Panasonic GH5 - all is revealed!

[kye]

16 hours ago, Adam Kuźniar said:

Fun test made by Ted Harder on the Panasonic GH5 and GH5s Group on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/pansonicgh5/permalink/2299318990367796/

It seems that Natural with +4 HUE has the most accurate skin tones..

<snip>

Some time ago I looked at the skin tones from a range of demo videos from the camera manufacturers, including ARRI LF, Canon, etc and I found that the skin tones on those videos were almost always contained between the indicator line and the line of pure red.  Canon was the most red, and ARRI had a few tones slightly to the left of the indicator line, but it wasn't that far, and their tones were very yellow.

The profile above is very interesting to me because I can see that:

• skin tones are pretty good
• it's compressed in the G/M axis both through saturation as well as by rotating the colours towards those hues, which is common amongst film emulations that try and put more things on the orange/teal dimension
• it's shifted warm, which you can see by comparing how saturated the red and yellow points are compared to the cyan and blue points are

Fun stuff, and great result  

I wonder if the client was happy with the results, I'd imagine so.

[Adam Kuźniar]

Great explanation @kye !

[kye]

Wait until my colour checker arrives and I start attempting to turn the GH5 into a BMMCC.....  😈😈😈

[Matins]

 

[FoxAdriano]

Hi, I would like to ask a somewhat complicated question, hoping to receive answers from those who have a lot of experience with the GH5.
I just took my usual doc in Africa using the GH5 in manual as always, but I got junk in the colors. Yet I use first-class cosse, such as the gray rolling filter, the gray card for the White Balance, etc. I use the "Natural" option and remove the contrast and color at -2 and then manage them in post. Unfortunately when I shoot in every country but not in Africa, I get very good results but not in Africa, where there is an incredible sun and red earth. I only film in african villages. Maybe manually I don't perfectly match the shutter speed and aperture because I often don't have the right time. Or maybe the real problem is another.
Maybe something escapes me. In my country I always do many tests that I then try to implement in Africa too. But every time I come with poor results in the clips, perhaps because I often don't have the right time to sort everything before shooting and I have to shoot quickly.
My questions are:

Is it possible to film with aperture priority with the GH5?
Is there such a possibility? I have always used the GH5 in Manual and even reading the manual, I cannot find this option that I would like to choose.

I attach a link of one of my clips in UHD: luckily not all clips are like this, but many are like this:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/e7bhbuvocqvqkm9/Angola.MOV?dl=0

In your opinion, could I get good results with this Settings and also put the ISO in Automatic?
1000 thanks

[Video Hummus]

You would not want your shutter speed to be changing while filming.

Best bet is get an ND filter. Set your ISO at base ISO. Use the ND filter to slightly under expose your image by 1 stop maybe 2 stops at base ISO and then turn on auto ISO. The camera will now turn up or down the ISO to achieve whatever your exposure Compensation is set to. Panasonic does a good job of smoothly ramping up and down.

Your exposure will change while you are shooting but if the lighting doesn’t change drastically in a frame then it won’t be noticeable. I would highly recommend also setting up the AE lock button so when it is pressed will lock in your current exposure while it is pressed.

That way you are telling the camera to manage exposure for you at a fixed aperture and shutter speed while letting the ISO scale up and down to maintain a particular exposure. In darker, lowlight scenes just twist the ND to let in more light and the camera will adjust down the ISO and you’ll have less noise.

I would shoot in 10-bit and use a hue selection mask in post to select the over saturated colors and bring down the saturation to mute them a bit.

[Video Hummus]

On 12/31/2019 at 3:36 PM, mercer said:

Thanks, he decided to be cautious and go with V90 cards.

So a small update on the Sony Tough SF-M V60 cards for those that care.

I've been using it for several months and have experienced multiple corrupted files even while shooting 150Mbps codec on GH5S. I was afraid it was my camera.

I turned on simultaneous recording to dual card slots with a second card in it and confirmed that the Sony was corrupting files while my second card recorded the clips with no issues.

Pretty disappointing for a $109 card.

[FoxAdriano]

1 hour ago, Video Hummus said:

You would not want your shutter speed to be changing while filming.

Best bet is get an ND filter. Set your ISO at base ISO. Use the ND filter to slightly under expose your image by 1 stop maybe 2 stops at base ISO and then turn on auto ISO. The camera will now turn up or down the ISO to achieve whatever your exposure Compensation is set to. Panasonic does a good job of smoothly ramping up and down.

Your exposure will change while you are shooting but if the lighting doesn’t change drastically in a frame then it won’t be noticeable. I would highly recommend also setting up the AE lock button so when it is pressed will lock in your current exposure while it is pressed.

That way you are telling the camera to manage exposure for you at a fixed aperture and shutter speed while letting the ISO scale up and down to maintain a particular exposure. In darker, lowlight scenes just twist the ND to let in more light and the camera will adjust down the ISO and you’ll have less noise.

I would shoot in 10-bit and use a hue selection mask in post to select the over saturated colors and bring down the saturation to mute them a bit.

 

I thank you for your precious news.I have a ND filter. My ND filter is: SLR Magic Reflex 62 millimetri magia 0,4-1,8 variabile ND Filter - Mark II. I bought it on Amazon and it costs about 200 euros. I was very careful before purchasing and chose that ND filter. I don't know my real problem. Maybe 180 degree rule? Maybe ..... what? Did you look at that link I posted on the first post? Do you think I will get worse clips using GH5 is semi-automatic with aperture priority? I often don't have free time to manage the GH5 manually. Anyway I took that first clip at 2pm when the sun was at its maximum.

[Adam Kuźniar]

On 4/8/2020 at 4:12 PM, FoxAdriano said:

Hi, I would like to ask a somewhat complicated question, hoping to receive answers from those who have a lot of experience with the GH5.
I just took my usual doc in Africa using the GH5 in manual as always, but I got junk in the colors. Yet I use first-class cosse, such as the gray rolling filter, the gray card for the White Balance, etc. I use the "Natural" option and remove the contrast and color at -2 and then manage them in post. Unfortunately when I shoot in every country but not in Africa, I get very good results but not in Africa, where there is an incredible sun and red earth. I only film in african villages. Maybe manually I don't perfectly match the shutter speed and aperture because I often don't have the right time. Or maybe the real problem is another.
Maybe something escapes me. In my country I always do many tests that I then try to implement in Africa too. But every time I come with poor results in the clips, perhaps because I often don't have the right time to sort everything before shooting and I have to shoot quickly.
My questions are:

Is it possible to film with aperture priority with the GH5?
Is there such a possibility? I have always used the GH5 in Manual and even reading the manual, I cannot find this option that I would like to choose.

I attach a link of one of my clips in UHD: luckily not all clips are like this, but many are like this:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/e7bhbuvocqvqkm9/Angola.MOV?dl=0

In your opinion, could I get good results with this Settings and also put the ISO in Automatic?
1000 thanks

I don't think I understood what your problem is.. the clip you posted looks perfectly fine for me.

[kye]

On 4/8/2020 at 10:12 PM, FoxAdriano said:

Hi, I would like to ask a somewhat complicated question, hoping to receive answers from those who have a lot of experience with the GH5.
I just took my usual doc in Africa using the GH5 in manual as always, but I got junk in the colors. Yet I use first-class cosse, such as the gray rolling filter, the gray card for the White Balance, etc. I use the "Natural" option and remove the contrast and color at -2 and then manage them in post. Unfortunately when I shoot in every country but not in Africa, I get very good results but not in Africa, where there is an incredible sun and red earth. I only film in african villages. Maybe manually I don't perfectly match the shutter speed and aperture because I often don't have the right time. Or maybe the real problem is another.
Maybe something escapes me. In my country I always do many tests that I then try to implement in Africa too. But every time I come with poor results in the clips, perhaps because I often don't have the right time to sort everything before shooting and I have to shoot quickly.
My questions are:

Is it possible to film with aperture priority with the GH5?
Is there such a possibility? I have always used the GH5 in Manual and even reading the manual, I cannot find this option that I would like to choose.

I attach a link of one of my clips in UHD: luckily not all clips are like this, but many are like this:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/e7bhbuvocqvqkm9/Angola.MOV?dl=0

In your opinion, could I get good results with this Settings and also put the ISO in Automatic?
1000 thanks

A few thoughts:

• I shoot my GH5 on auto-ISO and on aperture-priority mode (which varies the shutter) but what @Video Hummus says is true and you will get un-natural looking motion in some situations if you do that.  You would be better off shooting more manually as he has suggested.
• I suspect the problem you are having with the clip you linked to is the colour?  You mentioned that "there is an incredible sun and red earth" and the footage does look quite yellow.
• If you can post a still image with the colours you would like to match this clip to then I can give you some advice about how to match the colours

I shoot in available light and sometimes there are difficult lighting conditions that require some work in post to adjust for.  The clip you posted looks like the white balance may be off, which could be caused by many things, like the sun shining through smoke in the air, etc.  Learning to adjust white balance in post on clips shot in difficult lighting is a skill that is much much harder than it seems and took me a long time to get good at it.

[FoxAdriano]

17 hours ago, Adam Kuźniar said:

I don't think I understood what your problem is.. the clip you posted looks perfectly fine for me.

In that clip I see a greenish and ocher veil. It is not possible to obtain natural desires in post. The skin colour of that perople is not very black. I attach another clip: https://www.dropbox.com/s/zcfy35sufnwahwu/Angola 2.MOV?dl=0

It is a bit overexposed but I had this on hand: https://www.dropbox.com/s/zcfy35sufnwahwu/Angola 2.MOV?dl=0

[FoxAdriano]

Hey, I'd like to ask a question: I always used "Natural" profile with my GH5, but maybe "Cinelike" is better for me. Anyway I'd like to ask a question about "Cinelike" and GH5: if you use GH5 with "Cinelike", is it better I decrease the contrast, the colors, ND, etc. in the Menu?In the "Natural" I did in so way.
What do I have to decrease precisely to get a better grading in post production with "Cinelike"?

Thank you.

 

[FoxAdriano]

Hi, a small part of the rubber has come off the door where the SD is inserted. I have tried various glues, including the powerful mastic but it is like water. Anyone know of a proper glue? Thank you

[kye]

I've been doing some thinking and realised that I care about getting the highest quality image out of the GH5, without caring much about resolution.

I have been thinking about the 'best' modes as a choice between:

• 5K 4:3 420 10-bit Long-GOP 200Mbps h265
• UHD 422 10-bit All-I 400Mbps h264
• 1080 422 10-bit All-I 200Mbps h264

The h265 codec is twice as efficient as h264, so the 5K 200Mbps h265 should be broadly similar to the UHD 400Mbps h264 in terms of compressed-bits-per-square-cm.

So I got to thinking those modes might be better, then I remembered that there were other h265 anamorphic modes, and stumbled upon this mode:

3.3K 4:3 422 10-bit All-I 400Mbps h265

It looks perfect!  It's 422.  It's All-I.  It's 400Mbps, and it's h265.  That makes it the equivalent of 800Mbps h264.  This is double the bit-rates of the 400Mbps h264 mode and the 200Mbps h265 modes.  That's also very similar to the UHD Prores HQ bitrate, which is 707Mbps.

Does anyone use this mode?  I can't be the first person to see this?

(actually, a google search revealed someone mentioning this mode in EOSHD, and it was .....   me!)

On 3/1/2019 at 8:21 AM, kye said:

I haven't really tested it, but there was a comparison pic here by @jase:

The 5K isn't All-I, but if you're shooting anamorphic there's a 3.3K 4:3 10-bit 422 10-bit 400Mbps All-I mode that might be of interest, and it supports HLG too, and remember that it's 400mbps h265 so may be better than h264.  Long-GOP h265 gets about 2x efficiency compared to h264 but I'm not sure about All-I.  3.3K might even match the Alexa better than the normal 4K mode.

I should do a comparison video.

It might be time to do that comparison video.

[buggz]

Cool, I will have to try this, as I always shoot in anamorphic opengate mode on my GH5.

[thebrothersthre3]

I have heard that H265 loses efficiency as the data rates get higher. So the difference between H265 and H254 and 400mbps may be none. 

[Video Hummus]

It’s ALL-I so a higher bitrate does a bit more than if it was IPB.

H.265 IPB is very efficient at the same bitrates of H.264 for 4K and above. I always thought the 400Mbps H.265 from the XT3/4 was a bit excessive. It’s diminishing returns at 4K resolution. Definitely at 3.3K.

Really wish someone would give us a editing friendly codec internally. H.265 and newer is becoming to heavy for a capture codec as they are maximizing size for streaming and delivery and encoding times skyrocket (decoding too).

The work on BRAW has shown us that we can have non-compromised capture AND wicked fast editing performance.

 

[kye]

7 hours ago, buggz said:

Cool, I will have to try this, as I always shoot in anamorphic opengate mode on my GH5.

Let us know how you go if you use it.

Apart from the advantages of 422 and ALL-I I also think the 3.3K resolution might be an advantage over 5K resolution.  IIRC many Alexas are 2.8K or 3.2K but upscale in post and I believe that the softness this creates (along with no / low compression) is partially responsible for the filmic look they are prized for.

7 hours ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

I have heard that H265 loses efficiency as the data rates get higher. So the difference between H265 and H254 and 400mbps may be none. 

 

5 hours ago, Video Hummus said:

It’s ALL-I so a higher bitrate does a bit more than if it was IPB.

H.265 IPB is very efficient at the same bitrates of H.264 for 4K and above. I always thought the 400Mbps H.265 from the XT3/4 was a bit excessive. It’s diminishing returns at 4K resolution. Definitely at 3.3K.

Really wish someone would give us a editing friendly codec internally. H.265 and newer is becoming to heavy for a capture codec as they are maximizing size for streaming and delivery and encoding times skyrocket (decoding too).

The work on BRAW has shown us that we can have non-compromised capture AND wicked fast editing performance.

I did a bunch of googling last night to try and see if I could get some comparison of signal-to-noise figures for Prores vs h264 or h265 but couldn't find much.

I have found in the past that h265 is about twice as efficient as h264 for the same IQ, so I am comfortable taking that as a rule.

I also found the article by @Andrew Reid and thread by @KnightsFan comparing h265 and prores:

https://www.eoshd.com/news/new-h-265-codec-test-prores-4444-quality-1-file-size/

Which indicated that h265 is something like 50X as efficient as Prores 4444.  This would make 4K h265 at 200Mbps equivalent to 4K Prores 4444 at 1061Mbps, which intuitively doesn't ring true to me, as no-one is seriously talking about consumer cameras having h265 codecs as good as Hollywood grade intermediaries.

If I had an external recorder then I could directly compare the two but unfortunately I don't.  Can you record with an external recorder at the same time as internal with GH5?  If so, someone could do direct testing with the same image stream.

One thing I did see is that various encoders have varying levels of quality for the same bitrates, so we can't rely on the encoders in our NLEs to be a reliable proxy for what the GH5 is doing internally.  We'll have to film real tests.

However, one thing that I do think is promising is that Prores is an older codec, and compression is something that is getting steadily better with time, so in general a newer codec should be better than an older one given the same bit-depth, bit-rate, colour subsampling, and ALL-I mode.

Incidentally @Video Hummus I shot a few test clips of the 3.3k mode yesterday and my 2016 MBP + eGPU was almost able to play the files real-time.  In fact, with Resolve set to showing every frame, it was slow at the start of each clip but came up to speed in a couple of seconds and then was able to play forwards and backwards at 25p.  I think it was an overhead of the SSD loading the file maybe, not sure.

In comparison to the Long-GOP 5K h265 or 4K h264 codecs, it was a night and day experience.  I normally render proxies in 720p Prores Proxy for editing as they're small enough to fit onto the SSD in my MBP and they cut like butter even with complex colour grades, but my challenge was getting to fine-tuning the colour grades where I switch back to the original files, which I store on a spinning disk. Essentially i'm only using them for tweaking and doing tracking and stabilisation (which benefit from the extra resolution) but the 5K and 4K modes are painful to work with.  The 3.3K mode seems like it would be very workable, especially when I upgrade my MBP from a dual-core to quad-core in a month or two.

Pretty much the only downside to this codec I can see is the storage space (although similar if you shoot 4K 400Mbps) and the need for expensive UHS-II cards, but to get an 800Mbps-equivalent codec I consider the cards as a camera upgrade rather than a nuisance.

[kye]

Follow-up.

If I stress test this codec vs the 5K Long-GOP 420 codec and the 4K 400Mbps ALL-I codec and the 1080p 200Mbps ALL-I codec, what should I film?

I'm thinking:

• Colour checker plus my face under tungsten light
• Colour checker plus my face under natural outdoor light
• General external scenes

I also have access to a city where people walk around inn outdoor malls, and a beach where there are often very few people.

What would you like me to include?

[Video Hummus]

Your general external scenes need motion. Like a lot of people moving in a scene, a tree in a breezy wind, water fountain in 1/3 of the frame. Artifacts will tend to show in the motions parts.