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Looks like it might be time for this gem again....

I'm in the market for an MFT zoom lens and keen to hear various opinions (to help me work out what I want, or to point out things I haven't thought of). Primary use will be a do-everything walk-around zoom with the GX85 but also potentially with the GH5 (or GH6 in future). I currently have the 12-35mm f2.8 and found the concept to be great but the 12-35/2.8 specifically to not be long enough, and using the 2x digital zoom at the long end with it wide-open it was really soft, so I figure I either need a lens that's sharper or longer. I figure my options include the below. Panasonic LEICA 12-60mm F2.8-4.0 ASPH. POWER O.I.S. Looks like a great option, and I've heard good things from people using it with GX85. I like the fact it has stabilisation so I'll get dual IS, and the aperture only gets slower when you zoom, and for DoF that's fine because the longer focal length will compensate. It's about $500, which is ok. Panasonic LUMIX 12-60mm F3.5-5.6 ASPH. POWER O.I.S. Good focal length, only loses a stop compared to the 12-60/2.8-4 and is a lot cheaper at under $200. OM Digital Solutions : M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 12-100mm F4.0 IS PRO Longer reach (which is welcomed) and only loses a stop of light at the wide end compared to the 12-60/2.8-4. Has IS so I'm assuming can do dual IS with Panasonic cameras?? It's $1000 though, which is very expensive. Is this sharper than the Panaleica 12-60 when wide open at the long end? That would be worth something to be able to crop in and get even more reach. OM Digital Solutions : M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 12-200mm F3.5-6.3 Crazy long reach, but still welcome as I could use it for sports. No IS. Slower, although 200mm (400mm FF) is pretty darn long so DoF would still be rather thin. About $650 which is substantial for such a slow lens. Panasonic : LUMIX G VARIO 14-140mm F3.5-5.6 II ASPH. POWER O.I.S. Middle length zoom (for this list anyway) that's slow, but has IS so stabilisation should be excellent? Sub $300 so ok price for an all-rounder. In terms of DoF, the 12mm at 6ft distance at f2.8 gives a DoF of 9ft and f3.5 gives a DoF of 14ft, neither crazy bokeh but enough to give some background defocus for a subject. In terms of the longer reach: - 60mm at 20ft at f4 has a DoF of 4ft, which is good for portraits and separation and shouldn't be too tricky to focus - 60mm at 20ft at f5.6 has a DoF of 5.8ft, similar to the above - 100mm at 30ft at f4 has a DoF of 3.3ft, similar to the above - 200mm at 60ft at f6.3 has a DoF of 5ft, similar to the above The slower lenses will be slow at the mid-points of their range, but the 12-200mm F3.5-6.3 is likely to be somewhere between f4 and f5.6 when at 60mm, which is similar to the 12-60mm zooms. I don't really need the larger apertures for the low-light, and I don't really need the last-level of sharpness from the "Pro" lenses as I only edit on a 1080p timeline. Part of me is tempted to just buy a sub$200 Panasonic 12-60mm F3.5-5.6 and see how I go, but if it's not quite what I want then I'm a third down on the price of the PanaLeica 12-60 f2.8-4. Advice?

Another from a couple of days ago... I think I've finally got my reference monitor setup, so my grading should be better.

If you record 1080p Prores HQ then that card should be good for about 94 mins, 422 should be longer... Just in case you're feeling like more testing would be fun 🙂 Great to hear the 2h 17m GH6 result was with the DR boost mode on. I can't think of what other features would drain a battery so much that it would reduce that battery life significantly. Thanks for doing these tests. I've said it before, but I'll say it again. Even basic tests frequently prove that a significant proportion of "what everyone knows" is actually just plain wrong, or so oversimplified or limited in context that it is either so useless or misleading it has the same effect as being wrong. If you can test it yourself, you really should.

Thanks... and... ah, crap. That's exactly what I did! Looks like I'll have to start again with a config from movie mode, and try to remember what I had set. On the plus side, I haven't used this camera all that much, or the GH5 for that matter, so I'll have very little button memory to stuff up!

It's there but greyed out. (I think I must have scanned for it by ignoring all the grey options lol) Any ideas?

I think it's a common problem. Maybe one quarter of the laptops I see in the background of YouTuber videos have SSDs (or just HDDs) taped to the lid and plugged into the side. At a certain point it's more practical overall to put files on an external SSD, considering there's no difference in speed. If you're editing then you probably have enough stability to plug in a drive and work from that. Of course, I used to edit on the train during my commute and I'd literally be sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on both sides (actually, it was worse - normally if there were a few men in a row then one would have to lean forward so their shoulders weren't up against their neighbours for everyone to fit). In that case, having a USB cable hanging out the side of the laptop would take up too much room and be vulnerable to people bumping it. I've edited entire videos while sitting next to people like that, and having someone stood over me too because the train was cramped even for standing room. In those cases I just pre-rendered proxies, but now I work from home or drive and so the whole train situation isn't relevant any more.

Yeah, I made that mistake on my last laptop, so this time I went with the 1TB drive, which allows ample room for proxies from several projects (I still have many projects waiting on editing where I shot them with long-GOP and rendered proxies already). There was no way I would even fit in one real project if it was the original footage, so I just assumed I could edit off an SSD in that case.

HELP! Does anyone know how to change the Exposure Mode (eg, aperture priority, manual, shutter priority) in a custom mode on the GX85? I cannot find it in the menus anywhere, can't assign it to a button, nada. I know that you can change the mode dial to M or S etc and then save that config to a custom slot, but this would overwrite all the settings in that slot with the default ones and I've got existing profiles that have custom buttons and the CineD profile selected and who knows what else - when I got the camera I went through every option and set them all how I like it and then saved and forgot about what I changed. I really don't want to have to create the profile from scratch again! @BTM_Pix @projectwoofer @PannySVHS

I'm surprised your Sandisk USB drive was so slow. I bought a USB SSD maybe 5 or more years ago that was as fast as my internal SSD in my MBP.

Yeah, but it pays to be first to commercialise it widely. Just wait for the TikTok advertising folks and music video folks to get a hold of it - someone can potentially make a bag of cash and a career for themselves if a big name music act sees you doing this sort of thing and wants you to do their next video. I'll rename him from "I compare smartphones to my original Alexa" Jet.

Many of the Panasonic cameras have Open Gate modes, going back to the GH5 which I own. On the GH5 the open gate modes were less sharpened than the 16:9 modes, which was definitely welcome. The GH5 also used h265 on the open gate modes instead of h264, which gives the same visual quality with half the bitrate, so in theory the image should be a little better in those open gate modes, however if you use normal spherical lenses then you'll be cropping out part of the image and therefore throwing away some of that bitrate, so it might even out. H265 is also harder to edit, so that's a factor too. On the GH6 you have the option of Prores which (in other cameras) is traditionally much less sharpened, but I'm yet to see any comparisons between the h264/h265 and the Prores. If you're using anamorphics then it's a no-brainer, just use it and enjoy!

Great news and thanks for running the test. Did you have the DR Boost mode on or off? Perhaps that is a bit more power hungry? In video it is highly recommended to get the White Balance (WB) correct when shooting. The best way is to manually white balance at every location with a grey card (a physical thing you carry that has been designed to be a completely neutral grey - they're widely available to buy). If you manually white balance then it will get the white balance right in every location. Choosing the right WB preset (e.g. Daylight, Clouds, etc) is quicker and much more convenient and should give a pretty good result. I'm familiar with the videos you share on YouTube and this is probably the best bet for your work. Choosing auto-WB (as I do) means you have to fine-tune the WB in post, and this can be extremely difficult, and the WB sometimes changes during the shot, giving you all kinds of colour problems to adjust in post. I wouldn't use this mode unless you absolutely have to.

One thing that really changes this is the gradual adoption of in-camera charging, and now USB charging. I figure that you're either: On a dedicated shoot with a rig etc Doing handheld run-n-gun where the cameras are on your person the whole time, being used or just being carried Being on a tripod, either waiting or recording long takes The first is sort of a professional set and so operator can factor in a change of battery every so often, or can rig a V-mount. Longer battery life is a consideration but something that I'd imagine can be managed. The second is what I do. I typically have two cameras, one in-hand and the other clipped to a strap of my backpack. In this configuration I could have a USB charger and a cable routed in my bag to emerge near the mount on my chest, so when a camera was clipped in there it was also charging. The third could simply include a USB charger on the tripod. If someone was taking a camera on and off the tripod then the tripod would act as a charging station for it, essentially meaning that every time it was taken off the tripod it would have a refreshed (or completely charged) battery. Assuming battery life being the better part of an hour (or more) then these situations seem quite convenient. I travelled with my GH5 for weeks across multiple trips and had long days shooting where I would carry the camera for long periods and turn it on to take shots then turn it off again. I only own two batteries for it and never ran out of battery or had power anxiety. I am careful to always fully charge both batteries and to download from the card each night, but it was never a stress, and most days I didn't even need the second battery. I standardised on a charging setup of a wall-powered USB charging hub (with 6 super-speed USB charging ports) running into the third-party dual battery chargers, so I can charge two batteries on one USB cable. Its travel friendly as the USB power hub takes 110-240V 50-60Hz, plus I could use the chargers from my laptop if I wanted to, and even from a USB hub in my bag if I really needed that support in the field, but I've never needed the chargers to leave the hotel room. I might if, for example, I went on safari in Africa and was staying away from mains power. I have those USB double-chargers for the XC10/BMMCC (same battery type), the GH5, the BMPCC, the GX85/GF3 (also same battery type), and two for the Sony X3000 action camera (one for the camera and one for the monitor). Often they come as a package with a couple of third-party batteries (I recommend Wasabi) so they're very affordable. A good tip for a setup like that designed for travel is to make sure you use it at home too, so that way you've verified that it is working and reliable. I normally travel with a spare USB charging hub and also the charger that comes with the camera as a default, although if the camera can charge internally, I wouldn't need the factory wall charger as the camera could be the fallback option. I'd imagine you have a slightly more serious setup for weddings, with multiple cameras and many more batteries, but the principles would be similar I would imagine. A good idea that I saw once, maybe from the f-stoppers guys (?), was to mount all the adapters and chargers onto a piece of corflute (corrugated plastic) with zip ties. It weighs almost nothing but you can make a nice compact layout, neatly route the cables, means that packing and unpacking it is one item not a dozen (so you don't forget any) and it can even be mounted vertically in the hotel or vehicle etc whereas a bunch of floating chargers would need a flat surface and get tangled and generally be a pain. I haven't done this yet because I typically travel with different cameras each trip, plus the location of wall outlets etc changes a lot between hotels. I also travel with a USB charger for my phone and a power brick for my MBP. Both of these are also backups for charging if I needed them. USB as a charging standard really is great as it centralises all this stuff.

Why are people moaning about battery life? I think a huge proportion of camera criticism is emotional, not rational. Take the GH6 for example, people were comparing the battery life between GH5 and GH6 (perhaps without facts) and are critical of that, but then they compare the DR to something like the P6K and are critical again. This thread is full of combinations like that. Instead, had they compared the DR between the GH5 and GH6 they'd be complimentary, and compared the battery life between GH6 and P6K they'd also be complimentary. Realistically, you have to compare all aspects of one camera with all aspects of another. Comparing the DR to camera X and battery life to camera Y implies that I can buy a camera with the DR of camera X and the DR of camera Y, which of course doesn't make any sense. Anyway, I'm very curious to hear about how the battery life compares. In terms of how to compare the GH5 vs GH6 battery life on standby, use the timelapse mode on your phone (and have it on charge) and put a clock in the shot. You only need a rough comparison (if they're within a minute or two of each other then that's good enough) and there's no huge file-sizes to deal with, and no media management - just review it on the phone at the end to see the times they shut down and then delete the clip!

Ah, of course! My bad.

Yeah, that's the common methodology. As someone who has overheated an iPhone while out shooting because it was over 40C / 104F and in direct sunlight, I'm not spending even $100 on something that was only guaranteed to work flawlessly in Iceland, let alone $2000! I've seen a few YouTubers have cabinets they test things in now, so they do their tests at 40/104 or 38/100 which makes more sense. This is the only temperature test worth anything, unless your camera never goes outside.

How long does the battery last with the screen on and it displaying full-screen video? I'd imagine it's not long enough....

What was the ambient temp?

With the latest cameras being 10-bit with full log profiles, I think that's changing. It used to be the case though. That was my impression as well.

Great stuff... Mounting it on the bottom might be slightly more ergonomic and a bit more stealth perhaps? And keen to see what you come up with for cleaner cable routing. It seems that with my BMMCC it doesn't matter how snug you get the camera and screen, the cables still triple the size of the whole thing, giving it that "look at me!" vibe when shooting in public.

10.5 stops isn't world-record territory, but there's a chance that the camera can encode the full DR of the sensor isn't there? I thought that most cameras with log profiles would capture the whole DR, it was just in the picture profiles that they'd lose a stop or two.

While the test isn't a stress test, it certainly covers a range of compositions and so does function as a reference of what can be captured. From this perspective, I agree with you that it looks average. With a great colourist working on it, or with more intentional compositions (like narrative, but also weddings where much effort has gone into making everything look nice) then I'm sure much nicer results can be gotten from it.

The way I think about it is that every camera takes the real-world and creates a stylised version of it, with a unique way to represent colour, luminance, noise, etc, etc. Some scenes will look better when given the treatment that camera A gives rather than camera B, but a different scene might be better with camera B instead. This is kind of like when you grade footage, you take the input and change it in a unique way. In just the same way that a grade that works nicely on one project won't always look nice on the next, every camera probably has its own unique situation where it provides just what is needed. Maybe the GH4 is the camera you've always wanted for filming hysterically happy mannequins in high-DR mixed lighting?

I have vague memories that the grain size on the B&W film was smaller than the colour stock, so that might be what you're remembering, but that's not to say that colour doesn't have a perceptual impact on sharpness - it well might. The more I learn about colour the more I find out about crazy stuff going on that you wouldn't think is happening, and the more complicated it all is.