jonpais

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First, sorry to hear this. Panasonic customer care in Vietnam is just as bad, if not worse.

Yes, probably works best on a tripod, but I could see myself using it quite a bit.

Either I'm just being realistic now, or I've lowered my expectations, whatever. I already realize I could get much better skin tones than in these shots (they are all magenta, but we already know that's not the sensor's fault) - the color science won't be drastically different from previous Panasonic cameras. Also, although I've been criticized about my speculations, DPR don't say which lens they used - I'm guessing the 12-60mm - which is not going to give a cinematic look to the footage. The colors will be fine, I can assure you. Also, they were probably shooting under fluorescent lighting, and they didn't do much color correction. I wouldn't worry about the color.

Do not throw your money away on the Panasonic 12-35mm f/2.8: it's nutty expensive, slow even by 2012 standards, and not pin-sharp wide open - on top of which, it's super plastic fantastic: and by f/4, unless you're shooting up close, the bokeh won't be spectacular. I'd sooner spend $600.00 total on the Sigma DC DN 30mm f/1.4 and 12mm f/2 Samyang, and save the $400.00 or whatever. Of course, even with in-camera sharpening turned all the way down (for a cinema look), nobody is going to say your images are blurry or anything like that - same goes for the Olympus 17mm f/1.8... You're right about the Olympus 75mm, though - you've got to be able to have some distance from the subject. But it's indisputably the sharpest lens with the nicest bokeh of any native mount u4/3 lens, surpassing even the legendary Nocticron, which costs some $700 USD more. I'll be posting another field test this evening, if you want to have a look. If manual focus doesn't intimidate you, you might be better off buying a few vintage lenses and a cheap Chinese adapter. The Samyang cine lenses will work in a pinch, too, Just not wide open. Zoom lenses aren't the trash they were when I was studying photography back in the 1980s, but none of the u4/3 zooms can hold a candle to the best primes in the system. Actually, anything at all will suffice: you might shoot better videos of your precocious daughter with a $50 lens than I ever could with a $10,000 Cooke. I would still suggest investing in some primes that are no slower than f/2, or a focal reducer (the Mitakon for $150?) and some APS-C lenses.

Now we're talking!

May I ask what your sharpening and noise reduction settings were in camera?

The $700.00 USD G85 (hat's what I paid for body only in Malaysia anyhow) slaughters the $2,000.00 made in Vietnam EM1 Mark II in low light, moire, aliasing and detail.

I wasn't aware that there were eternal discussions about the JPEGs, since I'm primarily a video shooter. Sorry about that. Anyhow, he always shoots JPEG and RAW and just uses the JPEGs as a reference point, AFIK. Also, I notice he shoots without altering the highlight and shadow curves; if he'd lowered highlights and shadows a bit, the results would have been a tad closer.

For anyone who's got $900.00 burning a hole in their pocket I've got another, more in-depth field test of the Olympus 75mm f/1.8, my very favorite u4/3 lens, coming this evening. Edit: Looks like I've got to do some more shooting. Hopefully, tomorrow evening.

This is primarily aimed at stills shooters, but I really like this guy, and it shows what I like so much about shooting video with this cam - the skin tones are wonderful right out of the camera (most of the time!)

Drop a mask in the upper right and lower the luminance.

I recently watched some jaw droppingly beautiful music videos - crystal clear, gorgeous bokeh - shot by a friend with a 50mm f/1.5 Nikkor AI and cheap Chinese adapter that altogether cost him under $50.00. If you have talent, you can create great stuff with any tools at your disposal.

Great to hear you're getting along with the X-T2 at last. It takes a while to look past its shortcomings, huh? I've been loving using it on the Crane. And like you say, the colors are great and require little correction in post.

The Olympus 17mm f/1.8 falls below the level of Olympus's best offerings, it is inferior in resolution even to Panasonic's modestly priced, more compact 20mm f/1.7, and for a moderately wide angle lens, it is too slow to create amazing bokeh. In sum, the Olympus 17mm is an average instrument that is nowhere near the level of the lenses mentioned by me earlier.

Three of the best primes for u4/3 are the Olympus 75mm f1.8, the PanLeica 42.5mm f/1.2 and the Sigma 30mm f/1.4. They all have nice bokeh and are blisteringly sharp. The Leica is the only one with OIS, but to me the IBIS alone is good enough. You'll probably want a wide as well, but I can only provisionally recommend the Leica 12mm f/1.4, as I've never used it and haven't seen any videos with it as of yet. It is also insanely expensive for a focal length I wouldn't be using very often. If you get a focal reducer, the options are limitless, from Zeiss Milvus to Sigma Art lenses, and they will all give you incredibly detailed images with next to f/1.0 or thereabouts. Here are a few tests I did with the lenses mentioned above.

Actually, the Tokina must be used with an adapter, it's an APS-C mount lens. Another possibility is to look into a used Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 pancake. It's not too expensive and it will give a wider field of view than the Sigma. Many people love the 20mm.

Mitakon adapter. It goes between the lens and the camera. It won't work with u4/3 lenses. It will run around $150.00 new, but you might find a used one on eBay for less. Hope that helps.

I'm assuming you're on a budget, so if you want to go wide, I'd suggest getting a Samyang/Rokinon 12mm f2 lens. They can be had for less than $200.00 used. Another option is to get a cheap Chinese focal reducer and a Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8.

There will always be a crop in 4K, so the answer is no.

Agree 101% First of all, the Crane comes with two sets of batteries, and they last forever. Secondly, I wouldn't go out in the wilderness with untested Chinese batteries that may not even last as long as the originals, so it may end up costing more in the long run. Have you bought the Crane already? Are you aware how long the batteries last?

He's just some random guy who walked into a camera store and shot with the GH5. I hope we won't be posting many more of these.

Just for the record, I don't for a second believe that Panasonic, Olympus or Fuji are intentionally holding back on reliable AF-C in movie mode. It takes the best engineers in the world years to develop the technology and the algorithms to get it right. Nakagawa: “First we started by shooting a predetermined subject, then testing the focus shift. This work was to confirm that it conformed to Canon’s established standards. Of course we confirmed through simulations that focus was achieved with Dual Pixel CMOS AF, however, there were some cases where it did not go that way during actual testing. With old lenses in particular, as this was technology that was not envisioned at the time, disagreements with the simulations were more apt to occur. So, it was necessary to check them all. With the labor of checking the zoom positions for 30 minutes to an hour for each lens, when checking 50 lenses for example, if a problem occurred with the 50th lens and the algorithm needed to be revised, there were cases where all 50 of the lenses would need to checked all over again. From the start of testing, it took about half a year to finish 103 lenses.”

Here's a video I sent to Zhiyun a few months back, regarding a problem with the screws not staying tight. They've since changed the way they manufacture the Crane, and it is no longer a problem. Just wondering if you can move the camera back and forth, side to side and the camera will hold position like in the video. If not, it's not balanced properly. Video.MOV

Not really sure what your point is. Essentially, what you're asking is, why can't Sony make a full frame camera with all the features of the GH5 with Canon color science for $2,000, or whatever it is you consider a reasonable asking price. Asking why no camera manufacturer makes the perfect camera for you sounds kind of naive to me. And since Panasonic isn't even in the full frame camera business, I am kind of perplexed. Maybe you should start a new topic and ask why Sony doesn't step up their game, instead of targeting Panasonic.