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I would not suggest that most people swap the GH5s for the P4K. I have several P4Ks, the GH5, & the GH5s cameras. I use them daily and I like the GH5s and the P4K both very much. The GH5s & the P4K are totally different animals, each with strengths. If I am doing a run & gun type event, I regularly take the GH5s cameras, as they are easy to use, have great battery life, and can produce great images straight out of camera. If I am filming a music video, interview, or similar, I regularly take the P4Ks. The P4Ks allow you to record RAW and produce lovely footage, but they require lots of attention to get great results. They also have lots of issues like focus issues (slow), handling, poor battery life, gimbal balance issues, post processing, etc. The GH5s is much easier to just grab, shoot, and produce great results straight out of camera. As long as you are aware of the P4K limitations, and are aware of the post processing requirements, you should love the P4K. It is capable of producing amazing footage.

I updated all three of my cameras last night, using the 6.4 updater. The cameras now show a firmware version of 6.2.1, which is the last update on the BM site that mentions the P4K.

I agree. I have been toying with buying one of the Panasonic S1 or S1R to complement my GH5s cameras. Each time that I have about convinced myself to buy the body and new lenses, I think about the A7III or the A7RIII, all of the Sony lenses, and the potential for the A7SIII (some day...). Sony certainly has a stronger ecosystem than the other mirrorless camera makers. Heck, Sony even makes the sensor for some of their competitors. There are many things that I don't like about the Sony cameras (the color, 30min limits on video, etc.) but they are certainly the leader and probably will be for a long time. If you are considering a 5-10 yr horizon, Sony is a good bet.

I know that Tony is going to catch a lot of flack for his views, but he does make some valid points. The overall dslr/mirrorless market sales are falling and have been for a while. I think that many of the camera companies didn't expect the decline to be that severe or rapid. This trend is also likely to continue since many (most?) people are happy with the images and videos produced by their phones. The phones are also continuing to make remarkable progress in image quality and they will continue to improve in the future. The camera companies are making and selling cameras in order to make a profit. If they are losing money on a product, they will eventually reduce their losses on that venture. I think that simple economics will dictate many fewer "big" camera choices for us in the future. They will still be around for many years, but the innovation is likely to slow down in favor of smartphone tech. Hopefully some of the smartphone camera tech trickles up to the "big" bodies

I saw that video when it first came out. That is the video that I was talking about in my post. I have three P4Ks and have tested all of them. Mine don't lose footage when they lose power. I wonder if his camera was defective or if that was an early firmware issue. All I can say is none of my three P4Ks behave that way.

No. The P4K does not lose all of the footage if the power goes off when recording ProRes or BMRaw. I don't know what happens if the power goes off with CDNG as I didn't test that and I have now upgraded all three of my cameras to the latest firmware. I have had a battery die several times and I have never lost a file. I usually record to an external SSD (Samsung 1TB T5) but I have also recorded to SD cards. You may lose a few seconds at the end of the footage, but you should not lose the entire file. I remember seeing a YouTube video where the person lost their file when pulling the battery, but even the comments on that video had people saying it didn't happen to them. I just recorded a 15 second clip with BRAW. I pulled the battery while the camera was recording. The clip is still there and it plays properly. At most, you should lose a tiny bit from the end of the file if you lose power. I also recorded a 15 second clip with ProRes. I pulled the battery while the camera was recording. The ProRes clip is still there and plays properly BUT it seems to be about 5 seconds shorter. I think that ProRes writes the file to disk every 5 seconds, so you may lose a few seconds of the end of a ProRes clip if you lose power.

Hell. I already have three P4Ks. At a price below $1000, I might buy another one (or three...) There are (obviously) some limitations with the P4Ks, but they produce fine images, especially considering the price. I mean, we can shoot (semi) RAW footage on affordable cameras on affordable media. We truly live in special times...

I have three P4Ks. I had to return one of mine more than once for screen problems. I believe that it had a defective digitizer. I was eventually given a new camera. I know that other people on here have had a similar issue. BM most likely swapped the screen for a business reason, like high failure rates on the old one, insufficient supply, etc. A new screen is very likely to require a new driver in firmware. It is likely that the new cameras (with the new screens) don't work with the old firmware because of a driver difference. Could BM have let people know about the hardware revision or update the old firmware to work with the new firmware? Sure, but why? Why would they let people know about the hardware change if the screens are technically similar, but perhaps just from a different manufacturer? BM is certainly under no obligation to let people know about a running change. Companies manufacturing products make running changes during production all the time. I love a good conspiracy theory as much as the next person, but assuming that BM deliberately changed the screen in order to prevent people from downgrading the firmware is an exceptional reach If they wanted to stop people from downgrading, they would just follow the lead of Apple and others by signing the firmware and telling the camera to only load approved firmware.

I must have missed this information. What "new screen"?? What are the differences? Why?

Most of the portable monitors are not able to supply enough power for the P4K. The big NP batteries extend the battery life to around 2 hours (with external SSD + phantom power). I use a v-mount battery (150Wh), which powers the camera mostly all day. As long as you aren't trying to create a very small rig for a run & gun type environment, battery life can be made into a non-issue.

I have a problem with his setup. He is using a battery plate that has the battery at a 90 degree angle to the rods. The battery plate isn't adjustable, so you can't move it out of the way. With his setup, you will have a hard time touching the screen on the camera (unless you use longer rods). Having an external monitor doesn't mean that you don't have to touch the back monitor on the camera to adjust settings. I use longer rails and have a battery plate that can pivot, so I have more room to access the camera screen. I use the Fotga DP500 plate. It isn't perfect, but it does swing out of the way and allows easy access to the back of the camera. I leave the battery horizontal to the rods unless I need more access to the rear of the camera, then I swing the battery up.

I have three of the P4K rigs and use them daily. I strongly encourage you to get the 1TB T5 drives instead of the 2TB drives. When shooting BRAW, the 1TB drive holds a LOT of footage (like almost 500 mins at Q5). Having two 1TB drives gives you a backup, gives more flexibility when shooting (like can still shoot while dumping a drive to backup storage), etc. Just my thoughts. Good luck!

You are certainly correct. Anything sticking out from the camera is a potential issue for breakage, as I know too well However, there is one advantage when using the 12V port with a battery sled. You can hot swap the external battery. With an LP-E6 battery adapter connected to your sled, you lose the ability to hot swap the external batteries. Given that I frequently record and broadcast long events, I elected for a sled that connects to the 12V port. Although, one of my cameras drained the internal battery and died twice on a shoot, despite having an external battery connected to the 12V port. I ended up having to remove the internal battery on that shoot and just run external batteries. That same camera was fine on the last couple of shoots. I agree that it is very annoying to not know the remaining charge on the external battery. But, there are two ways that come to mind to deal with this: 1) get a sled with a battery indicator (mine turns red when the battery is low), or 2) get one of the NP batteries with a built in battery meter on top, like the Powerextra Multifunctional battery (https://amzn.to/2I9OS2d) It has slightly less capacity (6600mAh) than the Wasabi batteries (8800mAh), but you gain a USB port and the battery level indicator. From my testing, this battery should give you just over 2 hours of run time with an SSD & an XLR mic. I do wonder how sturdy the port is on the P4K as the mini-XLR plug is on the side too. I wonder if they reinforced the mainboard on that side.

I'm with you. All of the cables hanging off (e.g. SSD cable, battery cable, etc.) are just potential things to go wrong during a shoot. The more of those things that you can move inside the camera, the less the chance for problems. It will also make working with gimbals easier. I have had to replace a motherboard on my GH5 because the HDMI cable got bumped during a shoot. Of course, I now have cages and clamps on every camera, so there is less chance of this happening again.

I didn't like the design initially, but it has really grown on me. It is a very functional design and I appreciate it. It certainly isn't beautiful like a Leica or something, but I am ok with it now. Mine all look like Frankenstein now anyway, with cages, extra batteries, mics, etc. You can barely notice the camera for all the other stuff

I have a couple of the Panasonic GH5 battery grips and a couple of the Vello battery grips. The Vello grip feels a little bit more cheaply made, but they work perfectly. I haven't had a single issue with them and I leave them on the camera 24/7. I would certainly consider one for the P4K from Vello. As to the new Blackmagic grip, I am excited and disappointed. 1) Using Sony NP-F570 batteries in the grip is just weird when the cam uses LP-E6 batteries. I am fine with it, but it is weird. 2) Now, I have three cages that won't work (obviously) with the grip. I will likely get grips anyway, but I like the compact cages. 3) It doesn't appear to allow hot swapping the batteries. Does anyone know if the grip allows hot swapping batteries? I bet no, after looking at the design.

These are the ones that I purchased: https://amzn.to/2WXXpIZ The batteries are a bit snug, but it works properly. I ordered 3 and they all work.

P4K Battery life w/NP-F970 batteries: By the way, I just completed a quick battery test on the P4K, for anyone that is interested. I set up 3 P4K's with NP-F970 batteries on a battery sled connected to the 12V port on the camera. The batteries were fully charged before starting the test. They all tested about 8.1V at the start. Each camera had the following equipment and settings: XLR shotgun microphone with phantom power turned on Audio levels set to 50% Screen brightness at default levels Samsung T5 1TB drives Panasonic native M4/3 lenses NO internal battery in camera I recorded a static scene until the camera turned off. Then noted the duration of the recorded video. Here is what I found: Battery 1: No name NP-F970 7.4V 48.84Wh => 2:08:51 total runtime Battery 2: Powerextra NP-F970 7.4V 8800mAh 65.12Wh => 2:24:11 total runtime Battery 3: Powerextra NP-F970 7.4V 8800mAh 65.12Wh => 2:25:10 total runtime So, as a worse case scenario, my cams get around 2 hours and 20 minutes with a big NP-F970 battery. Hopefully this information is helpful to people trying to decide how to power there little beasts ============================================================================= I see that you have "been there" before I agree with you completely. When you are getting paid for a job, you need to get it done, regardless of the obstacles. That is one of the reasons that I have backups for pretty much everything, including camera bodies. I get asked all the time why I bring so much gear to a job. Some of the gear that I bring isn't needed on every job, but at least I have the things to solve a problem when I need them. I am really big on redundancy. On a lot of our jobs, I only get one shot. I can't do a retake on many of our projects. I actually had the Voigtlander Nokton 25mm f/0.95 Type II Lens in my bag the other day, but elected not to use it, as I didn't *quite* need it. If I need a f/0.95 lens and ISO 10000+, that is a really peculiar situation. ISO 12800 with an f/1.2 lens is already much brighter on the screen than it looks to your naked eye. At least I didn't have to break out the night vision :D

Yes, I think so. The noise reduction in Davinci Resolve is very good. I have used ISOs 10000 & 12800 a couple of times and have gotten usable footage after processing. I am surprised at how well the footage cleans up. Every once in a while, you are forced to use crazy high ISOs. For example, yesterday, I had a presenter from a giant Silicon Valley tech company that refused to allow the theater stage lights on during her presentation. She claimed the lights would blind her and she wouldn't be able to see the audience. So, I had someone on a stage, with a projector screen behind her and no light on her, other than splash from a few lights on the audience. I had to run ISO 12,800 with f/1.2 lenses and was still about 1/2 stop underexposed. She was so dark that she was basically a shadow to your naked eye. Of course, she also didn't want to wear a lav. She insisted that she could be heard fine without one. At least I won that battle and got my lav on her during the presentation. The footage from that event is certainly worse than I would have liked, but at least it is usable. If I had only had access to normal cameras, the footage would have been completely unusable. At some point, I will do some comparisons, but my use tells me that the GH5s is a stop or so better in low light than the P4K, before correcting in Resolve.

I had a 6 camera event shoot yesterday. I used 3 of my GH5s cams and 3 of my P4K cams. Both cams are great, but they are quite different. The GH5s is a good bit better in low light (a stop or two). The GH5(s) cams are a good bit less "fiddly". You can pull them out and just shoot. I can even send the GH5 with a good lens with my wife (a great editor, but not a great camera person) and she can capture usable video footage. I can even set it to mostly auto mode for a novice user and I might get some usable video footage. With the P4K's I have to worry about power and lots of other little things (like will the audio work right). The menus are very easy to use, but there are lots of things to think about while using it. I would really hesitate giving it to an inexperienced user. With all that said, the footage is lovely. For my use, I find that I am using the P4K's more and more. I have even toyed with the idea of selling some of my GH5s cams. I am also seriously considering purchasing one of the new Blackmagic Ursa G2 cameras. I wouldn't have even considered that a few months back. The P4Ks are definitely more than you might expect. Earlier today, I even found myself wishing that the GH5s footage had been BRAW! Weird, I know...

My only experience with them is the two E1 cameras that I purchased. The E1 cameras leave a ***LOT*** to be desired. They are barely functional in my opinion. Hopefully the E2 is much better. I have seen a couple of good reviews on the E2 cameras on YT. However, I would personally only purchase the E2 from a place where I could return it if I didn't like it (like B&H, etc.) I certainly hope that they produce a great product. I would like to have a camera with the specs of these announcements. This looks to be an interesting year!

To me, the P4K is usable up to ISO 10,000. It also cleans up really nicely when you use noise reduction in Resolve. I think that the GH5s is a bit better in low light, probably something like 1/3 - 2/3 of a stop. I don't have the Fuji, but I think it is probably about a stop better than the P4K from the footage that I have seen and from my usage of the GH5s & P4K. For great low light, get the Sony cameras (e.g. A7III) their engineers used magic pixie dust in those things

I have the GH5, GH5S, & P4K cameras. The Panasonic cameras produce great looking files straight out of the camera. Many people like the Natural profile on the Panasonic cameras. However, you will have to transcode these files into ProRes (or proxy) in order to edit them smoothly on a lower spec computer. The footage from the BM cameras does not look as good straight out of the camera as the Panasonic footage, in my opinion. The BRAW and the ProRes files from the P4K are much easier to edit on lower spec computers than the Panasonic footage, but the file sizes are much larger. In order to get decent footage straight from the P4K camera, you would need to "bake in" a LUT into the footage when recording. Without baking in a LUT, you will have to grade the footage in a program like Resolve. Picking between the GH5 & the P4K is a tough one as each has advantages. The choice would come down to your use case. The GH5 has image stabilization, great battery life, & great footage straight out of the camera, with the option for V-Log footage that you can grade. The P4K doesn't have stabilization, and has much worse battery life, but the P4K is better in low light and gives you the ability to record RAW footage. Each has lots of advantages and a few weaknesses. After color grading, both cameras produce wonderful footage. I think that either is a great choice, but the GH5 would be better for beginners. If you don't have any M4/3 lenses, you should also consider the Fuji XT3.

I love the Olympus 12-100 f/4. It is on one of my cameras almost always. I would like it even more if I could get that kind of range in a f/2.8, but oh well I was sharing the specs for the 18-35 + Speedbooster in terms equivalent to the Panasonic 12-35 lens, not "full frame" equivalent. A new person might not be familiar with the 35mm equivalent conversion specs. Also, to me, quoting everything in 35mm equivalent specs is just silly when we were only talking about the m4/3 format cameras. It isn't like the video world records most everything in 35mm format (although some of that is changing now). I could see it if everyone converted the different formats to Super 35, but 35mm? That wasn't even really a thing until the Canon 5D Mark II a few years back. Of course, I also think that calling 35mm "full frame" is silly too as there are many cameras (e.g. medium format) that use much larger sensors. So, what are they? "Mega Frame"?

@stefanocps I have three of the BMPCC4K cameras and have used them extensively. You need two main things: Power: either lots of LPE6 batteries or an external v-mount or Sony style NP battery with sled. Storage: very fast SD cards, expensive CFast cards, or a Samsung T5 type drive. I also suggest that you get a cage to mount accessories (but this isn't required). I use the Smallrig and it works well. Best of luck on your purchase.