Panasonic G85 review - is there any need to get an Olympus E-M1 Mark II for video?

[jonpais]

2 minutes ago, Fredrik Lyhne said:

Cool! Post the test when it's done? 

of course! ha

[toxotis70]

do you think its 1 stop better than gh4 in low light - high iso ?

[kidzrevil]

13 hours ago, dantheman said:

Did you use a voightlander lens to shoot this? I have seen this before on a gx85 in combination with this type of lens while shooting wide open which is purple fringing, I see it in your video as well.

No I used a nikkor 35mm ais with a soeedbooster xl attached. Worked wonderfully imo a little purple fringing never scared a client away from me ??

11 hours ago, Grimor said:

Like it, but found it a bit "Teal & Orange"  (as with LPP Tetrachrome or Osiris Luts.)

How do you get those colors straight out the camera?

Could you share yours settings?

To get these color straight out the camera I used vivid profile with +5 contrast, 0 saturation and +2 shadows -5 highlights. Works very well if you underexpose by 1/3-2/3 a stop (usually slightly below 100 zebras appear in the image). Next im going to work on better saturation, I'll probably knock it down -2 cause shooting flat & desaturated on a Panasonic camera is a recipe for disaster. Its best to get most of the look done in camera

[dantheman]

47 minutes ago, kidzrevil said:

No I used a nikkor 35mm ais with a soeedbooster xl attached. Worked wonderfully imo a little purple fringing never scared a client away from me ??

Thx for the info, I just wonder if the G80 or gx85 only is prone to these kind of artifacts or that you get this with a gh4 as well with very fast lenses (f0.95) or like in your case combined with a f1.4(?) and a speedbooster. I personally find chromatic aberration unacceptable, just because it can be very obvious and it looks ugly. In your video it was somewhat contained but a gx85 video I saw recently with a voightlander looked plain awefull. It even made me reconsider buying a voightlander.

[kidzrevil]

4 hours ago, dantheman said:

Thx for the info, I just wonder if the G80 or gx85 only is prone to these kind of artifacts or that you get this with a gh4 as well with very fast lenses (f0.95) or like in your case combined with a f1.4(?) and a speedbooster. I personally find chromatic aberration unacceptable, just because it can be very obvious and it looks ugly. In your video it was somewhat contained but a gx85 video I saw recently with a voightlander looked plain awefull. It even made me reconsider buying a voightlander.

Almost any lens shot at those apertures will have those artifacts. I like the aesthetic but usually by f2 - f2.8 on most super fast lenses sharpens the image up and those artifacts tend to dissapear

[jonpais]

Here's a contrast test I did this morning at different ISO settings. I wanted to find out what difference there was between leaving the camera at the factory default setting versus dialing contrast down to -5. Dialing contrast down to -5 flattens the image out, preserving more of the shadows, but it also destroys the three-dimensionality of the subjects and smooths out textures. It also appears to shift the color toward orange. So I am considering either a) shooting with contrast at -2; or b) leaving contrast at default and raising the shadow curve to +2. I find at default, I'm losing too much shadow information, so hopefully one of these two methods will work. What do you think?

 

[jonpais]

On 1/3/2017 at 11:18 PM, Inazuma said:

Honestly I thought the skin already looked too orange in the original ungraded footage. The LUT just exacerbates the problem further :/ Oompa Loompa  gone wild. I would like to see you try some hue and tone-specific grading

I was going to go ahead and do another grade, but now that I'm in the process of changing all my settings: NR, Contrast, Photo Style, as well as coming to grips with white balance, I'll see if I can't come up with a more pleasing, neutral grade in the coming weeks.

[kidzrevil]

4 hours ago, jonpais said:

Here's a contrast test I did this morning at different ISO settings. I wanted to find out what difference there was between leaving the camera at the factory default setting versus dialing contrast down to -5. Dialing contrast down to -5 flattens the image out, preserving more of the shadows, but it also destroys the three-dimensionality of the subjects and smooths out textures. It also appears to shift the color toward orange. So I am considering either a) shooting with contrast at -2; or b) leaving contrast at default and raising the shadow curve to +2. I find at default, I'm losing too much shadow information, so hopefully one of these two methods will work. What do you think?

 

Negative contrast destroys midtones while + contrast enhances it. Use the highlight & shadow curve to adjust shadows instead of the contrast slider

[Stanley]

20 minutes ago, kidzrevil said:

Negative contrast destroys midtones while + contrast enhances it. Use the highlight & shadow curve to adjust shadows instead of the contrast slider

Where's that 1080p test mate ?

[jonpais]

2 hours ago, kidzrevil said:

Negative contrast destroys midtones while + contrast enhances it. Use the highlight & shadow curve to adjust shadows instead of the contrast slider

Thanks, you just saved me a few hours more of testing. How about Natural vs Standard Photo Style? Any opinions?

[kidzrevil]

32 minutes ago, jonpais said:

Thanks, you just saved me a few hours more of testing. How about Natural vs Standard Photo Style? Any opinions?

I prefer standard with +3 to +5 contrast over the natural picture style.

I've been testing the portrait picture style and it seems to be the most promising of the available styles with its optimized rendering of skin tones.

three things I need to figure out :

1) When NR kicks in & reduces detail (my guess is at 1600)

2) the maximum amount of NR to use at 800 iso and below

3) the maximum amount of in camera sharpening that can be applied before artifacting like halo'ing and aggravated noise start to appear

[jonpais]

That's a lot of testing! I have to do all my own tests, because I can't judge anything at all from things like static objects placed against a wall or on a desk with flat lighting, or skylines with a jet black sky. I have to see what all these adjustments do to people's faces in broad daylight. I think lowering contrast might be used very selectively, such as if the subject has facial blemishes - it helps reduce them without using any filtration. Aside from that, I'll leave contrast alone from here on out. From the contrast test I just did, ISO 1600 might be acceptable, but is certainly not preferable to say, ISO 400, and I'm still going to avoid super high ISO settings unless absolutely necessary. And until someone can show me that any NR at all is good, I'm just going to leave mine at -5, sharpening too. I'm worn out from tests at the moment.  

[Inazuma]

 

8 hours ago, jonpais said:

Here's a contrast test I did this morning at different ISO settings. I wanted to find out what difference there was between leaving the camera at the factory default setting versus dialing contrast down to -5. Dialing contrast down to -5 flattens the image out, preserving more of the shadows, but it also destroys the three-dimensionality of the subjects and smooths out textures. It also appears to shift the color toward orange. So I am considering either a) shooting with contrast at -2; or b) leaving contrast at default and raising the shadow curve to +2. I find at default, I'm losing too much shadow information, so hopefully one of these two methods will work. What do you think?

 

This is exactly the conclusion I came to when I had the GX85. I'm not usually a fan of doing things by halves but -2 contrast I found to be perfect. I left the curve alone though.

[jonpais]

14 minutes ago, Inazuma said:

 

This is exactly the conclusion I came to when I had the GX85. I'm not usually a fan of doing things by halves but -2 contrast I found to be perfect. I left the curve alone though.

Thanks, Sebastian. I was really hoping to take out the X-T2 and just shoot for fun tomorrow (Saturday and Sunday are my most productive days), but now I've got to compare Contrast -2 to Shadow +2. waaaaah

[mattpitts74]

Just thought I would share my experience using the G85 today for some paid work, luckily it was for a friend, so she was happy to let me test out the face tracking autofocus with the 14-42mm lens.  Initially I was pleased with the results, but you will notice the camera loses focus when she moves her head and then never really finds focus again.  Luckily I had some cut b-roll I was able to use to cover it up, but it looks like its not going to be realiable enough to paid shooting work :-( 

Does anyone have any advice about how to get the most from the auto focus or am I wasting my time and should just stick with manual?  

Stabilisation is great through and I was able to get very steady shoots and even a handheld pan, which was great :-) 

 

[fuzzynormal]

1 hour ago, mattpitts74 said:

G85 today for some paid work...the face tracking autofocus

Hmmm.  The phrase "paid work" and "auto-focus" paired together.  No thanks.

[mattpitts74]

11 minutes ago, fuzzynormal said:

Hmmm.  The phrase "paid work" and "auto-focus" paired together.  No thanks.

Well I'm always surprised that there still seems to be an amount of professional snobbery around the use of auto focus.  But as you say I have not used it before in paid video projects.  but I was keen to see whether is would be suitable especially in run and gun type situations,  when people are moving around fast.  Needless to say the auto focus was not up to the job as seen in the video I posted.  it feels so close, yet so far.  I understand that the Sony A6300 has better auto focus and tracking and it sounds like the GH5 may also have too. 

[josdr]

stick to manual mate.. We would all love proper AF but we are probably quite some time away of it being dependable even in such a simple shot.. Nice colours though!! How do you find the G85 in use? Happy with it?

[mattpitts74]

Just now, josdr said:

stick to manual mate.. We would all love proper AF but we are probably quite some time away of it being dependable even in such a simple shot.. Nice colours though!! How do you find the G85 in use? Happy with it?

I will defiantly stick with manual, although I hear that Canon duel pixel is pretty impressive. shame there is no budget friendly 4k camera from them.  

The G85 is a really nice to use,  everything is easy and quick to find and the touch screen makes life easy, but just having a proper EVF is also great.  I'm used to shooting on a DSLR's so at first it did feel pretty small and very lightweight, but it feels pretty sturdy and I love how smooth handheld footage is, and that's without a stabilised lens.  My only real concern is the low light performance, because I'm normally shooting in available light, so I'm a little worried about that and the no headphone jack, again when your getting paid, you cannot afford to mess up the audio.    But compared to the Sony A6000 series the ergonomics of the camera , at least in my opinion feel much more comfortable to use.       

[josdr]

8 minutes ago, mattpitts74 said:

I will defiantly stick with manual, although I hear that Canon duel pixel is pretty impressive. shame there is no budget friendly 4k camera from them.  

The G85 is a really nice to use,  everything is easy and quick to find and the touch screen makes life easy, but just having a proper EVF is also great.  I'm used to shooting on a DSLR's so at first it did feel pretty small and very lightweight, but it feels pretty sturdy and I love how smooth handheld footage is, and that's without a stabilised lens.  My only real concern is the low light performance, because I'm normally shooting in available light, so I'm a little worried about that and the no headphone jack, again when your getting paid, you cannot afford to mess up the audio.    But compared to the Sony A6000 series the ergonomics of the camera , at least in my opinion feel much more comfortable to use.       

I hear you about the ergonomics of the a6000, that menu is not very user friendly although you can assign lots of things to the fn button and set some prepared video modes/settings to the MR settings ..  Canon dual pixel has had some good reviews but a) lot's of marketing b) the bar for af in video is quite low.. It would definitely be useful in a talking head scenario with a background that will not distract the  AF, but affordable 4K Canon gear? To their utter shame it is not going to happen easily, although the 1080p coming even from the base C100 is way better than the paper specs imply...