Amazeballs

After reading all the comments I want to proclaim that I take it back. I didnt know about sensor readout speed. Though I dont consider G85 a lower end camera in any way. It costed 900$ for me & I dont know where you lucky bastards get it for 500$. Its the second best mft video oriented camera that Panasonic makes after GH5 IMO. And I still wish they would show it some love in terms of firmware updates, adding some features from GH5. Anyway, my next camera probably will be G90 or GH6 and I will keep in mind that GH series get the best treatment, but I dont want to wait for too long for GH6 to arrive. Crossing fingers for PDAF in G90 on pair with Canon Dual Pixel.

If those features are software based, than yes, more or less. In real world you often pay for software, so I dont mind if Panasonic would charge some less premium camera users a little amount of money for those features. That would make some sense, that if you buy a more expensive camera you get everything in a package but if your camera is a cheaper variant you might spend a few extra to unlock some features. Otherwise that will just end with hacking their cameras by some enthusiast and Panasonic getting nothing out of it and loosing quality control. In real world if someone tries to bottleneck their hardware in similar fashion, that is what happens. I would donate money myself to such hackers if they start working on alternative firmware for my camera.

I have G85 and I just wonder how much of this wonderful camera potential has been realized and I have a strong feeling that both GX85 and G85 are heavily bottle necked by Panasonic firmware, not hardware. For example, G85 processor is faster than G7, but all the frame rates are the same. No 96 fps, not even 72 fps. Even crop is better than on GH4 - 2.2 instead of 2.3. That's again means faster processor. So 96 should be possible, but we have pitiful 60 fps, same as on 2 year old model (G7). Even my sluggish GX7 had 60 fps FHD and it was way way slower then G85 in every way. Then, we have those wonderful focus transitions on GH5, and nobody else has them. Why? Its a simple software feature. If a new iphone gets an update with a new feature - all the iphones get it. Ok, not the oldest one, but 4-5 generations get it. And Panasonic has it only on ONE camera. It would be logical an fair to its customers to spread this as an update for all their cameras produced at least in last couple of years. Renewed autofocus on GH5. Make an adopted improved version for other cameras as well. Its an algorithm. All your cameras suffer from bad AF, everyone knows that. So give them a little boost with a firmware update. Didnt hear any movement in that direction. V-log, why its an option for GH cameras only? Is there any hardware limitation? No. So why? Give users an option. You even sell it for 100$ and still dont let them use it. That hilarious actually. And I can continue. And you can as well. I feel that unless you dont buy the most expensive Panasonic Lumix camera you dont get the same first class treatment package as you do by jumping on GH bandwagon. And I dont like it. I want to buy GH5 or 6 when I will know that I do actually need it, that my needs have grown enough to justify this purchase and not cos Panasonic limited my current camera functionality with a firmware here and there, forcing me to switch, manipulating and making me feel like I am the person whos requests and wishes are not being taken into account. Besides all that I really struggle to understand why there is no official Panasonic forum for discussing all that. Wuf.. Ive spoken out my mind finally) Curios to know what other ppl think of that.

Same here. You can buy new for 260$ from Japan or Malaysia, its small, light, very nice DOF and overall image at 1.7. For the price and size-wise it beats PL 1.2 easily for me (its six time cheaper, SIX CARL!). BUT its focus by wire is one the worst I've seen so far. Maybe if Panasonic fixes it someday, I will get back using it for video. For photo its good obviously. My main lens for manual focusing and bokeh is PL 25 1.4 and I love it. Got it for 300$ on ebay. Nifty fifty for M43. Second favorite lens is a 14-140 3.5-5.6 zoom. It covers all the focal distances I need (except ultra wide), light, has Dual IS#2, so the stab with my G85 is very considerable. Great for many things - landscapes, interview, hunting for butterflies, any kind of hand held shooting cos of its stability. Surprisingly sharp and has enough DOF for separating objects, starting from 40mm or so. And third is mentioned above 42.5 1.7 which I love and hate simultaneously for its MF. Now I need to cover wide angle, and thinking between Panasonic 7-14 and Laowa 7.5 f2. Second is cheaper, lighter, faster and I' am not sure I will need those 8-13mm.

Where the hell did he find GH5 for 1700$? Its 2 grand everywhere I look for it.

Here is the man who knows the stuff! I would definitely buy this controller you are talking about. Fader seems like perfect solution. https://www.turntablelab.com/products/mixfader-wireless-portable-crossfader ? This one fits, just a bit too expensive for such a simple task. And where to mount it? I like to shoot hand held for example. Maybe you should start a kickstarter project BTM? And develop your own type of controller for that purpose. With easy mounting on a camera or any kind of gimbal. I would participate by all means.

Didn't use Oly lenses yet. The thing is - I do love my Pany lenses optically, size and price wise. But that MF tuning they made for them is just so stupid. And even if someone need it, like still photographers (I didnt find it useful when I was taking photos), it would be so adequate to change their behavior in photo and video photo, which is an easy peazy programmable thingy. Yes I watched that Camerastore-tv video of course. It just frustrates me, that Panasonic being generally a company that tend to listen what its customers want, ignores that matter completely. And Oly PRO lenses are very expensive and will miss Dual IS on my G85 body. For now I am happy that I can focus comfortably with my 25 1.4, but for future purchases I will tests every lens focusing mechanism thoroughly from now on.

I just bought a used Pana 25 1.4 and besides its stunning imagery, I was very surprised by its manual focus capabilities, which was unexpected to me. This lens was produced back in 2011, but its the best manual focus fly-by-wire native MFT lens that I've used so far and by a great margin. I own 14-140 zoom (3.5-5.6), 42.5 1.7 and 20 1.7. They all are PITA for manual focusing, especially 42.5 1.7 which I would consider otherwise a superb small and affordable lens, but its MF is just so wired - one second very slow, then suddenly blazing fast. Completely unreliable for video and I hate its unpredictable acceleration and speed. Who's genius idea was to setup modern MFT lens behaviour like that? The 25 1.4 has fast smooth MF with close to none acceleration so I can easily pull focus on any shot without any extra effort or shaking my camera. Its reliable and constant. But all other lenses I've tried are plain terrible at that! So I wounder, WHY PANASONIC MAKE THEIR CURRENT LENSES BEHAVE THIS WAY?! And it would be so EASY to correct, just by adding some extra menu setting with a profile for every lens for a) acceleration control (starting from zero) and the lens speed itself. Only two freaking parameters and thats all. That would safe so many people from constant struggle with that MF flybywire bullshit. And now try to explain my why its not done yet? And consider that Panasonic stronghold is video, they are perceived by many as video camera makers, they excel in video.. but, they did not offer any solution in that department for all this years. Unexplainable idiocy. BTW, maybe some hero hacker can modify MFT lenses firmware to change those parameters? That would solve this too. P.S. Well at least now I have one lens with which I can focus comfortably.

IMO its quite useless - no focus control, and how many mft users haver power zooms? All this controls are doubled on Zhiyun crane handle anyway.

Just one question ahead of time - will it be able to work SIMULTANEOUSLY with Panasonic App (or GMonitor)?

I am going to ping you once more) Any chance we can take a look at a prototype? Alpha version or some clue on release date? Anything!

Is it possible to put a v-log on g85 in perspective?

Thanks. It works better witn Natural for some reason, with + 6 temperature and -6 tint adjustment on the gx7 footage to match g85

AFAIK GX7 uses the same sensor as GH4, so the colors should be identical. G85 on the other hand, ditches low pass filter and has a different color (less yellow). I want to match those cameras colors as I am shooting both right now, but dont seem to be able to achieve that in Premiere with my basic color grading skills. Did somebody already tried to do that? I shoot in the same profile (portrait) with same settings. Please help me out.

hmm.. any news on this one?

Panasonic cameras are video-oriented, that's their positioning in the market. Cannons are not. They have a separate line of video-cameras for that, much more expensive yes, but I guess that is their calculation, of a most profitable approach. Anyway, DSLR sells are in decline for everyone, and will fall more and more with every year, so we will see if Canon survives or get squeezed to a specific narrow niche.

I think you should make a donation page, I want to give you my money is this works out) You are a savior!

Also, would you like to develop a phone app for that? I have couple of nice ideas how it should work, I can draw some sort of draft. The idea behind this is simple - you have a big ass slider at your finger tips, and you can set focus pull marks just by pressing those buttons, which will limit the focusing distance. This will make pulling focus a pleasant enjoyable experience! The draft is very basic, but you should get the idea. It also would be cool to add some gesture support, like - 1 finger scroll = normal speed. 2 fingers = more precise and slow. So a person would be able to switch those on the fly to his liking.

You are awesome man! So will it work on the device like this? they are both Bluetooth though. There are tons of similar controllers for 2-5$ everywhere. That would make my gimbal workflow so much better, incredible! upd: so you already confirmed that it will work on the previous page. Do we need to modify those devices somehow? How do you make them work with a camera via wifi?

BTM_Pix you are the man! I just watched your video with your wifi controller prototype for Panasonic cameras! That is so awesome! Would you like to create a separate topic for this? Cos I am eager to contribute, test and discuss. I have a dream of archiving a smooth remote pull focus on Panasonic cameras, using something like this, clipped to my Zhyiun crane as a second handle (btw that thing costs 5$). Or we could start from making a separate app for a smartphone.