jonpais

Why is it a 'great downgrade' for an amateur to go from the NX1 to the GX85? The GX85 is a great little camera, and it has one important feature lacking on the NX1. Would you mind sharing with us the reasons why you spent an entire year accumulating an NX1 system, then suddenly, you're selling it all? I thought only doctors and lawyers spent $2,000.00 to purchase a camera for family pictures.

Nothing I've seen of Steven Clarey's footage on YouTube convinces me that the GH5 is any better than any one of Panasonic's lower end cameras. I could be mistaken, since I don't shoot high frame rates, at least I haven't in a long while, but I wasn't even aware that cameras recorded sound at 180fps. If I'm mistaken, please forgive me.

You have to love the comments over at YouTube. Somebody asks, 'isn't there any sound?" Frickin' hilarious!

We await your tests.

No, only when the Moon squares Pluto.

Remember that a one-inch sensor is much more forgiving of focusing errors than an APS-C sensor, or even u4/3.

The X-T2 (and I'm not name-dropping here because I'm infatuated with Fuji or anything, but because it's one of the only digital cameras I'm familiar with aside from Panasonic) has lots of customizable settings for AF-C; the GH5 will have at least four settings too, AFIK; and this is the future of cameras, at least as far as AF is concerned. Learning how to program your camera will take time and practice. So when Arikhan says that the X-T2 is third as far as his experience with AF goes, it could just be that he needs to spend time learning how to tell the camera what to do. I'm not 100% sure though, since to the best of my knowledge, those settings, just like face-detection (should there be a hyphen there?) are not even available when shooting 4K - and I'm not a stills shooter. What this means for enthusiasts is that, with the increasing sophistication of top-tier consumer cameras, photographers are going to be required to become more and more tech-saavy. And from an earlier topic here re: How to Save the Consumer Camera, one thing stands out: that apparently young people are not as computer literate as I once thought. @Arikhan I'm not referring to you here. The thing is, even the few times I tried using face detection, the camera showed the person's face as being detected, but when looking at the footage, it was out of focus.

Sorry Axel, I didn't realize you'd even used the * word.

I watched a Dave Dugdale video once, I believe he was testing the AF ability of one of the Sony cameras, and to the best of my recollection, I think he actually said he usually uses AF for interviews this way. Anyway, that's how I remember it, my memory could be faulty, I'm 60 years old after all. But there are times I actually prefer MF because I don't want the subject to remain continuously in focus, at least in expressive work. So, for example, if I'm doing a tight shot (or whatever it's called in filmmaking parlance) of someone's head, when they move slightly, I like it to go out of focus for a moment. I really, truly detest the word organic, but that's how I feel about focus. AF can look mechanical, machine-like, whereas if a subject moves beyond the range of depth of field for an instant, I think it looks much more natural. Again, I will stress, this is for my personal work only, not for a job where you're filming an interview. And I'm not talking about transition speeds between one point and another here, either (Arikahn mentioned the X-T2's AF, and I immediately thought of how abruptly it can change focus points compared to the smoother transition of say, Sony cameras). I'm now thinking, since we're having this discussion, that at some point in the very near future, I'm going to invest in focus pulling gear, because I really don't want the camera making decisions for me. I understand that for commercial work, AF is rapidly gaining acceptance, but for personal work, I'm starting to believe it can be a hindrance. Not that I use it much anyway. I could go on and on... Recently, I've been noticing just how often that while I am focusing, (and I have the menu set to focus assist whenever I touch the focus ring on the lens), that I forget I'm in focus assist; and I go to change exposure with the dial, and instead of changing exposure, I've changed the magnification from 3X to 10X or something. Very annoying! And anyone who's ever used a Panasonic camera knows how useless 10X magnification is (you can no longer see focus peaking, for one thing). I don't know what Panasonic could do to avoid this from happening. Has anyone else here had this same problem?

Wouldn't a 1" sensor be more forgiving than an APS-C sensor?

You bring up some interesting points, Arikhan. For one thing, in the past, I always relied on others, especially YouTubers, to do the testing for me and tell me what the best settings to use were. Since purchasing the Lumix G85, I've been doing a lot of my own evaluating, and I think the settings I've come up with work best for me, much better in fact than just sheepishly following what others recommended. Of course, we are all here to share information, but that doesn't relieve the responsibility of testing yourself. Concerning AF, Lumix cameras have for a while now had some of the fastest single point AF around, and the GH5 is without question going to kill it, with it's ability to read the sensor twice as fast, and with all those focus points. The joystick will come in handy as well, since one thing that troubles me about touch focus on all my Panasonic cameras is that the actual focusing area is really the size of the tip of my finger - quite a large area in fact, and hardly accurate enough for demanding work. The joystick will allow much more precision. As far as AF-C goes, I tried it a few times, it did not work well at all, and I gave up on it entirely. Which is why I admire the fact that you are even trying to see how it can be made to work, and under which conditions. I have been recommending to Panasonic owners that, if they are shooting a person (clothed or unclothed, makes no difference) that they have them wear something shiny or contrasty, like sunglasses, a striped shirt, a necklace - because i've found the contrast detection can lock onto those quite easily. The camera will also tenaciously hold focus on a person if their hair happens to be backlighted, at least it does for me. And in the event that I absolutely must use AF at all, I usually initiate recording in manual mode, so I can at least see focus peaking to confirm focus. Otherwise, with a low resolution LCD, it's virtually impossible to know whether you've got the shot in the bag until you get back to your home or office and view the clips on your monitor. The high resolution EVF and LCD on the GH5 should go a long way toward alleviating those headaches.

This may not pertain to what Fritz is referring to, but from watching the video above, it appears that when purchasing V-Log L, you also get four LUTs which you can use to view a sort of graded image in-camera or through an external recorder. I never shot V-Log with my GH4, one of the reasons being it looked like mush in the viewfinder, the other being it really requires 10 bit for good quality. The GH5 should solve both of those issues. So I don't belong to the camp that says they wouldn't buy the camera if they have to pay for something that unlocks extra features. What I do object to is the 1990s way they are distributing it.

This guy rules. If you haven't already checked out his site, you ought to. Lots of great tracks for your projects.

Don't know if anyone's shared this video yet.

The SliderOne + Motion Module at slow speeds seems quite usable for interviews, the SliderPlus Pro, not at all.

Super nice work, Mattias!

Which lens are you using?

I know upgraders or those already invested in Fuji would probably prefer to keep the same battery, but I'd rather they did like Olympus with their new OM-D E-M1 Mark II and went with something with 50% more capacity.

I'm looking forward to the release of the 50mm f/2 next month.

What does the camera smell like?

Thank you for your input.

Could be. The thing is, without even knowing how someone is going to be using the equipment, it's virtually impossible to even give a considered reply. @Stanley You really love your 1080p.

I think the short sliders with motion modules would be great for interviews.

Not intending to be abrupt, but to the best of my knowledge, there are no reviews of these two lenses yet.

Review