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Gentlemen, I think we can all agree that at least the FF aesthetic exists and it is all shallow DOF. Youtube told me so!

Currently, I use the GH5, GH6 (two bodies), G9II and most Panasonic L mount cameras. I love the colors of the GH6 as well, for me no other Panasonic m43 or L cameras have better colors. The skintones are perfect and even profiles like standard, portrait or cine-V are great. I was pretty disappointed when I bought the G9II because I think the colors are really not as nice. And sadly, it seems the GH7 has more or less the same colors of the G9II, which is a disappointement. But, I don't agree about the GH6 looking super organic. For me it often looks digitally soft, even more in 4k and C4K. In addition to the Panasonic IDP (Intelligent detail processing, which simulate an OLPF reducing moiré, smoothing fine details and even reducing noise in low light), the main reason is an out of focus issue making the image very soft when using continuous AF (AF-C) below 48 fps with 4K, C4K and 5,7K. 90% of the lenses I own are affected including the 12-60mm, 10-25mm, 25-50mm, 100-400mm, 25/45mm Olympus Pro etc. A few lenses like the 25mm f1.4II has not the issue. Most of the time, this feeling of organic image is just the effect of the out of focus bug, it's like making a blur filter on the image. It is not what I think of an organic look. What is really surprising is Panasonic never adressed this issue, also before pressing the recording button the image is prefectly in focus, but as soon as you press the button, the camera tries to re-focus and literraly lost the point of focus. If you don't crop inside your video to see how bad this out of focus bug is, you can see it even while recording in assingning a button to zoom inside the video on your screen. On the GH6, G9II and S5II, you can use this function while recording, but this can lead to some bugs. On the GH6 while using Prores, the colors can be badly altered about every five times. Or when plugin the camera to a computer just after recording, the camera can freeze, this last bug happens to my GH6, G9II and S5II, shutting down the camera before plugin it to a computer prevents the freeze). Exemple of the out of focus AF-C : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HdV8UQdgNA As you can see AF-S on the GH6 has no issue and when using it, the focus is perfect and the level of details and digital sharpening is the same than the G9II, as opposed to some Panasonic ambassadors on Youtube saying the GH6 is softer and the G9II sharper. I didn't speak about Open Gate, because the issue is different, there is not the out of focus bug, but again the GH6 is very disappointing, like you can see in this video, the GH6 is much slower than the GH5 and pulses more : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5h8f9qCrs3c However, when using AF-C in 5,7K 48 or 60fps, image is very close to the GH5 in 4K. The details are a bit rougher than on the GH5 (more digital sharpness) and the IDP is still going on, but the image is not soft, there are plenty of details and they are less rough than in 4K or C4K. The best mode is Prores 5,7K because it use almost zero NR, however the IDP is still going on and sometimes smooths textures in low light. Also it is only available up to 30fps, so with most lenses, AF-S is required to prevent the AF issue. The G9II has solved much of the GH6 AF issue, it also has improved IBIS to the point than even 5,7K is closer than the IBIS of the GH6 and GH5 in 4K, but I hope the GH7 Proresraw mode will be free of any of the processing Panasonic uses since the GH6.

Well, yes and no. It depends... Modern housings bring outside all the controls and remap them in a more ergonomic position for underwater use. A housing is like a glove with a perfect fit. Once upon a time the internal mechanisms allowed micro adjustments to compensate for small production variations between camera bodies. They no longer exist but I remember that the legendary GH2 was little more than a toy and when I changed the camera body because I had flooded the housing I had to change the rubber wheels that acted on the diaphragms because the wheels of the two bodies were slightly different. Now with more professional cameras the problem no longer exists. To show you how even 1 mm can make a difference, this is the back of an S1H, outside and inside. A small gem of engineering. You understand that when a new camera model uses the previous body, I open a bottle of sparkling wine 🙂

If you want unlimited recording in any temp, and at this price point or even a bit higher, you have to give up something, either Full frame sensor (GH7) or EVF and higher than 4k resolution (FX3), or internal raw (S5ii). There is no conspiracy to not giving customers a perfect camera. The reality is that making everything right is becoming more and more expensive.

Gerald Undone did test dynamic range in his video review; he didn't experience any overheating but hey, he's in Canada and he admitted that his testing environment wasn't very warm. It does seem like a great camera; wish the IBIS was better....I think Panasonic still has the lead there.

To do that legally you need to report the camera at the customs when arriving back to the European airport, and pay VAT and possible tariff (you can get the US sales tax off by following appropriate procedures and paperwork). You also end up with the camera without warranty service available in Europe. In the end it probably doesn't pay off. Reasons why camera bodies are more expensive in Europe include higher taxes and much more stringent consumer protection laws. In my country the warranty is not limited to the period specified by the manufacturer but the responsibility for manufacturing flaws in the product extends for the expected usable lifetime of the product. In the EU, it is a minimum of two years, but specific countries have stronger protections. Being responsible costs the manufacturer money and so this is transferred into the price of the product.

Yes, but you'll pay $2500 at the end of the day (including sales tax) with that Payboo B&H card scheme. In Europe, you're going to pay about $715 dollars more. No joke. We're back to 1990's price differences where you can purchase a ticket to NYC and back, buy your camera, and have a good weekend of travel.

Why is it that Nikon hits Europeans so hard. USA price is roughly $2500 at B&H (with their credit card scheme) and in Europe it's 3000 euros ($3215) with tax. In Panasonic world, the prices are almost always lower in Europe than in the USA. That's a heavy hit.

Now this is marketing... clicked on an S9 thread? Here's a product you might also be interested in... the ARRI 416!

That line support came out of nowhere, and makes me think how this rumor/leak business works. Nobody cares about audio to the point that when they want to leak a feature, the audio related ones don't cross their mind.

Something seems off in those numbers. Are you saying they would make a whole different chassis for 1mm? That cannot be right.

I wish "organic" were a defined term, but it's not. To me, in Standard profile, it just looks the way I remember it being. The skin tones look diverse enough yet not accentuating skin blemishes. What I don't like is when I need to put more contrast in the skin tones because the camera reduced the contrast too much. At least for my caucasian skin, it looked nice. The files and colors just seemed to have some depth to them. I never noticed this; nor can I fathom why this would happen, but I cannot say with any certainty it happens not. What I did notice was it was practically impossible to confidently manually focus with large aperture lenses. The magnified image seemed too soft. This is unlike the GH5. I'm not sure about the GH7, but I have asked about without a real response. For everything you said about the AF, I soon realized that the GH6 couldn't be fully dependable and it was always better to use manual focus and make good use of the [AF] button on the screen or assigning a button. For video and AF, I think it's clear that PDAF is essential in 2024. Any testing of continuous AF with the current contrast systems seems futile and almost a waste of time IMO. I don't really understand why, but I've always thought Olympus had much better contrast AF than Panasonic (even with the millions they'd probably spent on testing, engineering, and especially marketing Depth by Defocus). In good light, Olympus cameras performed as their PDAF counterparts. I also didn't really notice a big difference from the GH2 to the GH6- what does that say? There was only a lot more boxes on the screen but the results were practically the same.

That's it, - I am buying 6 of them. Actually, not seen any reviews yet and I need to do so before pushing this button...

I've already said that "magical" is my own summarization of how people seem to describe their imagined "medium format look" since requests for any sort of functional definition seem to result in things that are demonstrably false or claims that the look is ineffable. So this special term which defies all definition, but is to be considered useful in discussion must be pure magic.

m43 or 43 is a cool format actually. ff camera bodies can be very small now, but the lenses are not so easy to scale down. m43 lenses are really cute. also, in the photo world, m43 especially Olympus cameras and lenses are used for birding or other wild life niches, which makes sense very much. 43 lenses are not so smaller than the ff or apsc lenses, but their iqs are great, especially Olympus shg lenses, very very beautiful iq.

Hell, I get excited about my camcorder (VX-980)- and that's even smaller than 1", AND it crops in on that too. The one thing it does that my GX800 and S5ii don't do is basically remove wrinkles on faces (without doing some beauty effect). For older people, they would much rather look at a "smoothed" effect. Although it gives a detailed image, it doesn't do it with such confidence as the GX800 and S5ii do. Also, if I hand my wife my S5ii, she's immediately overwhelmed (and I completely set it up for her). If I hand her the VS-980, she knows exactly what to do.

I agree! It's quite frustrating. Why can't people just accept each format for what it is?? Heck, if we saw a BMPCC 2.0 released which has an even smaller sensor than the GH7, I would still be excited about that. And we shouldn't be hating upon it specifically for the S16 sized sensor. Sure, we might complain about the lack of modern day affordable S16 cine lenses! That we could use on the BMPCC 2.0 But that's a totally different question to complaining about the S16 sensor size itself.

B&H had a remarkable deal on Open Box GH6 starting last spring and it lasted until late this winter. I bought one last spring for $1299 and it was brand new. B&H does that some times... I guess they're clearing out inventory. Stupid me, I returned it. I was going to buy it again if it dropped to $1099. Over the holidays it went down to $1199 but I didn't bite. I really liked the CineLikeD and the monochrome profiles. VLOG was good, but I was trying to lean on the DR Boost which created some pretty harsh chroma noise in the shadows. At first, I hadn't noticed it until @BTM_Pixpointed it out to me and then I couldn't unsee it. I was so stoked about the DR Boost concept of the camera that I stupidly got annoyed with the cam as a whole. Now I am regretting it big time because although the GH7 is vastly better, I don't really want to pay the extra money for it. BTM also recommended the cheap Meike 25mm lens and it was a treat to use with that cam and I've always wanted to test out the Pan/Leica 15mm 1.7. If I can find a deal on a GH6, I may bite. Great camera otherwise! If not, I'll wait to see if the GH7 drops a little by the holidays.

I must admit, this thread really makes me laugh. No wonder there are no creative or aesthetic discussions here - not only do people not want to talk about it but they refuse to believe these things even exist, and if they don't believe in it then they will shout down anyone that even mentions it. I've been spending my time more and more elsewhere and I can tell you, there are places where people discuss aesthetics, creativity, productivity, and try and help each other out and encourage each other.

I know some of us have been harsh on the S9 regarding the recording limits, but it's important to remember that a 15 minute limit in 6k open-gate is still nothing to sneeze at. That would be the equivalent of a 1500 foot reel at 24fps, something unheard of even in the 1990s. Also, you'd need a minimum of 2-5 minutes to change the reel. Can a 15 minute recording limit get the job done? Yes. You'd probably be fine with 5 minutes or a 400 foot reel. By the way, the dynamic range, detail, and workflow would also be way better. We're spoiled.

the gap between something like z6 iii vs alexa family is getting narrower and narrower. at certain point, alexa will be truly niche product like leica s system.

It remains to be seen what the real price will be once it hits retail in Europe, but 2650 sounds like a direct currency conversion from dollars... and therefore does not include the 20% VAT in Europe 3180 EUR would be the price including tax So therefore it makes more sense to just get a used Z8.

In the first shot, not the 2nd one though. It's some encoding trouble I believe. I don't think it's anything coming from the acquistion, I'd dare to guess... But there are people here more from the technician side than a producer/shooter so let them to speak out... ;- )

I remember that about ten years ago, an Italian computer magazine did a kind of investigation on the price difference of various electronic devices between the US, Europe and Asia. They wanted to find out whether the price differences (which were more significant then than now) were due to factors such as logistics, taxes, duties, production costs, etc. In the end, they found no repeatable pattern among the various electronic appliances analysed and concluded that it all depended on how much that market was willing to pay for that item. Perhaps the Nikon and Panasonic marketing departments simply have different views or different data on their customers. And I think the customers of the brand are completely different. I have Panasonic air conditioners at home, my mother a microwave oven. Nikon is an exclusively photographic brand. By the way, in Italy Nikon and Panasonic have official technical service provided by the same company.

Seems pretty stellar. Dynamic Range should be tested and also whether it has heating issues in warmer environments. Also all other 24MP sensor makers need to improve their sensor tech. This had some superb rolling shutter.

The bottom line for me in 2024 is that there are quite a few options for my needs that just a few years ago there was not and my main priority now can be summed up in 3 words: Smaller Lighter Faster (combined acronym, SLF) Plus I NEED to go from 4 to 3 units. Despite my previous interest in the Z6iii and 99% certainty, I would be preordering, I am going to backtrack on that now and say I will not be. And it's not the Z6iii fault as it is everything I expected it to be and need it to be. Rather, it is a realisation that when I listed the pros & cons for an alternative option, the alternative option beat it in almost every regard. Plan B it is then...

I was watching the Petapixel review. I was more worried about cadence, but I'm not so sure of the conditions it was shot. If you watch Chris on the swing, it looked strange. I warn you it's during their KEH ad at 1m30s.

stabilization seems not good enough, comparing to s5 2x.

Here's my take on it https://www.eoshd.com/news/nikon-z6-iii-lands-with-video-aplomb-but-only-partial-excitement-for-photographers/ When it comes out at 3000 euros, you will be much better off spending the $100 less for a used Z8! After the price depreciates by about 2000 euros in 2 years, then it's a different proposition, I'll take ten. Once it hits the price of the Z6 (still nice BTW and better lowlight + DR for photos), sitting on eBay for £500 then I might even by an eleventh. But even then, I'm not sure I will need 6K/60p or want to put up with the file sizes in RAW. Which begs the question why bother, what else is on the table that it offers? And the RAW codecs just don't have that RAW look that a proper Cinema DNG codec has on a proper RAW camera like the Sigma Fp-L, especially in terms of noise and grain texture. I also think that the Japanese keep making cameras and images cleaner, sharper, better... Whereas the artist in me is starting to get very bored of that and looking for something different and more analogue. On the lenses side it's the same. So no the Z6 III doesn't really float my boat, especially not for 3000 euro. When the Sony A1 II comes out at $6k by the way, keep an eye on A1 OG prices... These may well be close to the Z6 III and Z8 soon. That 8K H.265 500Mbit/s 10bit 422 it does is the nicest one of all... and this is coming from an ex-Z9 owner....it is better than the 6K Z6 III N-RAW... Yet with an essential plus....a much more manageable size of recording.

That pricing in Europe is a bit controversial isn't it? €3k which is quite a big step up from the Z6ii and not too far short of the Z8... I wouldn't NOT buy something that fitted the bill purely based on cost, but what I thought for me was a foregone conclusion, I'm actually having second thoughts over now... Nothing so much to do with the Z6iii per se but more because I have a couple of alternative options lurking in the background and now when it comes down to pushing the button, I'm sitting on the fence a little longer. Hmmm...

You've got to be kidding. Who does that? Granted, if you buy ten of them, it's different. Why is Panasonic almost always less expensive then? You have the same warranty laws. Seriously, Nikon is screwing the Europeans. Why? I'm not trying to be difficult. I just want to know why.

VAT... but U.S. in the most part of States also has sales tax, although much lighter...

To notice you need to watch footage on big/high resolution screens, or cropping a lot (to make zoom or pan in the image by exemple). Skin textures by exemple looks more mushy. The S5II also has worse detail rendering than the S5 and S1, but this time the S5II uses a lot of sharpening to try to hide the lack of details. Honestly, in 4K and the standard profiles, the S5II image sometimes look like a bad oversampled 1080P. I was always interested by Panasonic because they always had very good detail rendering like on the GH5, G85, GX85, S5, S1 etc. But now, I only seek cameras with internal raw because most brands use too much sharpening and noise reduction to get a better DR score. Yes I agree PDAF is essential, but I didn't think the GH6 could have worse AF accuracy (below 48fps) and worse pulsing in Open Gate than the old GH5. Especially when most youtuber said the AF of the GH6 was much better. At first I thought I have a bad sample of the GH6, but after using 3 GH6, I confirmed it was a general issue.

Yeah I personally would never ever ever buy a proper underwater housing for a current gen camera! Waaaaaaaaay too expensive. I have a splash bag, but if I was to get a "real" kit then I'd be getting it for a GH5 (heck, maybe even a GH4 if the price is cheap enough!). Definitely not for the newer GH6 or GH7 Or perhaps even the chinese Seafrogs underwater casings. Of course if I was doing this professionally, the economics of all of this becomes totally different. And you go for the best.

Until the early years of digital cameras, the few housing manufacturers produced housings for one or at most two camera models. The top of the line for Nikon and Canon. Then digital cameras became more and more complicated, with more and more controls, and the manufacturers went into crisis. the digital revolution caught them off guard and they could not keep up with the new releases. It took over a year to design and make a housing. Nauticam revolutionized the market by applying industrial design and construction logic to an industry where all companies were (are) little more than skilled craftsmen. Now the housings come out almost simultaneously with the release of the new cameras, probably thanks to agreements between companies that are able to get the designs in advance. They are producing housings for the more niche camera models, the problem is that the cost has skyrocketed. A housing for a mirrorless goes from 3K Euros to over 4.5K Euros (without dome and lens port) A housing for a cinema camera goes to over 20K Euros with all the accessories. The second hand market is ruthless with prices less than 50% if you are lucky to get one of the latest, mainstream models. When you decide to change, the camera body is almost the least of the problems.

Absolutely. I've always started with the finished result and then reverse engineered it when I see so many 'shoot the shit' out of it and then see what they have got to cobble something together from. It's called vision. Actually, I say 'always' but that is not actually true... I started off having zero clue and then progressed steadily towards 'shooting the shit out of it and seeing what I have to then cobble something together' to in the last 10-12 years, actually 'reverse engineering' based on vision. For stills it's been a fairly easy process. For video, harder. For hybrid, hardest. The single biggest issue? The tools as in not quite having the right tools for the job so the tools do without question play a part, but as has always been and will always be the case, simply having the best kit is not enough.

Maybe you would benefit from using back-button focus? I use it on the GX85 and it works brilliantly because you have full control over when the AF is enabled.

We shall let go and let people have their opinions and estimations. Back to GH7, Prores Raw Cine 4K is slightly smaller than S16. Dedicated S16, 16 and 2/3 modes would be nice for the future, with full widths and various ratios. Footage so far looks fine regarding textures but otherwise rather dull.

Magical "medium format look" is different of medium format look... I'd rather call it larger sensor size look. I actually don't like anything closer of the definition of being categorized as format either. I believe that a small part of @eatstoomuchjam's beef against this manner of speaking is this. I haven't read anyone to call it magical anyway. That said, yet someone praising that route can still be in love for a platform like MTF is ;- )

I guess eventually you may accumulate several m43 bodies, gh7, chunky yet robust pro body, something like em10 v, small body with interchangeable lens mount, even smaller m43 body with integrated f1.4 prime lens, like Sony rx1. probably each format will have these several layers.

I had one of those deals in France. It was just too good to pass up in November of 2022. When you wait and buy, you usually don't end up losing that much when you sell it back. However, what happens when you love the look of the camera? With the GH7, it looks as though Panasonic has addressed EVERY problem there was with the GH6 with the exception of a chunky body, but many people like that too. The image is 98% of the image of the S5ii (with the right lens), but you have that screen which is so much better than the flip-out only screen on the S5ii- it's a major usability issue. Also, there's the high frame rates. I currently have the Olympus 17mm f/1.2, a prefect lens for that body... we'll see in November. I will probably dump the idea though if a M43 small camera comes along because I'm still a believer in keeping the format relatively small and that is not the GH7.

I just had a look at my GH6 footage that I took before selling it and I must say it looked great! It has a super organic feel to it and loved the colors in just Standard profile. I also tried shooting in Vlog quite a bit, but Standard really did it for me. I took it to the French Alps last summer and it performed so well for photos and video. Sure, it didn't have PDAF, but when you learn to work around it, it's really no big deal. Honestly, I hope to have a similar opportunity with the GH7.

To add, in this instance, the GH7, a smaller sensor camera, has a few major advantages over any larger sensor camera in its price range... internal ProRes Raw and ProRes HQ, 32bit float audio, a LogC curve, probably the best IBIS, and the best tilting/articulating LCD mechanism that I have ever used.

So... the GH7... yeah... a pretty cool camera...

Granted the title of the thread is "Panasonic GH7". However, invariably with any camera release that is not full frame, the discussion goes only to sensor size and how inferior the sensor is because it's not FF. It's quite ludicrous. This might sound crazy, but usually have better discussion about aesthetics, creativity and productivity with ChatGPT. Sure, it can be predictable sometimes, but I seem to always learn something and it can point me in the right direction. When talking to humans, it would seem there are always games being played: Trolling, Sock Puppetry, Brigading, Flame Wars, Sealioning, Astroturfing, Gaslighting, Spamming, Doxxing, Dogpiling, Shitposting, and Griefing. With ChatGPT, you never have the feeling you might lose something and true discussion can actually happen. I know, it's a sad state of affairs, but that's life on the internet. Fortunately, there are people don't do any of those things.

Meeting great and kind people in the field, also less known ones as well of course, has been a blessing to the heart, mind and soul. I am also grateful to the many of them who still share knowledge and generousity with their time and kind hearts. I once had the chance to chat 2min with Michael Chapman at a film festival. I asked him the right question too. A moment and his answer I will never forget. Thank you for sharing your feelings and insights! @Emanuel

Nope. You're flat-out wrong. The only meaningful difference that has been presented is in the characteristics of different lenses which is real, but has nothing to do with medium format. Pentax 645 lenses look different from Mamiya 645 lenses which, in turn, look different from Mamiya 7 lenses, etc. They don't have a unified and monolithic look. They won't have the same look when adapted to work with your digital camera, with or without any sort of focal reducer. You could say "I like the look of Mamiya 645 lenses with a Kipon focal reducer on my full frame camera." That's totally valid, but if you say "Now my camera has the medium format look," you sound ridiculous. Your camera has the look of Mamiya 645 lenses, nothing more. People won't magically feel like they can now "walk into the image" and it won't be any more 3d than anything else. Using a bigger sensor, likewise, won't make the image more 3d.

Thank you so much. I don't think I can get a rule of thirds grid imposed with the frame marker. The video seems to show a rule of thirds grid on before the guy went to activate a frame marker. Once that was enabled, it seems like the grid disappeared.

I guess mileage varies depending on how you look at the footage. What I see in it is: pretty heavy grade done but footage looks consistent and hues look right, including skin-tones this indicates that the sensor and profile behave well in the grade and don't get pulled around in unnatural ways - this is a lot less common than you'd imagine and many of the grades I've done end up making different tonal or colour regions of the footage don't look coherent with each other.. saturated edges look fine this is very difficult because doing a strong subtractive saturation operation is very challenging as it stretches tones apart significantly based on their hue. this is especially difficult on edges where if you have an edge of a coloured object against a neutral object then in the space of a few pixels you go from saturation being low to being high, now this wouldn't normally be a challenge because maybe they're at a similar luma level but after the subtractive saturation operation the saturated pixel is now significantly more saturated but more importantly its also now dramatically darker. this will ruthlessly reveal compression artefacts on edges, and is the primary reason that I have to go B&W and blur the absolute crap out of any footage I shoot on the cheap action cameras etc for cheap camera challenges greens look good shots like the dog at 0:54 show deep saturated greens in the foliage in the background, which have clearly been significantly altered. in real life the graduations in greens amongst footage like this are very subtle, and yet the colours in the video look dense and the opposite of stretched low-quality footage, they have a density that is reminiscent of the things that the 5D with ML does very well (but I'm not saying this is at that same level - this video isn't enough to judge that) anyone who has declared war on yellow-ish greens like I have and tried to grade them back into looking lush (or even just not dead-looking) will know the whole thing exists on a knife edge. the fact that you're cooling the shadows and warming the highlights (which this grade does quite considerably) also stretches the greens too shots look to have usable DR in outside scenes in full-sun on surfaces that would be blindingly-white there is an effortlessness to the colours when you look at film there is an effortless coherence to the whole thing, like it was always going to be this way that it would be silly for it to be any other way - the colours in film look like this was their destiny - you don't question it. this coherence is incredibly rare for digital and especially smaller sensors when not given enough light, so although the outside sunshine pics are great, it's the inside shots with the deep shadows that show off a coherency into the lower registers of the tonal ranges. the colours don't cheapen, they don't thin, they don't shift, or become glaring or dull, etc. etc. Hollywood colourists can work low-level miracles, but will be the first to tell you that if the footage is lacking then there's a limit to what they can do - more would be asking for high-level miracles! Either this footage is good and the colourist was a super-star, but considering this is a YT video, I'm leaning on it being a good-to-very-good grade on top of very capable footage. The more I colour grade my own footage, the more I see when I look into the footage of others.