Michael Ma

I think the value of my slider just went down...haha

GH5....they are showing a prototype... confirmed: expected to enter market first? half of 2017 4k 60p 4k 30p 10bit 4:2:2 6k derived from 18 megapixels Lenses new: 8-18mm.....wth....I just bought the 7-14mm 12-60mm (old news), and a super telephoto zoom...didn't get the specs. not sure if this is GH5 related, but they are talking about 8k, super high dynamic range, global shutter

http://www.43rumors.com/follow-panasonic-live-blogging-now/ someone has a live stream...very LOW QUALITY though

People are pointing out the 8K sign.....great but that's not what I'm here for.

I hear they don't work on the 1DX Mark II. Can anyone confirm? I can't believe I have this much anticipation over a pre-release of a camera. Kudos to Panasonic for making exciting cameras.

I'd like to add DPAF better skin tones (it should nail the skin tones each time rather than manual adjustments to WB even after white card white balancing). 5k....I guess I would but that puts a damper on things, and I'd demand more features. I really hope they are specific with the announcement today which is a lot to demand for a pre-announcement. Not something like "revolutionary features with the new chip! then list all the specs that we don't need"

Reading all these posts from 2015, it's as if Panasonic read this thread and tried hard to fulfill most if not all of it. Well, that's the prediction anyway.

Nail in the coffin? GoPro is still light years ahead of the competition. Protune, Cineform, flat profiles, global shutter...they had this years before people ever heard of Log. You can shoot 4K Protune flat and export to 1080p 4:4:4 right inside GoPro studio.

Ah, I see. It's up to 1800g with select combinations. I'm guessing a heavier body would fare better with a heavier lens rather than something like a 70D/80D and a really heavy lens up front. It's interesting how Zhiyun in the YouTube comments keeps saying 1800g.

I really think the 1200g payload is a conservative estimate to give people who don't want to always balance perfectly to be off balance a bit. I put 1100g on this thing, and even off-balance, it performs perfectly. With perfect balance with a prime lens for example, I think it should be able to handle more than 1200g. Anyone able to test this? Unfortunately, none of my gear will add up to more than 1200g. I wonder how the 5d Mark IV with the 16-35mm f4 IS or the 14mm 2.8 L would do. Around 1475g (plus maybe a little bit more for the battery).

Thanks...I was just about to spend $40 on 2 26650 batteries. Maybe I'll test it first.

I am not sure if this has been mentioned on here but I gotta admit I'm impressed by the dynamic range. It doesn't look sharp at all, but I would be happy with this.

I'd say with the Crane, the video would look about 90-95% identical. You can change how the pitch is corrected (follow or stabilized) to allow jib like pitch correction which will open up a few more creative shot options. What it would help with would be the sudden shifts to the YAW axis which a very few are present in the video. It will smooth those out. At that height, there probably isn't much ROLL or PITCH stabilization required. Much of the unwanted motion, if you are looking for a perfectly smooth shot, is the up and down motion. To stabilize that, it's all in your technique of walking and holding your gimbal. You have to walk flat footed and hold the gimbal horizontally as far as comfortably possible away from the body.

It's a little short, I can shoot a longer one tomorrow if you'd like. It was a extreme example of something I wouldn't attempt with this setup but I was just curious how well it could do it, if it could do it at all at 400mm equiv distance. And I think it did a pretty good job considering just how much precision was required. I'm probably more than 100 meters away on the 13th floor of my apartment. I should also point out although the gimbal is doing a hell of a job stabilizing the roll and pitch, the vertical axis stabilization is done all by the lens. You'll need IS on the lens for this room range even with a gimbal. Surprisingly they weigh about the same. Only because the H1+ requires an external battery to do anything and the Panasonic 7-14mm is a very heavy lens for it's size.

Having owned many gimbals by now, I would say that the Z1 Crane is the gimbal that everyone has been waiting for. It's probably as user friendly it's going to get. So if he did get a broken one (which is very unlucky because it does come in a nice padded carrying case that should survive pretty rough shipping) I would say it would be definitely be worth the trouble of replacing it. Bad luck happens, but considering the other options out there and how much they cost, I would not go with anything else.

Update. My Z1 Crane is here. It took me less than 5 minutes to balance my Canon 80D with the LCD flipped outwards. I wanted to do an extreme test so I put my 55-250mm IS STM lens on there. The motors are strong enough to where I can flip the LCD back in, zoom all the way out on the 55-250mm, and without having to rebalance it. The stabilization is smooth. There is no studder, jerkyness, and fine tuning does not seem to be required. I zoomed it all the way out to 250mm (~400mm equivalent), and I was able to smoothly track moving cars very fluidly. I'm sure the IS on the lens helped a lot as well. Normally, I plan to walk around with the 10-18mm STM during travels. As for turning it on (in response to the user who was having trouble with his Crane), When you hit the gold button, you can see the LCD immediately react. However, you need to hold the gold power button a few seconds until the LCD becomes yellow. And a second later, the motors will snap into place. My package came with 2 sets of 2 18650 batteries (not 26650 batteries that some come with now), no remote control (some resellers are packaging that in), nice plastic carrying case for $551 USD with free international shipping from ebay. Order was placed on the 20th, the product's warranty card say August 24, and it was shipped on the same day. Unfortunately, that seller is selling it for $730 now so I don't have a link, but you can find under $600 deals on ebay. I'm very happy with it on how it performs with a 1100g sitting on it. It easily does everything I was hoping that it would do (outperform my Pilotfly H1+ in every way). I'll be happy to answer any questions if you have them. I made a video with my impressions. Please excuse the video quality and my speaking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D76MeyAl0Z8

That sucks. Sounds like a battery issue. Which actually sounds less serious than a broken motor. Possibly something you can fix yourself if you want to deal with the hassle. Maybe the batteries are defective. The cells go permanent hibernation after they dip below 3V. They are not too expensive online to replace. Probably less than $10-20 for a pair of 18650's or 26650's. I have been waiting 3 weeks for mine and bought from the absolute cheapest ebay reseller. $551 to be exact with free international shipping. Maybe I shouldn't have been so cheap...

I think both skills are essential and learning one can only help the other. The 2 biggest takeaways so far for me has been: Being forced to learn how to grade 8-bit (a jpg file is pretty much like grading 8-bit video) because I can't shoot in raw has only helped me understand color grading better and what's happening from a data perspective. Editing clips together to form a story when there is none has helped me put together better collection of photos together rather than only putting galleries together just based on individual merits of each photo. I don't own a GH4, but I'd never take my GH3 for photos (anymore). I think the GH4 is far better, but what you get with something like a Canon is better skin color, and more shallow DOF, maybe better noise performance (depending on camera), and it gives you so many more photo shooting opportunities where there was none.

No matter how much they improve wireless signal for audio, it'll never beat the infinite bandwidth of copper. Right now, it's absolute crap.

I think that's when a image stabilized lens really matters as the 3 axis doesn't compensate for lateral movement. You're probably not going to get a perfectly still shot but at some effort in holding it still, you'd get some minor smooth movements. Hopefully my Z1 Crane arrives today. I'm looking forward to trying a 80D with a 55-250mm IS STM lens on it just to see if it can handle it.

If it's like my Z1 Smooth C, after switching it on, you gotta hold a button for a few seconds. I'd give you more precise direction if I could, but my Crane is still on a road trip somewhere in a delivery truck. I was hoping for it to be delivered today, but probably tomorrow.

Also, things like white balance correction will be much better. When trying to use a white balance eye dropper on 8-bit, it will almost always clip one of the color channels in some areas. When it clips, the color changes into a different hue in some areas, and you lose detail as well. And along the lines of that, any grading tools that shifts the color channel values, rather than apply color) are very limited in their range and function. Of course we are only talking about 10-bit. We won't get the range of grading a RAW file from a photo camera, but 8-bit to 10-bit is still a huge improvement.

It looks like Zoom and Tascam has both finally paid for the SDXC license. I wonder if they'll update my Zoom H4n for SDXC support.

Hmmm...just saw the face tracking app. Now I want one. But that'd be my fifth gimbal. I think I can live with the z1.

I've owned a Z1 Smooth C for about 6 months now. It stabilizes my Galaxy Note as good as my Pilotfly H1+ stabilizes my GH3. Fun to take for travel and doesn't cost much. Not sure if DJI thing is pocketable in something like cargo pants, and if it is, it would be better than the Z1. Other than that, I'm very happy with my Z1.