An adventure into the Panasonic GX85/80 begins - and a look at the Leica Nocticron for Micro Four Thirds

[Mat Mayer]

Post deleted.

[fuzzynormal]

6 hours ago, mercer said:

 Is anyone using vintage primes. 

I'm shooting a documentary wherein I'm trying to capture around 80% of the footage with a FD 1.2 55mm on a speedbooster.

I think it looks great in an imperfect way.  

Typically I'm getting most of my shots @f2.8, which is pretty darn sharp with that lens. But, I've done some low light stuff where I open it to f2 or f1.4-ish, and the chroma aberration really starts to be noticeable.  Which isn't all bad, depending.  It's a "look" anyway.  It's certainly nice being able to shoot low-light if needed.  f1.2 on a speedbooster with 1600ISO captures a lot of light.  I've even pushed to 3200ISO with useable results...depending on what you consider "useable."

Here's the thing some people fail to take into consideration when it comes to IBIS bodies and m43 cameras:  The cameras are very light.  The lack of mass makes them prone to hand held jitters.  But, once you adapt some hunking piece of glass and metal to the body, then the weight of the camera actually becomes beneficial for steadier handheld shots.

My take is that the ergos are actually better for shooting video when old vintage glass is on the body.

[mercer]

20 minutes ago, fuzzynormal said:

I'm shooting a documentary wherein I'm trying to capture around 80% of the footage with a FD 1.2 55mm on a speedbooster.

I think it looks great in an imperfect way.  

Typically I'm getting most of my shots @f2.8, which is pretty darn sharp with that lens. But, I've done some low light stuff where I open it to f2 or f1.4-ish, and the chroma aberration really starts to be noticeable.  Which isn't all bad, depending.  It's a "look" anyway.  It's certainly nice being able to shoot low-light if needed.  f1.2 on a speedbooster with 1600ISO captures a lot of light.  I've even pushed to 3200ISO with useable results...depending on what you consider "useable."

Here's the thing some people fail to take into consideration when it comes to IBIS bodies and m43 cameras:  The cameras are very light.  The lack of mass makes them prone to hand held jitters.  But, once you adapt some hunking piece of glass and metal to the body, then the weight of the camera actually becomes beneficial for steadier handheld shots.

My take is that the ergos are actually better for shooting video when old vintage glass is on the body.

I think it depends on your set up and on the lens. Thus far, I have kept it pretty simple. A neck strap, my right hand on the grip, my left hand serving double duty to support the lens and focus from underneath.

With certain vintage lenses it is a pleasure. On longer, heavier lenses it is unbalanced. I intend to include an L-bracket eventually and I recently found a rail free follow focus I may include.

Either way, I will use vintage primes 99% of the time, I just like the look better.... Vintage c-mounts... I like even more so. 

[Messerjocke]

It seems to GX80 is a kind of breakthrough. I have never seen so much videos of high technical quality here in the forum. We already had great affordable stabilization ( like on the OMDs ) or great 4K quality ( like on the LX100), but this time all comes in a lovely affordable package.

[Miki de la Rosa]

Hi,

I have a Canon 550d/T2i + Sigma 18-35 1.8 which was too heavy/big for my purpose (my trips, concerts, hiking and some events)

so I got the GX85 with 12-32 kit lens + Lumix 20mm 1.7 pancake (+ Tiffen Ultra Contrast 3, thanks @Jase)

now I can hang the camera in my shoulder without noticing it (I am soooo happy!!)

I am new to filmmaking. I've been on vacations in NYC and took the time to learn how to use the camera (trial and error), I read ALL the post in this topic (took me a while!) and learned a lot from you (color grading, filmconvert, luts, A3G3, White balance, downscale 4k, 25/50 vs 30/60 fps, flickering, iDynamic...) Thank you a lot to everyone.

Still I need to learn so much and I have so many questions.

 - Do you guys know if Andrew Reid is going to have another GX85 review soon?

 - Is there going to be a shooters guide for the GX85? do you think the GH4 guide will work for me?

 - Is there any other guide/tutorial you would recommend (GX85 / filmmaking)? 

Thanks! 

[BucksterUK]

will upload some videos later - but I'm very impressed with the colour and smoothness of gradient from the GX80

in fact impressed all round - the video output is so so much nicer than my G6

stills taken from a 4k video (using Resolve)

 

 

[sjg98]

4 hours ago, Messerjocke said:

It seems to GX80 is a kind of breakthrough. I have never seen so much videos of high technical quality here in the forum. We already had great affordable stabilization ( like on the OMDs ) or great 4K quality ( like on the LX100), but this time all comes in a lovely affordable package.

I'd agree

The IBIS is way ahead of the A7rII I owned for 6 months 

I've taken a few clips of 0 artistic merit to test and even without stabilized lenses or post-processing stabilization it's really smooth handheld. 

Will try and post something soon. 

Just have the kit lens and 25/1.4 right now. 

Debating a wide lens, though the kit lens is shockingly decent though slow in terms of aperture.  

[mercer]

40 minutes ago, BucksterUK said:

will upload some videos later - but I'm very impressed with the colour and smoothness of gradient from the GX80

in fact impressed all round - the video output is so so much nicer than my G6

stills taken from a 4k video (using Resolve)

 

 

It looks great. Yeah, I am really enjoying this camera. It's just a ton of fun and the quality definitely is better than the G7 as well. My videos are almost too sharp, even with sharpness dialed all the way down. 

[fuzzynormal]

I'm a few months in shooting with 2 GX85's.  I've noticed one of 'em has had the IBIS get "stuck" a few times.  Camera needs to be power cycled to bring it back online.  No big deal at the moment, but concerning.  Posting the info here to note it.  If someone else runs into this issue let me know your camera's symptoms.  Thanks.

[sanveer]

28 minutes ago, fuzzynormal said:

I'm a few months in shooting with 2 GX85's.  I've noticed one of 'em has had the IBIS get "stuck" a few times.  Camera needs to be power cycled to bring it back online.  No big deal at the moment, but concerning.  Posting the info here to note it.  If someone else runs into this issue let me know your camera's symptoms.  Thanks.

Perhaps have the camera serviced before the issues aggravates. 

[4Kfan]

Total NOOB here. Bought  the gx85 a month ago as a tool to learn how to  shoot video. Steep learning curve. A few books, Google and forum like this taught me everything so far. Went to a video portrait workshop organized by a local camera store on Thursday night. They had a local artisan there for us to shoot. Three light set up. Did a quick edit with Resolve. Learning as I go. I think it is a fantastic camera.

https://youtu.be/JLXEILzEtuI

Natural Profile -5,-5,-5,0

All handheld. Straight out of camera. No grading.

[fuzzynormal]

4 hours ago, sanveer said:

Perhaps have the camera serviced before the issues aggravates. 

No time for that.

[4Kfan]

3 hours ago, 4Kfan said:

Total NOOB here. Bought  the gx85 a month ago as a tool to learn how to  shoot video. Steep learning curve. A few books, Google and forum like this taught me everything so far. Went to a video portrait workshop organized by a local camera store on Thursday night. They had a local artisan there for us to shoot. Three light set up. Did a quick edit with Resolve. Learning as I go. I think it is a fantastic camera.

https://youtu.be/JLXEILzEtuI

Natural Profile -5,-5,-5,0

All handheld. Straight out of camera. No grading.

New to this forum. Looks like the video link I posted above did not change to an embedded player automatically. Will try it a different way to see if it works

 

[BucksterUK]

4Kfan - nice video - I liked that well done.

the only thing I didn't like was the very end - after all the effort on making the belt the pan past it seemed too quick and rushed (and had judder)

[4Kfan]

7 hours ago, BucksterUK said:

4Kfan - nice video - I liked that well done.

the only thing I didn't like was the very end - after all the effort on making the belt the pan past it seemed too quick and rushed (and had judder)

Agree. The ending is not smooth. I'll try a different cut. Will also use filmconvert for a more cinematic look. Learning a lot.

[Michael Coffee]

Hey 4kfan - great looking video - nice sound - not sure about the slo mo in the middle

I reckon it looks great for sure! Well done!

[4Kfan]

Thanks Michael. The slow mo probably doesn't fit well with the overall style of the documentary but as a newbie I just want to try it for the giggles.

[markr041]

How bad is the GX85 in-camera audio? This video compares the audio track from the camera to that from a Zoom H1 (with dead cat) recorded at an outdoors opera recital, with full orchestra. The concert sound was, of course, amplified, so mic placement is not the issue. What is the issue is wind noise and compression (AGC and the low audio bitrate (128 kbps). The H1 soundtrack is 24 bit, 48Hz and uncompressed (1560 kbps).

The first clip is with in-camera audio; the second is the same clip with the H1 audio:

 

You will note that the H1 track is at a lower level; that is because it has the full dynamic range (the peak is -1.0 Db) while the in-camera audio is pumped up and leveled In-camera).

How bad is the GX85 audio? Real bad.

[BucksterUK]

nice comparison - quite a difference - thanks for sharing !

do you have H1 mounted on the camera or just stand-alone ? (ie is it on the tripod mount, or flash mount ?)

I was going to get an external recorder before I went away on holiday, but couldn't choose between a H1, H2N, H4N or H5N lol so ended up with none

all my holiday videos are going to have music overlaid on them !

[markr041]

Thanks. I mounted the H1 on a flash mount attached to the tripod mount of the camera. The entire video (30 minutes after editing) was handheld (45-150mm (99-330mm eq.) Lumix lens).