Jump to content

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


Andrew Reid
 Share

Recommended Posts

EOSHD Pro Color 5 for Sony cameras EOSHD Z LOG for Nikon CamerasEOSHD C-LOG and Film Profiles for All Canon DSLRs
On 12/20/2017 at 11:53 PM, Dustin said:

Yeah I'm still paying off a student loan so I'm in saving mode but some recent Christmas gifts from work certainly put me around almost 40% there. For every good example there's a million bad ones on YouTube I must say!


The cheaper the camera, then the more "bad examples" you'll end up seeing. 

And that has nothing to do with the camera inherently itself, but rather is due to the type of people who buy it due to its low price. 

 

 

On 10/4/2018 at 2:37 AM, Vintage Jimothy said:

Is it just me, or is it weird how people just seemed to have mostly stopped talking about this camera over the past several months? I only got my G85 back in April personally and yet these days I'm seeing people typically refer back to the G7 more often than the G85!

I agree, but perhaps the reason a G7 still gets mentioned a lot is because the G7 is the "cheapest good(ish) 4K camera". 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, IronFilm said:


The cheaper the camera, then the more "bad examples" you'll end up seeing. 

And that has nothing to do with the camera inherently itself, but rather is due to the type of people who buy it due to its low price. 

 

How about the many great examples shot with the cheapest of them all, the Pocket? But my own experience is that I’ve seen lots of nice footage shot with the G85.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, of course great things can be shot with a cheap camera. I'm certainly NOT arguing against that. 

But with a cheap camera then:
1) there are more of those cameras out in the wild, thus you see more of everything with them
2) "cheap" people tend to buy them, which often means (just a correlation though) cheap in production values or skills. Which leads to poor resulting videos, even if the camera itself is capable of much more

 

On 10/4/2018 at 3:42 AM, mercer said:

The G85 would be a great second camera for me and other than IBIS, it fixes one major flaw of the G7... its plastic build... I was often afraid I would break the thing when I opened and turned the LCD screen.

I feel like Panasonic "fixed" many things of the G7 when the G85 came out:
1) weather sealing / better build
2) live HDMI out
3) IBIS

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, IronFilm said:

The cheaper the camera, then the more "bad examples" you'll end up seeing. 

And that has nothing to do with the camera inherently itself, but rather is due to the type of people who buy it due to its low price. 

This is true, but not the whole story.

The better a camera is the easier it is to get good results from it.

If you take two cameras and give them to 1000 film-makers the best operators will make good output from both cameras, and the worst operators will make awful films with both, but it's the people in the middle that might have enough skill to get good results out of the better camera but not enough to get good results out of the less good camera.

I think it's about both the people that end up buying it combined with how easy it is to get great results with.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/5/2018 at 4:26 PM, mercer said:

@Thomas Hill I love that you’re using these cameras for narratives. Being a writer/director of horror and thriller, I’d love to hear more about what you’re doing. Also, are you shooting handheld with IBIS?

mercer, written any horror feature film scripts?

 

 

On 10/6/2018 at 4:30 AM, Thomas Hill said:

The next one is a thriller with a good ol' criminal mastermind/hacker spying on people and will be 85% or so locked-down shots made to look like hidden camera footage, which is why I'm thinking a $500 4k shooter like a gx85 or g85 or (after Andrew's latest) e-m10iii will do the job just fine. Finding an office for the primary location is a much bigger hurdle than deciding on a camera.

 


If you're going to be 85% locked down you might even want to consider the Panasonic G7

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Grimor said:

G85 lowlight  is much better than original GH5.

Sorry, for me that is very hard to believe, really. Especially in HD modes up to 60p GH5 is miles ahead of G85.

18 hours ago, IronFilm said:

I feel like Panasonic "fixed" many things of the G7 when the G85 came out:
1) weather sealing / better build
2) live HDMI out
3) IBIS

I felt build of G85 is the same as G7 when I checked it out last week. GX85 feels much more of a high quality body than both. Unfortunately its height is a bit small. My favorite built and designed camera for photography is the GF1. I think thats how one should built a small camera body. Even with its non existent handgrip it feels awesome in hand.

On 10/7/2018 at 6:28 AM, jonpais said:

At only $700, the G85 was the best camera dollar for dollar I’ve ever purchased in terms of handling, reliability and quality. Too bad Panasonic never updated it. 10-bit HLG would have been killer. 

Even an update for 8bit HD with 100mbit up to 60p would be awesome! For G7 as well! GX85 has not so nice HD quality unfortunately, so no need for higher bitrares in this mode:)

9 hours ago, mercer said:

Yes, I have written 3 horror features... 2 supernatural horror and 1 horror/comedy. I’m also in the process of writing 2 others for sale and 2 that I may end up making.

Exellent, just be brave during post prod! Post has wrenched a lot of juice out of some filmmakers heads before:)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, IronFilm said:

If you're going to be 85% locked down you might even want to consider the Panasonic G7

 

As far as looks go, the silver g7 is my favorite Panasonic camera, but about 65% of the not locked down 15% will be shot with this camera and I need some decent stabilization and autofocus for those shots.

I had a quick weekend fling with the Olympus e-m10iii but the continuous AF is abysmal (or maybe it was the Panasonic 25mm).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

39 minutes ago, PannySVHS said:

Sorry, for me that is very hard to believe, really. Especially in HD modes up to 60p GH5 is miles ahead of G85.

Maybe he meant the G85 is much better than the GH4 in low light?

 

10 hours ago, mercer said:

Yes, I have written 3 horror features... 2 supernatural horror and 1 horror/comedy. I’m also in the process of writing 2 others for sale and 2 that I may end up making.

Like to donate either of those first three to an EOSHD Forum Feature collaboration? ? Kinda want to look into options for something to make over this Xmas/NYE break. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Like to donate either of those first three to an EOSHD Forum Feature collaboration? ? Kinda want to look into options for something to make over this Xmas/NYE break. 

Sure no problem but can you book yourself a flight to NJ first and run the audio for the feature I’m shooting in December as a donation? ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, PannySVHS said:

orry, for me that is very hard to believe, really. Especially in HD modes up to 60p GH5 is miles ahead of G85.

Whell, that's my experience with 4K mode on both. (G80 & GH5).

No tested 1080p modes.

Not a science test, (different lenses and camera operators) but over many live events with low light, we prefer the image of G80. Less noise at hi isos.

 

4 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Maybe he meant the G85 is much better than the GH4 in low light?

GH4 is the worst of the those 3!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Thomas Hill said:

As far as looks go, the silver g7 is my favorite Panasonic camera, but about 65% of the not locked down 15% will be shot with this camera and I need some decent stabilization and autofocus for those shots.

I had a quick weekend fling with the Olympus e-m10iii but the continuous AF is abysmal (or maybe it was the Panasonic 25mm). 

Hold the phone on what I said about the Oly's AF. The Oly 17/1.8 arrived today (Iordered it with the E-M10iii and the 25mm but it shipped separately) and it's continuous AF is MUCH better than with the Pana 25mm. It's not as good as Canon/Sony/Fuji but it could be usable.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/9/2018 at 7:07 AM, PannySVHS said:

My favorite built and designed camera for photography is the GF1. I think thats how one should built a small camera body. Even with its non existent handgrip it feels awesome in hand.

I read a few in-depth reviews of the GF1 where people described it as the perfect travel camera (for stills) and that inspired me to buy my GF3 which I found to be excellent in basically every way.  IIRC the GF1 had  some kind of unique control configuration allowing you to adjust the important parameters, but they changed it on the updated models for some reason.  I ended up with the GF3 in full-auto and most of the time it knew what I wanted and left me to think about being creative instead of being a camera technician.  That's the way it should be, and many of my best shots came from it.

My GF3 even had a metal body, which was appreciated when I dropped it once onto concrete and it hit the corner just next to the LCD - because it was metal it just dented a bit and everything is fine, if it was plastic I fear the LCD would have been collateral damage!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

  • EOSHD Pro Color 5 for All Sony cameras
    EOSHD C-LOG and Film Profiles for All Canon DSLRs
    EOSHD Dynamic Range Enhancer for H.264/H.265
×
×
  • Create New...