Panasonic GH6

[newfoundmass]

Not to turn this into a GH5 thread, but the reason I've kept my GH5 and why I planned on sticking with it was because it's still a very good camera, and if we're being honest for most of us there's not really anything out there that is so heads and shoulders better that we NEED to drop thousands of dollars on a new camera. The only reason it's not my a-cam right now is because I got a really great deal on an S5. But the GH5 is such a good camera, and I'd planned on using it for at least another 2 or 3 years. At this point I don't know that I'll ever buy a NEW camera again, because there really hasn't been that huge of a jump since the GH5 came out. I think I'll be perfectly content being a couple camera releases behind unless something big happens. If I'm still shooting Panasonic in a couple years I'll probably get a GH6. 

To me the M43 system had/has so much potential. In some ways I feel like it was a mistake to try and compete with larger sensor cameras, even though it resulted in incredible cameras like the GH series. Those cameras are what brought them to the dance, so to speak, but it was only a matter of time before everyone else would catch up, and in that period between when the GH5 was released and when a full frame equivalent that could match its capabilities was finally released, Panasonic had stopped innovating in the M43 space. 

When I got a GX85 I really kinda realized what the true potential for M43 was: small lenses and small bodies. I still take the GX85 and 35-100mm f2.8 into places that I could never bring an APS-C or full frame equivalent into and get beautiful, stable footage every time. It's such a small package that no one even gives it a second thought to. It's such a discreet, compact package. You'd have to use a bridge camera from Sony to get comparable footage, but it'd have a smaller sensor and worse stabilization. 

It's late, I'm rambling, but I do hate seeing people pronounce the death of M43 because I see so much potential in it, but I don't know that it'll ever reach it or if it's even viable to try. 

[Skropi]

I am sorry to repeat the question, but is the dcc12 coupler fully compatible with the GH6? I am looking to power the camera with a powerbank, and not have to haul 4-5 batteries. 

The usb-c port is reserved for ssd recording.

[hyalinejim]

5 hours ago, kye said:

How much do you shoot with really high DR conditions?

I regularly have a talking heads interview shot in an interior where a window is in the frame. This is the situation where you'd expect to see streaking. But the difference in stops between inside and outside necessary to see streaking is so huge that I would never choose to shoot in that location regardless, because there would be too much backlighting with or without streaking

Other than that, high DR scenes I shoot would be daylight exteriors in full sun. I've never seen streaking there. You only see it when very bright areas are adjacent to very dark, I think.

[hyalinejim]

8 hours ago, QuickHitRecord said:

I just want to say that this is the first footage I've seen in ages that makes me want to brush the dust off of my anamorphic lens for the first time in seven years and take it out for a spin

Ha ha! Yes I'm the same as you. I hadn't used my anamorphic since 2016 or something. Switching diopters is a pain if your subject is constantly going in and out of the six feet close focus distance zone but I'm always so pleased with the results, as long as I'm resigned to the fact that I'm going to miss some shots because I'm fiddling with diopters.

[kye]

33 minutes ago, hyalinejim said:

I regularly have a talking heads interview shot in an interior where a window is in the frame. This is the situation where you'd expect to see streaking. But the difference in stops between inside and outside necessary to see streaking is so huge that I would never choose to shoot in that location regardless, because there would be too much backlighting with or without streaking

Other than that, high DR scenes I shoot would be daylight exteriors in full sun. I've never seen streaking there. You only see it when very bright areas are adjacent to very dark, I think.

Thanks, this is enormously helpful.  It's so hard to judge things like DR from just looking at footage and even if someone tells you the difference then that's often not helpful either as I have no idea what the stops are when I shoot, but your descriptions give me a sense of it, so thanks.

It seems that actually it wouldn't be an issue for me as I am basically shooting in similar situations to you, and while maybe I might have an outside/inside shot be very different, it's not a normal occurrence.

[Kisaha]

1 hour ago, hyalinejim said:

I regularly have a talking heads interview shot in an interior where a window is in the frame. This is the situation where you'd expect to see streaking. But the difference in stops between inside and outside necessary to see streaking is so huge that I would never choose to shoot in that location regardless, because there would be too much backlighting with or without streaking

Other than that, high DR scenes I shoot would be daylight exteriors in full sun. I've never seen streaking there. You only see it when very bright areas are adjacent to very dark, I think.

ND filter on the window?

[hyalinejim]

30 minutes ago, Kisaha said:

ND filter on the window?

I'm talking about the kind of situation where the walls are dark, the window is in frame, the subject is in the room and is backlit by window light only. Here, you're likely to see streaking. But it's just not a very attractive shot anyway so it's not one that I would take, so I don't need to worry about streaking.

But if I had to then the best solution would be to light the room. Then the brightness of the room comes up relative to the window and then streaking is not going to be noticeable. As part of this strategy you could ND the window. But I like to travel light and make things easy for myself and in this case I would rotate the camera-subject axis by 90 degrees and shoot so that the subject is side-lit by the window and now the result is like a Vermeer and there is no streaking.

I know there was an influential video that showed streaking and it was a black studio with white strip lighting. Yes, here you'll see streaking because you have bright whites adjacent to dark blacks. But again, this is not a situation I normally encounter. I have seen streaking on my camera when I've sought it out to test if it was there - it is. But I've yet to see any streaking in my normal usage of the camera, which is reassuring. That's not to say it will never happen. But I had actually forgotten about it until yesterday, reading this thread 😂

[kye]

3 hours ago, hyalinejim said:

I'm talking about the kind of situation where the walls are dark, the window is in frame, the subject is in the room and is backlit by window light only. Here, you're likely to see streaking. But it's just not a very attractive shot anyway so it's not one that I would take, so I don't need to worry about streaking.

But if I had to then the best solution would be to light the room. Then the brightness of the room comes up relative to the window and then streaking is not going to be noticeable. As part of this strategy you could ND the window. But I like to travel light and make things easy for myself and in this case I would rotate the camera-subject axis by 90 degrees and shoot so that the subject is side-lit by the window and now the result is like a Vermeer and there is no streaking.

I know there was an influential video that showed streaking and it was a black studio with white strip lighting. Yes, here you'll see streaking because you have bright whites adjacent to dark blacks. But again, this is not a situation I normally encounter. I have seen streaking on my camera when I've sought it out to test if it was there - it is. But I've yet to see any streaking in my normal usage of the camera, which is reassuring. That's not to say it will never happen. But I had actually forgotten about it until yesterday, reading this thread 😂

I wish every time I encountered a terrible shot I could just turn 90 degrees and get a Vermeer!

[hyalinejim]

22 minutes ago, kye said:

I wish every time I encountered a terrible shot I could just turn 90 degrees and get a Vermeer!

LOL! Don't tell anyone, but that's the secret!!!

[TomTheDP]

7 hours ago, kye said:

Thanks, this is enormously helpful.  It's so hard to judge things like DR from just looking at footage and even if someone tells you the difference then that's often not helpful either as I have no idea what the stops are when I shoot, but your descriptions give me a sense of it, so thanks.

It seems that actually it wouldn't be an issue for me as I am basically shooting in similar situations to you, and while maybe I might have an outside/inside shot be very different, it's not a normal occurrence.

I would be interested to see how much the streaking is noticeable in practical situations. The RED raptor has a streaking issue due to its "stitched together" sensors.

[kye]

31 minutes ago, TomTheDP said:

I would be interested to see how much the streaking is noticeable in practical situations. The RED raptor has a streaking issue due to its "stitched together" sensors.

Well, I couldn't find an actual Xyla test image, but the waveform plot doesn't show any meaningful bump in the noise levels next to the brightest patch vs the other side of the frame, so I'm guessing that means that there isn't likely to be any streaking within the DR of the camera.  Of course, how many stops above clipping you need to go before streaking is visible above black levels is unknown, but the test images I've seen have had pretty serious clipping on the areas that the streaks originate from.

Someone with an actual GH6 could setup a test, if they had the time and inclination, but from the tests I've seen online the streak behaviour varies significantly in magnitude and behaviour depending on the ISO values.  Some values were more than others and some values had a lighter streak and others had a darker streak, so it would be a complex test.

[Skropi]

I shoot in some challenging dynamic range scenes, hard light/sun backlit scenes in forests etc, and haven't encountered any streaking. I am sure I could make it appear if I wanted to, but on real life it is a non issue. I do expose correctly, if that is helpful.

[newfoundmass]

16 hours ago, Skropi said:

I am sorry to repeat the question, but is the dcc12 coupler fully compatible with the GH6? I am looking to power the camera with a powerbank, and not have to haul 4-5 batteries. 

The usb-c port is reserved for ssd recording.

It's not a direct answer, but I've heard mixed results from people who've used non OEM batteries and couplers, but haven't used them myself.

[kye]

@hyalinejim @Skropi

Do you get streaks if you shoot:

• outside at night from streetlights / signs etc?
• during the day if you get the sun just out of frame but hitting the lens?
• during the day if you get the sun in frame?

I think those are probably the only situations left that I would shoot that haven't been mentioned already.

[Skropi]

7 hours ago, newfoundmass said:

It's not a direct answer, but I've heard mixed results from people who've used non OEM batteries and couplers, but haven't used them myself.

Yeah, I've read about the mixed results, so I am not sure. I don't know if the original dcc17 can be connected to a powerbank, or if it can be connected only to a wall socket.

[Skropi]

6 hours ago, kye said:

@hyalinejim @Skropi

Do you get streaks if you shoot:

• outside at night from streetlights / signs etc?
• during the day if you get the sun just out of frame but hitting the lens?
• during the day if you get the sun in frame?

I think those are probably the only situations left that I would shoot that haven't been mentioned already.

Nope, no streaking, but I do get flares, so I do try and find an optimal place to stand. Anyway, you should really test it, just rent the camera, if possible, as everyone has different needs and use cases. My ONLY problem with the GH6 is battery life, 4k 60p 4:2:2 runs for around 1:15 hours, when the battery starts flashing, and I still havent found a reliable way to power the camera on the go without using the usb-c port.

[hyalinejim]

11 hours ago, kye said:

Do you get streaks if you shoot:

• outside at night from streetlights / signs etc?
• during the day if you get the sun just out of frame but hitting the lens?
• during the day if you get the sun in frame?

Based on my limited experience with the camera I would say that in daylight you will probably not get streaking but that at night you might. I think that it arises when you have a clipped highlight area adjacent to a shadow area. A clipped area adjacent to a midtone area is probably (and I don't know 100% because I haven't done tests) not enough to show streaking.

In daytime you're not really going to see so much of bright whites against dark blacks, but at night you certainly will. I haven't shot at night, only in daytime so far.

[PannySVHS]

Panasonic needs to fix the streaking. It´s kinda like the issue blue dots, which occured with the Lumix S series und saturated blue led light. Panasonic fixed the issue pretty soon after it was reported to them by strong user response.

The GH6 is a flawed product with that issue, even if being a compelling one.

Without the streaking I would love to give this camera a try and would assume to keep it for good. Plus, if it only had a S16 crop like the GH5 has. Unfortunately the GH6 does not offer that. It would be awesome to have an S16 mode in all the aspect ratios of the full sensor modes, such as 4to3 and additionally 1.66 ratio with full width of S16, which would be around 12.3mm. Other than that it is a dream camera come true. Organic cinema image in a little powerful package. Better colour rendition and resolution than the GH5S under lowlight conditions and what not.

[kye]

3 minutes ago, PannySVHS said:

Panasonic needs to fix the streaking. It´s kinda like the issue blue dots, which occured with the Lumix S series und saturated blue led light. Panasonic fixed the issue pretty soon after it was reported to them by strong user response.

The GH6 is a flawed product with that issue, even if being a compelling one.

Without the streaking I would love to give this camera a try and would assume to keep it for good. Plus, if it only had a S16 crop like the GH5 has. Unfortunately the GH6 does not offer that. It would be awesome to have an S16 mode in all the aspect ratios of the full sensor modes, such as 4to3 and additionally 1.66 ratio with full width of S16, which would be around 12.3mm.

One thing I'd miss would be the 2x digital zoom, which in 1080p mode would still be oversampled.  The 2x on the GH5 is great and I use it a lot, and it's definitely better than the 1:1 mode which is a 2.5x crop.  

I'm still hopeful that some of these little touches will get into a future firmware update.  Panasonic still has a decent firmware update owing (I can't remember if it's USB recording or USB charging that was promised but still hasn't been enabled).  My understanding was that the GH5 took a number of firmware updates to really unlock its full potential.

[hyalinejim]

Here's a handy little tip for, I guess, any V-Log shooters. If you use the default V709 monitoring lut using the V-Log View Assist function then you still get a relatively washed out image. Not only is the contrast level quite mild, but the black never becomes true black on the LCD or viewfinder.

It makes it a bit harder to eyeball exposure as two stops under or two stops over still looks decent on the screen.

I made a VLT file (link below) with much stronger contrast - around 7.5 stops, which is the average scene brightness range. If you stick this on your card and load it up in the menu and use it you will get true blacks.

But it also makes it much easier to eyeball if you're slightly under or over as the contrast level is quite higher than the Panny default.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1qYrz5lq4CUgWkKgudGI24f2VWp3CdkCu?usp=share_link

Note: it does make banding more visible as it's a low resolution LUT. That banding is "there" in the default View Assist LUT as well, it's just not as noticeable. But obviously it has no effect on the footage recorded.