Time to step up - Panasonic GH5 must go 6K Super 35mm to compete in 2016

[sudopera]

1 hour ago, cantsin said:

Aside from the fact that it's completely unrealistic to think that a mass market consumer electronic producer would tell its customers to adapt third-party lenses.

They already told their customers to adapt Canon lenses to Varicam LT, and lets face it bunch of people adapts various lenses already on M43, so nothing new.

[roxics]

3 hours ago, cantsin said:

I wouldn't bet on it even then, at least not on internal raw recording. The problem is the consumer market. A buyer of a Panasonic camera will expect that any SD card s/he buys will work in the camera. Blackmagic already has major issues with buyers of their cameras who disregard its official guidelines for compatible SD cards and SSDs. (Even those who are informed will blindly buy some card with a 95MB/s label only to find out that it won't work or drop frames.) Companies like Panasonic, Sony, Canon can simply not risk dealing with masses of people returning their cameras, or sending them in for 'repair', because of such issues. For their mass market products, they need to cater to a low common denominator of available technology on the market. [Remember people's troubles with the h265 codec of the NX1 ...]

But you're not considering that eventually people need to upgrade their media as well. Because you could say the same thing right now about 8MB SD cards not being able to record 100Mbps h.264 video. Technically they'll fit in the camera. But good luck shooting 4K video with them. So you can't always cater to the lower common denomiator or you never progress. That's why I said maybe a GH6 in order to give more time to get memory speeds/capacity up. 

A simple solution might be to offer both an SD slot and a CFast slot and allow only Cfast for raw recording. Which is what the 1D X mkII requires if you want to shoot 60fps 4K. Of course I don't think it's realistic they'd go this route, but you never know. Canon's little XC10 has CFast and priced around what a GH4 was new. But I'm more inclinded to think they'd wait till a faster SD card solution is available. Even then it's still a wishlist item I don't put high on the reality scale of actually happening. 

10 minutes ago, sudopera said:

They already told their customers to adapt Canon lenses to Varicam LT, and lets face it bunch of people adapts various lenses already on M43, so nothing new.

Those are also eighteen plus thousand dollar cameras. At that level of the market they can't sell their cameras unless they provide lens mount options for people who already have Canon or PL mount lenses, some of which cost as much or more than the camera body. They would be laughed out of the market. Even Canon knew they had to offer PL mount options on their higher end cinema cameras. 

[sudopera]

4 minutes ago, roxics said:

Those are also eighteen plus thousand dollar cameras. 

I know, but my point is that Panasonic is clearly ready to put a great camera in the market even if it uses competitors mount because they don't have their own solution, so what is the problem with S35 GH5, especially if it is still able to use regular M43 lenses and has native mount.

[dr_jon]

1 hour ago, Jaime Valles said:

So... are you saying a GH5 with a Micro 4/3 sensor can't have better ISO performance than a GH4?

It's a tricky one. They can improve the DR by lowering the read noise and 3.1 electrons is a fair bit these days. To reduce the shot noise they need to capture more Photons, but the lens f-ratio controls how many fall on the sensor - same lens, same number of Photons. You can improve the Quantum Efficiency, but 58% is really good. You can weaken the colour filters to let a bit more of other colours through. However if you make more electrons you need to make a bigger pixel to store them, which gets harder for the same surface area. I can see them improving the DR (but I don't think they will, as they will want 50p/60p which mean running it faster, which means more noise, so other improvements will get eaten up), but I think for overall noise all they can do is what people have mostly been doing, which is implement ever cleverer noise reduction in their processor. It's doable, but I don't think it'll get you to where Neat Video can get you now. Just my opinion though. Well, except the physics bits.

(Edit) Should have said, they can maybe improve the DR a bit if they use the Arri/Canon way of splitting the pixels up, although I suspect that would run into a lot of patents.

[roxics]

1 hour ago, sudopera said:

I know, but my point is that Panasonic is clearly ready to put a great camera in the market even if it uses competitors mount because they don't have their own solution, so what is the problem with S35 GH5, especially if it is still able to use regular M43 lenses and has native mount.

What's the point? It's not like APS-C wasn't around when Panasonic and Olympus made the conscious choice to build a smaller sensor camera system. They did that so they could carve out a niche for themselves making smaller bodies and lenses for people that might like that. Now you want them to essentially conform to APS-C. Why should Panasonic build a camera that basically tells people to use third party lenses if they want the best quality out of that camera? That doesn't make much sense for them or most people who buy m43 cameras. I mean if the camera had an APS-C sensor at 24 megapixels and people using Panasonic lenses could only get say 18MP photos (or whatever the m43 crop resulted in) that kind of looks bad for Panasonic. People would be like "what do you mean I have to buy Canon lenses and an adapter to get the full resolution my camera advertises and even then it may not autofocus as well?" It's silly when you really think about it.

If you want APS-C, then buy into a different camera system. Plenty of others offer them. 
Just seems weird to ask Panasonic to change their sensor size when you could just buy a Sony or a Canon or a Nikon and demand from them the features you want. Out of all of those, go to Nikon because they don't have eighteen plus thousand dollar cinema cameras they would have to risk cannibalizing by loading up a DSLR with cinema features. Panasonic, like Sony and Canon, do.

Plus if Panasonic can offer a 20MP sensor for stills (which we know they can) that's a perfectly great resolution. Heck the 1D XmkII shoots at 20 megapixel and the Canon 5D is around that. If they can then do a full sensor width readout of a 16:9 area and produce 4K video downsampled in camera from that, great. If Sony and Samsung can, Panasonic shouldn't be far behind. If they can increase dynamic range and offer a global shutter and compressed raw recording, even better. There are plenty of ways for them to improve without increasing sensor size.  

[jpb]

53 minutes ago, Cinegain said:

2 hours ago, Cinegain said:

. Panasonic has to keep up. Easy as that. You can't just magically make a sensor suddenly be hell of a lot more sensitive...

 

Dreaming for dreaming we should take into account the revolution in sensor technology
which is at our door step.  Pioneered by Panasonic and Fuji-film four years ago
it is called OPF (organic photo sensor). **
The ida is to separate a very thin continuous light-sensitive  layer
(a compound of carbon, arsenic, and rare earth),
from the silicon pixels which only play as electric charge collectors
and gates to the output ; no more as light sensors.
Panasonic announces a 3 stop increase in DR, twice the sensitivity, global shutter,
and last but not the least sensitivity control (like the ISO choices offered by silver halide films).

After the ISSCC (International Solid-State Circuit Conference)
held in San Francisco Jan 31 - Feb 4 2016, Albert Theuwissen wrote:
" Sanshiro Shishido (Panasonic) presented a paper on the global shutter version
of the organic photo conductor sensor. The top plate of the photo conductor
 is made out of ITO and needs to be biased to larger voltages.
The overall light sensitivity of the organic photo conductor depends strongly
on the exact voltage on the ITO gate.  A lower voltage on the gate
lowers the light sensitivity and actually 0 V on the gate makes the sensor even blind.
 In this way one can create a global shutter functionality to the sensor \..\
(and) has the option to modulate the sensitivity during the periods
the sensor is sensitive by means of adapting the high voltage set to the ITO gate."
 
This is a real ISO modification which can control the charge accumulation
into the silicon pixels to prevent clipping,
There is no longer a need for any kind of neutral density filters, ever !
(note that the so called  ISO sertting in current CMOS sensors only
modify the pixel preamplifier gain but is located much too late in the chain.

I would consider the 'Phase AF', '5 axis IBIS' and this 'Physical Sensitivity Control'
as the 3 must have features signaling a next gen camera from old timers.

Panasonic has an ace in his hand
 

** InVisage with its Quantum sensor is running in the same race.

[Joe_EMGI]

I want this GH5 as described. Want to keep my investment in m43 lenses etc.   Be nice to keep the Same form factor so all my peripherals and accessories still fit. We currently own 2 GH3'a that have been stellar and have been waiting to update  (still have little demand for 4K in our market but it's coming...)

Be nice to leap frog.

[fuzzynormal]

28 minutes ago, JP Beauviala said:

Panasonic has an ace in his hand
InVisage with its Quantum sensor is running in the same race.

Weeeee!  Whatta you think?  15 years 'til it's in every consumer gadget?  Can we all envision a time when resolution and DR are irrelevant?  Seriously, like, sensor and display tech will outperform human eyesight.  Then what?  How weird is that going to be?

[MJChristensen]

I wish Panasonic would abandon the built-in, pop-up flash in favor of an articulated EVF.

[Marco Tecno]

16 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

Without doubt my favourite camera series of the last 5 years has been the Panasonic GH range.

But with the Sony A6300 on the horizon sporting a Super 35mm sensor with full 6K readout, is the future looking a bit shaky for Panasonic's video wunderkind?

Read the main article

actually nx1 supports video downscaled from 6.5k since november 2014 :-P 

 

 

[DataMeister]

I don't know. I think if Panasonic changes the sensor size they should probably give it a new product line instead of the GH series. I also think if they somehow manage to put that newly invented Global Shutter sensor into the GH5 before the end of the year, they could stay at 4K and probably still wipe the floor with their competition.

[IronFilm]

Strongly doubt Panasonic will go S35 for the GH5 and make obsolete overnight their entire lens collection!! That is just business madness.

You could say "oh but it will still work with all the m4/3 glass in cropped mode". No, just no. This could spin into a marketing disaster for Panasonic, as it would be a very bad look for them and would send out a terrible signal about the m4/3 system and its future.

MAAAAAYBE they might do S35 with an "AF200" (kinda like an ultra low end Vaircam S35), but absolutely not with a stills camera.

All Panasonic needs to do is DCI 4K 60fps with 10bit internal and people will go absolute nuts over it buying the camera, and then Panasonic will easily maintain their lead over Sony for another year or more.

But I won't deny, also getting as a bonus a multi aspect ratio sensor like in the GH2 would be nice. This would give it a "larger" sensor kinda, but still would work 100% with all their existing lenses. Plus of course I want full sensor read out for 4K with no additional crop.  VLOOK or raw to an external recorder would also be nice too. When it comes to ergonomics, if they took a leaf out of Sony's book and had a detachable handle on the GH5 like on the FS7 so you could rig up a GH5 into a mini FS7 style camera that would be aaaamazing (however photographers would hate this! So don't see this happening). But the first two of 60fps 4K and 10bit internal are all a GH5 really needs to make a hit on their hands!

[IronFilm]

11 hours ago, cantsin said:

I wouldn't bet on it even then, at least not on internal raw recording. The problem is the consumer market. A buyer of a Panasonic camera will expect that any SD card s/he buys will work in the camera. Blackmagic already has major issues with buyers of their cameras who disregard its official guidelines for compatible SD cards and SSDs. (Even those who are informed will blindly buy some card with a 95MB/s label only to find out that it won't work or drop frames.) Companies like Panasonic, Sony, Canon can simply not risk dealing with masses of people returning their cameras, or sending them in for 'repair', because of such issues. For their mass market products, they need to cater to a low common denominator of available technology on the market. [Remember people's troubles with the h265 codec of the NX1 ...]

Is sad that people are idiots. But it true. Maybe a dual card slot (one CFast, one SD) in a GH5? To handle 60fps 4K 10bit 422

[jpb]

MJChristensen wrote:

I wish Panasonic would abandon the built-in, pop-up flash in favor of an articulated EVF.

+1 ! 

I guess you are describing the 0/-20°/-30° tilted high-def EVF of the GX8

which makes this camera the most ergonomic filmmaking tool around :

the tilt gives relief to the neck and the Leica-M position frees the left eye field of view.

 

 

[Xavier Plagaro Mussard]

Some people seems to not have read the article at all or just some lines. Andrew's proposal is great, makes a win win situation for everyone. It only makes sense if Panasonic operates all points. A 4K Super 35 or a 6K m43 makes no sense. It's the 6K Super 35 AND 4K m43 which makes sense. I don't know if it's doable, but it surely makes sense!

[Franka Mech T. Lieu]

why GH5 .. I see no reason for Panasonic to abandon the M4/3 format that Panasonic take so much effort and time to build for themselves. That said, why not take the Varicam line and build something along it as the Super 35 platform , who is to say Panasonic cannot have 2 platform of a system, one 4/3 sensor sized, and one Super-35. Canon Cine EOS is pretty much taking the same route, just in a different fashion.

A VariCam model that kind of matching the FS5/FS7 , and yet another one a hybrid like the GH, but likely with interchangeable mount ( active ) for M4/3, PL, Canon EF and might be even Nikon F. Its easy to dream up a GH5 with Super 35 sensor and all the bells and whistle, but seriously that mean a total re do of almost all the lens and that certainly is not a simple undertaking , not to mention having the complexity to serve 2 format, and several cause with the same lineup. By splitting the so call super-35 GH5 and refit it into the VariCam lineup ( even if it still use the M4/3 mount ) it can be easier go for both. Might be just call it the VariCam H ( for hybrid ).

In short the GH can stay GH and M4/3 , we just have the VariCam lineup expanded downmarket to include it all the way down to the Super-35 GH ( super GH , should we call it .. lol )

[AaronChicago]

I still think they'll release something in the 4-10k range for video. It seems when companies are rolling out a series of cameras they start with the higher end first and work down to the low end. Canon, Sony. Blackmagic sort of did it with the URSA.

[astrotripper]

I made a very similar proposal on MFT forum on DPR couple of months ago. Can anyone guess what was the response to that?

As for GH5, I don't think it's realistic. As much as I would like to see something like that, I'm having a hard time believing Panasonic would be capable of such a bold move. But who knows. I'd at least would like to see a modern MFT camera with a multi-aspect sensor. I always liked that idea, although I only used it on an old LX P&S from Panasonic.

Anyway, I think it will most likely have the same 20mp sensor as found in GX8, only coupled with a new image processor. If this is the sensor Sony has listed on its website, it can do full-sensor readout (whole 20mp) at 27fps. That's plenty of headroom to do full readout of an uncropped 16:9 area of the sensor (that would be around 5K I think? not sure) for video recording. This coupled with better processing and I'm sure they can get around 1 stop of noise improvement in video this way. Not to mention video quality.

Panasonic will simply have to come up with something else to stay competitive.

[Andrew Reid]

5 hours ago, Xavier Plágaro Mussard said:

Some people seems to not have read the article at all or just some lines. Andrew's proposal is great, makes a win win situation for everyone. It only makes sense if Panasonic operates all points. A 4K Super 35 or a 6K m43 makes no sense. It's the 6K Super 35 AND 4K m43 which makes sense. I don't know if it's doable, but it surely makes sense!

Exactly.

This thread has been an interesting marketing lesson for Panasonic!

It shows that if they put an over-sized sensor in there then the perception will be that they are dumping Micro Four Thirds standard, even if per my article (which nobody read) they are actually keeping it.

Panasonic are in a perfect place to introduce two lens line-ups to one camera system.

A dual 2x crop and 1.5x crop system. Small portable M43 lenses and larger coverage S35 glass.

If not then we can just sit here and watch Micro Four Thirds die in a market place where you can buy a full frame camera for under $900 with lenses as small as the FE 55mm.

Also the RX1R II's optics matched with sensor proves that full frame does not automatically mean massive lenses. The lens on that camera is smaller than most Micro Four Thirds primes.

The fact is it is the 2x crop which hurts the GH4 most on the market where it competes with full frame and APS-C Sony cameras, also it is sold into a filmmaking would where 2x crop is a compete NON-STANDARD and Super 35mm is a match for APS-C. Sorry but that makes no sense, Panasonic.

[Nikkor]

I just want to point out that if you made equivalent lenses to those they sell for m43 for a mirrorless fullframe camera, they would be just as small.