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

[Astro]

1 hour ago, hellboy80 said:

Nice camera, but I saw some footage on YouTube and I dont like it. It looks too videoish to me, but this is no suprise for me, because I can say that about all Panasonic mirrorless cameras. I just dont like their image, its too oversharpen and too contrasty. The videos I saw look like home movies (I guess that great cameramen can get more filmic images from these cameras). The images from Canon DSLRS looks more filmic, but with Canon there is the problem that their features sucks. So the best cameras for me are probably from Sony, because you get the best from the both worlds.

I have already seen footage from the GX85 that I like, (there is a new link on Personal Views that is very smooth and filmic looking, also have a look at Paul Leemings reel GH4 and Red Epic...some really nice stuff there (I just dont agree all Panny Mirrorless have a non filmic look...I have seen too many exceptions to that statement),
having said that there are some GX85 clips online that I don't like (for the same reasons you don't.
But Softness and filmic is a combination of the lens and the shooters skill, plus you can wind out the in cam sharpening in the GH4 and I assume the GX85.
So there is a ton of control, its really up to the shooter.

[jgharding]

At risk of derailing, the new Panasonic Varicam remains the high-end cam I've not tried. It's just not as common as the others, but the image from all tests I've seen is spectacular.

Hopefully as much of this can trickle down into the consumer Panasonic models as possible.

[Tiago Rosa-Rosso]

16 hours ago, Herb said:

Tiago Rosa-Rosso,

I did not mean to suggest you were in error / mistaken. It wouldn't surprise me if Panasonic had published / was quoting incorrect specs. 10 bit would be very cool.

Herb,

No problem. I just wanted to share the link for the chat so you could confirm for yourself. It seems it's not very reliable. I'm also trying to know more info on this. 

[Jan G]

Hallo all,
I had a holiday in  Greece, and right before I left I could pic up a GX80 in my camera store. I really like the small form factor for travelling. That's al so the reason why I use mainly 4/3 lenses with it.
So for my kind of use its a great little camera.

In the link is a little piece I made with it, no colour grading are post stabilisation.

 

[bigfried]

 

warning - this is not nice to watch...

 

 

 

[bigfried]

 

[tomastancredi]

On 5/30/2016 at 8:03 PM, fuzzynormal said:

FWIW, I can't make heads or tails of this test.  Different lenses, cameras, and stabilization that doesn't seem to be activated properly?  What's what?  Not sure what I'm looking at.

https://vimeo.com/168468785 - gh4 gx85 comparison

well yes, it is not methodic,( the test is not mine) but same lenses, same preset. stabilization works well with non is lenses, we know that, but this  shows very different colours from both cameras, altough sunlight was a bit different in both shots I thought I was enough to get a glimpse of what andrew meant when he said  canon-like colours

[Michael Coffee]

8 hours ago, fuzzynormal said:

Because organic flaws such as imperfect focus pulls have character.  Seriously.  At least in my head.

I don't know if you've ever composed and arranged music on a computer, but if you rely on precision and algorithms to lock in rhythm, it ends up sounding rather soul less.  Imaging can be similar: too clean and clinical.

But, I understand CAF is a useful tool.  it has been refined for dedicated motion picture cameras.  I've seen it in action and was impressed, but I personally wouldn't use it for my stuff.

Also, expecting smooth motion-picture-efficient CAF in a $700 photography camera (this year) is overly optimistic.

 

Well I know, but to have a focus puller in your pocket is an amazing idea! We could even program a little character in - like in music programming! I do make tracks on the computer - do you compose as well? I'm techno focused..   

 I wouldn't use it for every shot, but what an amazing thing to have - you could do stuff that would be almost, if not impossible with a traditional manual pull..

7 hours ago, Astro said:

Yep I have used the Gh4 for a long time...while everyone else was obsessing about noise in the shadows, dynamic range, low light etc..
I was obsessing about the jitter or strobe when you panned the camera, it kind of drove me nuts for a while...it was my single biggest beef with the GH4...so I did countless tests.
Heres what I found, its at its worst in 4K at 24P or 25P (especially in high contrast scenes) ...medium pans are the worst, slow pans can be acceptable, fast pans also can be OK.
Its not there in the higher frame rates at 1080P 30/ 50/ 60
It improves greatly at 30 frames PS in 4K, it improves a lot!! (thats your best bet in 4K I found) Low contrast scenes are also much better too
Turning on or off OIS in a lens makes little or no difference from what I saw....
It seems to be less on a 4K screen at 60hz than a 1080P or 1440 screen at the same 60hz refresh rate, I cant say that's totally the case tho..I have only done a few tests.
I have seen it other cameras without GS, especially in 4K.
The GX85 has it just as bad as the GH4 in this area, but the image stabilization is a huge plus, for that reason I am thinking of getting one.
I havre gotten used to it now, and I know what and what not to do...when in doubt, if you are just uploading to the web, use 29.97 (30P)

Cheers

Hope this helps

Yeah, I have always hated this on Panasonics - movement shudder, frame tearing, whatever you'd call it. 1/40 shutter seems to help out sometimes.. I might try 30p to 24p in Twixtor next..

45 minutes ago, Jan G said:

Hallo all,
I had a holiday in  Greece, and right before I left I could pic up a GX80 in my camera store. I really like the small form factor for travelling. That's al so the reason why I use mainly 4/3 lenses with it.
So for my kind of use its a great little camera.

In the link is a little piece I made with it, no colour grading are post stabilisation.

 

Wow, it looks like they have really fixed the funny orange/red thing that was going on with Panasonics.. where reds and oranges would go a bit mental sometimes..

[Michael Coffee]

6 hours ago, hellboy80 said:

Nice camera, but I saw some footage on YouTube and I dont like it. It looks too videoish to me, but this is no suprise for me, because I can say that about all Panasonic mirrorless cameras. I just dont like their image, its too oversharpen and too contrasty. The videos I saw look like home movies (I guess that great cameramen can get more filmic images from these cameras). The images from Canon DSLRS looks more filmic, but with Canon there is the problem that their features sucks. So the best cameras for me are probably from Sony, because you get the best from the both worlds.

Yeah, I kinda agree here, but the Canon's need work to not look soft - such great colours out of the box though! And less motion problems too.. 

6 hours ago, hellboy80 said:

You are absolutely right. As for filmic look. I dont know how to say it (english is not my first language), but the filmic image is sharp, but somehow soft at the same time. The softness can hide all distracting imperfections which videoish image will reveal. Videoish look is super sharp which is too distracting for me (it draws away the attention from the story), but I dont mid it in home videos and documentaries. That is just my subjective opinion.

It's like the difference between detail and sharpness.. something like the Alexa has tons of detail but never seems too sharp.. you can bring up the Canon detail a bit - haven't really tried blurring the panny footage yet as such.. : ) the search for the 1 grand Alexa in the pocket continues, ha

 

[John Matthews]

9 minutes ago, Michael Coffee said:

Yeah, I kinda agree here, but the Canon's need work to not look soft - such great colours out of the box though! And less motion problems too.. 

I looked at Canon too before buying the GX80, but quickly found that clearly innovation and progressing their lower-end DSLR's weren't their thing. They've somehow been able to market virtually the same camera ever since the 50D- absolutely brilliant for making massive amounts of money! That's not saying they can't make nice images, because they can... but you hit the nail on the head with the word "soft." They decided that details in video should only be for their higher-end cameras. I look at the GX80 and it screams "2016," newer Canons in this price range scream "2010."

[sgreszcz]

On 30 May 2016 at 10:51 AM, Dimitris Stasinos said:

Have someone compared GX80 with G7? Does actually the lack of a low pass filter make a difference in video?

I haven't done sharpness comparisons, but here is some recordings I did comparing the Panasonic LX100, G7, GX80, and Olympus OMD E-M5II colour.  

 

[John Matthews]

1 hour ago, sgreszcz said:

I haven't done sharpness comparisons, but here is some recordings I did comparing the Panasonic LX100, G7, GX80, and Olympus OMD E-M5II colour.  

Thanks for sharing that and doing the tests. I'm wondering what conclusions one could make from this about the colors on the GX80? Is it more about ridding the camera of pinkish skin tones (I've seen them in LX100 footage, but not in this vid)... or is more about perfecting and getting it closer to reality? Since you were there, which one was closest to reality?

[A Y]

Does anyone know of any sample footage SOOC from the GX80 that I can download? I'd like to see if my computer can handle editing 4k files. It's a 2012 Mac Mini with a 2.3GHz 4-core i7 and the built-in video on that CPU in case anyone is using a similar configuration to edit 4k already. Thanks!

[Paul H. Ryu]

I've never posted on this forum before but I read it quite often, and I thought I should finally contribute since I have actual useful content this time that nobody's actually definitively confirmed. I have the Panasonic GX85, the US version. I have it in my hands and it's a beauty. But let's just get straight to the point.

1. In AVCHD and in 4K, there is no 29 minute recording time limit. There still is a weird 29 minute (and 4GB) limit for FHD/HD/VGA MP4 clips, but none for AVCHD and 4K MP4. Part of me didn't actually believe it, so I took a fresh battery, a fresh 64 GB card, put the camera into 4K video mode, IBIS on, and just hit record. 1 hr 29 min 9 sec later, the card filled up, and the camera stopped recording, but the battery still had one bar left, and the camera never quit recording on me. It was warm, but not hot to the touch. It was indoors and at night, however, but I'm just telling you, recording long clips is well within the realms of possibility with this camera. I'm actually quite excited about being able to record indefinitely in AVCHD as well. When I'm recording a long event, it's not that important to get the best quality, but it's important to be able to get SOMETHING. I can run this camera up on a tripod, set it to AFC mode at 1080/30p 24Mbps AVCHD, hit record, and come back some time later and know that it got SOMETHING for last hour and a half. AVCHD can be annoying to work with, but a lot of consumer-level camcorders still use the format, so in effect, I'm getting a very capable large sensor camcorder to go along with my high-end 4K shooter. No complaints at all.

2. And that's not all, folks. I've had a GH4 and one of my least favorite things about filming 4K in the GH4 (and GX8 and G7) is that stupid 4 GB file size limit thing. So when you're shooting 4K, every six and a half minutes, there's a new 4GB file. But that's history now. On the GX85, if you use an SDXC card (basically anything bigger than 32 GB), the camera will give you one single monolithic file. I record a lot of musical performances, so long takes are kind of standard in my regular usage. I am not joking when I say that my editing process for 4K just became 40% happier. According to the manual, a file will split if "the continuous recording time exceeds 3 hours and 4 minutes or if the file exceeds 96 GB." Since the battery can't even last that long, for all intents and purposes, GX85 will give you single takes in single files.

I expected the IBIS and the 4K and the beautiful design and all the other stuff. But I honestly didn't expect these two features. I really thought they were going to burden us with a stupid 29 minute limit in all settings (I assumed that and ranted about in other forums, I feel dumb now, oops) and never in my wildest dreams did I actually think they'd solve the 4GB issue with this camera, but they did.

It's safe to say, this is the best MFT mirrorless shooter right now. GH4, you had a good run, but GX85 is the king. This is a true hybrid shooter. And at about half the price as a GH4 when you consider the cute pancake zoom has decent resale value.

As an aside, GX8 buyers have got to feel a little burned by the GX85. I'm sure a lot of them would love large file support and 5-axis IBIS.

[jase]

Here are a couple of shots, OOC. Looks quite fine to me as a starting point for grading.

[mechanicalEYE]

13 minutes ago, jase said:

Here are a couple of shots, OOC. Looks quite fine to me as a starting point for grading.

what settings/ profile?

[jase]

Standard -5/-5/-5/-5

however as you can see the shadows are far away from being crushed.

this ia due to the tiffen ultra contrast filter. Together with filmconvert this combo really sings, because filmconvert lowers the shadows in such a way that you only need to adjust the highlights and some subtle skintone correction.

[mercer]

15 minutes ago, mechanicalEYE said:

what settings/ profile?

That looks great Jase. Am looking forward to your first video with it. 

31 minutes ago, jase said:

Here are a couple of shots, OOC. Looks quite fine to me as a starting point for grading.

 

[mechanicalEYE]

13 minutes ago, jase said:

Standard -5/-5/-5/-5

however as you can see the shadows are far away from being crushed.

this ia due to the tiffen ultra contrast filter. Together with filmconvert this combo really sings, because filmconvert lowers the shadows in such a way that you only need to adjust the highlights and some subtle skintone correction.

 

9 minutes ago, mercer said:

That looks great Jase. Am looking forward to your first video with it. 

 

Jase: I'm agreeing with mercer, looks great.

[Henry Ciullo]

had a 1 hour break in weather. Did some more tests with stabilization with kit lens and manual lens. I still need to find a flatter picture profile, I guess I need to read the manual...

coming from 1 year of blackmagic pocket I am not used to having to nail exposure any more