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Ironically, if I bought the BMPCC4K instead of GH5 then I'd already have the expensive media!! I don't think they're fast enough for 1:1 RAW at 60fps, but they're usable for every sensible mode. See below - they test about the same as a SSD HDD.

@Andrew Reid is right - badly graded images tell us nothing. If we see a bad grade, how can we tell the difference between it being a great camera and bad colourist, or a flawed camera that the colourist wasn't skilled enough to correct, or a broken camera that no-one could get a good image out of even if given years to do so? The answer is that we can't. Unfortunately, when you give a camera to a pro and get a great image back, you may be seeing the result of a camera that is really easy to work with and a very simple but effective grade, or you might be seeing a camera that takes skill to work with and the results of an experienced colourist, you can't tell. However, at least you can tell that the camera isn't fundamentally flawed. I find Philip Blooms camera tests very revealing both in what they show and what they don't show. He shows what works with the camera, and to be fair, he normally does stress test them a bit. But every now and then he'll release something like his iPhone 120fps video which makes the iPhone look like a wonderful camera until you realise that every shot (almost without exception) is pointing into the sun. What's the moral of that story? The 120fps mode needs a metric shitload of light, especially in 120p when exposure times are so short. Its an omission, but it's one that is noticeable if you pay attention. As Andrew said, only a skilled grader or the RAW files are of any use.

That makes sense @UncleBobsPhotography and would explain why I'm not getting 50MBps in the GH5 on a card that gives 80MBps in the computer I must say though, I went out again today and took some random test shots and the 150Mbps modes just floor me. Even the FHD 180fps mode looks great. The phrase "digital film" keeps coming into my head when I look at a clip, either fullscreen which looks soft and with wonderful colour subtlety or zoomed in hugely where it just looks like film grain. My vintage lenses will be helping with this, but even the 14mm F2.5 still gives that impression too. It's a mile away from the brittle and digital look most 4K mirrorless cameras shoot these days.

Cheaper than the cards for my XC10. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1067863-REG/transcend_ts256gcfx650_cfast_2_0_cfx650_flash.html and that was just to get 305Mbps 4K!

From what I understand it took a number of firmware updates to get the BMPCC to where it is now. I'd imagine the newer one will be the same? If so, just think about it like you're buying a software subscription with free upgrades

One of the ways that I like to think about it is in terms of "tiers". For the average Joe, a G85 might take pride of place in their setup as an A camera. Their GoPro that used to be their A-cam might then be the tiny / crash cam in their setup. For some, a GH camera might be your A-cam with a G camera being your B-camera, perhaps if you're shooting weddings for instance and need backup angles for coverage and don't need GH quality across the whole kit. For others still, the EVA (or 8K S1?) might be their A-camera and the G or even GH camera lines might only be crash cameras. What I like about this is that is provides a range of cameras with increasing features and IQ that many people can use for whatever scale, budget and IQ is appropriate for their project. In terms of the new lens mount and 8K, do they go together? I'm not sure of the resolution of existing Panny lenses, but the new mount would be a sensible time to mandate a minimum level of sharpness. 8K video has more pixels than most still cameras, so I'd imagine the vast majority of lenses will be at risk of falling short. If that's true, then MFT lens only have to be 4K and 8K lenses are the new mount. That keeps it simple for consumers and would help explain why the new lenses might cost a lot. Agreed. Having the GH line firmly in the "small sensor but large body with many buttons" camp, there's room for things like internal NDs and other circuitry required for RAW recording and associated cooling etc. Panasonic seem to pride themselves at offering lots of new things into the market with the GH line and there's no reason why they can't continue that trend. 8K might be coming, but the excitement around the BMPCC4K proved that interest in high quality 4K is anything but dead. Tell me about it. I bought an XC10 and just upgraded to a GH5! This is the nature of technology conversion. The reason they're all touchy about overlapping product lines is that in the end there will only be one or two product lines and the process to get there will involve almost everyone losing their job. We all talk about convergence like it's the GH5 vs the BMPCC4K, but if you think longer term it's about the death of entire product categories.

Could you perhaps put something on one of the tripod feet that you can stand on and it would secure that leg of the tripod to the ground and prevent it from moving or tipping up? I'm not sure what that would be called, but its the same principle as putting sand-bags on the legs of big lighting stands to make sure they don't fall over. Then you'd be free to use the slider with both hands.

@Jimmy that setup looks quite neat and compact, nice work!

Damn.. I spoke to the guy in the shop and the critical part is UHS-II, the SanDisk card I have is only UHS-I. I think that it's probably a case of the card being able to sustain that speed on average but the video probably doesn't get generated at a constant speed and if the camera buffer fills up then it will cause the error. I've recorded a bunch of test clips at 400Mbps and 150Mbps and the 150 looks pretty amazing actually. I haven't compared them directly but I've heard that they're very similar, so I might just use that mode with the cards I have. Apparently UHS-II cards are really expensive.

Yeah, it's the V30 one, with the 95MB/s speed. I just finished copying 190Gb of images onto it and then looked at a bunch of images to compare the card copy to the HDD and they all check out. I'm satisfied it's not a fake. I'm going into town today so will call past the camera place I bought it from and see if they have another high-speed card to try out. Unfortunately that's the only fast card I have so I can't narrow down if it's the camera or that card, although the computer says it tests fine so that points to the camera.

It would make sense if Panasonic kept pushing the GH line as high quality 4K cameras (10-bit, or maybe RAW) and pushed the new FF line to 8K. It would be quite a nice neat lineup, giving pros four video lineups: the G as the disposable / C-cam line, the GH as the budget / small / 4K / IBIS line, the S as the pricier / larger / 8K line, and the EVA as the cinema line with all the SDI and pro ergonomics.

Another question. I just got my 256Gb Sandisk Extreme Pro UHS-I card and the GH5 stops recording in the 400Mbit mode saying the card can't keep up. I tested the card in my computer and it gets a continuous 80+MB/s write speed with 5Gb files in the BM Speed Test program, so it should work fine in the camera (400Mbps is only ~50MB/s write, not even close to the 80MB/s it tests at). I've read a bunch of websites and done some testing there's no indication it's a fake. Anyone else had card speed issues?

If they said 4K60 10-bit was what we expected and they want to beat it then I see a few options. They can up the specs in a way that marketing would like and we'll end up with 8K, and maybe no improvements to the 4K. They could give us what we want with 4K, potentially downscaled 8K, extra bit depth perhaps, maybe 444. They could go for the intangibles and play with ergonomics, NDs, maybe menus, maybe buttons and dials more like a cinema camera. Or they could exceed the expectations they think we have and just get it wrong and give us a huge WTF camera. Unless they change their stripes it will be the first one with 8K, maybe 4K60 10-bit. If they've already made the camera but pulled the announcement (that's my guess) then maybe they'll be stuck with the physical shape and will be trying to tweak firmware etc. Of course they might go full left-field and release a battery grip that has large battery capacity and a RAW recorder in there as well, that might be something interesting.

That helps a little, but I think it's the Peaking algorithm itself. For instance, if I set the Peaking to High and put two objects the same distance from the lens, one with higher contrast edges and one without, and focus on them, I get the contrasty object with focus highlights and the softer one without. If I was just trying to focus on the softer object without anything else nearby then the peaking wouldn't be any help. If I set it to Low, then the peaking shows edges on the softer object, but unfortunately it will also show peaking on high contrast objects that aren't in focus as well, in the background perhaps. Yesterday I went out and shot some test clips with my 14mm F2.5 and the peaking showed that the trees were in focus as well as the background but the footage shows the trees as being quite blurry and the background nicely in focus. I suspect that it simply highlights if there is a difference between two pixels above a certain threshold, which will be true if a contrasty object is in focus, true if a very contrasty object is out of focus but has a blur that goes from light to dark, and isn't true if you have a soft object in focus (like skin). Hmm... I need faster lenses so the focal plane is shallower and therefore it's more obvious!

Does anyone have any advice about using Focus Peaking on the GH5 with vintage lenses? If I set it to Low then it isn't accurate enough, and if I set it to High then I think the lens is too soft for it to think anything is in focus, so it's not much help. Any other focus assists I can use in-camera? I know this is something that a good external display would help with, but it would make my setup too big so I'm stuck with the in-camera features.

I guess that would be the question if everyone shot on a film set. Which is part of the reason for these discussions - old timers who assume you're shooting on a set and can control the lighting and whatever, and then the unwashed rabble that have barged their way into the industry and film in their homes, parks, in the street, doing so in many cases with no plan, no control over the settings, perhaps no knowledge of what the settings mean, and unless they have a floppy screen they even film without even looking. It's no wonder people don't understand why some features they don't need would be useful to someone else. I agree that it's time to break the old rules. We're getting there. If the current trends continue, the only step required in making a great video will be saying "Hey Siri, can you make a cinematic film of Spot playing with his ball in the backyard, and make it have happy music" and then just stand back and watch as the drones all spring to life, film from all the angles with AI-Dog-eyeAF, then dock and download the footage where Siri will edit and grade it, and then ask you where she should upload the video.

Thanks, that's good to know. I guess it makes sense as ETC doesn't have any downscaling to hide the noise, and those 1080 pixels are larger than those 4K ones when looking at the output files. All the more reason to have fast primes! I'm driven to fast primes anyway because the zooms are slower on crop sensors so getting that depth and separation is harder.

This is very similar to my thinking and good to hear you had positive results. I shoot travel and family videos, and while not the same as weddings, they share a lot in common, especially getting the shot the first time and not directing or getting in the way too much. I'm just putting my lens kit together for my new GH5 and figured that I needed a super-wide to capture those "wow" scenic moments, a tele for tight shots and a 35 / 50mm walk-around lens for the middle 80% of shots. I'm tossing up which lens that will end up being, but with the ETC mode a 35mm / 49mm equivalent lens gives the two most useful focal lengths without having to change lenses all the time. Just brilliant! I haven't played with the digital zoom on the GH5 yet, but when I was considering an A7III I looked at the digital zoom from it and it was perfectly usable up to about 1.5X (and not good beyond that) so there might be a bit more flexibility in there for us. Depending on what format you're delivering in, and what codec you're using, cropping in post might also be an option.

I've tested the cards I have with and without each of my adapters and didn't find any difference but that was only up to the speed of the Samsung EVO which was my fastest micro card. If the adapter has dirty contacts then that might make a difference perhaps? Some adapters could also be cheaply made.

Given sufficient quality, which is less than people think as @webrunner5 says, a video camera can be viewed as 25 fps burst mode (or even 50/60 fps) stills camera. Why bother with trying to nail 'the decisive moment' when you can find that moment in post and extract a still. You can say that is lazy, or you can say that it's using the technology to get better results, but you can't deny that it can work.

That guy is me (in shooting travel videos anyway) and after not getting the stabilisation I wanted in some shots I bought a Gorillapod 5K (the largest one) and a phone gimbal for wide shots, but ended up not taking them out anywhere as my camera setup was already large enough for people to at funny around me, even in tourist spots. At one location I noticed a guy with a tiny camcorder and a monopod and geez, the guy might have had a camera the size of a kit lens but the monopod made him stand out like nothing else! I try and get shots of travel legs to use as scene change shots and I normally just get them with my iPhone, but even that attracts attention in train stations and the like, with people staring at the camera and making me wonder how much attention I'm getting from security and the like. I go to a lot of spots where that's not even true anymore, but that's probably just coincidence. IIRC @jonpais has said that in Vietnam people don't care, so I guess it varies from place to place. Plus the new challenge of grown men with cameras around kids being automatically judged means that I basically can't record anywhere that people swim, many angles in parks, etc. Thanks, but I read that as many people tend to agree that all people are too lazy. I admire that you're willing to put in effort into your posts, but you're not quite there in getting across what you mean. This is a common problem because people assume that everyone reading their messages has the same background, context, tastes, clients, or mood as they do, which obviously is a barrier to proper communication. I think being "cinematic" is a fad, and that most people who attempt it aren't aware of the technical aspects that go into it. So basically it's a lack of education. Like most people who buy and expensive DSLR and expect that professional looking images will just collect on the memory card if they point the camera in the general direction of the subject and spray-and-pray on full-auto. The other huge aspect of these discussions is that new camera features enable new genres of film-making. There are people who earn a living shooting skydiving films. If someone wanted to make those 100 years ago it might not have been possible because the cameras were too heavy, or whatever, and there they would have been jumping up and down about how light-weight cameras are critical, and all the people who made films on tripods at locations where trucks could drive to would have been saying "film-makers are so lazy right now". Anyone who has a camera more modern than an original Bolex with 1950's quality film stock is: too cheap to pay for film, too lazy to get film developed, too impatient to wait for it to be developed and sent back, too fancy to use basic edits, too amateurish to sync sound in post, too lazy to get lighting to ensure the DR isn't too wide, too fake to write a good story without relying on VFX, green screens, or, you-know, COLOUR. etc etc.. The above list looks completely ridiculous to most of us now because we've come to see the benefits of things like in-camera audio, and the flexibility (and cost savings) of higher DR cameras, but when someone who makes tripod films with sets and controlled lighting says that someone making wedding films, adventure films, travel films, doesn't need the new features, then that's EXACTLY what they sound like to the people who use and value those features.

If you're going to talk "general term" then you should be specific with your language - try saying things like "Most people are too lazy to carry a tripod or monopod" instead of saying "People are too lazy to carry a tripod or monopod". I tend to think of myself as a person, so naturally I included myself in the statement you made, which was about "people" and not "most people". I'm personally pretty sick of other people on this forum telling me what I do and don't need on my shoots based upon what they do and don't need on theirs. If you're going to come in and use language that applies to "people" without acknowledging that some people / situations / projects don't fit your statements, then yeah, you're going to piss me off (and look like an arrogant asshole to everyone who has ever had needs that were outside your sweeping statements). The phrase "IBIS" is literally in the title of this thread. I would appreciate you listing a few ways for me to get a slider shot in that situation. Either I learn something, or you learn something. Either way I hold you accountable for your sweeping and half-baked statements. I write my posts with consideration and admit when I'm wrong, I'd encourage you to do the same. I love it when people trot this old chestnut. It's a crutch. Sometimes the only tool for the job is the only tool for the job. No, but you are the one making black and white statements about "People are too lazy to carry a tripod or monopod". I get it, there's lots of hyperbole and polarised thinking, but unfortunately you've offered up some here as well. This seems to be a case of "he that dost protest too much".

You don't get it. Please explain to me how I am being lazy in the below situation, and how if I worked harder, I would be able to get a slider shot without bars in the foreground if I had more equipment. By using my IS and shooting hand-held I was able to get a slider shot, something that was appropriate for the film I was making. I guess you are too stupid to understand that situations like this exist, and that other people shoot in them.

I have heard that SDs could be better (more reliable perhaps?) because they've got better heat dissipation. I'm not sure how true that is, but it makes sense. Otherwise I'm not sure what other differences there would be. I've just bought a Sandisk Extreme Pro for my GH5 to use in the 400Mbit mode, but will keep my Samsung EVO Micro in the second slot as a second card in case I run out of space on the first, or in case the first one dies when I'm travelling and can't replace it easily. My Samsung only tests at something like 20-30MB/s for me so I'd have to scale back to the 150Mbit mode, but from what I've seen there is only minimal difference between the two modes and the 150Mbit mode looks pretty good to my eyes

Your comment has lead me to think a bit more about slow-motion. The below isn't directed at you, just inspired by you I think the topic of slow-motion is an interesting one. I agree that it is over-used and especially over-used in camera tests and on YouTube where people are failing over each other to try and make their footage more cinematic instead of making it more creative / useful / interesting / etc. I have my camera setup with three modes - one is 25p, one is 50p, and one is 180p. I don't think of them like that though, I think of them for the aesthetic that they will give to the footage they will create. I shoot home videos, and my goal is to make a video file with the aesthetic of fond memories. This means things can be slightly warmer, softer, nicer, more flattering, and less real than reality actually is. Also, because the brain doesn't process memories in linear time (think of memories of loved ones, a toddler running around, someone giving someone a hug, etc.. you can easily slow these down in your minds eye, in fact, often we slow and almost stop memories, like they're not a continuous stream of perception but little bubbles of moments) so speed and slow motion in my work are far more flexible, and far more compatible than most other genres. I think of 25p as reality. "Here's what happened". Shots like this are about content alone, where the emotion isn't going to dominate. I can slow these down in post but it's not as good. I think of 50p as flexible. I can slow it down to half speed or play it back at normal speed. Normal speed will look like video, which I'm fine with, and slow-motion is slow and slightly dreamy but doesn't look fake. Hollywood uses 50p for the shots when emotions are at the forefront, there is action, and they have music instead of real-life sound (eg, someone is sad and they're running away from their troubles, someone is happy and things are great, etc). It's kind of makes fast motion gentle but doesn't look like a special effect. I think of 180p as a special effect. It's very obvious as a special effect, and even with modern cameras you lose quality so should only use this on things where you want that effect - it's not a flexible mode. For me this would be for very fast action and because a 3s shot in the edit will represent less than half a second of real-life it's about moments, rather than a sequence of events. I think of this as almost like 'moving photographs'. This is where we think of things like a kid running and making all the birds take off, and a photographer would get the shot with the kid running, smiling and the birds going everywhere, in this mode we can use the same moment but we can savour that 0.4 of a second over several seconds in the final edit, along with nice music. I'll reiterate that most people over-use it, and we should be critical of it being over-used, but the criticism shouldn't be that it's not needed, the criticism should be that it's being applied where it is not aesthetically useful to do so. While this isn't as dramatic as taking the opposite stance of 'always/never' thinking, it's actually more cutting because we're not criticising the use of a camera feature, we're criticising the offenders ability to know how to make art, which is ultimately the most significant criticism that can be made I think.