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I've taken a similar approach to my travels in having multiple setups as backups. Considering that although my trips are holidays, they're similar in that we're away from major cities with electronics stores, we have tight schedules that aren't flexible, and I won't want to repeat the same one for lost footage so it's a now-or-never kind of thing. I went through my whole setup looking for single points of failure and eliminating them. I have multiples of every item and can, at a pinch, have anything fail and still continue shooting. The only weakness of the setup was that my backup body wasn't that great. Also, because I had backups of everything I essentially have duplicate setups, and so can film things from multiple angles if I choose to. I disagree. IBIS can reduce and even eliminate hand-shake to create smoother and even locked-off shots, whereas global shutter means that whatever movement is there isn't removed, it's just far less objectionable. Also, IBIS on wide lenses can combine with lens distortion and RS to create wobbling that global shutter does not introduce. So IBIS and GS both have strengths and weaknesses, but aren't equivalent. They're different tools for different jobs.

Don't Nikons have the focus ring going the wrong way? That would screw me up big time - who cares about the lens performance if I'm going the wrong way when focusing! It seems you're right though, that they're super sharp.. My budget is when I look at a lens and don't wince and then don't worry about how to justify it to my wife! Seriously though, I'm seeing: Canon FD 100-300mm f5.6 L from about USD200 / AUD300 that are clean and haze/fungus free Canon FD 80-200 f4 L from about USD350 / AUD450 that are clean and haze/fungus free The reviews I read of the 100-300 said that the non-L version was soft above 200, but the (few) mentions I found of the L version said it was much better, although I didn't find anyone saying the L was specifically better than the non-L above 200mm. Regardless, I'm currently shooting at 200 at the moment and even if the 100-300 L wasn't sharp above 200, it would be a step up as mine isn't sharp above ~135mm currently. Also, I read that at that time (early FD) they were super selective about which lenses got the L status, and there are a number of non-L lenses that are considered "honorary L lenses" as they're sharp enough to have gotten L status by more recent standards. In a sense, my budget is about the cost of the cheapest lens that will do the trick for me, in this case I think it's the 100-300L. I'm not seeing any native MFT lenses below $1K and there's almost none on ebay. Also, I already have the FD TC so that would be another expense if I moved away from FD glass. I'll give it a go and see what effect the TC is having, but I can tell the lens is soft at the longer end. It's easy to see in the viewfinder - when you go from 70-210 the contrast lowers, the colours wash out, the focus peaking almost stops working and only highlights the odd high-contrast edge - it's really very obvious. I'll do some tests and see what levels of sharpness I'm getting with which elements of the system, but in a sense it's rather academic because I need all the reach I can get. For context, this is a screen grab from full-everything at around ~2250mm or so with subjects about 100m away: This is with me sitting on the side roughly in the middle, ie, not at either end, and a lot of the ground is that far away so it's the distance I'm working with for the majority of the game: As you can see from the framing a drop in maximum focal length limits my options in a meaningful way. Also note the softness and halation of the image - that's what I'd like to get an improvement on if I can. I'm optimistic that the 100-300 L would give me a bump in performance due to it going to 300mm not 200mm and that it's an L lens. I guess it's worth acknowledging that shooting at over 2000mm is not a simple technical challenge, and that working with the budget I am working with it's amazing to just get the level of IQ that I am getting, or to even be able to get anything for that matter, let alone 120p, so I know I'm wringing blood from a stone. I'd just like a little more 🙂

I love that people don't remember the rear-facing camera any more.... What people think a street photographer looks like: What modern street photographers actually look like: Just remember to strike a pose when you hit the shutter button!

I find all of these conversations to be somewhat bizarre, as often the sentiment is that if that a given manufacturer doesn't deliver a dream-list of features, often completely contrary to their past offerings and / or license agreements and patents, and do it for some ridiculously small sum of money then the whole company is doomed. However, mentioning that the Z-Cam E2 M4 is at that price point with those features really sets the context of it not being pie in the sky, and brings it down to reality somewhat. Of course, the GH5 and E2 M4 are completely different form-factors for different purposes, but it is a realistic point of comparison specs-wise.

Back in 2018 (remember that there were times you were allowed to travel??) we took the kids to Japan, and I shot it with my GH5 and the wife shot it with her iPhone 8 Plus, and as a lot of the landmarks have pretty obvious places for a good composition we took many shots from the same location, often only moments apart. One thing that I was stunned about was how good the iPhone colour science was. Later on I struggled to replicate it from the GH5 HLG files I had, as the iPhone managed to get a clean, high contrast / high saturation look, while also not pushing things over the edge in terms of contrast or sat. So finely tuned was the colour science I pulled some of them into Resolve and if you even nudged them slightly the magic disappeared and they looked like images from a poor quality consumer camera. I'm very skeptical of higher resolution sensors in phones - you're very unlikely to print the images and decent size and if you're consuming them electronically it's not that common to have a high resolution display device for that purpose. Better to get the DR and colour science right and let the rest be as it may.

Thanks Chris - the CZ looks great but it's a little pricey if I can find a cheaper alternative that has sufficient performance. I'm kind of in that grey-area where I want the best images I can get but considering they're only for the family it's tough to work out where the budget limits sit! I don't mind the one-touch-zoom (or "pump action zoom" as I like to call them) as I typically don't change focal length during a shot. The 70-210 is a bit of a PITA in that it's not parfocal so when you do zoom you have to remember which way the focus went so you can quickly re-acquire it. On the occasions I do change zoom and focus simultaneously they sure come in handy though. Conversely, the focus controls are paramount as I am almost always adjusting focus during shots. The best shots are where the subject is broadly facing the camera (within perhaps a 90-degree range, so 45 to one side or 45 to the other) and you also want some action, so that means they will be moving, and hopefully moving quickly. All that adds up to them moving towards you, requiring the operator to engage MF-C 🙂 Wow that lens is long.... Whatever attention I am not attracting now, I sure as hell would with that thing! I have been experimenting with setting it to 420mm or slightly shorter as a compromise and just letting it run. I don't zoom out that much, but even if I do, I'm filming at 120p, and a 3s shot in the edit (or even a 4 or 5s shot) is less than 1s in real-time, so any movement over that period will just look like normal camera movement rather than the IBIS wobbling about, considering it doesn't wobble that fast when it does. I typically shoot for gesture rather than to follow the game or even the individual play, so I'm not against slowing the footage down by 2x in post either, so that would make it a 10x slow motion, where camera movement looks like a graceful ballet even though it's jerky as hell when watched real-time. I only shoot in daylight, and do need to zoom out on the odd occasion, so am willing to sacrifice a little bit of performance for that ability. Plus manually focusing at F4 is just making my life difficult for no reason, as at F8 or even F11 there is a very similar amount of background separation. If I'm on the long end, which I typically am most of the time, then the subjects are far far away, so I'm not getting much separation anyway, but that's fine for what I do. I do get that individual copies will be quite varied by this point. I've previously bought straight from Japan on ebay and gotten lenses in excellent condition or where there were flaws they were always stated explicitly in the lens listing. I also figure with an L lens it might have been looked after even better than a non-L, so I think I'm leaning towards the 100-300 L or the 80-200 L. I hadn't seen the 80-200 L as it's not listed in http://allphotolenses.com database but other mentions of it online are also highly favourable. I'll have to do more reading on it. In terms of dumb adapters, there's no way that I'm trusting my GH5 auto-focus on rapidly moving subjects with an old EF lens through an adapter lol. Seriously though, often the action has a bunch of kids all going for the ball and I want to keep focus on my son, which no AF is going to be able to do, especially when people are going everywhere and blocking line of sight much of the time. It's quite common for me to lose track of where my son is and to have to make blind decisions about where I keep the framing and for the play to stop and for everyone to gradually disperse and for my son to be last to stand up and to have been at the bottom of the pile-on that whole time. AF can be as dual-pixel as it likes, but unless it knows the rules of the sport and the psychology of my son, I'm better off doing it myself. Hahaha.. It's only fair - I've spent enough of other people's money over the years!

As many of you know, my setup for shooting sports is the GH5, Canon FD 70-210mm F4 zoom, and Canon FD 2X TC. I shoot in 1080p 120fps mode. and rely heavily on the IBIS and monopod and good shooting techniques. Normally, the 2X TC combined with 2X MFT crop makes this lens 840mm on the long end, but recently i've been experimenting with the ETC mode, which (I believe) turns this setup into a 2268mm equivalent FOV, and surprisingly i'm actually finding this focal length really useful. Despite this being well beyond the capabilities of the IBIS, the 120p saves the day and these shots are quite usable, providing mid-shots when the action is a long way away from my position on the side-lines. Needless to say, the lens is not at peak optical performance when used like this, so something sharper would be really good. Also, I am finding that the 180-degree manual focus is stupidly sensitive when focusing at these distances and the difference between in focus and not being able to even tell who a person is might only require the outer diameter of the focus ring to be moved perhaps 1mm, and that's at F8 or F11 so it's not a DOF issue. Also also, I've noticed that it gets significantly softer at the 200mm range of it's zoom, which is the part I use the most. So - what alternative zooms are there that would be sharper and perhaps easier to manually focus? Obviously, cheaper is better, and smaller is also better, so no recommendations for the Canon 800mm f5.6 please. I shoot in daylight and am happy with the performance of the ETC mode, so I don't think I need more than a native 200mm focal length, unless it will somehow give better results to get the 2.5X extra reach some other way. A quick scout reveals these options, but who knows how sharp they actually are?: Tokina 150-500mm f5.6 Canon FD 100-300 f5.6 Tokina AT-X 100-300 F4 Canon FD 100-300 f5.6 L Macro If the lens fits the FD mount then I can use my FD TC and so 200mm is enough, but if the lens goes to 400mm then I don't care what mount it is as I can just buy a dumb adapter for it. It will be obvious to those who shoot sports, but I definitely need a zoom lens, despite primes probably being significantly sharper. Thanks in advance...

I've been into hifi and custom audio for decades and there are parallels, to be sure. In audio, the bad digital had various forms of distortion that were lessened when combined with tube/valve equipment that kind of smoothed over the bad digital and left a more aesthetically appealing end product. The tube equipment usually paired with bad digital is actually pretty awful on its own, so it's a long way from neutral and often very heavy handed. As digital got better there is less of a need (and desire) to be so heavy handed with the tube equipment, and the end result became more transparent as a result. In video, we have had a similar journey when we moved from film to RAW image capture with bad colour science and then as the DSLR revolution occurred we then started employing low bit-rate high-compression codecs, and to counter the high-compression we started to use vintage lenses. As we are getting higher bit-rates there is less of a need to be so heavy handed with the softness of vintage lenses to reach an aesthetically neutral final image. I'm not sure if that parallels the availability of a good S16 sensor or not, but perhaps. I would tend to think that the Micro, being continually available since release, would have meant there was already a ready-made S16 sized sensor available: it shoots uncompressed RAW, has 60p, and is a professional form-factor for rigging etc, especially with its port for having external hardware controls rather than forcing you to use it's menu system. Why are you expecting an UMP 6K to suddenly raise the demand for S16 and B4 glass? Obviously the UMP is viewed as a professional camera and the Micro probably as a curiosity, but people who would go back to S16 or B4 lenses aren't cutting edge I wouldn't have thought, my impression was that they were curiosities too?

Hahaha, yes, that's not a small size difference!

One issue I see a lot is that photo cameras completely incapable of decent video look like DSLRs, hybrid MILCs like the GH5 which are workhorses look like DSLRs, and small form-factor cinema cameras look like DSLRs, therefore, because they all look the same, people compare them. The GH5 is a fundamentally different shooting experience than BM cameras for example. Something like the GH5 is built for run-and-gun situations out in the world far away from civilisation. It's weather sealed so can withstand wet / heat / dust / etc. It's got IBIS so can be hand-held with great results. It has long battery-life so with a dozen batteries may even be fine for a week away from AC, has higher-quality consumer codecs so can record lots of footage onto reasonably priced media, and it's an all-in-one solution that only needs an external sound source for professional audio. The P4K is the complete opposite. It's not weather sealed. It doesn't have IBIS so you need a tripod or rig. It has terrible battery life, so a dozen batteries is more like a day shooting than a week. It has high-bitrate professional formats that need large storage solutions for long duration clips. It's not an all-in-one solution at all - to get the flexibility of the GH5 in practice you need to have a rig that has an external monitor, external power solution, external storage SSD, and that needs to be on a tripod or shoulder-rig etc. The GH5 is designed to go out into the world and to capture the world by working around the unique foibles of the world. The P4K is designed to have the world come to it and to capture the world by having the world work around the foibles of the camera. The GH5 is basically the perfect solution for the kind of film-making that I do, the P4K is an absolutely terrible solution for what I do. Most people don't shoot in situations that understand how completely different they are from each other, and because they look alike, they get compared way too directly with each other. I agree. Your point about an ambassador is a good one too, MFT isn't winning the marketing game. Let's hope that they set a precedent with the Sony A7S3 in terms of going for 4K but doing it better and reliably and fixing the niggles, and that they can do this with a GH6 as well. Probably the biggest enemy we have to objectivity is confirmation bias. So when someone spends thousands of dollars on a camera they become very invested in thinking they made the right choice, so they will argue about it on the internet with other people. Fights about sensor size or camera brand aren't about cameras, they're about fighting to maintain the illusion that we make good decisions and are in control of our lives. I'm really hoping that Panasonic don't start playing the games of crippling part of their camera line to protect another part of their camera line. In a sense Panasonic were a great challenger to the status quo as they didn't have a huge cine line to protect, thus the GH5 wasn't really a threat to the EVA in terms of loss of sales.

Awesome. I'm willing to wait for something great. Quick decisions are often bad decisions, and the GH5 was made so much better in firmware updates rather than up front, but I don't think the current market really responds to that. I can see Panasonic waiting a little bit longer, getting the extra modes configured and tested, and then coming out with an absolute cracker of a camera. The video I posted above talks about using the 5K sensor in the GH5 to de-squeeze in-camera to get 10K or 8K files SOOC, so even if they don't go for extra resolution sensor but up the image processing they can still get out larger resolution files by de-squeezing in-camera. There are also a whole spectrum of algorithms for upscaling, such as Resolves Super Scale function, as well as other image processing functionality that might be useful, so going that route might yield a spectacular upgrade.

Who knows what Panasonic will do. I finally found the video I've been looking for though.. the GH5 was almost an 8K HDR camera. See below (linked to the right time-stamp): Given that Panasonic seems to have been trying to get the maximum out of the hardware possible, if they simply updated the GH5 to include all 2020 parts instead of 2016 parts and did the same "what can we possibly get out of this hardware" approach, it would truly be something to see. Considering that in some ways Sony has made a huge statement with the A7S3 that it's ok to make a camera that 'just works' and isn't about chasing outright pixel counts or clickbait marketing headlines, the GH6 could be a 20MP dual-ISO version of the GH5 with beefed up image processing pipeline so we could have things like 4K60 10-bit HLG, 1080p240 10-bit, with the updated colour science from the S1H, with less rolling-shutter, etc. Even just those upgrades would be spectacular. I'm still championing the idea of an internal eND that can be managed by the camera for auto-exposure, and combined with ISO would allow a fixed shutter angle and aperture and it would adjust exposure from full-sun to darkest low-light.

I understood you were referring to the editing workspace, and so was I as well. The modern NLE has many conventions - if someone completely new to video came in and designed their own it would look completely different. Even things like calling folders "bins" because of the physical objects used to store and manage strips of celluloid is part of those conventions. And inn the context of things being easy to understand and useful, it's great that they do all look similar. I also thought they were obvious, but it wasn't something really being talked about so I posted it. I don't agree that it will only be a few years before BM is huge, but they're definitely making the right decisions to grow and become a bigger player.

Yep - nothing wrong with that image! Nice.

@EduPortas yeah, on the internet if you find something then you have to bookmark it, or even archive it to your own storage. If you don't do it at that time then you'll never find it again! It certainly does look like a very compact setup: It makes sense as Herzog is on a mission to get the most X content he can, where X is in the realm of crazy / entertaining / ridiculous / cutting / insightful / shocking / etc. Considering that people are intimidated by equipment and basically stop acting naturally given the slightest reason, you'd want a setup that was so fast that you could always keep up and small enough that the people can forget that they're being filmed. Sacha Baron Cohen went to some extreme lengths to get people to feel comfortable while being filmed during Who Is America? and I think what is remarkable in that show is that he managed to get such open responses while people were obviously on set and being interviewed with lights and cameras and the whole setup.

@Towd The difference between 24p and 23.976 is one frame every 41.6 seconds. If you have your NLE set to "nearest frame" then that means it won't jump until 20.6 seconds into a clip, which is probably fine for me and my edits. However, if you have your timeline set to some kind of frame interpolation, where you're doing slow-motion shots that aren't a direct ratio (speed-ramps or using the algorithms to create new frames in-between the source ones) then your 23.976 clip is going to trigger those algorithms and the first frame will be the first frame of the clip, but every frame from then on will be algorithmically generated as being between two frames in the source clip. The way around that is to set the timeline/project to "nearest" but then engage the algorithm for specific shots, but that's a bit of a PITA. I'm fine to change to NTSC mode, and I guess that's what I should do. Funny how you convinced me to shoot 24p and now I'm switching away from it again 🙂 I don't care about PAL or NTSC or whatever - I haven't been able to receive TV or radio in my house for over a decade, all content is data via the internet. Whenever people ask me about something on TV I normally reply "do they still have that?" just to be cheeky - to me it's all just data. These days the frame rate of a video has about as much connection to the frequency of the AC coming out of my power sockets as the bit-depth of a JPG image is connected with the phases of the moon. I guess that if you're involved in the industry then it's probably still a big deal though, and maybe there's a bunch of hardware processing digital TV signals that are all hard-coded or spec'd for a certain frame rate. I genuinely have no idea what refresh rates my TV runs though. We have a smart 4K TV with Netflix and Amazon apps but no clue what the settings are - when we got it I went through the menus to turn off the image auto-magic enhancement destruction features. Before that we had a dumb FHD TV with a Roku media box with Netflix and other apps, and before that we used the Xbox with those apps. I always set the TV to native resolution but I never paid much attention to the refresh rates though. Considering that TVs are just computers now and they're all made in the same factories I wonder if the content is all region unspecific and maybe the apps are all written to handle whatever frame rates the content is in? TBH it makes as much sense as talking about NTSC mode it is! Thanks for your help. back to the original question though.... Does this mean that the motion cadence question is now moot? or just moot for the GH5? I have a BMMCC which can shoot uncompressed RAW, and can do a test with that if it will help.

@Dustin start a new thread... no one around here is short of an opinion and we do love to spend other people's money!! 🙂

My understanding of FCPX is that it's pretty well designed for editing, which was the part that it was lacking prior to v12, so fan or not, it makes sense to go with established conventions. People aren't aware of how many conventions have been set, but there's lots. Imagine if every screen in a program had the menu options somewhere different instead of them staying in the same place, or every dialog box had the buttons in a different location or different order rather than OK/Cancel. Or someone abandoned the File - Edit - View - .... - Window - Help style menu structure and went with their own one. I remember custom software like that, and every time you clicked something you had to stare at it like you were trying to understand a treasure map! Standards are either created by corporate committees or by people copying the good things from each other, I know which one tends to work out in the best user experience!

Actually, when I was downloading the video again, I got two choices for the 1080 mode, so I downloaded both, but I only ended up analysing the higher bitrate one (which would be what people without VP9 capability would be limited to). Here's the two modes, notice the different file sizes for the same resolutions between the two modes:

Another thing to think about with the GH5 is the mode you shoot in impacts the zoom factor that the Extended Teleconverter ETC mode gives you. It's 1.4x in 4K mode, but is 1.7x in 3.3K mode, and 2.8x in 1080p. That's another plus for the 3.3K mode, as 1.7x would give me a bit more reach at the long end of the three primes I carry - the longest is the 42.5mm and with the 1.7X it would be a FF equivalent of 145mm, which is quite a bit of reach. If I wanted more like a 1.4x then I can just crop in post, as that's within the limits of hiding something in post with a bit of sharpening to compensate.

You raise an excellent point about 60p in 1080 and getting the 10-bit. How do I set that on the camera? I have the latest firmware (2.7 only released very recently) and I'm in 24Hz cinema mode, and when I go into the menus there is only 24p modes available, and the 1080 10-bit mode does not have VFR as a valid option - only the 8-bit modes allows it. IIRC I had that mode on 25Hz PAL but not in 24Hz mode. I see it's available in PAL or NTSC modes. Do I have to change system frequency and restart the camera? Or should I be in NTSC mode and be shooting 23.98fps to go with my 24p from my other cameras?? Won't the sync between 24p and 23.98 fail every two seconds or so? If I have to swap between system frequencies that's a PITA if I want to just grab a quick shot.. (and by quick, I mean 5 seconds to change modes rather than 50 seconds). These camera modes and frame rates are doing my head in.

Interesting take from Alex Jordan about the 12K and what it means for the industry. TL;DR: BM made a 12K camera that was editable on a laptop because they make the cameras and NLE, so can create their own file formats. No-one else has both, so this is BM strategic advantage over all other manufacturers who have to co-operate in order to innovate like this.

Yeah, the sun was in and out of clouds during the tree test, not the best but it is what it is. I'm kind of having a change of heart with side-by-side tests too. If you can only tell the difference between two modes in a side-by-side test but can't take a collection of shots from one and a different collection of other shots from the other and tell the difference then will you really notice if a film is shot on one vs the other? I don't think so. No worries about 24p. I've now completely changed over. My iPhone only had 24p and 30p, like the PAL countries don't exist. I thought that my Sony X3000 only had 25p, but it turns out that if you set it to PAL then it only has 25p, but if you set it to NTSC then it has 24p and 30p. I guess that cinema is only done by NTSC countries..... Maybe I should buy a bunch of world maps and mail them to every company in silicon valley, they seem to be unaware there is a world out here. I'm also not seeing much difference between the different modes, even with the Prores export. Maybe I'm blind, but there it is. On the back of this I'm tempted to use the 3.3K mode as it's a sweet spot in the middle of the highest bit-rate (for overall image quality), the least resolution (for processing strain on pushing pixels around), and ALL-I for being able to be usable in post. The effective bit-rate is only 300Mbps because a 16:9 crop of a 4:3 only includes 75% of the total pixels. If I used it then I'd have 3.3K timelines for lower CPU/GPU loads in editing and just export at 4K for upload to YT, which would slightly soften the resolution like the Alexa does for 3.2K sensor for 4K files.

Yes, not old by artist standards, but old digitally. I guess in the context of the DSLR revolution, and perhaps now the mirrorless cinema camera revolution?, we can 'go back' in some regards but stay modern in others. I'm not really talking about anyone going back to a huge ENG camera with belt-mounted battery pack and Betamax to get their 240p fix. Do you have links to Herzog's comments? I searched youtube a bit and couldn't find an account or which videos he might have been commenting on. It would be interesting to read them - he's not short of an opinion that's for sure, but they're often piercing and highly relevant.

GH5 modes test here: