Panasonic GH5S 4K / 240fps low light monster

[Emanuel]

12 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Emanuel, you still own 2x R1?!

As early adopter, David, not anymore nowadays. How could I? A decade later anno Domini (AD), I mean, when we celebrate 10 years of 5DII ; ) with a 2009 unit purchase I still keep with me...

That's exactly the whole point addressed to that young fellow... GH5/GH5S is/are the best valuable cinema camera offer available today for 4500 bucks and you still get two bodies ; )) being one of them a fully hybrid acquisition device ;-)

AFAIK those serial numbers are with RED now, so they were not allocated with a different user.

RED, Canon were my choices when in 2010 I bought 2x GH1. When not only as very personal recommendation of my own, I've actually produced features, documentaries and shorts, etc shot on RED, ARRI, Blackmagics, Canons Cxxx line and some other DSLRs but since then, I never looked back as my most inner option :-)

[Damphousse]

18 hours ago, mercer said:

I never said the GH5s is a bad camera, I’ve said I think it was a mistake not to have IBIS and that maybe it should be priced lower than the GH5... with all features consider

Not singling you out but have people not read the technical and practical reasons for no IBIS?  It has been said multiple times that the sensor in the GH5 moved around even with IBIS off when the camera was mounted in things like cars.  The target market does not want IBIS.

This is a new custom chip in this camera.  This camera is presumably going to be a lower volume product than the GH5.  They have to recover their costs.  I don't know for sure why this camera costs what it does but I'm not surprised.

[jonpais]

Does this target market, the specialists using these $2,500 camera bodies as crash cams on big productions, watch reviews on YouTube by Kai, TCSTV, Gordon Laing, Wex Photo, CRFTSHO, Peter Gregg, Photo by Richard, Dan Watson, Max Yuryev, Three Blind Men and an Elephant, Art of the Image, Photo Joseph and Max Yuryev? I'd wager not. And why have so few (if any) of the Luminaries shot video with the camera mounted to a vehicle?

[Zak Forsman]

4 hours ago, DBounce said:

EVA1: my biggest turnoff, and the reason why I skipped it was poor low light performance. And I know I’m not alone in that thinking. So the GH5S seems like Panasonic’s redemption for the EVA1 in some ways. 

 

haha, no you're not alone. but that doesn't make it so cut and dry. the GH5S's Venus Engine employs noise reduction at high ISOs that can't be turned off. The EVA1 has a NR option but it can be left off so noise reduction can be dialed in perfectly in post. No doubt the GH5S is a fantastic camera and looks great at these high ISOs, but some flexibility has been sacrificed. And the EVA1 clearly beats it in a number of image categories from color gamut to image detail to dynamic range and highlight roll-off. From the Panasonic GH5S site...

[jonpais]

@Zak Forsman I count myself among those who'd like to see the ability to turn off electronic sharpening, but noise reduction? I know this is sacrilege, and shows what a hobbyist I am, but I'd rather not deal with Neat Video ever again! 

[Emanuel]

40 minutes ago, Damphousse said:

Not singling you out but have people not read the technical and practical reasons for no IBIS?  It has been said multiple times that the sensor in the GH5 moved around even with IBIS off when the camera was mounted in things like cars.  The target market does not want IBIS.

This is a new custom chip in this camera.  This camera is presumably going to be a lower volume product than the GH5.  They have to recover their costs.  I don't know for sure why this camera costs what it does but I'm not surprised.

I also thought that in the early beginning but thinking twice, I now guess they simply didn't want to cannibalize the older sister and native GH5. Sad but that's my finest bet. They would certainly find a way of it and I still bet they will adopt it for the upcoming GH6S.

[Damphousse]

15 minutes ago, jonpais said:

Does this target market, the specialists using these $2,500 camera bodies as crash cams on big productions, watch reviews on YouTube by Kai, TCSTV, Gordon Laing, Wex Photo, CRFTSHO, Peter Gregg, Photo by Richard, Dan Watson, Max Yuryev, Three Blind Men and an Elephant, Art of the Image, Photo Joseph and Max Yuryev? I'd wager not. And why have so few (if any) of the Luminaries shot video with the camera mounted to a vehicle?

I don't know.  All I know is what Andrew put in his article...

Quote

At the meeting with Panasonic, Richard Payne of the big UK distributor Holdan made an interesting point – the GH4 and GH5 were being used regularly on a big budget TV shows like The Grand Tour (Amazon Prime) rigged inside supercars and racing cars and here the vibration was playing havoc with the sprung IBIS sensor in the GH5. TV DoPs can now sign a breathe of relief as the sensor in the GH5S stays-put and you can still rely on optical stabilisation from the lens.

That was a great bit of reporting I guess Kai, TCSTV, Gordon Laing, Wex Photo, CRFTSHO, Peter Gregg, Photo by Richard, Dan Watson, Max Yuryev, Three Blind Men and an Elephant, Art of the Image, Photo Joseph and Max Yuryev didn't have the journalistic skills to deliver to their audiences.

The thing is I read a chunk of Andrew's article and then spent a couple of hours wincing as I watched video after video speculate about something Panasonic had already addressed.

[Emanuel]

23 minutes ago, Zak Forsman said:

haha, no you're not alone. but that doesn't make it so cut and dry. the GH5S's Venus Engine employs noise reduction at high ISOs that can't be turned off. The EVA1 has a NR option but it can be left off so noise reduction can be dialed in perfectly in post. No doubt the GH5S is a fantastic camera and looks great at these high ISOs, but some flexibility has been sacrificed. And the EVA1 clearly beats it in a number of image categories from color gamut to dynamic range and highlight roll-off. From the Panasonic GH5S site...

No idea if I should be happy or sad...

 

[Zak Forsman]

23 minutes ago, jonpais said:

@Zak Forsman I count myself among those who'd like to see the ability to turn off electronic sharpening, but noise reduction? I know this is sacrilege, and shows what a hobbyist I am, but I'd rather not deal with Neat Video ever again! 

 

oh yeah, the GH series is definitely well-suited to your needs. but the notion that one camera "beats" another is pretty dumb. we all know you choose the tool that suits your needs, and yet, we see comments like: the GH5S's low light ability "redeems" panasonic for the EVA1. it doesn't do that any more than a new coffee maker from Panasonic redeems their latest espresso machine for being too complicated -- some people need the flexibility to pull the perfect espresso shot, others want to hit one button to make coffee. it's not a competition.

FYI -- Jon, i don't know if you use Resolve but the NR they implemented in v12.5 is inches away from what Neat Video can do, but a lot easier to work with. It's pretty darn good.

4 minutes ago, Emanuel said:

No idea if I should be happy or sad...

 

hopefully youtube isn't hiding the same issue and this Venus Engine's NR is an improvement over the GH5. fingers firmly crossed.

[Damphousse]

3 minutes ago, Emanuel said:

I also thought that in the early beginning but thinking twice, I now guess they simply didn't want to cannibalize the GH5 sister. Sad but that's my finest bet. They would certainly find a way of it and I still bet they will adopt it for the upcoming GH6S.

And you are basing this on?

That's not how cannibalization works.  Any manufacturer would be happy if people passed on their lower priced offering and bought the higher priced product.

I just think a $2,500 10 megapixel micro43 camera is a niche product.  This isn't a photo shooting camera.  Heck I think paying $2,000 for a micro43 (GH5) camera to take pictures is ludicrous.  I don't see how a photo shooter goes from the 20 megapixel GH5 to the 10 megapixel GH5s IBIS or no IBIS.  Maybe what they should do is make a GH5s with IBIS to satisfy yet another niche.

Panasonic seems to be really gunning for niche markets instead of taking Canikon head on.  It makes sense.  They can't win playing Canikon's game.

I think the hybrid camera thing is going to be a niche for awhile.  It seems with current tech you have to make trade offs.  I currently have a T3i and a BMPCC.  I use my Canon lenses on both.  If I ignore video I can get a photo camera pretty easily.  If I ignore photo I can get a video camera pretty easily.  But if I want one that does both the trade offs go through the roof.  At this point the play may be a photo camera, a video camera, and a hybrid.

I've just made peace with the fact no camera is going to do it all.  The only time I get pissed off is with cameras like the C200.  The lack of 10 bit 4:2:2 option even to external recorder is unforgivable.

[jonpais]

21 minutes ago, Damphousse said:

I don't know.  All I know is what Andrew put in his article...

That was a great bit of reporting I guess Kai, TCSTV, Gordon Laing, Wex Photo, CRFTSHO, Peter Gregg, Photo by Richard, Dan Watson, Max Yuryev, Three Blind Men and an Elephant, Art of the Image, Photo Joseph and Max Yuryev didn't have the journalistic skills to deliver to their audiences.

The thing is I read a chunk of Andrew's article and then spent a couple of hours wincing as I watched video after video speculate about something Panasonic had already addressed.

Viewers of the Grand Tour should be pleased.

Edit: I might be mistaken, I'll have to watch the interview with Sean Robinson again, but I could swear he told Hugh Brownstone that the GH5s body wouldn't accommodate IBIS with the large heat sink needed for the sensor. I'm about to watch again now...

[Emanuel]

9 minutes ago, Damphousse said:

And you are basing this on?

That's not how cannibalization works.  Any manufacturer would be happy if people passed on their lower priced offering and bought the higher priced product.

I just think a $2,500 10 megapixel micro43 camera is a niche product.  This isn't a photo shooting camera.  Heck I think paying $2,000 for a micro43 (GH5) camera to take pictures is ludicrous.  I don't see how a photo shooter goes from the 20 megapixel GH5 to the 10 megapixel GH5s IBIS or no IBIS.  Maybe what they should do is make a GH5s with IBIS to satisfy yet another niche.

Panasonic seems to be really gunning for niche markets instead of taking Canikon head on.  It makes sense.  They can't win playing Canikon's game.

I think the hybrid camera thing is going to be a niche for awhile.  It seems with current tech you have to make trade offs.  I currently have a T3i and a BMPCC.  I use my Canon lenses on both.  If I ignore video I can get a photo camera pretty easily.  If I ignore photo I can get a video camera pretty easily.  But if I want one that does both the trade offs go through the roof.  At this point the play may be a photo camera, a video camera, and a hybrid.

I've just made peace with the fact no camera is going to do it all.  The only time I get pissed off is with cameras like the C200.  The lack of 10 bit 4:2:2 option even to external recorder is unforgivable.

I follow and appreciate your entry. Really.

As said, only my bet though : ) Maybe from a few of decades doing business, with such big guys included.

[jonpais]

Nope, Sean Robinson doesn't mention anything about heat sinks. But with the mulit-aspect sensor and perhaps  a larger heat sink for the Starvis sensor, there wasn't room to fit a stabilizer in there. It weighs 65g, so it must take up some space. Then why not just turn off stabilization? Is it still going to cause vibrations? Sean Robinson says in the interview that he knows of people who've even experienced vibrations with the GH5 mounted on  a Ronin. Has anyone here ever experienced that? Because I've only used the camera mounted on a single-handed gimbal, and can't recall an instance where the camera behaved like that... I also imagine that if the camera's mounted in a car that's shaking or vibrating so badly that the IBIS is going nuts, that even without IBIS, the picture quality might not be so great either. i'm sure The Grand Tour is different, I've never watched it, but I recall seeing dozens of videos shot with the G85 and GH5 inside shaky moving vehicles and the footage was always a dramatic improvement over shooting without IBIS. Perhaps because those cameras weren't mounted on the vehicle?

[Damphousse]

14 minutes ago, jonpais said:

Then why not just turn off stabilization? Is it still going to cause vibrations?

I think because with IBIS off it isn't clamped or bolted in place.  I think it still floats in position via electromagnets.   So unlike a sensor that is soldered in place a sufficient amount of force can be applied to send the camera in one direction and the sensor in another.

Found the source.  DP Review...

Quote

Sensor-shift IS systems operate by 'floating' the sensor using a series of electromagnets. Even when they're 'off' they're not locked in place, they're simply set so that the electromagnets aren't attempting to correct for movement. This has the side-effect that, which mounted on a professional stabilization rig, there's a risk of the sensor being shaken around.

For high-end video work, Panasonic says its users would prefer to use dedicated gimbals and dollies, rather than internal stabilization, and that means physically locking the sensor in place to avoid unwanted interactions between these systems and a floating sensor.

 

[no_connection]

Any low light comparisons that is NOT youtube?

From side by side comparison I found one decent frame at ISO400 vlog to look at and it seems about a stop at best, but that could just be cause GH5 was sharper (through sharpening) as that brings out noise too. Rest was to compressed to look at but the magic looks to happen above that 2k ISO.

 

As noted above IBIS is never really off, it ether tries to correct detected camera body motion, or lock it down electronically to move with it, which is not super easy ether as there is a finite power to do so and shocks can be very harsh in that mode vs the sensor just "letting go" when in correction mode since you want the sensor to be stationary relative to ground and not camera. If that made sense.

[Emanuel]

29 minutes ago, jonpais said:

Nope, Sean Robinson doesn't mention anything about heat sinks. But with the mulit-aspect sensor and perhaps  a larger heat sink for the Starvis sensor, there wasn't room to fit a stabilizer in there. It weighs 65g, so it must take up some space. Then why not just turn off stabilization? Is it still going to cause vibrations? Sean Robinson says in the interview that he knows of people who've even experienced vibrations with the GH5 mounted on  a Ronin. Has anyone here ever experienced that? Because I've only used the camera mounted on a single-handed gimbal, and can't recall an instance where the camera behaved like that...

But, is this the Starvis sensor at all? I don't think so from that Cinema 5D interview there with Yosuke Yamane-san:

I don't understand Japanese but if the subtitles translation is accurate, I'd tend to believe and confirm Panasonic is Sony's competitor instead. And... period. Also Andrew Reid's remarks on eventual BS misinformation spread along the rumors led me to infer it is not actually.

:-)

[Fritz Pierre]

5 hours ago, IronFilm said:

 

And yet people will complain over and over about a camera having 12 stops of DR instead of 14+, and call it "not a cinema camera because the DR is too low"

 

Seems like a hobby to some....the complaining I mean

[TheRenaissanceMan]

1 hour ago, jonpais said:

Nope, Sean Robinson doesn't mention anything about heat sinks. But with the mulit-aspect sensor and perhaps the Starvis sensor, there wasn't room to fit a stabilizer in there. It weighs 65g, so it must take up some space. Then why not just turn of stabilization? Is it still going to cause vibrations? Sean Robinson says in the interview that he knows of people who've even experienced vibrations with the GH5 mounted on  a Ronin. Has anyone here ever experienced that? Because I've only used the camera mounted on a single-handed gimbal, and can't recall an instance where the camera behaved like that...

There's a few major reasons:

1. Vibrations. Turning off stabilization doesn't hard-mount the sensor to the body of the camera--it just tells the electromagnets to try and hold the sensor as still as possible (in relation to the camera). That means whether or not IBIS is turned on, the sensor is always floating. Some forces that act on the camera, such as vibration from a car or motorized gimbal movement, can actually overpower the magnets and shake the sensor around, which is an annoying jitter at best and unwatchable mush at worst. 

Great example at 3:15:

2. Lower heat. By putting the sensor directly onto a heatsink, it reduces heat buildup on the sensor, and therefore noise. Seeing as how low noise is one of the selling points of the camera, that makes perfect sense to me. 

3. Dual native ISO. My understanding is that the circuitry required is more involved than what's on the GH5, and therefore would not be possible (or at least more difficult/less effective) if the sensor were in motion during recording. 

4. Multi-aspect sensor. Since the sensor is larger, moving it around inside the mount wouldn't be feasible, and could put portions of the imaging area outside of the lens image circle. 

5. Battery life. The new sensor is quite power-hungry, so adding IBIS on top of that would make the hit to power consumption impractical for many users. 

6. IBIS can cause undesirable artifacts when the camera is in motion. Not only unpredictability in panning speed, as the camera has to recognize and compensate for the fact that the camera is supposed to be moving, but also strange warping and perspective shifts (especially with wide angle lenses). Good example here at 9:30: 
 

7: Processing. By not having to use a portion of the camera's processor to do all the math required for IBIS, that processing power can be utilized for other functions, such as better NR, faster/higher-res HFR, and pulling a higher bit depth off the sensor (beneficial even when encoding that data to 10-bit video). 


Everyone seems confused as to why Pananasonic left IBIS off this camera, but in my eyes, they've made their reasons perfectly clear. 

[anonim]

1 hour ago, Zak Forsman said:

FYI -- Jon, i don't know if you use Resolve but the NR they implemented in v12.5 is inches away from what Neat Video can do, but a lot easier to work with. It's pretty darn good.

Just to confirm and recommend also. Temporal noise reduction segment is, in fact, pretty fast and accurate - in many case even totally adequate and sufficiеnt. With newer Resolve incarnation noise reduction is not longer so to say "pain in the ass".

[Emanuel]

They could always implement to switch it off as user wishes, isn't it? I'm sorry but I don't buy the technical explanation as second thought.

How many GH5 units they would fail to sell from now on?

That's the whole business model (industry breathes strategy) which made their decision to leave IBIS out of range to my eyes. Let a7SIII settles down if coupled to some stabilization all included with and we'll see if they won't be in rush to sort the GH6s out just in time to comprehend the IBIS factor. Hybrid oblige. In any case, this camera is out of the concept so serves as excuse. Let's only not to accept that as granted.