Panasonic GH5 - all is revealed!

[Kisaha]

We were recording live events for decades. I do that so many times every year and I have never use a A7s for such a job, usually these venues have some kind of lighting anyway, or else they do not want the crowds to see anything.

I am just amazed that people these days believe that with no IBIS, and no A7s, you are doomed to oblivion.

I face every day a market that expects from one person to do lights, camera, sound, edit, sound editing, grading, driving, droning, everything. It is not right.

[Kisaha]

@noone come on man, I can count 18 lights with multiple lighting sources inside..how many ISO you need for that stage? THis is exactly my case..

[noone]

3 minutes ago, Kisaha said:

We were recording live events for decades. I do that so many times every year and I have never use a A7s for such a job, usually these venues have some kind of lighting anyway, or else they do not want the crowds to see anything.

I am just amazed that people these days believe that with no IBIS, and no A7s, you are doomed to oblivion.

I face every day a market that expects from one person to do lights, camera, sound, edit, sound editing, grading, driving, droning, everything. It is not right.

I didn't see anyone saying that lights don't have a place (and a pretty big place) in many situations.

I did see someone saying

"Whoever believes that a camera that shoots in high iso saves them a proper lighting setup and/or a crew, haven't really understand what is going on.

Photography, is "writing of light", not the lack of it."

So when you shot live events you ONLY used lights/flash?

I have used many cameras for live music for years back to film SLRs and I have always hated using flash on the band.      I am fine with using flash to shoot the people who come up to me for their photo at these gigs.     

Flash/video lights kill the stage light/atmosphere and sometimes, it used to be that the lighting was simply too low for my gear.     Now it isn't regardless of how low the light.       A7s just means I can shoot at lower light levels.    

As for IBIS, though I love it (have had five cameras with it), I don't think it has ever been of use for live music for me and neither has IS/OSS/VR.

There is a big place for lights/flash and there is a big place for not using it too for me anyway.

 

2 minutes ago, Kisaha said:

@noone come on man, I can count 18 lights with multiple lighting sources inside..how many ISO you need for that stage? THis is exactly my case.

But I am not lighting it and that same stage varies greatly from very very bright walls of light to extremely dark.

My ISOs vary from one extreme to the other in an instant there.

It is the best stage I know for bands. 

 

 

[Kisaha]

@noone ??!!

[noone]

5 minutes ago, Kisaha said:

@noone ??!!

I will simply leave it at sometimes available light is preferred!

Same gig

[Kisaha]

@noone that is my line, find your own! The photo you posted has multiple light sources. As simple as that. Your fanatism about pushing your personal equipment blinds you not to see the lighting opportunities every scene offers you. I do not even own a flash (but I will, I want to experiment a bit!).

[ntblowz]

Horses for courses

For the stuff I do gh5 is more suited, live events (like conference) that goes for hours, music video with proper lighting (use 3x arri 650 usually),  I don't really need low light much except for occasional astro photography

My FS5's lowlight is not as good as my A7S/A7RII but it is my mostly used camera, ergonomic on that is much nicer.

I will get 2x anamorphic adapter when I got my gh5, should be interesting to play with.

[noone]

17 minutes ago, Kisaha said:

@noone that is my line, find your own! The photo you posted has multiple light sources. As simple as that. Your fanatism about pushing your personal equipment blinds you not to see the lighting opportunities every scene offers you. I do not even own a flash (but I will, I want to experiment a bit!).

Whatever!!!!!

Look, that stage IS brilliant, the bands love it but it is not MY venue.     I am shooting available light there just as at every venue.     Even at that venue, I can be shooting at extreme ISOs as the lighting varies so use auto ISO and flash would not work for me and neither would video lights when I have shot video there (same lenses, same ISOs)..     

Many cameras would be fine there and I would have loved using my previous gear there and I would have said exactly the same thing (IE disagreeing with anyone saying "Whoever believes that a camera that shoots in high iso saves them a proper lighting setup and/or a crew, haven't really understand what is going on.

Photography, is "writing of light", not the lack of it.").   

I shot/shoot at many venues and none are anywhere near as well lit as that.    The top shot was ISO 3200, the second at ISO 4000.

On the way home I stopped in briefly at another venue and shot

This is still an ok venue for lights so I was still able to be at ISO 12800 for this.      If I wanted to use f8, I would have been at ISO 25600 or at other venues still I would have been higher.     I take what comes.

So tell me, what would YOU do? Use flash? Take video lights to a pub? Or would you use available light in those situations within the limits of whatever gear was available to you?

 

 

[jonpais]

13 hours ago, Arikhan said:

@Axel and @jonpais

We were talking yesterday about AF on Pana devices...I had some months ago the dvx200 (GH4 sensor size, cropped 4/3 sensor) in my hands and have talked yesterday to someone using the new Pana HC-X1 (the same sensor and image processing like UX90 and UX180 - all these cameras are 1") for some weeks now. There is something I'm wondering about:

Tapping focus on DVX200, Pana HC-X1, etc. leads to perfect focus transition without any hunting or wobble - same focusing accuracy like on current Sony devices. Trying to do this on current consumer devices (eg GX85, G85, etc.) ends in some cases in focus hunting. I believe, Panasonic could do a better AF on consumer cameras, if they would want to...But apparently they want to offer exact focusing via AF only on their more expensive camcorders...

Take a look at this short demonstration, it corresponds exactly to my experience...

Honny soit qui mal y pense... ;-)

Still no shining examples online showing improved AF-C on the GH5, but I'm not losing hope yet. ? For my own purposes, I don't need a camera to follow a speeding freight train headed directly toward me: I just want to be able to set up the camera in my room, walk leisurely (or hurriedly!) to my chair and have the focus lock onto me without any hesitation. Maybe it can do that already, I haven't tried with the G85 yet. Maybe this evening. But yes, as someone already pointed out, a dedicated lens and servo motor (along with smaller sensor) has got to be why camcorders are better at this sort of thing? Or are they? Are camcorders faster than Sonys at AF-C? However - what I'm really looking forward to on the GH5 is the joystick. Not surprisingly, nobody has really talked much about this. I don't believe, when rumors of the GH5 began to surface, that a joystick was number one on anyone's wishlist. Yet now that the GH5 will have those focus points, it should allow a great deal more precision for plain old AF. As some extremely perspicacious person mentioned in this thread before ?, when in manual mode with AF enabled, even pressing the touchscreen with the tip of the most delicate index finger in the world is not as accurate as hovering a joystick over the desired focus point. But here I'm only talking about AF-S, not AF-C.

[webrunner5]

I am pretty sure the smaller the sensor the less mass you have to move, ergo better stabilization. Same goes for the lens associated with it and focus.

Plus they have been building them a Lot of years.

But every full size ENG camera that I ever operated never had stabilization, or auto focus, yet they did the job. But I guess since they weighed 20+ pounds helped a lot. One reason I am not too big on DSLR'S or Smaller Cameras, no pun.

[jonpais]

6 hours ago, noone said:

Excuse me band, excuse me pub, excuse me patrons but would you mind if I used video lights throughout your song?

From time to time someone does bring in a video camera/camcorder with light and it is REALLY annoying (just like using flash every shot).

Some venues have great stage lighting too and that is what I would prefer.        My ISOs can range from something like ISO 400 to 80,000 with variable stage lighting so it isn't just high ISO.

Living in Paradise

Maybe this has nothing to do with anything, but since you shoot bands, it got me thinking of the great stills photographers that documented the great rock groups, jazz and blues musicians, shooting in hotel rooms, buses, airplanes, backstage - all in grainy black and white - I think any artificial lighting at all would have ruined those iconic images. Anyway, there's a place for natural or existing light, as well as for strobes, LED, fluorescent and tungsten. I like your shots BTW.

[Stanley]

14 minutes ago, jonpais said:

Maybe this has nothing to do with anything, but since you shoot bands, it got me thinking of the great stills photographers that documented the great rock groups, jazz and blues musicians, shooting in hotel rooms, buses, airplanes, backstage - all in grainy black and white - I think any artificial lighting at all would have ruined those iconic images. Anyway, there's a place for natural or existing light, as well as for strobes, LED, fluorescent and tungsten. I like your shots BTW.

And haven't we come along way with stage lighting, this is what one of the (arguably) best bands in the world could expect in the 70's when they toured in Melbourne or Sydney. Little Feat, Festival Hall, 1976.

[Axel]

4 hours ago, jonpais said:

However - what I'm really looking forward to on the GH5 is the joystick. Not surprisingly, nobody has really talked much about this.

On my GH5 vs A7Rii comparison check list.

I wrote above that I couldn't open the PDF from the PPP linked above. Found another link. Can someone confirm that it's the same content?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzXpNy2MdkE6X3RxLTh1MksxTXM/view

 

 

[Don Kotlos]

13 minutes ago, Axel said:

Can someone confirm that it's the same content?

Yep, same thing. 

[Axel]

1 hour ago, Axel said:

I wrote above that I couldn't open the PDF from the PPP linked above. Found another link. Can someone confirm that it's the same content?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzXpNy2MdkE6X3RxLTh1MksxTXM/view

 

1 hour ago, Don Kotlos said:

Yep, same thing. 

Upon a closer look, you have to admit that there are very many corrections going on under the hood, let me cite a few:

Quote

 

Intelligent Detail Processing

This separates the subject into flat, detailed, or edged areas by analyzing the characteristics of the subject for each pixel to control the edge emphasis:

Flat Area : No emphasis / Detailed Area : Edge emphasis / Edge Area : Supressing unnatural edges

New Three-dimensional Color Control - Rich Color Expression

The bright parts and the dark parts are separately reproduced by adopting color control according to brightness. Skin color is extracted from the approximate color, and reproduced with faithful, smooth gradation.

High-Precision, Multi Process NR - Natural, stereoscopic effects

Noise identification with four times higher resolution improves noise suppression, maintains details.

 

Is all this intelligence a good thing? It may be. But the image IS processed on many levels, and it may very well LOOK processed in the end (with artifacts originating from suppressing artifacts in certain circumstances OR just by eliminating everything that makes an image look - excuse the term - *organic*), compared to the dumb, barely processed image of a BM camera.

Apparently - but the attached screenshots are somewhat puzzling - you can set a shutter angle instead of shutter duration in video mode. Good thing, if it meant you could make it 180°, and just forget about it. Shutter durations didn't use to be exact with certain framerates (i.e. 1/50 for 23,98 fps). People complained about poor motion cadence.

Quote

 

Luminance Level for 10bit

[0‒1023][64‒940][64‒1023] can be selected in 10bit.

 

To be honest, I'm not sure what this means. It appears the Neumann footage was set to 64-940. Does anybody know how this could affect post?

Quote

 

Hue Adjustment

Hue adjustment is newly added to the Photo Style mode.

 

???

On a A7Rii you can customize colors very accurately - at your own risk of course. But what does this mean?

[Neumann Films]

The shutter angle was there in the GH4, right?  IMO it's the only way to go.  Especially when the shutter speed doesn't have 1/48th, only 1/50th.  Also, no 1/120, only 1/125

I think the increased luminance value options are for the hybrid gamma they are working on.

[Axel]

On Dual-IS:

Seeing the list of lenses which support it, I know I wouldn't use it, except perhaps for the Leica 42,5 mm. The IBIS, working with all lenses, may or may not be very effective.

On AF:

I bet it will be disappointing in the first test, right after unboxing. Multiply face detection, pinpoint, seamless 1-area, multi-area, zone-AF, lowlight-AF asf. with the four custom sets and it's parameters. That's so many settings. I think one has to patiently test them, jonpais wrote something like this. It's not relying on automation anymore, it's programming. And one has to know this stuff by heart - or the AF won't do what you expect it to do.

[noone]

8 hours ago, jonpais said:

Maybe this has nothing to do with anything, but since you shoot bands, it got me thinking of the great stills photographers that documented the great rock groups, jazz and blues musicians, shooting in hotel rooms, buses, airplanes, backstage - all in grainy black and white - I think any artificial lighting at all would have ruined those iconic images. Anyway, there's a place for natural or existing light, as well as for strobes, LED, fluorescent and tungsten. I like your shots BTW.

I used to shoot in grainy black and white as well as grainy colour film.      The main reason for black and white for me was it was better to look at than colour gave.      Even now with digital, you will see people convert shots to B&W if they are above what you would normally expect from a camera.      Of course, sometimes it is a valid choice on its merits too.

Again, I am not saying don't light.

I am simply saying if you want or need to add light, do it but equally since photography IS about and needs light, then available light (even if very dim) is also a valid choice.

I just picked up my old Pentax Spotmatic.   The highest film speed I can set is 1600 and the fastest shutter speed is 1/1000 (actually mine says 1/500 but Pentax was too cheap to use different shutters and on my lower model they didn't mark the 1/1000 setting but it is still there).    I would push film a bit sometimes but the grain could be huge.

Likewise my old Nikon D50, highest ISO I can set is ISO 1600.      My Pentax IST*D was (I thought then) ok at ISO 3200 and the same with other cameras.     A Pentax Kx I would use almost to ISO 12800 but really 6400 was about it.

I didn't like my Canon 7D over ISO 3200.

As each generation gets better, it just means I can use faster shutter speed longer or higher ISOs or slower lenses or stop down lenses more.

In a few years, people will be using phones better in low light than an A7s or any current camera.      Progress is nice.

There would have been very few combinations that you could use to get a shot of a full rock band from next to the stage with film.      It is just fun for me and the bands seem to like what I do.

[AKED-M]

Here in the lumix lounge, one can find all specs, explanations og the GH5 and the known videos, but also 6K photo samples, that I have not seen yet.

http://lumixlounge.com/lumixgh5/

[Neumann Films]

8 hours ago, Axel said:

On Dual-IS:

Seeing the list of lenses which support it, I know I wouldn't use it, except perhaps for the Leica 42,5 mm. The IBIS, working with all lenses, may or may not be very effective.

On AF:

I bet it will be disappointing in the first test, right after unboxing. Multiply face detection, pinpoint, seamless 1-area, multi-area, zone-AF, lowlight-AF asf. with the four custom sets and it's parameters. That's so many settings. I think one has to patiently test them, jonpais wrote something like this. It's not relying on automation anymore, it's programming. And one has to know this stuff by heart - or the AF won't do what you expect it to do.

Yeah, that's partly why I haven't even bothered with AF yet.  Too many options. I did try that focus points the others day and that was pretty cool.  That needs to start making its way into All cameras and lenses.