GH5 focus excellence

[Emanuel]

7 minutes ago, scotchtape said:

In the wedding processional AF vid, the background is pulsing in the first few clips.  In the last one with the same settings (AF speed 5, sens 3) it is pulsing less.

I still think A6500 AF-C far superior for video AF.  GH5 makes me think 3x about using af-c.  It's not the worst thing in the world but it's also not consistent enough for "prime time".  I'm not saying it's unusable, but it has a higher chance of not doing what you want it to do vs the competition.  IMO you're rolling the dice when you use it.  Maybe with firmware tweaks it will improve but there's only so much you can do with CDAF.  

I really wish they licensed or bought some of the other AF tech, that would have made this camera really great, like almost next level.

I don't regret my purchase too much, it's got a lot of great features and the people I work with are really looking forward to the 4K 60p.  Just wish the AF-C was better, that would have sealed the deal for them and avoided this whole controversy (although I'm sure we would have found something else to complain about, like someone said the audio is not seamless between long files?  still have to test this myself).

Have you tested tap-to-focus in both AF and MF modes?

[webrunner5]

Well I don't have a GH5, but I can tell you from all the Olympus, Panasonic cameras I have owned and it probably total close to 10 of them, AF-C sucked on all of them. Now AF-S was pretty good on all of them. That has been my experience. YMMV. My Olympus EM1 was hands down the best focusing m4/3 camera I ever owned. It was damn good. But not great at AF-C.

[fuzzynormal]

34 minutes ago, scotchtape said:

although I'm sure we would have found something else to complain about

Absolutely.  It's so weird, of all things in the enthusiast/prosumer/motion picture world, that auto-focus is actually such a seemingly big issue to people all of a sudden.  

It's an embarrassment of riches across all brands and somehow AF is a deal breaker?  Still not at all sure why folks aren't just okay with manually focusing their lenses like actual real-life camera operators that want to, you know, completely control capturing their images.

I suppose it's all part of the 21st century digital algorithm world.  Trust the machine to do the tricky work for us:  Spell check our grammar, remember that one actor that played that one part in that one movie, tell us all the cool stuff we need to buy, remember how to drive home, and focus our lenses.

F all that.  This new fangled dangled nonsense is getting my dander up, you damn whippersnappers.  The world needs more analog.  You can "pry my manual lenses from my cold dead hands!"  How about that?  I'm complaining about the complainers!

That said, I can see why AF handy, but I can't understand why anyone would trust it.  At least when focusing manually your gonna get a consistent result.

[Emanuel]

Indeed. But, there are midways. As much as certain usage such as gimbal work, one-person show... :-)

[Ken Ross]

11 hours ago, Emanuel said:

 

I hope he was just testing his AF, because he's got some work to do on his exposure metering.

11 hours ago, zerocool22 said:

wow this AF thing is looking actually pretty impressive, I have never used AF and would not even consider it. But this might be quite handy for shooting with a glidecam/gimbal. I wonder how well it works doing shots at F0.95 - 1.2. 

Now c'mon now, haven't you been reading, AF doesn't work on the GH5.

[matthere]

 

[scotchtape]

Re: tap to focus.

I'm assuming you mean during recoding.  Tap to focus is a bit stupid right now, they should add some options in menu to customize behaviour.

A6500 makes sense - you tap, it moves focus point and focuses (let's not talk about the other stupid things with it).

For gh5 in M mode - you tap and nothing happens.  You have to drag the current focus point to make it work.  And then to add insult to injury it doesn't focus as smoothly as af-c for some reason.

In af-c mode it's worse.  You can tap or drag, but then there is a delay, and it changes to the adjusting focus point screen. Then you have to click set on the touch screen to finally adjust the focus point (if you don't press anything it will focus on the new point but you can't get back to regular display without pressing set or cancel). Oh and by the way the "set" button is all the way in the bottom right corner.

Hopefully they make this less clunky in next firmware.

[scotchtape]

whoops wrong post

[webrunner5]

22 hours ago, fuzzynormal said:

Absolutely.  It's so weird, of all things in the enthusiast/prosumer/motion picture world, that auto-focus is actually such a seemingly big issue to people all of a sudden.  

It's an embarrassment of riches across all brands and somehow AF is a deal breaker?  Still not at all sure why folks aren't just okay with manually focusing their lenses like actual real-life camera operators that want to, you know, completely control capturing their images.

I suppose it's all part of the 21st century digital algorithm world.  Trust the machine to do the tricky work for us:  Spell check our grammar, remember that one actor that played that one part in that one movie, tell us all the cool stuff we need to buy, remember how to drive home, and focus our lenses.

F all that.  This new fangled dangled nonsense is getting my dander up, you damn whippersnappers.  The world needs more analog.  You can "pry my manual lenses from my cold dead hands!"  How about that?  I'm complaining about the complainers!

That said, I can see why AF handy, but I can't understand why anyone would trust it.  At least when focusing manually your gonna get a consistent result.

Yeah but not Everybody just uses a GH5 for Video only. Hell it does take Photographs doesn't it LoL. Would be nice to be able to shoot your cat, dogs, kids, wife, eh I guess with AF working!

I do a decent amount of Birding Photography and Video with Birds, and I can tell you I sure as hell am not going to MF with birds in flight too easy. Not at my age. They move around a lot even at a Zoo. Now if they are sitting in a tree, sure MF.

For 2000 bucks the AF had Better work, and work damn well. I can understand why people are pissed! There is no reason in 2017, with a camera this expensive, AF ought to suck. They ought to stop production until they get it fixed. This could be a disaster for Panasonic. We are not he only people in the world that by GH5 cameras.

Heck I use AF a times on my AF100A. My 14-140mm 3.5-5.6 II works pretty good at AF in high contrast situations. It is stupid not to use a tool that woks pretty well in certain circumstances.

I never owned a GH4, and don't have a GH5, but with the Sony A7's I have had, now they were easy and fast as heck to MF with, way better than any Panasonic, Olympus I have owned did or do.

[Davey]

∆∆∆

'My 14-140mm 3.5-5.6 II works pretty good at AF in high contrast situations. It is stupid not to use a tool that woks pretty well in certain circumstances.'

 

That's good to hear. Waiting for mine to drop through the letterbox any time soon. 

[SuperSet]

Panasonic's Matt Frazer is gonna be a busy dude at NAB next week.

[ade towell]

26 minutes ago, webrunner5 said:

Yeah but not Everybody just uses a GH5 for Video only. Hell it does take Photographs doesn't it LoL. Would be nice to be able to shoot your cat, dogs, kids, wife, eh I guess with AF working!

I do a decent amount of Birding Photography and Video with Birds, and I can tell you I sure as hell am not going to MF with birds in flight too easy. Not at my age. They move around a lot even at a Zoo. Now if they are sitting in a tree, sure MF.

For 2000 bucks the AF had Better work, and work damn well. I can understand why people are pissed! There is no reason in 2017, with a camera this expensive, AF ought to suck. They ought to stop production until they get it fixed. This could be a disaster for Panasonic. We are not he only people in the world that by GH5 cameras.

Heck I use AF a times on my AF100A. My 14-140mm 3.5-5.6 II works pretty good at AF in high contrast situations. It is stupid not to use a tool that woks pretty well in certain circumstances.

I never owned a GH4, and don't have a GH5, but with the Sony A7's I have had, now they were easy and fast as heck to MF with, way better than any Panasonic, Olympus I have owned did or do.

? the af works superfast for stills

[webrunner5]

47 minutes ago, ade towell said:

? the af works superfast for stills

Well l never used my Sony A7R for video, and the A7 I did a few times. I am talking I guess, mostly with Photo AF still photography. So YMMV if you have tried it mostly for video. I don't see how it would be much, to any didfferent, stills or video?

So you are saying the GH5 works great for stills on AF?? if true, how could it suck that bad on video? AF is AF is AF.

[ade towell]

yes seems a lot faster and more accurate than the Canon 750d Iv'e also got...haven't tested it thoroughly but so far am pleasantly surprised

[webrunner5]

45 minutes ago, ade towell said:

yes seems a lot faster and more accurate than the Canon 750d Iv'e also got...haven't tested it thoroughly but so far am pleasantly surprised

Does a Canon 750D have DPAF?? That would be a surprising result compared to the GH5 if it does.

[Emanuel]

13 hours ago, scotchtape said:

Re: tap to focus.

I'm assuming you mean during recoding.  Tap to focus is a bit stupid right now, they should add some options in menu to customize behaviour.

A6500 makes sense - you tap, it moves focus point and focuses (let's not talk about the other stupid things with it).

For gh5 in M mode - you tap and nothing happens.  You have to drag the current focus point to make it work.  And then to add insult to injury it doesn't focus as smoothly as af-c for some reason.

In af-c mode it's worse.  You can tap or drag, but then there is a delay, and it changes to the adjusting focus point screen. Then you have to click set on the touch screen to finally adjust the focus point (if you don't press anything it will focus on the new point but you can't get back to regular display without pressing set or cancel). Oh and by the way the "set" button is all the way in the bottom right corner.

Hopefully they make this less clunky in next firmware.

On G7, it can work out... Maybe a matter of habit or taste? : )

Any signs of hunting in any of both MF and AF modes?

Thanks for your input :-)

[ade towell]

1 hour ago, webrunner5 said:

Does a Canon 750D have DPAF?? That would be a surprising result compared to the GH5 if it does.

no it doesn't have dpaf but as with most Canon's is no slouch with af in stills mode

[webrunner5]

Maybe I am wrong but it seems to me people are not giving the GH5 time TO AF. I am sure they didn't design it to snap into focus. Isn't it suppose to do a slow, heck I can't think of the word, Transition?? I would think it would look stupid if it did a Snap Focus which seems to be what a lot of people think it is Suppose to do like a stills camera.

Is there a way to change the speed at which it does focus??  The above Cat video sure didn't look the guy gave it enough time to even focus on what it was suppose to be focused on.

Hell of a lot of FOCUS words in this damn thing!

[jonpais]

 

[Emanuel]