jonpais

If you're like me and already ordered one of these, watch and weep.

Saving custom settings to the SD card, being able to name files and folders, Bluetooth, USB-C, three hour battery life, no more crop, possibly one of the best EVFs ever put into a consumer camera... it's hard not to be excited about a camera where the manufacturer is really listening to its customers and implementing all this stuff. Like I said, more than we probably deserve. And yet, I don't use 1/10 of the features I've got on any of my current cameras as it is.

Another in-depth look at all the features, this time presented by Panasonic Australia

Thanks Arikhan. I've never shot with the Panasonic 42.5mm f/1.7, but my understanding is that it's a fine lens. All the shots were handheld with dual IBIS, manual focus.

My two cents - Standard photo style is for those who want to do minimal color correction in post; until I can grade as well as Noam Kroll, I'm going to avoid Cinelike.

Personally, if we're just talking about one lens to pair with the GX85, I would bypass You did say you'd appreciate any views on this, so here's mine: bypass the Sigma 18-35mm and Metabones altogether and go with the Leica Nocticron.

Okay, but if someone were to post some grades here while at the same time saying something like, 'well, I just messed around with these clips for a few seconds pushing and pulling them around without the least intention of interpreting the footage', I think it's only fair that they come in for some criticism.

I had a difficult time deciding which I liked most, too! The Leica Nocticron.

I would never have shot over ISO 800 with the GH4. If you watched my videos or those of Fredrik's you'd see that the shadows are cleaner at higher ISOs with the G85.

Axel - thanks for sharing the video. I subscribed immediately. And I really enjoyed your analysis of Wolf33d's grade. Look again and tell me you don't see it. Oh, now you see it. But now he is no longer referring to grading, but shooting, huh? interesting... So, you're saying he thinks you can get away with sloppy white balance, or what? Not understanding your point.

Excuse me, but he did use the word ham-fisted, which does mean clumsy. He said nothing about trying to achieve a stylized look. Those are your words.

DBBounce does say he went about doing the grade in a ham-fisted way, which means inept or heavy-handed, and I think he succeeded magnificently in doing just that.

Here's a more fine-grained test, comparing reducing contrast to -2 versus lifting shadows +2. These were taken this morning shortly before and after a rainstorm, so the lighting conditions changed at times while I was shooting - so a couple of clips may be a bit too bright, others a bit too dark. Tell me what you think.

Thanks, Sebastian. I was really hoping to take out the X-T2 and just shoot for fun tomorrow (Saturday and Sunday are my most productive days), but now I've got to compare Contrast -2 to Shadow +2. waaaaah

That's a lot of testing! I have to do all my own tests, because I can't judge anything at all from things like static objects placed against a wall or on a desk with flat lighting, or skylines with a jet black sky. I have to see what all these adjustments do to people's faces in broad daylight. I think lowering contrast might be used very selectively, such as if the subject has facial blemishes - it helps reduce them without using any filtration. Aside from that, I'll leave contrast alone from here on out. From the contrast test I just did, ISO 1600 might be acceptable, but is certainly not preferable to say, ISO 400, and I'm still going to avoid super high ISO settings unless absolutely necessary. And until someone can show me that any NR at all is good, I'm just going to leave mine at -5, sharpening too. I'm worn out from tests at the moment.

Thanks, you just saved me a few hours more of testing. How about Natural vs Standard Photo Style? Any opinions?

If IBIS isn't important to you, and you can find one at a good, price, it's obviously still a great camera.

I was going to go ahead and do another grade, but now that I'm in the process of changing all my settings: NR, Contrast, Photo Style, as well as coming to grips with white balance, I'll see if I can't come up with a more pleasing, neutral grade in the coming weeks.

I like it! I happen to be very interested in tripods as well. Perhaps a sub forum for sliders, tripods, jibs, etc. Let's see what we can do.

But Panasonic doesn't have film simulations... Fuji was the first Japanese producer of photographic film, while Panasonic started out as a maker of lamp sockets and bicycle lamps.

Only 4K? That's a deal breaker for me.

You're saying the Panasonic is going to give us color science comparable to Fuji? I read in the Wall Street Journal this morning that McDonalds is going to open a bunch of franchises selling kobe beef burgers, too.

You're probably right. Not many true fluid video heads by reputable manufacturers for lightweight cameras, either. They say fluid head, but they're actually friction.

Here's a contrast test I did this morning at different ISO settings. I wanted to find out what difference there was between leaving the camera at the factory default setting versus dialing contrast down to -5. Dialing contrast down to -5 flattens the image out, preserving more of the shadows, but it also destroys the three-dimensionality of the subjects and smooths out textures. It also appears to shift the color toward orange. So I am considering either a) shooting with contrast at -2; or b) leaving contrast at default and raising the shadow curve to +2. I find at default, I'm losing too much shadow information, so hopefully one of these two methods will work. What do you think?

I will say again, at the risk of repeating myself a million times: I have also owned five Panasonic cameras; they are supremely video-centric, and even the lowly G7 is capable of being used in productions: Panasonic could have released these upgrades incrementally over a period of years; that they packed so much into a camera at this price point is nothing short of miraculous: but codecs and bits aside, the color science of the GH5 is still unmistakably Panasonic. And since I can still dream, my ideal camera would be a GH5 with something like the X Trans sensor.