative. That's the reason for the staying power of EOSHD.

If they’ve got a GH6 coming, they’ve got to be crystal clear about that. It’s coming next year, will have a brand new sensor, and will be priced substantially above the GH5 mk2. Otherwise people will draw the obvious conclusion: Panasonic’s pretty much done with m4/3 and this warmed over offering exists solely to milk a few more dollars out of their existing customers. The thing I don’t get is the strategy here. Two short years ago m4/3 users were 100% of Panasonic’s customer base; now, they’ve effectively abandoned them. Most people looking for a 135 system will choose a less fickle partner to invest their money in.

Sure you should. I can make it relatively painless for ya 😏

You make a good point here. Getting a recording monitor is more than about whether you want 422 instead of 420 10-bit. The recording limit is another advantage, though you haven't run up against it yet. You may in the future, if you ever need to shoot a live event or performance. The recording media is another advantage, as I mentioned further up. The codec is another big one for some folks; H.265 is a PITA to edit for a lot of folks. And, depending on your camera buying future, having a versatile unit that gives raw recording capabilities to many different cameras could be a bonus.

Thanks! It's been a tough 12 months for many, many people. I count myself luckier than most! World is in a very bad place and the problems run deeper than 90% of people realise. Enjoy your download 🙂

Yeah, I agree. They should have developed a new mount with a flange distance that could accept MFT lenses and played around with crop modes on FF that were perhaps larger than standard MFT to make it exciting. Perhaps a MFT standard crop and then a non-standard (or variable!) crop closer to APSC. And what has Leica done for L-mount other than name it? Kinda lopsided relationship this alliance is. Just much more excitement in the RF and E-mount spaces in my opinion. I do like Sigma's L-mount cameras. I would just like to see mark 2 versions of them with a bit more ecosystem. I suspect Nikon will release more compelling FF Z mount glass and probably killer Z DX telephotos....if they get around to it. They theoretically have a great mount to design smaller and faster lenses on. It's pretty dumb if a GH6 is coming. They risk pissing off people who buy the Mark 2 and they are signaling (with the flaccid specs) to the diehard fans waiting for a GH6 to just move on.

@OttoVGet a Blackmagic Video Assist HD 5inch. I went that road. It was recommended in this thread either by Ironfilm or Ben Ericson. You would want the F3 with the 444 update as that gives you to opportunity to recorde 10bit 422 up to 60p to a BMVA 5inch.

Complete unknown territory here - if the management have a clue, it is not enough in itself, they also need the investment! I would love to see them take a new sensor and processor, break the mould ergonomically, surprise us with ProRes, and even a dedicated small OM-D cinema camera or two. But this needs the big investment and the demand from customers. I just can't quite see this being the most likely outcome. Who apart from a very small niche is asking for an Olympus cinema camera? Well... an OM-D E-M1C at any rate. What a mouth full 🙂 It might be a lot easier for JIP to do what they did with Sony VIVO laptops. Chinese stuff with a fancy badge.

Panasonic’s logic is baffling. They seem to think by neglecting m4/3 users they’ll incentivize them to switch to L-Mount. Instead, they’ll drive them to Sony, Canon, Fuji, or Olympus. At this point I wonder if their camera business is viable at all. L-Mount certainly hasn’t been a roaring success, which was completely predictable considering they foolishly chose to take on Sony, Canon, and Nikon where they’re strongest, 135 format. M4/3, at least, was a defensible niche.

Sony sensors are not made on the same production line as automobile chips! It could be that some obscure old components in the GH5 could no longer be sourced and Panasonic is bringing newer parts into to a like-for-like camera that is basically the same, just a new badge. However this does not excuse the lack of GH6! The chips that are in short supply are actually mostly for more mundane stuff. They come off production lines that have been hammered for demand and switched out. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the 5nm supply has been booked out by Apple at TSMC but that doesn't impact camera electronics either. GPUs are in short supply because everyone is stuck at home playing games. Again not really related to camera image processors. Sony has got the A7S III out and Fuji the GFX 100S so I am sure Panasonic can at least tease us with a GH6 development announcement?

Used the C70 for a shoot for the first time recently. Very impressed. I honestly think that Clog3 is pretty much redundant in this generation because the shadow detail is rendered so clean in Clog2.

Fujifilm X-T4 + Fujifilm XF 16-80mm F4 R OIS WR (perhaps pair it with a couple of primes too, if you've got the budget/time/space) Alternatively instead of the 16-80mm F4, you could consider the more expensive Fuji 16-55mm f/2.8 (you'd gain speed, but lose reach. Or the Fuji XF 18-55mm f/2.8-4, which is the cheapest of the three but a different mix of compromises instead). Panasonic S5, and Nikon Z6 are worth a look too. Even though you have already tried the Panasonic G9, it's got big firmware update in the past, and might be worth a second look again.

Wow, thank you very much Kye. This is a very good information and very well explained. In the first project that I mixed the Bmpcc4k with the Micro and the Old pocket in the same scene, I was really shocked about the video-ish texture of the Bmpcc4k, and because I had a very short time in post, I couldn´t test anything to make it more filmic. This is the scene: https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/493122238 The wide shot is the Bmpcc4k (also the insert shots) In the music video, I have used blur (I don´t remember which one) in the Bmpcc4k shots to get rid of the video digital look and also add grain (also to avoid Youtube banding in shadows and gradients). All in all, I think that the Bmpcc4k is really a great camera and it can do a lot of things, and also it can look very filmic, I wonder if the Bmpcc6k worth the upgrade or maybe I should get an old Bmpc4k if I want a S35 sensor with more filmic texture than the Bmpcc4k. I will follow your tips Kye, thank you very much!