Shirozina

Digital sensors have a fixed and measurable DR which is from saturation at one end to where the signal can’t be separated from noise at the other and it doesn’t matter if it’s 8 bit or 16 bit. Also interpolation or resampling can’t recover data not captured in the first place. The first rule of digital is garbage in and garbage out.

Yes downsampling helps and infact is essential for best quality (1:1 can't produce optimal images due to the Nyquist Theorem) but for better colour the sensor has to capture it in the first place and that data can't be interpolated by downsampling and nor can DR be increased beyond what the sensor can capture even if downsampling and interpolation can reduce noise.

You can't make up the DR or colour fidelity in post.

Have you tried using optimised media and Render cache yet? as I doubt you will get smooth 4k editing without it. I spent a long time setting up my laptop based setup and this was the only solution. Even my 10 core overclocked workstation with 1080ti struggles with smooth playback on some media (esp in Premier).

I have quite a few Zeiss Contax lenses but I don't see anything 'filmic' about them. They are well made, have good resolution, high contrast (quite poor Bokeh BTW) and stand up well alongside modern glass. If you think FF = 'filmic' then be aware that most feature films in the history of cinema were shot on the equivalent of an APS-C size sensor which you can achieve with a speedbooster on your GH5.

Also with H.264 and similarly highly compressed codecs the CPU does the decompression and not the GPU so your CPU is the limitation and not the GPU. If you want to have smooth playback you need to render optimised media and enable the render cache which will be done by the eGPU but then the resulting media is much easier for the CPU to playback.

In terms of in-camera processing it may be less intensive to go straight from 8k capture to an 8k codec rather than resampling to a 4k and then to a codec?

Is playback done with the GPU though? - AFAIK it's used for the main processing tasks which include rendering difficult compressed codecs to ones that the CPU can playback more easily and this is where I get the major benefit as just using the internal GTX1050 causes the laptop to throttle down to a crawl after a few minutes of intense work due to heat buildup. With the eGPU rendering cache takes a few mins and I can edit with ease and the laptop stays cool and the CPU will run at 100% all day long.

BTW I use an A7r2 for stills so technically I'm already working in '8k' and I can say for certain that it's better than 8mp or '4k'.

Read my last sentence......

I've got the same CPU, 32gb of RAM, separate SSD for media cache and optimised media and a 1080ti in an eGPU and it won't play smooth without optimised media and Render Cache. Premier doesn't use the GPU as much and can't therefore exploit an eGPU but YMMV.

The use display GPU for compute is greyed out - is this resolve studio? Are you using optimised media and Render cache or just playing media as it is. I can't get GH5 10bit 4.2.2 400mbps media to play smooth ( the 150mbps is unplayable) without optimised media and Render Cache ( DNxHR HQX works best for me). I also think 16gb of RAM is probably not enough for Resolve.

8k capture just means true 4k output. Many if not most of today's 4k camera can't actually deliver 4k resolution esp ones with 1:1 pixels sampling. Nyquist's theorem requires 2x the sample rate. I'd certainly be interested in a 60mp stills camera as long a DR isn't compromised and no 16bit does not mean 16 stops of DR..... Just as 4k displays and TV's give is better HD picture quality then it follows that 8k displays and TV will give better 4k picture quality and remember most output even now is still HD/2k and looks very, very good.........

In the Preferences in Resolve have you got the 'use display GPU for compute ticked' as this will slow it down. You can also here force the resolve to use your eGPU. Also what is the usage in the windows task manager for the eGPU vs internal. (the internal GPU should be inactive.) Also make sure all drivers are up to date for the Nvidia card and the USB-C controler.

8 or 10 bit?

There are other obstacles for high intensity use like video editing for which laptops are not designed for. The first one is thermal capacity where the CPU and GPU will be 'throttled' to lower speeds to prevent overheating and the other is how many HD's the PCI bus can handle for the various media locations - 1 for Apps, 1 for a scratch disk and another for the media. Using an eGPU will certainly help with throttling as many laptops share the same cooling system for GPU and CPU so if the GPU is idle the cooling capacity gets a lot better and it will run for longer without throttling. Again it depends what kind of 4k you are editing? - 8 bit Pro res or 10bit H.264? If you are using Resolve it does all the hard rendering of optimised media and Render cache ( which you will need to do on a laptop) using the GPU and without an eGPU you will be very frustrated - take it from someone who has tried and now has an eGPU setup.

Depends what you mean by 'handle' and what codec of 4k media you are using. I'd say for resolve you are going to need an eGPU to make editing 4k in Resolve a practical proposition. More cores will help and 16mb of RAM may not be enough.

So the battery that came with the camera is now dead and it won't charge. Good job I have alternative power solutions. On a positive note I have tried my Panalieca 12-60 2.8-4 and noticed the distortion at the wide end virtually disappears once you get to around 18mm so this could be a good standard lens esp as the stabiliser seems to be more effective than the that on the 12-35.

I call it the 'zeiss look' slider

Maybe post a list of requirements that you are looking for in a camera rather than keep criticising a camera you don't own and don't intend to buy?

It went for over £2k!!!!!!!!!?

- an audio expert

A lav is not the only solution. Simply moving your existing ZOOM off the camera and placing it nr the sound source will make a substantial improvement to sound quality. If the subject is static/seated you can put it on a stand under them just out of frame or get a boom pole and 'boom buddy ' and have it just above them out of frame.

Why not get one now and then put it on Ebay and make a quick profit! https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Blackmagic-Design-Pocket-Cinema-Camera-4K-NEW/143010786216?epid=20025419302&hash=item214c1b6ba8:g:kw8AAOSwHjtb6ZPB:rk:3:pf:1&frcectupt=true

It's an HDR screen so it will look less flat than the camera screen. What are the scopes and Zebras telling you?