Mmmbeats

The footage feels great. There's a definate shift towards more natural and accurate colour representation. This is probably helped perception-wise by the reduced artificial sharpening. It's producing really lovely natural tones that I'm very comfortable sliding in alongside my C70 footage (I'm not making a big effort to match the cameras at this point, but they are surprisingly close in any case). It's the camera itself that is tricky. A lot more to manage than previous GH models. That's a natural consequence of a more ambitious product, but there are a dizzying array of choices to navigate. DR Boost - sometimes or always? ND - fixed or variable? SD card or CFexpress? Even battery choice is a consideration if you've already built a legacy collection! None of the above are easy to answer and require a bit of strategising. If you're thinking any of that is simple to resolve you might not have given it enough consideration. It's a workflow pest! (but I'm very much enjoying using it).

I'm also in the 'no love for HD' camp, but I will do some tests when I get a mo.

That was a very useful article. Despite the fact that I am a million miles away from that level of technical insight, my conclusion about the camera having used it for a few weeks is quite similar to theirs: 🤪

This two part article on noise is quite interesting and, I believe, relevant to this topic: https://www.dpreview.com/articles/8189925268/what-s-that-noise-shedding-some-light-on-the-sources-of-noise

There is also 'shot noise', which is to do with photon interaction prior to the sensor circuitry as far as I understand it (which admittedly is not an enormous amount). It is determined by overall light gathered and not the 'light per area' density that exposure is measured in. This would also make any crop-in mode noisier than a full sensor mode regardless of other factors.

Dual ISO is not the only way to achieve low-light advantage. The GH6 looks like it will be a good solution for low-light and dynamic range. Even the GH5ii was a genuine improvement in low-light by the looks of things. DR Boost on the GH6 starts at 2000 ISO, so most of the time low-light is not going to be a problem. It's not miles away from the GH5S really.

This is from Facebook (from a reliable source). The streaking runs across the flag upper left. As others have pointed out this is a pretty extreme situation, but i do still think its a concern. Stuff like this catches you out when you're not expecting it.

The high-contrast streaking issue seems to be rearing its head a bit unfortunately. (not personal experience, just what I'm seeing online)

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I did some proper low light shooting with the camera (a completely unlit tunnel deep underground, lit only by somebody's helmet torch). The results blew me away. I truly think c log 3 is redundant on this generation of cameras. Regards the straight adaptor, the simplest one (no drops-ins, etc.) is only £80. Probably worth getting just for the extra flexibility it offers.

Yeah, I'm now very much in the @herein2020 was right camp. I think that description of the effect of the speedbooster was spot on. From a practical point of view, I'm not sure that the speedbooster actually needs to be held in place by the screws. I suspect it may be optional. I run a dual system strategy on my GH5S (native lenses and adapted lenses jumping on and off during the day) and it works absolutely fine. The whole thing is second nature to me now.

The DGO sensor really takes care of noise spectacularly well. From what I have seen, read and experienced so far there's really no need to use C Log 3 at all with this camera.

I was just looking at the same resource to check my thinking on this. I'll give it another look tonight. (unless I'm too busy playing with my new C70, which I'm literally on the way to collect!).

I'm coming round more to your (field) of view now. I haven't gone back over all your statements, but I do realise I was fundamentally misstating the role of focal reducers in the imaging chain, so I'll take another look at this. That's twice this week I've been wrong about something. Disconcerting, as I am usually only wrong about something around once a decade. I had an exhilarating run from my 13th birthday till turning 30 when I was right about *absolutely everything* 😅.

I doubt it was a choice. Likely something technical to do with how they stack the exposures. I doubt Panasonic were too pleased about that aspect of it either.

Exposure is very much a personal thing, but I do now find that the built in exposure meter is probably the worst way to do it. V Log and C Log 2 are so similar I'm hoping I'll be able to use very similar, or even identical skintone targets with both (I'll be using C70 and likely a GH6 as B-cam). On my GH5S the inbuilt meter does a surprisingly good job at making exposure for linear profiles but it's all over the place when it comes to V Log. The exposure targets I use are: Darkest skintone highlights : 42 IRE Lightest skintone highlights : 55 IRE Of course you still have to make adjustment decisions once these targets have been considered, but it's a system that has worked very well for me up to now. No grey card, no meter, no trouble with noise. Just zebras or false colour required. I'm expecting the targets for C Log 2 to be very similar. I'm going to do some tests this week.

V log and C log 2 are very similar. I mainly use target skintone IRE's to fix exposure and the figures (which I can't recall from the top of my head) are very similar for each. I've found V Log (and V Log L) very easy to work with both in exposure and grade to be honest.

In other news - I just purchased a C70, which I will be collecting on Monday 😍.

You are both correct, as this is just a different way of describing the apparent DoF. @herein2020 is technically correct (yes, yes everybody - 'the best kind of correct' 😉), and @M_Williams is correct for practical purposes. DoF is in fact the same whether using the speedbooster or not. However, in order to achieve the same framing on the 50mm lens example you would have to alter the distance between the camera and the subject, thus altering the DoF. I much prefer herein2020's way of stating it, but I have come to acknowledge that endlessly explaining this introduces just as much confusion as it clears up.

I think this is what most people are going to do. It troubles me though because you are shooting through 3 bits of tinted glass (2 polarised planes in the variable ND). My experience of variable ND (Tiffen 2 - 8 stops) is mixed. Around 85% of the time it is fantastic with little to no noticeable cast. Many shots I forget that there was even any ND used. But the times when problems are introduced can be very hard to predict. Weird casts seem to appear based on such criteria as window coatings in buildings (especially office blocks and new-build public buildings), light bouncing off buildings, the sun at certain angles to the filter, etc. The cast can also range from muddy brown to grey-blue (at high ND's). It can also play funny with other filtration, such as diffusion. All of which makes me a little nervous about stacking variable ND with more stuff.

This is a decent point actually, but the GH5 native ISO for V-log is *optimal* rather than compulsory. You can expose below it and take a slight DR hit. Whereas the GH6 ISO 2000 requirement is a *minimum* for DR Boost, and if you want to expose at a lower gain setting you take a huge hit by switching to non-boost.

I'm the complete opposite. I wasn't really that excited for the release and had no real intention of updating. I assumed that Panny would go for some kind of headline-grabbing big feature, but instead they seem to have really gotten to the DNA of what makes the line so appealing - great useability, powerful processing, features for real-world filmmaking. I have to say I'm impressed - and sold! A stop of dynamic range is actually a huge deal. If you're trying to bring a window into some kind of exposure range, that's half the amount of light you have to deal with. That's like pulling a couple of big fixtures onto set. There's really no point comparing the GHx to the BMPCC in my opinion because they are completely different tools. No way you can engineer what BM made with full IBIS, mechanical shutter, weather sealing, etc. They are just great at doing very different things.

Not sure if you're being serious? 4K 60p 10-bit (the thing I most lament on an almost daily basis) Increased dynamic range (the GH5's biggest weakness) High resolution mode stills (for landscapes, architectural, etc.) 4 channel audio recording....

It's all about the quality of the isolation. it can be tough to get, say, a clean skintone isolation even with a really strong codec at times. If the colour data is thin you either end up with areas of skin that just won't key, or parts of the background that just wont separate. I've had to just abandon secondaries at times. Totally agree about Canon. They seem to have some compression fairy dust. The C200 8-bit was remarkable.

That's not good enough for me. An 8-bit file from the same camera will generally 'look the same' (absent any banding) as a 10-bit file from the same source. That doesn't mean its going to perform as well in post.