kye

I did consider that but didn't think that you'd be doing anything as radical as a green screen or background replacement etc. What kinds of secondary adjustments would you really notice a poor quality codec? Genuinely curious. It all depends on what you're doing and the application of the format. Really this thread is relevant for people who aren't really sure of why Prores is a good feature, and often they're satisfied with h264 or h265 because they're "better", but if you're going to be doing work where you're really seeing the differences between these codecs then you're not the one who needs convincing! Sadly, lots of people start with the position that 'newer is better' and 'more is better' without actually applying those statements to the entire pipeline, to the implications on set or in post. I'd say that the quality of the encoder is probably more relevant in this case. As an example, the C100 provided an image that compared favourably to other cameras with double the bitrate, so obviously Canon had really made the encoder work hard and really get a good result. Cheap cameras can produce horrific results with heaps of bitrate. The difference that 8-generations of compression made was far far smaller than the difference between a C100 image and most other cameras, even those downsampling 1080p from a 4K sensor, so that's why I didn't consider it to be particularly relevant. I'm super happy the GH6 has prores and think it's one of the (many) great upgrades over the GH5, so I'm definitely with you on this one!

Absolutely. In the real world we're probably talking about the difference between 100Mbps h265 or 240Mbps h264 ALL-I (both from A73) vs 700Mbps All-I Prores HQ, or similar. Or, comparing Prores HQ with RAW but where RAW requires an external recorder and costs many hundreds of dollars and requires cables, extra batteries, more things to charge, etc etc.

DO NOT EVER THROW AWAY A WELL REGARDED LENS WITH GOOD GLASS IN IT!!! Seriously, I'm on the VLFV Facebook group and there are people constantly on the lookout for vintage lenses to re-house, and if it's a classic zoom then that may include those models too. Even if the front element is scrap there's probably another copy somewhere else where the rear element is scrap and together they'd made a great finished lens. These things aren't being made any more and are only going to get rarer. As the price of Leica R and CZ sets go through the roof people are talking about other lens lines more and more, eventually they'll get around to EF and zooms I'd imagine. Cool test - thanks for posting. If acting ability was critical for lens tests then I'd be sitting at my desk looking worried and compulsively drinking coffee too!! Especially considering that it looked like espresso shots with every sip being a bottoms-up situation!

The GH5 is relatively unique in that it offers a good selection of ALL-I codecs, which I use and are just wonderful in post. I guess other cameras would benefit from this though, as not many other models/manufacturers seem to have this included. Interestingly, I thought for the test I would encode and re-encode each codec over and over again until one of them started breaking down, but I setup ffmpeg to do that on a 1080p version (to save processing time) and after 8 generations on h264 IPB at the same bitrate as Prores HQ I had to pause because the file looked the same. At first I thought that ffmpeg was being too clever for me and just copying the stream instead of re-encoding it, but when I zoomed in crazily (something like 800%) there were subtle differences. So really, all else being equal and when given enough bitrate, they all do a great job, so it's really the other factors that I highlighted in my post that are the deciding factors. I suspect you are talking about this video? This is probably the part you're referring to? I found it hard to tell TBH, even with it moving, but that is a comparison between Prores on the Shogun, which is either HQ at 700Mbps or Prores 422 at 471Mbps vs the GH5 codec which is 400Mbps, so there's not much difference in the bitrate there. The 400Mbps is on the high side compared to most cameras bitrates, and with the GH6 in 5.7K they'd be looking at 1500Mbps or 1000Mbps, which are significantly more again, so the bitrates really are pretty serious. TBH, there's a point in diminishing returns with bitrate, not just because of accuracy vs bitrate, but also that if you multiply the resolution and bitrate by 9x (1920 x 3 is 5.7K) you're not increasing the size of the screen that the viewer will view the image on, so actually, once there is sufficient bitrate to render the screen to a certain optical quality it doesn't really require much more if you increase the resolution on the same display, or at least, it doesn't need to increase by a factor of 9. Of course, if you're doing green-screen or other hard-edged keying, cropping in post, stabilising significantly, compositing and other VFX operations then that's a different story, but those are specialist applications and not general ones.

I don't have any experience with those power zoom lenses, but one feature that I think would be of huge benefit from them is the ability to hold down the zoom rocker just a bit and do a smooth zoom during a shot. The more serious MFT lenses are nice, but I'm not sure that the manual zoom ring is damped and smooth enough to really pull off a flawless zoom during a shot, certainly my second-hand 12-35mm and kit 14-42mm zooms aren't. That was a thing that those ENG lenses were really good at weren't they? Definitely agree there. In terms of firmware updates, do we even know when the camera will be shipping? I haven't seen anything about it so am curious. No point having firmware updates if no-one has the camera!! I'll be curious to see what the math is like for shooting at, say, f0.95 in bright sun, at ISO2000 for high DR mode, and what that equates to in an exposure time. I did note that they improved the shortest shutter time of the camera, so maybe that is why. Not much good having a camera that can't expose properly in aperture priority mode while wide open at noon - that would be seriously embarrassing I'd imagine! In terms of ISO2000 compared to 800 (wasn't 800 the native ISO for Vlog on the GH5?) isn't it only slightly more than a stop more exposed? If so, you only need to add a single-stop of ND to your setup and it's the same. Or am I missing something?

I must admit, I'm not that surprised that a bunch of folks on a forum don't understand the market as much as they think they do! Still, it bodes well for both OM and also the MFT system in general, which by extension is good for all consumers as it encourages competition. As much as FF enthusiasts are quick to point out that FF is now a serious competitor to MFT in specs, I wonder if it wasn't for the MFT manufacturers pushing things forward if FF would be nearly as advanced now as it is.

I think it was the combination of the screen and the fan. I'm super happy with it as it's not too much larger and it's not larger from the front, which is what matters from the perspective of shooting in public and not gathering too much attention. By the time you put a lens on a camera, then depth of it is huge so a few extra mm isn't a big deal. My suggestion is to start with how and where you shoot and work backwards. For events you'll probably be valuing flexibility over other performance, so you're probably talking about zooms. Then the question comes of how much you care about having a long zoom range vs having a faster aperture. At one extreme you've got the 12-35mm F2.8 which is the fastest but shortest zoom, then things like the 12-60mm F2.8-4, then all the way to 12-100mm F4 and even the 12-200mm F3.5-6.3. I don't shoot events but my understanding is that mostly there is decent light, and many here have commented that the longer zooms work best because you're always just a zoom adjustment away from the shot. Especially with the improved low-light from the GH6.

The size comparison is available now on camerasize.com: https://camerasize.com/compare/#698,888 Panasonic DC GH5 is 0% (0.1 mm) wider and 2% (2.2 mm) shorter than Panasonic Lumix GH6. Panasonic DC GH5 is 12% (12.2 mm) thinner than Panasonic Lumix GH6. Panasonic DC GH5 [725 g] weights 12% (98 grams) less than Panasonic Lumix GH6 [823 g] (*inc. batteries and memory card). Panasonic DC GH5 dimensions: 138.5x98.1x87.4 mm (camera body only, excluding protrusion) Panasonic Lumix GH6 dimensions: 138.4x100.3x99.6 mm (camera body only, excluding protrusion)

In addition to the above, one thing I saw recently (can't remember where though!) was that someone was shooting film and wanted to have much lower saturation skies instead of bright-blue skies, so they overexposed the film and then developed it darker to normalise the exposure. This gives much less saturated skies as it pushed all the highlights up into the highlight rolloff where there's much less difference between the R G and B levels, and thus less saturation. The skies were a pale blue rather than saturated and it gave a kind of look to the skies vaguely reminiscent of the bleach-bypass look. That's also the kind of thing you can do with a Film Emulation LUT - raise the levels beforehand and then lower them afterwards and see the effects.

There are a few advantages to using in-camera EIS, so it's worth experimenting with (on non-critical footage) to get a feel for it, but mostly doing EIS in post is more flexible as it's not burnt in and you can try different things to see what works.

This forum is also social media.

A key point that I feel is worth mentioning here is that you can't expect a LUT to grade your film for you. What I mean by this is that you should be adjusting the image before putting it through the LUT (grading "under" the LUT) and potentially adjusting the overall levels after the LUT too, for more overall adjustments. Grading under the LUT is simply adjusting the images exposure, WB, contrast, and other attributes, which is the same as adjusting the lighting ratios on set, the exposure of the camera and WB of the scene while shooting on film. If you don't like the amount of contrast in a LUT, lower the contrast after you apply the LUT and adjust to taste prior to the LUT. If you want a stronger look then increase the contrast before the LUT and lower it afterwards and you'll get a more pronounced look, or do the opposite. These are creative tools, not one-click grading machines 🙂

@PannySVHS I read somewhere that early on Canon were much pickier about which lenses got the 'L' designation and there are a number of non-L lenses that would have been given the L status if released decades later. In that sense it's really down to reading the reviews and looking at sample images.

I do... but I'm not about to jump around saying that it's a critical feature for everyone. I think it's about shooting in available-light. I currently own a GH5 and have f0.95 primes to get as much light into the camera as possible, but it's a stretch. I shoot auto-ISO so I don't know the exact values, but I can tell you that I've pulled the camera up to my eye in a low-light situation and as I've adjusted the aperture from F2.8 (which it might have been during the day) to f095 I see the image go from looking like the worst colour science in the world to looking lovely with rich colours and a nice contrast. Here's a few previously posted frame grabs that show the lighting conditions. This was maybe 50m or more from the banks of the river and the only lighting was the lighting from the shore: and a BTS of that shot, taken with a smartphone camera: Another: I find that essentially the GH5 sees slightly better in low-light than I do when paired with an f0.95 lens, so it is an equivalence to human vision. Unfortunately, getting lenses that are still sharp at f0.95 is very rare, and also you have no head-room for seeing anything that is hard to see with the naked eye. There's still heaps of noise in those images though: IIRC this was shot with the 4K 150Mbps LongGOP codec on the GH5 in HLG, so there's already likely to be NR applied in-camera and also some detail loss from the 150Mbps codec too, so in reality it was noisier than this. I might have even applied my own NR in post on this image already, I can't recall. So, it's unlikely to be at baseISO here, which means that the image could have been better with better low-light. Once again, I'm not claiming that everyone needs amazing low-light, but I certainly use it and will benefit from the improvements in the GH6 over the GH5.

Cameras are starting to get Prores, and opinions range from "prores is irrelevant" and "prores is old" to "this is the best thing ever!". So which is right? Actually, both. Why Prores is irrelevant... Prores isn't better quality than h264 or h265. Here's a test I did. I took an 8K RAW clip from RED Helium and put it on a 4K timeline and exported it as uncompressed from Resolve, then took that 4K uncompressed and using FFmpeg (which is much better than Resolves export quality) and created 4K versions of the clip in Prores HQ, 10-bit h264 IPB, 10-bit h264 ALL-I, 10-bit h265 IPB, 10-bit h265 ALL-I, all matching the same bitrates. The results were that all the h264/5 files and the ProresHQ looked basically identical to the original - even at 300% magnification. Here's the original 8K RAW on 4K timeline (at 300%): and here's one of the h26x files (remember they all look the same): So, 10-bit h26x is as good as Prores HQ - case closed right? No. To be technically correct, the statement is "10-bit h26x is as good a codec as Prores HQ at the same bitrate". Why Prores is spectacular... The bitrate of Prores HQ in 4K is just over 700Mbps. Not a lot of cameras with that bitrate option!! Most are more like 100Mbps. Well, here's what that looks like: Ummm.... where did the detail go? Prores benefit number one... guaranteed high bitrates. But that's using FFmpeg to take as much processing time as it likes, what about when it's being done in-camera? Well, using FFmpeg to convert a 1080p uncompressed reference file to Prores HQ happened at 53fps and 10-bit h264 IPB was at 7.2fps. That's over 7x more computation to create a file of equivalent bitrate. Do cameras differ in h264 quality? Absolutely. I suspect that computation load is a factor here. If a manufacturer is compromising on quality for lowering processing requirements in-camera then the results will be worse than the 100Mbps result above. Prores benefit number two... lower processing power required, potentially meaning less temptation to compromise quality. But the codec / bitrate isn't the only thing that impacts the image - processing also matters. Specifically, NR and sharpening. This is where things get difficult to compare because not many cameras have both - typically cameras are either RAW/Prores or h264/5. However, when you choose a codec you are also choosing the processing, because cameras mostly don't give full control for sharpening and NR on all profiles. It will be interesting to see the GH6 profiles and how they compare, but mostly Prores are aware that the huge file sizes aren't for consumers and so will configure Prores to have less processing. Prores potential benefit number one... lower sharpening and NR applied in-camera. What about RAW? RAW is great. The semi-compressed RAW formats make shooting RAW wonderfully flexible, giving the benefits of RAW without being forced to spend more on media than on your camera, but once-again, RAW isn't directly comparable. ProresRAW and B-RAW mostly require an external recorder, making your camera larger, requiring extra cables and rigging, requiring additional batteries and chargers, and introducing more points of failure in your setup. Some cameras have internal RAW, some even offer compressed internal RAW, but what if those cameras don't suit your requirements or shooting style? Prores potential benefit number two... in-camera with no extra equipment or hassles. RAW is typically a 1:1 pixel readout. This means that you either shoot using the full sensor resolution or shoot with a crop. Shooting with the full sensor resolution means that you'll need compressed RAW or you'll have large file sizes (like the Sigma FP), and also that your computer may have to bear the burden of decompressing / debayering / downscaling a file with higher resolution than your timeline, which is something worth considering as I know a number of people who put all their money into cameras and lenses and are struggling with older computers to edit their work on. This will become more and more significant as sensor resolutions gradually creep up past 6K, 8K and beyond. Why not crop? Well, goodbye wide-angle lenses, and hello to an extra step on set where you have to apply the sensor crop factor and your resolution crop factor to the lens focal length every time you want to change lenses on set. If you have time on set and good systems and lots of support then that's fine, but mistakes are inevitable and the less complicated things are the less likely they are to be made. Prores potential benefit number three... in-camera downsampling. So there we are. Prores is an old irrelevant codec superceded by h264 and then by h265, but when its implemented in a camera the implications are potentially quite significant for many people, depending on what and how you shoot.

I think there's a chance that they'll implement the other flavours of Prores in a firmware update. They've promised to have Prores HQ in 4K and 1080p in a firmware update, and adding the other flavours would make sense at that point. I suspect that they pushed to get the 5.7K Prores HQ in-camera for the pre-production models because it's a headline feature, so that would have been a priority. I'm working on a Prores vs H264 test now, so depending on what I find I might be posting a new thread on it if I find something worth sharing.

I think that's a smart decision. Financially, sure, but also for the final results. Better cameras are great. but only if you know them and know how they shoot and how to expose to get the best files, and any gotchas around annoying features or battery issues or whatever that can screw things up and lose footage over. The best camera in the world, used improperly, is worse than the camera you know and trust.

It also works well if there just isn't much motion in the shot. You'd have to play with it to know how far you can push it, and subject to taste as well, but things like a slowly moving shot of a still scene or a wide landscape shot without a moving foreground, etc can work quite well. I've seen wedding videographers use SS to expose like this and although some scenes it's obvious, other scenes they completely got away with it, so it's really subject dependent.

OOPS! Yes indeed! lol. So used to comparing everything to FF 😂😂😂 F2 lenses are even easier to get than F1.4 lenses, so there really are lots of great options around. It's not ideal, but it could get the job done. If I was literally limited to a P&S then I'd try and get one with nicer video and nicer low-light (real-life happens after the sun goes down) so maybe an RX100 might be a good fit. Having a super-zoom is nice, but a 24-70 would cover the vast majority of situations - there's a reason that the kit lens is that coverage. Smartphones now with their 2 cameras are almost the same focal lengths that I like to shoot with in manual primes.. ~16mm 35mm and 85mm FF equivalent focal lengths. Being able to shoot Prores on a phone might give it a real boost and not look thin and over sharpened. It all depends what you're trying to do. I had a FB "disagreement" the other day with a guy that said that amateurs don't have requirements, only pros have requirements, and amateurs only have preferences. In a sense there's no minimum standard for amateurs, but also no absolute minimum standard for pros either, unless you're shooting for Netflix or commercial TV where there are standards to hit (for better or worse). However, having said all that, amateurs only have whatever standards they set for themselves, and my minimum standard is to capture images rather than not capture them, but I'm interested in getting the best image I can so there's no way I'm going to accept a 90's miniDV handicam when I can have a mirrorless for only a few thousand!

There's a huge difference between Prores RAW and Prores, and it's a big one for me, who shoots at a lower resolution than the sensor for smaller files but still getting the benefits of downsampling in-camera. In terms of sensor size, it depends on your lenses. FF really sucks if all you own is S16 or MFT glass, and if you own S35 glass and can mount it and shoot in crop-mode then sure, but you're losing the benefit of the FF sensor and could just have a S35 sensor. Shallow DoF is nice, and MFT can definitely do it with the right lenses, of course acknowledging that FF definitely does it more easily than MFT.... BUT, shallow DoF is far less common in films than is often talked about. The average shot in most films will push the background out of focus a bit to give nice separation, but it won't be a big blur unless it's a long lens, which makes getting more blur easier on any format. The workhorses of the S35 cinema world are f2.8 lenses, which require an f1.4 equivalent on MFT to get the same DoF, but ironically the proliferation of cheap Chinese FF f1.4 lenses has meant that it's easier than ever to shoot on MFT with super-fast lenses. I think that the specs game is like any other social media bubble where once you're in it everyone seems to be talking about it and you lose perspective. I've been concentrating on editing more recently as that's my overall weakness as a film-maker, and the more I look at editing the more I think I could shoot really great travel films with a half-decent P&S. The things that make the award winning shows great is the overall content and storytelling and sound design etc. If DoF was really the defining feature then Army of the Dead would be an Oscar Winner, but actually, no..... https://ymcinema.com/2021/05/28/zack-snyder-shot-the-entire-army-of-the-dead-on-wide-open-aperture-f0-95/

@Marcio Kabke Pinheiro wow - that is sharp - was that wide-open?

The way I see the OM-1 / GH6 / GH5S / P4K distinction is how flexible they are for video (ie, shooting video in uncontrolled conditions. From this perspective the OM-1 and GH6 are in the "very videography ready" category because they has IBIS and the others don't, with the OM-1 having the advantage because of its PDAF. It's all about speed, and shooting with sticks, or even a monopod or gimbal is a much slower and heavier way to shoot than handheld, so this is really the defining feature that separates these from the GH5S and P4K. The "somewhat videography ready" category has the GH5S in it because it can expose with the shutter up to very short exposures - enough to shoot wide-open in full sun, whereas the P4K doesn't have this capability. This means you don't have to use NDs, which also slow the shooting process. It can also take photos, which videography frequently coexists with and is expected from the same camera. The "it is actually a cinema camera" category is the P4K without IBIS or fast shutter speeds available. It's not the least useful for video out of all cameras due to its good high ISO performance, unlike true cinema cameras where they basically never get changed from their base ISO, but it's still much better suited to shooting where you have control of the conditions and have time to setup and expose and bend the subject to the camera. There are obviously other factors in here that effect things, but if you got tasked with shooting an event video that was completely chaotic with things changing at every moment, where you had to get everything and had no re-takes, I'd much prefer the OM-1 set to full-auto than the P4K. I'm sure they'll tinker with the GH6 AF but I'm not optimistic about it getting that much better. I'm no expert, but AI typically gets better as a function of how much processing power you give it, which I think is why it's better than the GH5, but there's a real limit to it I think.

Ok, I think with your explanation this is starting to make some sense. When you outlined it before you didn't provide nearly enough information. Maybe it was a mistake to unblock your profile.... 🙄🙄🙄

Here's another video with test footage that isn't all slow-motion... So, if CineD tested at ISO800 and 250 is the native ISO, it'll have more DR than their test found? Even better! What would the difference be of having a 4K S16 sensor camera, or a 6K MFT sensor camera that you can set to by 4K 1:1 crop? Assuming the codecs and features were all the same of course.

I think it's probably a feature that would be advertised heavily, but in a sense it's a natural evolution of the tech and will eventually just form part of a baseline spec. Plenty of features in the GH6 that would have been headline features of the GH5ii had they been included in that camera, but in the GH6 are just part of the whole package. There's a saying "People will never understand what they're paid to not understand". Unfortunately, even beyond this, the ability of "camera tech experts" to understand actual camera tech is saddeningly thin at times. or let me put it another way, when I, a Dad who shoots home videos, know more about camera tech than you do and that's your actual job, then you're in real trouble. Unfortunately that's actually the case with disturbing regularity. Even beyond those, when I tried a few weeks ago to bring up the concept that EIS requires short shutter speeds, I was shouted down by a number of forum members who not only didn't understand the tech, but thought that it wasn't possible for anyone else to understand it. They often say that in democracies we get the leaders we deserve, and applying that to the camera industry, how low we have set the bar.....