IronFilm

Just because I'm curious, I did a bit of digging into how much the total cost would be practically speaking. As we all know the body itself is merely the start of the costs! A common big big cost with these professional cameras is memory, Arri Alexa Classic uses SxS cards. Even the oldest SxS cards secondhand are "cheap" but very expensive if you're used to SD card pricing! And older SxS cards are no good in an Arri Alexa as they can't handle the full capabilities of the Arri Alexa Classic of 2K 4:3 ProRes 444: https://www.arri.com/fileadmin/media/arri.com/camera/Digital_Cameras/Camera_Comparison/SUP_11_Data_Rates_ALEXA_Classic_and_XT.pdf But you probably wouldn't be buying a 4:3 version, rather the 16:9 version which would tend to be cheaper. In that case, the data rate is lower, might be able to get away with the older SxS cards? (even I have a couple, came along for free with my Sony F3! However.... an Arri Alexa would need several more! As you'd be filling them up too fast) But it just the target rate listed in that PDF, and not the max rate. Thus these older SxS cards could not work if they get maxed out, but... this adapter for SxS cards using cheap SD cards (such as any of the many fast SD cards many of us have for our BMPCCs!) can do up to 480MB/s, which gives a bit more head room. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/786662-REG/Sonnet_SD_SXS_E34_SDHC_Adapter_for_SxS.html However... not much more head room! So if that isn't enough, can always get this instead: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/840666-REG/Sony_QDA_EX1_SC1_XQD_ExpressCard_Adapter.html Yes, it is XQD cards which are much more expensive than SD cards! But XQD cards are heaps heaps cheaper than SxS Pro cards!! :-D Plus XQD cards have came down in price a lot lately, and I expect XQD to drop even more in price as various more affordable cameras come to market that use XQD (FS5/D500/D5/etc). They're already more affordable than what we've paid for SD cards in the very recent past (I paid more for my BMPCC cards when I bought them): https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1261721-REG/sony_qdg128e_j_128gb_xqd_g_e_memory_card.html And you can be sure these XQD cards are way way faster than needed for 2K ProRes 444. They've been tested in the Sony F5/F55 (which also uses SxS cards, and needs very fast cards): http://www.hingsberg.com/index.php/2013/12/xqd-cards-for-sony-f5-f55/ Thus that is media "solved" in an affordable way! Thousands saved here. However the really big sticking point is lenses! Even "cheap" PL lenses can cost a fortune. And if one of us was to be mad enough to buy an Arri Alexa, we sadly might not have anything left over to buy PL lenses..... could we use our existing lenses? A Nikon F mount would be ideal in my eyes, and I've done some digging but failed to turn up anything There might maybe exist a very rare copy or two of Arri Alexas that have been modded (Panavised Alexas are the obvious more common example), but basically it seems not to be an option for us. Arri Amira & Mini do have common options for adapters to use Nikon F mount lenses and other options, but of course those are much *much* more recent cameras and would cost a lot more to buy either an Amira or Mini! So hmmmm.... what to do?? Seems any Arri Alexa purchase would require also getting a set of Sony CineAlta PL / XEEN / PL modded stills lenses (such as GL Optics) / SLR Magic PL / RED lenses on the "cheap" to use with the camera, which a working set could easily run up to another ten thousand give or take a few thousand either side. Either that or wait for an Amira or Mini to fall down in price far enough to become "affordable", which would be a very looooong wait indeed! Edit: hmmmm..... I stumbled across this, but any more info is sadly lacking! But just maybe maaaaybe.... does an aftermarket Nikon F mount for the Arri Alexa Classic exist that can be added on by the user?? https://web.archive.org/web/20120321192849/http://www.hotrodcameras.com/?p=3728 Then I found this: http://cinescopophilia.com/hot-rod-cameras-2012-roadmap-includes-nikoncine-alexa-mount/ But now the trail runs cold :-/ If this can be found then it would shave thousands and thousands of dollars off the total outlay cost for a DSLR shooter to step up and buy a secondhand Arri Alexa Classic! Edit 2: Hooray!!! Have found now THE ANSWER!! This mod exists: http://www.leitax.com/conversion/Cine/Alexa/index.html Can buy it here: http://www.leitax.com/Leica-lens-for-Cinema-cameras.html

I do dream about buying an Alexa..... even if it is just an old secondhand Arri Alexa Classic This shows an overview of the various models, for the curious: https://www.arri.com/camera/alexa/cameras/alexa_cameras_overview/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arri_Alexa#Alexa Hmmmm.... prices of them are coming down ever lower, here is a couple around the US$17K-ish mark or a bit more: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Arri-Alexa-EV-16-9-High-Speed-120fps-w-Arriflex-EVF-1-Viewfinder-PL-Mount-/182225944123?hash=item2a6d833e3b:g:RJQAAOSwIgNXncYM http://www.ebay.com/itm/ARRI-Alexa-Plus-HS-with-LDS-/252492760740?hash=item3ac9bdc6a4:g:m~IAAOSw3mpXH6sP Maybe by 2020 my finances will have risen high enough and prices will have fallen far enough that I could buy one myself! haha :-D

it would also have EXTREMELY BAD low light performance.

Sony RX10 and RX100 all have shutters and ND filters. The FS700 can take stills: http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/sony-nxcam-nex-fs700-cinealta/508365-fs700-stills-mode.html So? A little doubtful it is a dealbreaker for an ND, but if it is, so what, just make it purely electronic shutter for the videographers focused GH5R with an ND built in!

Nope, EX1 doesn't have 10bit internal. It is a nice idea, and we (us low end guys) would appreciate that. But I doubt Panasonic would want to take the risk and maybe devale their brand by putting the high end "Varicam" label on a cheap stills camera. Exactly! I very very strongly doubt 0.5mm is sufficent space to make room for an MFT adapter. Of course they could have a different base mount than the FZ mount underneath, but I am skeptical there is too much room underneath that is sufficient to make room for an electronic MFT mount.

Any GH series should be MFT sized otherwise piss off too many photographers etc A mid range $7K ish to $10K ish should be S35 so can have a broad appeal. But an FS5/C100 competitor at the up to $5K ish price point could perhaps have MFT mount and even MFT sized sensor, as can have plenty of cross over with GH and other MFT bodies in terms of its appeal and target market. I am a bit uncertain if a swappable mount can have MFT as an option, wouldn't MFT be too thin?? As the base mount underneath needs a certain amount of thickness itself! Ummmm.... the DVX200 that Andrew was referring to, is a different camera to the HVX200! Totally agreed, Panasonic needs a camera in the midrange between mirrorless stills camera and a Varicam so people have a contious upgrade path to follow. This is a very very VERY powerful feature! For evidence of this you don't need to look far, just look at the many many ***MANY*** people who went: Canon T2i => 60D => 5Dmk2/mk3/6D => C100 => C300 A truly rediculously large LARGE number of people followed this exact upgrade path! (or similar) Canon must've made millions and millions from this upgrade path, which people followed as it is comfortable / easy / simple to do. And sadly people like that, they don't want to spend dozens / hundreds of hours on forums like EOSHD to consider models from other brands, when they feel they've got a simple straightforward upgrade ahead of them already to take. I think that might be a reference to the next camera.... which is the G80, that will have the same sensor as the GX85. However the GH5 is a bit further off into the future, so harder to predict its sensor. As for even if it does have the same sensor, will the crop be the same? Well that depends on more factors than just the sensor! It might be the sensor currently can handle it, but the processors with it can't. Thus they could upgrade the processing power but keep the old sensor, and be able to do 4K without a crop. Or the bottleneck might be the sensor itself after all..... we don't know.

Nikon uses XQD as well, basically the world of next gen cards seems to be broken into XQD vs CFast. And Panasonic hasn't really given any indication at all as to which way they might jump for their top of the line mirrorless camera. (except that Panasonic does use P2 cards, but just maaaaybe, they might see the P2 users as a totally different class to GH series users and thus class them with something else of XQD or CFast. Anyway.... they might just stick with SD cards, as the latest fasts cards can handle 4K 10bit) By the time the GH5 comes out next year the DVX200 will be becoming reasonably long in the tooth, and remember a large chunk of the cost of the DVX200 is its Leica lens, which a GH body never comes with. Plus the DVX200 is aimed for a rather different class of users. I fully agree Panasonic should bring out a low/mid range camera above their mirrorless range. But they certainly could have a GH5 4K 10bit @US$2K + AF200 (as a direct FS7/C300mk2) @US$8K + Varicam LT kit @US$25K, without needing to worry about any substantial overlap between the three of them. And as Panasonic has been gaining a lot of attention with the GH4 (and hopefully even more with the GH5!!), they're gaining lots of new users, especially people new ish to filmmaking in general, so you want a very clear path for them to follow as they grow up and improve and expand out. At the moment a young professional starting out with a GH4 today is most likely to get a Sony FS7 / RED Raven / URSA Mini 4.6K next, instead of a Panasonic camera. Having a cheaper Varicam LT helps a bit from what it used to be before, but the jump is still too large from GH4 to Varicam LT!! There needs to be at least one (or two!) steeping stones between the GH4 and the Varicam LT. Otherwise you will leak customers as they move up in price point.

Just get a focal reducer and Tokina 11-20mm f2.8 Sorted. Not that hard at all :-)

Indeed, asking for 2.35 and 1.85 aspect ratio crop lines on 16:9 is such a simple and basic request they could have EASILY included even all the way back to GH1 days. But they haven't yet.

If 10bit 4K internal comes in the GH5 (as we are now expecting) then Panasonic has won the game of camera wars for this round. Panasonic was first mirrorless/DSLR with 10bit external before anybody else, now it looks like Panasonic will be first with 10bit internal before anyone else had even caught up and offered 10bit external aside from Panasonic!!

I'd be much much more tempted by a BMMCC or secondhand BMPCC (I have one myself) than a 5Dmk2 for ML raw.

Probably, product cycles can be quite long.

Nah, I'd rather have it in the form factor of the Sony XLR-K2M to help keep it even more compact. But if you have the choice of either battery grip size for audio or a XLR-K2M styled option, then that is cool too.

Heh, mine has just been sitting on the shelf! I have so many better/easier cameras to use instead.

Why? You can use a focal reducer with a Panasonic AF100 or Sony FS5 or Sony FS700 or Sony FS7, all of which also have built in ND filters. And has ZERO of the issues I meantioned about the ND adapter you linked to.

Wouldn't mind it if they start using XQD or CFast cards in the GH bodies. (but please not microP2!)

But what if you want clear? Or wish to use native lenses?? Or use a focul reducer?

422 without going to 10bit as well wouldn't be a huge gain, don't want to still be stuck with 8bit. An internal ND filter adapter doesn't seem realistic. Needs to be built into the camera. And XLR-K2M form factor would be much nicer than YAGH styling.

Don't worry, even I (self proclaimed "King of Canon Haters") own a Canon DSLR as well A Canon 50D! :-o Which I picked up for NZ$50 (which is about US$35 ish).

I'd be surprised if it does not have IBIS, after the GX80 has it. And Olympus is bringing a 4K IBIS camera. GH5 needs something that is cutting edge above all other competitors to keep it in the lead for the long cycle until the GH6 comes out. FHD 240fps probably wouldn't be it.... (even RX10/RX100 series has that). But 4K 60fps could do it!

More info is coming soon: http://www.43rumors.com/ft5-no-full-gh5-announcement-photokina/ My thoughts is, please please please have this (in order of priority): 4K DCI 60fps 10bit 422 internal with no crop + IBIS + XLR-K2M style audio implementation (not add audio like the YAGH!!) + built in ND filter (if the RX10 can do it, why not a GH5?? Even better if variable ND filter like the FS5!!) + 240fps FHD + multi aspect ratio sensor (like the GH2). Do that and I'll sell my wife, soul, and first born to get one. Do check out the XLR-K2M, is a nifty Sony product which can be put on their mirrorless cameras, or even point and shoots! I see no reason at all why Panasonic couldn't bring this out if they considered it. The Sony RX10 mk2 is priced way under US$2K, and has an ND filter. Even if they GH5 doesn't have the fancy FS5 ND filter and only has a basic RX10 type ND filter then I'd still be happy with that as a big improvement for the GH line up As it looks like an AF200 is not coming, I think Panasonic really needs to bring their best A game with the GH5! And the GX9/G8 can be photography focused cameras, plus there is Olympus for MFT users.

You're also gaining a much greater range! Good choice I think.

AnthingButEOS.com Wonder if "BeyondHD.com" is taken. wow, true, 8yrs since 50D came out! And then a little while after the 5Dmk2

Hope so, but doubt it. I think there is almost ZERO chance of internal raw. Currently Panasonic GH4 is the only one doing external 10bit, so it isn't like they're being pushed to do more! But it is the natural next step for the GH series to do (just like how the a7S mk1 to a7S mk2 went from external 4K to internal 4K)

Brace yourself for more disappointment!