Stab

Interesting! I was just thinking how I would feel about this, if it turned out to be a killer cam at a good price since I just bought the GH5. Let's say it turns out to be costing $3000,-. Would I feel the need to upgrade already again? I realised that for my work (weddings), I would still put the camera on the same rig as I am using now. So actually, the form-factor isn't important to me. Build-in ND's would be an upgrade, but not worth the extra money to me. A bigger sensor? With no better image quality, I have no problems with using a Speed Booster and it's manual stepless aperture ring. I have done so for years and I love the image. 4k 10-bit at 60p? Now that would be an upgrade, but probably also not worth the price difference. When I think of it, there is only one single reason why I might feel tempted so take my loss and by this new camera. If it had +2 stops of dynamic range more. Cause that's, ultimately, one of the few weak points of the GH5 left. Other than that, I feel like the GH5 is a killer cam. And no way that it is a still a stills camera with a video mode. It is a video camera with a stills mode and stills form-factor. Just sharing my rationalising thoughts for everyone who might agree and can still feel good about their GH5 purchase

Stab math, best math.

Has anyone measured the (useable) dynamic range of the GH5 in video mode yet? Preferably with Cinelike-D? My non-scientific tests show not that much difference with the GH3 and GH4. It is cleaner at higher ISO's and more gradable for sure, but at low ISO's it doesn't look much different. Anyone who has more insight about this? DXOmark hasn't tested this camera yet

Wrong. Speed Booster (XL) will completely change the look.

Funny to see a 100 pages discussion from which is 80% about Autofocus. At the same time, hundreds of video's are posted but none of them contain any production value. 90% is just baby- / cat- / house- / foreground flowers in focus / neighberhood video's. Also telling is that nowadays many vloggers buying a GH5 for their work. It's funny and weird to see how the video market has changed from a majority of professional camera users, to 90% hobbyists, vloggers and rich people buying this cam to play with for a while before never touching it again. Sorry, but i can't help the feeling of feeling slightly bad for all these spoiled little brats. If you can't or won't produce anything of visual value with this camera, then please don't judge it for it's AF capabilities. I have never used AF for video nor while I ever, and I'm not saying nobody may not or shouldn't, I am just pointing out what a bunch of whiners film makers have become. We used to use gear which was highly impractical and inefficient and made the best out of it to satisfy our clients. Now we're shooting 4k in slow motion footage of our cat which moves away from us all the time or towards us, and complain that this stupid 2000 euro camera can't even hold the damn cat in focus. This is not a complaint about EOSHD, where the percentage of sensible professionals is still pretty high, but about all the stuff I've seen lately on Youtube, Facebook and forums about this AF-talk combined with their cat- and garden video's. As soon as I will finish some professional shoots with the GH5, I will report back here. Until then, I'm gonna leave the discussions up to you. Happy shooting.

Premiere CC 2017. With CUDA-support enabled so the GPU does lots of work in both real time and exporting.

My specs. I7 Ivy Bridge (3770) / 12 GB mem / GTX 1060 6GB. By no means a high-end system, just decent. I can edit the native GH5 footage (4k 50fps) fine with no stuttering or lag in Premiere CC 2017. Actually, even my laptop (i7 4700HQ / GTX 760m) with far fewer horsepower gets the job done with lag-free playback at 100% resolution. So I guess the only advantage for me to upgrade my CPU / Mainboard / RAM now would be shorter rendering and exporting times, if I plan to use this camera for the next years, which I am. How are you experiences with GH5 footage and your computer?

Looks great Jonpais! I just did some more editing tests on my laptop. I'm surprised that even my laptop handles the 4k 50p/8-bit footage fine! It has a mere i7 4700HQ and an Nvidia 760m (which gets a lot of work to do when applying effects but that's to be expected), but i can just work directly on the files and having smooth playback in both the source monitor and the preview monitor. I'm positively surprised because lots of people 'scared me' with their recommendation to transcode the footage first before editing because otherwise our computers will not handle the footage. Now, I have only one question. Does it get more taxing on the computer if the timeline gets longer? In other words, is a 10 minute film more stressful on the CPU and GPU than a 2 minute clip? Because I have just tested a timeline of 2 minutes. So far, looks like I will not have to transcode anything. How about you guys?

I've just did some more testing and came to the following conclusions: (I shot all clips in 4k 50fps 8-bit 150mbps and a couple in 25 fps with the VFR on) - IBIS is working very well at 35mm, pretty good at 24mm and horrible / unusable at 18mm. This is with a 18-35mm on a Speed Booster XL. - The VFR mode on 1080p is a bit soft after looking at 4K clips for a while, but the worst thing is the horrible moiré and aliassing. Even small waves on water do it. Plants and grass in the background induces it also. The only way to shoot in this mode is filming people with the background out of focus in my opinion. Still a nice trick to use once in a while. - Battery life of the camera is heavily decreased compared to GH3 / GH4. - CineLike-D has more shadow-detail ánd highlight detail than any other profile except for V-LOG. It does however take away some color tonality. I like the colors of Natural the best, but I prefer the extra DR of Cinelike-D. So I'm going to stick with the latter. - This camera overexposes pretty quickly, but when shooting 1-2 stops underexposed, the image grades very nicely and there is a lot of detail in the shadows that can be brought back. So, similar to other GHx camera's actually. Last but not least, I've made an edit of some test footage and my computer is able to handle it all and provides playback in realtime and full resolution! I honestly didn't expect this as my specs aren't that great in 2017. CPU: I7 3770 / 12 GB mem / GPU: Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB / Premiere CC 2017. The montage was just 1:30 long but I added some effects (Warp Stabilizer, Filmconvert) and did some cuts and fade-ins. Sometimes it slightly hesitates but when I press spacebar again it's smooth as butter. Not having to transcode the footage is very convenient and I hope the playback will stay smooth on longer projects with more clips and effects. Does anyone else have similar experiences?

I've tried walking with it and it was warping all over the place. Much like Warp Stabilizer. And since it crops the image also, I would just stick to Warp Stabilizer if necesarry. From my first tests, the IBIS of the GH5 (at least with non-native lenses like I use) is not suitable for heavy motions or stuff like walking. It is however very capable of reducing shake and jitter and that always comes in handy.

You press the 'up' button on the controller / joystick.

I don't think there is a difference on coverage. Mind you, I'm using the XL version which has a reducing factor of 0.64x. Most people use the regular or Ultra version, which have a factor of 0.71x. That would explain the differences in reports. Maybe I'm wrong, who knows.

Thanks. Im using the Nikon version and provide the correct input focal lenght I believe. When shooting at 18mm, I fill in 11.5mm as the focal length. (x 0.64) When shooting at 35mm, I fill in 22.4mm. There is some vignetting on the Sigma 18-35mm with this SpeedBooster on 18mm f1.8-f2.5 but it's very minimal and only in the extreme corners. This is also without IBIS of course. So I guess this is also the reason for the IBIS performing slightly worse but I just wanted to make sure. I have no other non native wide-angle to compare it to. For just correcting handheld shake, it works great though.

There is slight vignetting going on at 18mm, but since I always add black bars in post they aren't a problem for me. I understand that IBIS is no gimbal replacement, but I have seen better results in other people's shots which were also shot with non-supported lenses. Also, the fact that it's better at 35mm than at 18mm surprises me.

I have two more questions about using the GH5: - I have been getting pretty underwhelming results when it comes to the IBIS. For normal shots it is fine, but I can't seem to really do 'walking shots' without the edges of the screen warping all over the place. Now the funny part is, this was worse at 18mm than at 35mm. You would expect to opposite. Could this maybe be caused by the fact that I'm pushing my Sigma 18-35 to it's limits on the wide end by using a Speed Booster XL 0.64x? - I have also noticed that the stabilizer uses up a lot of battery juice. I think the battery life is almost cut in half when it's turned on all the time. Is there a way to connect bigger batteries, such as the Sony NP-F970 to the GH5 for instance by using it's USB-C connector? I wouldn't really want to buy the battery grip as my setup is already heavy enough as it is. Thanks guys.

That would be great. Very great even. But for my line of work, I prefer not to work with V-LOG. Could be great though if it's true.

My first couple of tests with the GH5 show that Natural is the best picture profile, as it was on the GH3 also. When everything turned down -3 or -4 (contrast / saturation), there isn't much difference with it's close contender Cinelike D. Mind you, Cinelike D is flatter but also some color tonalities are lost. Especially in the greens. Cinelike D might show a small improvement in DR, but never more than a (0.5) stop. With Filmconvert applied with it's standard curve, the difference in dynamic range is lost and Natural wins with better colors. Some grass for instance has a yellow tinge to it in real life and on Natural, which just becomes a single colored green on Cinelike D. So for me it will be Natural as the way to go. Like709 has the best colors out of the box, but not the best DR without tweaking every shot which I'm not going to do when shooting weddings. I didn't get the V-LOG update though so I can't comment on that. Forget about Portrait, Standard, Vivid, etc. I see no reason to shoot in those profiles as they don't offer any more 'natural' color over Natural and no improvement in DR or gradeabillity whatsoever. Then the stabilizer. I'm using a Sigma 18-35 with a SpeedBooster XL, so not supported by the camera. I have to manually input the focal length and naturally I can not make us of Dual IS. My findings are that it works fine for handheld shots which are pretty steady or make a small movement or pan. However, I tried to walk with it on and it mostly gave pretty poor results. Similar to warp stabilizer, it was warping all over the place on the side of my screen. Don't expect miracles if you don't have native lenses is my take on it. Oh yea, and it DRAINS your battery. With the GH3 I could go for hours on a single battery. Today I almost went through a full charge in like 90 minutes. What else? The 4K at 50p is astounding. The image is chrystal clear without being oversharpened. It's not lacking DR unless you start pushing it with very contrasty situations.The VFR is very fun to play with. 120-180 fps is astounding. It's as sharp as a GH3 / GH4 at 1080p, but more prone to moire and aliassing. You have to make sure you have the background (bricks, buildings, trees) out of focus and then you're good to go. Instant production-value. The camera feels sturdy and professional. The full-sized HDMI is the finishing touch. Recording simultaneously to dual SD cards is a blessing, especially when shooting important events like weddings. No more nervously taking the SD-card out of the camera and put in my computer with shaking hands praying to God that the footage is okay and the card is undamaged. Cons I've seen so far: - Incorrect exposure when having VFR selected in combination with shutter-angle. You aren't shown the correct exposure of the shot until you press the record button. This needs to be adressed. - Not as impressed with IBIS as I had hoped for. - Battery life decreased. Probably due to Stabilizer and or dual card recording - Image needs heavy grading to be 'filmic'. But this is the same for all Panasonic camera's and I've learned to deal with it Great step-up from the GH3 which I've used for 4 years with great pleasure. If the GH5 proves to be as reliable as the GH3, I'm a very happy customer. Here's the one of the first films I've shot with the GH3. I'm still surprised with what that little camera can do. If you don't have the money, you don't need a GH5 or an upgrade. But if you do, it's great fun and you feel like the future is here.

I shoot weddings and I never use autofocus and probably never will. Besides not wanting to be dependent on AF like you already mention, there is also focus as a creative tool. There is so much going on sometimes on a wedding day, that I need to seemlessly change the frame and focus to someone speaking or someone else who's listening. Granted, there are shots were it's easy to just tap and shoot but not in shots were multiple people are in the frame and the focus and frame needs to be changed a lot during the recording. Also, I only have two hands and I couldn't tap the focus while holding the camera with my camframe. A manual focus pull with a follow focus however, is doable.

I had one a long time ago. I remember it being pretty short. Maybe like 45 or 55 degrees at most.

35mm is pretty far off if you ask me, IF you have a Speed Booster in between. I would also guess that setting it to the wide end of the lens yields better results then at the tele end. In this case 18 mm or 12 mm with a Speed Booster. But yea, I need to do some extensive testing later.

Does anyone know the native ISO of the GH5? I've seen different websites stating different results. I think it is ISO 400, not 200. Correct?

Hi tonysss, Thanks. And, are you happy with results? Does it stabilize well? Are there weird artifacts? Could be great if u could just leave it at 15mm and don't need to think about it anymore!

Great. Thanks for the explanation Ken. That clears it up. I will do some tests next week to how the IBIS influences my shots. I am using a Sigma 18-35 on a Speed Booster XL so it becomes a 11.5-22.4mm. Do you guys think i need to manually change the focal length input everytime I zoom in or out? Or do you think that a middle ground setting, let's say 17mm would provide decent results?

And what about when you shoot 4k 50p at 8-bit in Like 709?

Hi Ken, thanks again. Yea I asked something similar because it's still not really clear to me. When you turn the anti-shake function on, with the hand-symbol, is that actually the anticipated IBIS system? And E-stabilization just some extra feature that is like an inbuild warp-stabilizer? Or is e-stabilization the IBIS that everyone was stoked for? And IBIS2 means a combination of IBIS and Lens stabilization? Do I have it correct now? :D