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

[John Matthews]

3 minutes ago, jonpais said:

If you're shooting under a variety of lighting condions, I actually prefer stuff shot under fluorescent to look greenish, early morning or late evening bluish and indoor tungsten to appear orange. 

This is only controlled light in a studio setting without any other shots. In fact, I have a fluorescent light behind a window and I'd like that light to be more like window light shining inside... if that makes sense.

[Cinegain]

What I like to do to analyze what a shot needs... I go into Photoshop and then add a layer of color balance. I ended up liking MT CR+6/MG-9/YB-9, SD CR+2/MG+1/YB0, HL CR+13/MG-7/YB+18 and then a layer to reduce the vibrance by about 20%, some exposure tweaks... and you'd go from:

to

So... looks like it could use a little cooler setting? Yet with boosted reds and taken out greens. So concerning that 'trial & error', give that a go!

[John Matthews]

1 hour ago, Cinegain said:

What I like to do to analyze what a shot needs... I go into Photoshop and then add a layer of color balance. I ended up liking MT CR+6/MG-9/YB-9, SD CR+2/MG+1/YB0, HL CR+13/MG-7/YB+18 and then a layer to reduce the vibrance by about 20%, some exposure tweaks... and you'd go from:

[...]

So... looks like it could use a little cooler setting? Yet with boosted reds and taken out greens. So concerning that 'trial & error', give that a go!

Thank you so much for that help. Since I was at 5600K and A0M4, I'll try to add a little more blue 5400K and A0M5. It should up the blue and remove a little more green. I'll give that a go.

[Inazuma]

@John Matthews I'd probably use a grey card if I were you

 

Has anyone tested the "Flkr Decrease" setting? It is available on most Panasonic cameras. It allows you to set a fixed shutter speed. I'm wondering if you set this option to 1/50 and use Aperture priority and Auto ISO, does exposure compensation still work? That is one of the drawbacks of manual mode; you can set SS and Aperture but if you have auto ISO on you can't use exposure compensation past or below 0.

[John Matthews]

6 minutes ago, Inazuma said:

@John Matthews I'd probably use a grey card if I were you

I'm going to get one, but I still think there's going to be some trial and error.

 

7 minutes ago, Inazuma said:

Has anyone tested the "Flkr Decrease" setting? It is available on most Panasonic cameras. It allows you to set a fixed shutter speed. I'm wondering if you set this option to 1/50 and use Aperture priority and Auto ISO, does exposure compensation still work?

I just tried it. Flicker decrease is only available in Photo mode. Upon pressing the movie record, it jumps to 1/50 and nothing is adjustable after... no shutter, no aperture, no ISO, and no exposure comp.

[sir_danish]

Has anyone figured out what's the best all-round picture profile that still leaves some headroom for playing with the colors in post? I'm coming from a BMPCC and will be getting the GX80 next week, but I don't have much time for experimenting with the picture profiles. Maybe some experienced GX80 users could share their favorite settings with me?

Some say that "Natural" (everything -5) seems to be nicely gradable, others say that "Standard" is the better all-round setting. What are your observations?

[John Matthews]

50 minutes ago, sir_danish said:

Has anyone figured out what's the best all-round picture profile that still leaves some headroom for playing with the colors in post? I'm coming from a BMPCC and will be getting the GX80 next week, but I don't have much time for experimenting with the picture profiles. Maybe some experienced GX80 users could share their favorite settings with me?

Some say that "Natural" (everything -5) seems to be nicely gradable, others say that "Standard" is the better all-round setting. What are your observations?

The general consensus is either Natural or Standard with everything at "-5" with the exception of saturation, which should be set at "0." For WB, I use "Sunny," adjusted to A3G3. In my tests, the Natural profile performed a little better in the blue channel. The reason for keeping saturation at "0" is due the codec being 4:2:0, resulting in limited color information in the first place. Hope that helps.

[Cary Knoop]

2 hours ago, John Matthews said:

The general consensus is either Natural or Standard with everything at "-5" with the exception of saturation, which should be set at "0."

No kidding?  I think that is a sure way to completely mess up your video quality.

 

[mercer]

1 hour ago, Cary Knoop said:

No kidding?  I think that is a sure way to completely mess up your video quality.

 

A little further explanation...

[Andrew Reid]

Why explain further if you can use your eyes.

Cary is right.

[mercer]

I find with most 8 bit cameras, unless there is a designated flat profile, that a variant of Prolost Neutral is your best bet... for me anyway. So with the GX85, I have found the best results to be Natural with Contrast -5, Sharpness -5, NR -5, Saturation -2, -3. I find default saturation to be fairly obnoxious in most cameras, so dialing it down usually helps to even the RGB channels. 

YMMV

@Andrew Reid If he used nouns, verbs and adjectives to relay his point we could have a discussion. 

[Andrew Reid]

Standard Panasonic picture profiles are not designed to turn into 'flat mode' and if you dial down contrast this might give the appearance of more dynamic range (as the lows get a lift) but actually it does nothing to increase the dynamic range of the final graded material. You're just crushing the blacks back down again in post and reducing the tonality of the image in-camera, less colour information due to less contrast in an 8bit image.

[sir_danish]

21 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

Standard Panasonic picture profiles are not designed to turn into 'flat mode' and if you dial down contrast this might give the appearance of more dynamic range (as the lows get a lift) but actually it does nothing to increase the dynamic range of the final graded material. You're just crushing the blacks back down again in post and reducing the tonality of the image in-camera, less colour information due to less contrast in an 8bit image.

So which settings would you suggest, Andrew? Which profile is the one you would use most often? Thanks everyone for your help!

[mercer]

36 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

Standard Panasonic picture profiles are not designed to turn into 'flat mode' and if you dial down contrast this might give the appearance of more dynamic range (as the lows get a lift) but actually it does nothing to increase the dynamic range of the final graded material. You're just crushing the blacks back down again in post and reducing the tonality of the image in-camera, less colour information due to less contrast in an 8bit image.

I understand the logic, but I always thought the point of dialing down contrast wasn't about getting more dynamic range, it was about dialing down the baked in contrast curve, so you could choose your curve in post.

Obviously people have differing opinions on this, but some of the nicest footage I have seen with the GX80/85 is from Martin Wallgren and Jase and they shoot with the Natural or Standard profile with -5 Contrast. Even back to the GH3 days Noam Kroll recommended using Standard with contrast dialed down. 

[John Matthews]

1 hour ago, Andrew Reid said:

Standard Panasonic picture profiles are not designed to turn into 'flat mode' and if you dial down contrast this might give the appearance of more dynamic range (as the lows get a lift) but actually it does nothing to increase the dynamic range of the final graded material. You're just crushing the blacks back down again in post and reducing the tonality of the image in-camera, less colour information due to less contrast in an 8bit image.

Thank you for finally commenting more on what seems to be one the most popular EOSHD threads since starting your forum. We're all eager to hear your settings... possibly even willing to even pay for them... I believe the consensus (in this thread) was indeed the ones I said above: Standard or Natural (-5,-5,-5,0), many of us commenting on A3G3 WB adjustments. Your contention is the contrast setting... IMO lowering the contrast minimized the hot spots found on skin and other situations. I'm interested in what you have to offer. Maybe you can shoot some video and tell us what you think like your recent Sony video which I found very instructive. Many of us have been asking for a long time for your input.

[John Matthews]

4 hours ago, Cary Knoop said:

No kidding?  I think that is a sure way to completely mess up your video quality.

 

Please show us what you're getting... for you to have such a knee-jerk reaction, it must be good! Seriously, we could all benefit from what others think the best way to use the GX80 is rather than making it a echo chamber.

[Thpriest]

I have been wondering about the settings too. I found that dialling down the NR made everything over 800iso very noisy and having to use Neat Video can get a bit tedious.

I've been thinking about using the custom settings and dialling things down in post a wee bit as it doesn't seem to be working for me the other way round.

It'd be interesting to hear different thoughts.

[Vesku]

Normally the -5 contrast gives little washed out or too light video image. It is not optimal if watching without additional settings or editing. It is good in very contrasty scenes.

I darken gamma in player or graphics card when I watch my GH4 videos shooted with contrast -5. I think the GH4 has in general little less contrasty video than GX80.

[Cary Knoop]

2 hours ago, John Matthews said:

Please show us what you're getting... for you to have such a knee-jerk reaction, it must be good! Seriously, we could all benefit from what others think the best way to use the GX80 is rather than making it a echo chamber.

Well think about it, the contrast setting changes the luminance values only, it does not change the actual dynamic range. So what you effectively do is compress the number of possible luminance values.  That information is lost it cannot be uncompressed in post.  Similarly for saturation you compress the UV vector.  So what would be the point?

I really do not see the point in lowering sharpness, I cannot spot any edge enhancement effects on the GX85, -1 seems harmless so I put it on -1 but I do notice resolution loss when sharpness goes down. 

With respect to noise I do set it to -3 (and -4 with high ISO).  The noise reduction of the GX85 seems to be dynamic as it really kicks in at higher ISOs and I find this noise reduction unpalatable, to me the results almost looks like a water color painting, I prefer being stuck with a noisier picture.  However noise and the ability to compress effectively is of course a trade off for we only get 100Mb/s.

The GX85 codec does provide illegal highlights so it is very important in post to bring them at legal values first otherwise you run the risk of clipping your highlights.

I like the Natural profile and use iDynamic at the Standard level.

 

[Inazuma]

Everyone has their own tastes and it's best to do plenty of tests by yourself to figure out what you like most. 

Personally when I had the GX80 I liked using -2 Contrast/Saturation on the Standard profile. These two at 0 or -5 baked in the values a little too much so I found a middle-ground. 

Sharpening is always very obvious to my eyes and I hate the look of it. Noise reduction makes the image look mushy, especially skin. So those two I turn to -5. 

The resulting is image is quite nice but I have found that using the Canon C100 Mark II setting on FilmConvert gives really, really nice results.

I'm seriously considering getting the G80 atm...