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

[Brian Williams]

6 hours ago, wolf33d said:

It as never been used before professionally because it sucked in video. 

It is the same in photo. Before people used to shoot manual, since the AF is good all pros shoot with AF. Go see a pro sport photographer and tell him only grand ma should use AF. You are a real idiot  

@Andrew Reid

 ouch.

But the thing is, it's not really "the same in photo"- shooting still photography is a whole other beast than shooting video, in many ways. AF is great for stills because it's one static image. AF for video is irractic, having to choose 24 times a second what to focus on. I'm sure it will at some point get good enough, but there's a reason why focus pullers still exist, why AF isn't used for movies or television show. 

 

[gatopardo]

6 hours ago, DevonChris said:

I'm bowing out of this discussion as it is clear that some people don't understand the principles.

The link that @Nikkor provided explains it perfectly, and mathematically supports the argument that sensor size does influence DoF.

<edit>

This is the important part of the article in the link :

</edit>

1- For the same FOV and same lens aperture ( diferent lens on each sensor ) the crop sensor has more DOF than a full frame

2 -For the same focal lenght and same lens aperture (similar lens on each sensor ) the crop sensor has the same DOF but less FOV than a full frame. 

[alanpoiuyt]

Here's some quick footage. I like the stabilizer.

 

[RobD]

A question. Shooting 4K video - what SD card would be required? 

[John Matthews]

8 hours ago, RobD said:

A question. Shooting 4K video - what SD card would be required? 

UHS-I/U3. I got this one:

http://amzn.com/B013CP3MMM

[jase]

Anyone knows whether is possible to get rid of this annoying "change your focal length" popup each time you turn on the camera when using a manuall lens that does not have any electronical contacts? really reminds on the NTSC mode on Sony cameras..

[John Matthews]

2 hours ago, jase said:

Anyone knows whether is possible to get rid of this annoying "change your focal length" popup each time you turn on the camera when using a manuall lens that does not have any electronical contacts? really reminds on the NTSC mode on Sony cameras..

Use MFT lenses.  or turn off stabilization. Logically, it would make sense... just checked it and it works.

Actually, I'd prefer this to doing a menu dive every time I want to change focal lengths.

[John Matthews]

I have a question about workflow. I've resorted to shooting just jpegs because they look great from this camera and also I refuse to pay Adobe for the newest Lightroom when it comes out for GX80 raw support. I also use OSX and fcpx, but would love to move to Linux. Any ideas?

[tupp]

1 hour ago, John Matthews said:

I have a question about workflow. I've resorted to shooting just jpegs because they look great from this camera and also I refuse to pay Adobe for the newest Lightroom when it comes out for GX80 raw support. I also use OSX and fcpx, but would love to move to Linux. Any ideas?

If you want to try Linux but have no experience, start with one of the newbie distros:  Mint, Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS, Mageia, OpenSUSE,etc.

 

Also, you can try most of these distros without installing them by booting "live" versions (liveCD, liveDVD, liveUSB, liveSD, etc.).  The live versions of these big newbie distros will usually run more slowly than installed versions, but a live OS running off of a USB 3.0 flash drive might be fairly snappy.

 

By the way, there are multimedia distros designed for video/audio production and photography, such as Ubuntu Studio, AVLinux and Apodio.  These multimedia distros will often come with a lot of codecs already installed, but it is fairly easy to install codecs on the non-multimedia distros.

 

In regards to GX80/GX85 raw support, you could just install open source Raw Therapee on OSX.  It reportedly works with GX80/GX85 which uses the open source DCRaw library, upon which Adobe Camera Raw converter (and pretty much every other raw file converter) is based.  Consequently, a lot of the other open source raw "darkroom" might also already have the ability to read GX80/GX85 raw files, as many open source projects tend to move faster than their proprietary counterparts.  I use open source Darktable which can also be installed on OSX.

 

 

If you start moving to Linux, there are other things of which it might be good to be aware, such as which NLEs (both open source and proprietary) are the most actively developed and robust, and such as which audio editor is ideal for your situation.

[ThomHaig]

Since a few of you guys seem to have your hands on GX80's (or whatever you want to call them) I was wondering if anyone could confirm their compatibility with metabones adapters?

I currently own a G7 and a metabones XL, however nothing in the ways of EF lenses yet. I was considering options and about to blow a load of money of a stabilized full frame EF zoom, however I'm thinking it might be more cost-effective to get a GX80 body and some nice fast primes, and / or a cheaper, unstabilised zoom (I'm figuring some stabilisation will be enough, it'd be nice to shoot handheld, but I'm not anticipating doing so loads)

Would appreciate it if anyone can share their experiences

[Inazuma]

2 hours ago, John Matthews said:

I have a question about workflow. I've resorted to shooting just jpegs because they look great from this camera and also I refuse to pay Adobe for the newest Lightroom when it comes out for GX80 raw support. I also use OSX and fcpx, but would love to move to Linux. Any ideas?

Use Phase One Capture One or DXO Optics Pro instead of Lightroom. The pictures from Panasonic cameras look hugely better in them. 

[RobD]

10 hours ago, John Matthews said:

UHS-I/U3. I got this one:

http://amzn.com/B013CP3MMM

Thanks John!

[John Matthews]

8 hours ago, tupp said:

In regards to GX80/GX85 raw support, you could just install open source Raw Therapee on OSX.  It reportedly works with GX80/GX85 which uses the open source DCRaw library, upon which Adobe Camera Raw converter (and pretty much every other raw file converter) is based.  Consequently, a lot of the other open source raw "darkroom" might also already have the ability to read GX80/GX85 raw files, as many open source projects tend to move faster than their proprietary counterparts.  I use open source Darktable which can also be installed on OSX.

Thank you Tupp for responding so thoroughly. I appreciate that.

I should have been clearer though. I'm not a newbee to Linux, but I've never used it as a day-to-day machine workhorse. I've installed countless distros into Virtualbox in the hopes to finding:

1) a stable/secure desktop environment

2) pro and free solutions for both video and photo editing without too much fuss

To restate my question in clearer terms: If I'm a "pro" running Linux in the film capital of the world (maybe that's your case), what would I most likely be using?

My technical abilities are probably going to be sufficient or I can put in some effort and time. I just don't want to waste time on software that lacks community and developers. I would like to learn something that I know will be supported in the the future (5-10 years) and that has a following.

Concerning the GX80, only Raw Therapee will allow me to edit the raw files. I just can't seem to get better results than the in-camera jpegs (which look great). All my previous cameras have had inferior results when compared to software. Not the GX80. I spend most of my time trying to get a result that the camera would have given me out of the box in the first place. The major problem is color. Do you know if RawTherapee is still being actively developed? Or, have most people moved on to Darktable?

8 hours ago, tupp said:

If you start moving to Linux, there are other things of which it might be good to be aware, such as which NLEs (both open source and proprietary) are the most actively developed and robust, and such as which audio editor is ideal for your situation.

What are "NLEs?"

7 hours ago, Inazuma said:

Use Phase One Capture One or DXO Optics Pro instead of Lightroom. The pictures from Panasonic cameras look hugely better in them. 

I'll try Capture One again to see what I get. My problem is more about finding pro cross-platform (Linux included) software for photos and audio/video.

[John Matthews]

With a Panasonic cameras, where should one set zebras to not blow out highlights. I set them to 105, but they lose color info. I tried 95, but it's the same issue. What's common practice?

[kidzrevil]

this just means the gh5 will be a monster. I can see it

[IronFilm]

On 5/19/2016 at 8:12 AM, AnthonyWithNoH said:

makes me wish I had a Canon Mount Sigma 18-35 (use Nikon) so I could easily take advantage of IBIS with it...

No version of the Sigma 18-35mm f1.8 has image stabilisation. 

[TheRenaissanceMan]

1 hour ago, kidzrevil said:

this just means the gh5 will be a monster. I can see it

I'm probably going to hold off buying a new camera until it's announced. I'm already invested in the system, so if it lives up to expectations, I'd rather just plug it into my existing workflow.

[MBFrancis]

45 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

No version of the Sigma 18-35mm f1.8 has image stabilisation. 

Which is why the IBIS would be perfect for compensating the 18-35mm's lack of IS

[norliss]

2 hours ago, John Matthews said:

What are "NLEs?"

Non Linear Editing software i.e. Final Cut, Avid MC etc.

[IronFilm]

21 minutes ago, MBFrancis said:

Which is why the IBIS would be perfect for compensating the 18-35mm's lack of IS

Yes, but it also makes it pointless swapping a Nikon mount version for a Canon mount version like the guy I quoted was proposing to do.