Geoffrey

Simple question, in Movie mode what does the P (in a box) to the right of MF on the LCD mean (also get it with AFS but not AFC which displays the AFC type instead)? I have scoured the manual and come up with nothing.

And I got mine back from the menders, and finally it is working fine again. Now to get used to it all for a second time. Shame you couldn't get round the focus issue thehebrewwhammer but sometimes you have to just accept something isn't working for you.

Update on my broken S5 that no-one will be interested in: Finally got it returned. Screen fixed. Gave it a test run and . . . none of the buttons on the back except play and veiwfinder buttons work any more including the focus type switch!! The camera is now totally useless. Can't believe it. Rang the repair company direct and they were surprised but at least contrite and back it will go. I suspect there is some small connecting wire they forgot to re-attach but then didn't think to press any of those buttons to test it since the screen works fine (and all the buttons and wheels on the top). I did enquire of the company I bought it from that really I should be able to ask for a replacement camera. They agreed but claimed stocks are non-existent and supply times for new stock is months away, all due to the pandemic. Do I believe that? Dunno but I decided pushing it would only stress me out even more so repair again it is. Sigh.

It isn't great I admit but I have found that a combination of the one-shot autofocus and enlarged manual focus view on the LCD (with peaking) if need be does the trick. Having said that I have never been a fan of viewfinders for video anyway since if you use a tripod they are pretty useless.

Thanks for this and I certainly hadn't picked up on the procedure and I have read the manual! Will have to check out Like this guy.

That's really fascinating and great to hear they did it like this and why. It is a shame to me that in fact very many films use very little sound shot on set, even dialogue with so much of it done as ADR. This enables great control and gets round all the problems herein2020 mentions but also makes things kind of artificial. But then cinema is probably as artificial these days as it has ever been. It is quite similar to the idea of capturing images only for post production processing and not getting them to look good when shooting. This leads to the modern obsession with a 'look' which to me very often means looking crap and like an advert and draws attention to the filmmaking process. It was noticeable in Les Mis that the wonderfully natural and real vocal performances are not matched by natural looking images - they look as unreal and stylised as the next Hollywood offering and actually affect the suspension of disbelief for me. Thousands of gigabytes of data do not help. When it comes to controlling sound levels the obvious thing to say is use AGC but the problem is in camera AGC is often not that great whereas modern dedicated audio recorders have amazing AGC these days that is virtually undetectable. The other suggestion is turn the levels low to avoid any distortion and record in 24bit. The noise floor is always lower at higher bit depths so you can boost the level way up to what is required overall in post without significantly adding noise. The difference between 16 and 24bit in this respect is surprisingly marked. At the end of the day if you are a one person operation, capturing both really good sound and image is not easy. If you just need ambiences then it is fairly easy with decent equipment mounted on camera but otherwise, like the guy in the videos says, they have four dedicated sound people all the time.

Good suggestion, thanks. Will check this when the camera comes back from the menders!

Thing is audio people say exactly the same about video. Just think about formats and codecs - with audio there is uncompressed which is basically the same (wav or maybe aif) with just some simple varying sample rates and bit depths (but nearly always 48K 16 bit PCM) and compressed which is also main only two formats (MP4, AAC and at 48k, 320 bit). Then think about video codecs, containers, data rates, raw, V-log, progressive/interlaced, loads of resolutions, trying to match cameras blah blah blah. And cameras have their own unique formats too that you cannot edit directly! There's no comparison and coming from an audio background video seems so much more complex to the point of seeming quite ridiculous since a heck of a lot of it is totally unnecessary because it is about commercial advantage much of the time. And in the field? You need to use the right mic and put it in the right place and have a decent recorder - no framing, no lighting, no motion issues, no focus problems, not exposure issues. I could go on 🙂 I think the issue with audio is you need to get it pretty good there and then - you cannot 'fix' audio in post like you can video but it is much easier to get audio right in the first place than image. As for price, well yes you can spend £2000 on a very good mic but you don't need to and most people will never notice the mic only cost £150 because it will still sound very good as long as your recorder (or camera) had good low noise preamps and you place the microphone well. Lavs are tricky but if you are in a sit down interview situation they really shouldn't be needed - use a cable! I really enjoy audio recording!

Yeah will persevere yet with V-Log - I need to learn about it really as I am quite ignorant of how to use it properly. I will need to work out a simple workflow for it to be useable for me but that seems possible from casual research. I like Like709 and CineLikeD though - are Noam Kroll's settings available somewhere? The flickering is on non-electronic text and can even be seen in high contrast areas generally. Here are a couple of short clips both FHD 50p 8-bit. The first shows the flickering though it is hardly noticeable on my laptop screen but is on a larger external screen (I tried a couple, Samsung and LG LED, and it was the same). I tried various picture profiles, image stabiliser on/off, autofocus on/off and none of that made much difference. And using V-Log which does not flicker

Thanks for the reply mercer - I have a lot to learn about V-Log I think. It might not be for me but I was drawn to it because the flickering I mentioned did not occur when I shot log. Can you set the Herz rating of the S5? I cannot find anything about that. I am PAL land so use 25 / 50p I did wonder if the problem was due to the artificial light - not fluorescent though, LED standard (modern) lightbulbs.

My camera is going to be returned for fixing due to the fault mentioned above but I have another issue I wanted to ask of V-Log users. I have tried this profile but beyond the expected very flat look is it supposed to be so noisy in its raw state? When I switch to V-log profile in the camera, the image is incredibly noisy and grainy and this is really obvious, even on the monitor screen. Is this normal? Looking at tutorials online, the V-log footage does not look noisy to me at all, though the shots I took were in fairly low light but other colour profiles had very little noise in the same light. Other colour profiles do however produce quite a bit of image flickering in low (artificial) light (especially were text is involved). So I am wondering if there is another problem with my camera.

My S5 has developed a major fault, or at least I think so: the monitor screen is now upside down and no matter how I adjust the monitor display settings, the screen view never flips (I assume that 'Auto' for both default vertical and horizontal flip is the best setting but I have now tried all combinations). I can invert the vertical view by setting the flip to On rather than Auto and it changes to the correct orientation but then no flipping occurs by default. Basically the monitor is stuck in no flipping mode, and upside down. I think it happened after I (correctly disconnected the camera from my laptop (USB). I updated the firmware to 2.2 but that didn't help. Anyone had this issue? I can see no way to fix it and it looks like I need to get back to the seller asap to return the camera.

Ha, yes interesting point. Tbf it actually works pretty well until you want the tracking kind and then it is variable. Fortunately for me I rarely need to use this and was aware when I bought the camera. The challenge for me at the moment is not so much focussing but what to focus on - the depth of field variations are pretty good but the small screen / viewfinder is too small and so actually being totally clear what you are doing is problematic. An external screen just isn't practicable for me. Much of this is getting used to the screen though, and being more careful!

Thank you that has clarified things a lot. One thing to add - the dedicated button 'AF ON' on the back is very handy I find (instead of the touch screen version) and also the this one-shot focus still works in scenario three with the lens switched to MF.

This will seem like a stupid question but I cannot get the combination of menu actions / button settings right to get the press half shutter to focus in video mode - how do you set it up? It works in the other modes (e.g. M) but not in video - nothing happens.

I mean audio inputs, not outputs above!

Yes, audio is as much of a discipline as video and of course normally it is done by a dedicated person, so having to do both is a tall order for anyone. Plus what you have to do is taxing of itself - having to pick up intelligible and clear speech from various individuals, ambience etc. It is one of those truisms too that bad sound will be rejected by the public much more readily and quickly than dodgy images. I don't think the sound on the Panasonic module is bad btw, I just have a much lower tolerance as a sound person. I suspect most people would not notice what I do. One test you could do if you haven't done it so far is to plug headphones into the cam (in a very quiet environment) and ride the audio outputs on the cam and XLR module and find the settings that produce the least hiss which I very much expect would mean lowering the cam record input.

Sorry no experience with the GH5. This has been discussed in this thread though, somewhere! The problem with the focus peaking is that sometimes you just can't see it on the screen.

One thing I am trying to work out is what settings data is actually recorded with video and can be displayed on playback. By default the ISO is displayed when you play back videos but not the f-stop. When learning the look / limitations of the camera as I am at the moment this would be really handy. So I am wondering if there is any way to get it to do this but can't find anything in the manual, yet.

On the S5 there is a dedicated AF ON button on the back of the camera. One-shot AF is the way I think about it. I find it essential as the screens are small and focus peaking not that great (though that can be useful it depends on the light) plus my eyesight is not that great these days!

Do you mean use the autofocus button when in MF? If so then yes, I use this method all the time when shooting video. You can also use the MF ring when in autofocus.

I used to use a Canon XM2 (miniDV) and really liked it - very pleasing image. It had a fun, adjustable strobe effect too.

Sounds like the XLR module itself has develop a fault. Can you try it on anything else? Though it won't be helpful, I use a Juiced Link XLR adapter that I mount on the hotshoe but it actually connects via a minijack cable. I did look into the Panasonic module but the reviews said it wasn't very low noise and not worth the money. As an audio person originally, noisy preamps on expensive modules are a non-starter. If you do have to replace it I would consider this. With the Juiced Link module I have the record gain on the S5 set to -12 dB and let the module with its much superior preamps do all the heavy lifting and the results are really clean. Sadly these units are not made any more though can be picked up quite cheap second hand.

Thank you this is really useful info. I noticed that Like 709 doesn't hold the highlights that well so maybe I need to use a different profile - Flat or Natural I guess. The ability of the camera to recover highlights up to +3 on the meter is really handy to know! I tend to use the zebras but maybe they are too misleading and I have never really got what a sensible percentage is to use.

Ah right. Will look into the camera viewing LUT - didn't realise you could do this. In general though my aim (and principle) is to get the image I want when shooting it so that only minor tweaks are needed later. I am also looking for a transparent 'natural' image most of the time as a I work in documentary. Interesting point about flat / non-flat but I thought the whole point about semi-flat profiles is that they give you enough leeway for some effective tweaking without having to do too much, hence my use of Like 709 that the manual suggests is just what it is for. Clearly I have to do a lot more test shoots!