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

[jonpais]

1 minute ago, mercer said:

I have some Nikkors and they are amazing. The 35mm 1.4 is an epic lens... I shot these with it the other night on the boardwalk in ML Raw...

Will just any cheap Chinese adapter do? Which adaptor do you recommend for the G85?

[mercer]

Sorry this probably belongs in the lens thread, but these vintage primes and 5-axis is kind of relevant. I owned one Zeiss lens... the inexpensive 50mm 1.7 Planar and it really is an insane lens. There are also the modern Zeiss ZF lenses that are all manual, yet still a modern lens. I haven't used one but they seem to be a good compromise for those interested in vintage and modern lenses. So modern glass with a little character. 

[jonpais]

@mercer Yes, maybe we can continue the discussion in the lens thread. It's past midnight here, so tomorrow?

[studiodc]

10 hours ago, jonpais said:

There's a lot of misinformation out there about Cinelike D, and from reading these pages over the past several years, it appears that Lumix users mostly choose to go with either Natural or Standard photo styles, or Vlog if they've got the GH4 or GH5. I myself had avoided Cinelike D because in the past, reviewers had said it was too orange, or it looked as though there were too many conflicting thoughts on what the best settings were for contrast, saturation and so on, so I just stuck with Natural. Natural was also the profile of choice for those of us wanting to use many LUTs but didn't have a log profile in camera. But Cinelike D has a significantly greater dynamic range than any of the other profiles save V-log, and it is flat enough that there's no need at all to reduce contrast in camera. As for whether or not you like the colors, if you set white balance correctly, you've got yourself a great starting point for grading or adding LUTs for the look you're after. So, before you write off Cinelike D because of the lack of documentation online, or just because you read comments such as, "I like Natural better", or "I like the work of X, Y or Z, and they shoot with Natural", why not ask to see the work of those with the expert opinions? Incidentally, I love Jase's work, too, but he doesn't have the option to use Cinelike D, and I'm sure he'd prefer it if he had the choice. And for anyone still trying to decide whether to go with the G85 or save a few hundred dollars and get the GX85, I'd unhesitatingly recommend the G85. Here are a few screenshots from a test clip I shot over the afternoon in mixed tungsten/daylight using the X-Rite Colorchecker.

Just to be clear, I've got nothing against Cinelike D, when used properly. On my GH4, I preferred it to V-Log, at least with internal recording. The dynamic range is great. I did find, however, that in changing lighting conditions, it was non-linear with colour (especially skin tone) in a manner that made it very difficult to grade shots to match. Tracking white balance on a partially cloudy day with roving patches of daylight, for instance, either in manual mode or in AWB (I prefer not to shoot in AWB), just seemed to be smoother and easier to match when I didn't use Cinelike D, for instance. Since that's 90% of the stuff I'm using the GX85 for (and the G85 is already bulkier than I like), the lack of Cinelike D isn't a huge loss for me. That said, more options are better and it would be amazing if I could use the GX85 for more controlled shoots and get maximum quality out of it too. 

[mercer]

1 minute ago, jonpais said:

Will just any cheap Chinese adapter do? Which adaptor do you recommend for the G85?

Obviously any speedbooster will work if you want to go that route. I would personally go with the Lens Turbo rather than the more expensive Metabones, but either is great. For simple adapters, I've come to like K&F Concept. Also Fotasy brand is a decent cheap adapter. 

3 minutes ago, jonpais said:

@mercer Yes, maybe we can continue the discussion in the lens thread. It's past midnight here, so tomorrow?

Sounds good, have a good night!

[Cinegain]

1 hour ago, jonpais said:

Will just any cheap Chinese adapter do? Which adaptor do you recommend for the G85?

 

So, eBay, right!? It's a great place to roam around (sure many of you have bought something from http://stores.ebay.com/roxsen at some point in time), for example if you need lens adapters, I highly recommend the ones from K&F (Kent & Faith) Concept (listings on eBay usually have the black box with orange accents in them, there's another brand 'Leinox' which is pretty good as well, they're shown with thumbnails of the adapter and a black box with brownish/copper accents). One of my best kept secrets I'll share with you today: http://www.ebay.com/usr/artemstore . If you want a Russian vintage lens, he will hook you up. Somehow he always manages to find NOS (New Old Stock) or special series lenses as well. Such a great source.

[..]

 

[BTM_Pix]

4 hours ago, jonpais said:

@mercer Yes, maybe we can continue the discussion in the lens thread. It's past midnight here, so tomorrow?

I can offer you a speedboosted Contax Zeiss 50mm 1.7 vs speedboosted modern Nikon G 50mm vs non-speedboosted Sigma 35mm ART comparison on a GX80 if you're interested?

[PannySVHS]

12 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

So I've been doing some stuff controlling the Panasonic cameras over wifi by mimicking their smartphone apps.

It's for something that might be useful for a few other people that I'll put up in a few weeks. Nothing earth shattering but could be of use if you use a gimbal...

Anyway, what I see is that when the camera accepts the remote control connection it sends back to the app what model it is and all of the applicable functions to enable in the menus of the app. So that includes colour profiles (including vlog by the way) and all of the different recording formats. I've then tried to construct the commands to send my PAL G7 the one for 1080p60 which is obviously something the camera is capable of but is locked out from the user by not appearing in the UI. Unfortunately it didn't accept it but I'm going to do some more poking around when I get back.

The point being that I have a hunch that someone smarter than me (which is a pretty much anyone with a computer) might be able to exploit this area if they can find a way to convince the G7 it is NTSC and not PAL. Ditto for getting the GX80 to think it is the G7 so it can have cinelike d for example or c4k as the sensors are the same it's just what Panasonic choose to lock out based on what the camera is told it is. 

 

Two thumbs up. Would love to have CineD on my GX80! For 60p you might wanna give this a try and check youtube for "unlock g70":)

A lot of videos, but original one is from a russian user.

3 minutes ago, BTM_Pix said:

I can offer you a speedboosted Contax Zeiss 50mm 1.7 vs speedboosted modern Nikon G 50mm vs non-speedboosted Sigma 35mm ART comparison on a GX80 if you're interested?

Totally!

[BTM_Pix]

14 minutes ago, PannySVHS said:

Two thumbs up. Would love to have CineD on my GX80! For 60p you might wanna give this a try and check youtube for "unlock g70":)

A lot of videos, but original one is from a russian user.

Totally!

Well, thats very interesting!

I suspected there would be some sort of engineering/debug mode it could be put into and what they're showing in those videos is such a specific set of button press combinations that no way has someone just stumbled on it!

The really, curious thing is from this particular video.

And more to the point, why no one has picked up the VERY interesting entry in the Setup screen when he's scrolling through it.

He does it quickly so I've attached a screenshot of it here......ROM BACKUP??????

 

[PannySVHS]

 

100mbit HD please-  it´s getting hot in here!:)

 

 

[BTM_Pix]

Now then........

I doubt I've got the wherewithal to get your 100mbit HD going but I might have just got something reasonably interesting working on the GX80.

I need to do a proper controlled test against a G7 in the morning to confirm it but I'm cautiously optimistic.

Stay tuned

[mercer]

28 minutes ago, BTM_Pix said:

Now then........

I doubt I've got the wherewithal to get your 100mbit HD going but I might have just got something reasonably interesting working on the GX80.

I need to do a proper controlled test against a G7 in the morning to confirm it but I'm cautiously optimistic.

Stay tuned

Well if it's CineLikeD I may just have to buy another GX85... of course I wish you would have figured it out last month while they were giving away a free lens with the GX85 kit. 

[kidzrevil]

17 hours ago, jonpais said:

I haven't seen much work from the G85 that would benefit from higher bit rates. Most of it looks great to me as it is.

this is cinelike d. I think the 1080 mode will benefit the most from the bitrate hack. Plus higher bitrates benefit low contrast profiles like cinelike d the most

2 hours ago, PannySVHS said:

 

100mbit HD please-  it´s getting hot in here!:)

 

 

Yup !!!! Im praying for it ?

[mercer]

3 minutes ago, kidzrevil said:

this is cinelike d. I think the 1080 mode will benefit the most from the bitrate hack. Plus higher bitrates benefit low contrast profiles like cinelike d the most

Yeah, I will say that CineLikeD on the G7 was wonky but on the FZ2500 with the all-i 200mbps mov it was gorgeous. I wish Panasonic would give us that 1080p on a $1000 or less camera with interchangeable lenses. 

[kidzrevil]

8 hours ago, mercer said:

Sorry this probably belongs in the lens thread, but these vintage primes and 5-axis is kind of relevant. I owned one Zeiss lens... the inexpensive 50mm 1.7 Planar and it really is an insane lens. There are also the modern Zeiss ZF lenses that are all manual, yet still a modern lens. I haven't used one but they seem to be a good compromise for those interested in vintage and modern lenses. So modern glass with a little character. 

The IBIS has made my vintage glass indispensable.??

8 hours ago, jonpais said:

@mercer I'd be interested in trying out some vintage primes, it's just I've got no idea where to begin: I think Cinegain recommended the Zeiss, but there's a lot of folks who swear by the Nikkors too. 

Nikkor ais are pretty sweet

[mercer]

9 minutes ago, kidzrevil said:

this is cinelike d. I think the 1080 mode will benefit the most from the bitrate hack. Plus higher bitrates benefit low contrast profiles like cinelike d the most

Man kidz, you really make that Panny sing. You should be shooting features with that thing. I think we could use a 2017 version of mean streets shot in your style. 

17 minutes ago, kidzrevil said:

Yup !!!! Im praying for it ?

I'll probably get booed off of this thread, but I'm even intrigued by the 80D and its 96mbps all-i 1080p.

With Canon color and DPAF, it seems like a great camera in the right hands. If only it had 5-axis.

[BTM_Pix]

9 hours ago, mercer said:

Well if it's CineLikeD I may just have to buy another GX85... of course I wish you would have figured it out last month while they were giving away a free lens with the GX85 kit. 

<cough> Ready your wallet <cough>

 

[PannySVHS]

 

Cine D then? Common that would be a Grand Hit! Maybe that exploit could be used for other hacks such as high big rate in HD!

Out of likes for today unfortunately! How did you do it? @mercer, is gonna have to buy two GX85 cameras now!!!

 

[BTM_Pix]

12 minutes ago, PannySVHS said:

 

Cine D then? Common that would be a Grand Hit! Maybe that exploit could be used for other hacks such as high big rate in HD!

Out of likes for today unfortunately! How did you do it? @mercer, is gonna have to buy two GX85 cameras now!!!

 

I'm not confirming or denying anything but check out the comparison image in the new thread

[mickachiste]

Hi guys, with all the advices readen on this topic, here is my last work with the gx80. I hope you will enjoy ! Any feedbacks are very welcome... and I know there are still many things to work on ;-)