Panasonic GH6

[webrunner5]

You had better buy a used Ninja V now before everyone else does!  😬

[PannySVHS]

@Jimmy G My two cents:) Dont buy a Ninja V. Your S1 does good enough without it.

So either keep the S! and save your money or sell it and get a GH6. Like I said, my two cents. 🙂

Or keep the mighty S1, still buy a GH6 and compare the two.:)

[hyalinejim]

The GH6 is in stock at my local camera shop in Dublin, Ireland, where I bought my GH5 when it was first released. If I wasn't living on the other side of the world, literally, I think I would pop in and pick one up to see what all the fuss is about.

[Jimmy G]

19 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

You had better buy a used Ninja V now before everyone else does!  😬

I'm truly not concerned about availability, seems these are fairly easy to locate used.

18 hours ago, PannySVHS said:

@Jimmy G My two cents:) Dont buy a Ninja V. Your S1 does good enough without it.

So either keep the S! and save your money or sell it and get a GH6. Like I said, my two cents. 🙂

Or keep the mighty S1, still buy a GH6 and compare the two.:)

True that, the S1's output both for stills and video is much more than "good enough" for my nature/wildlife/birding needs.

Where I'm at right now is a restlessness to improve upon what I'm doing right now, whether it be through weening myself off of the Rec.709 output workflow (and moving into DCI-P3 via HDR Rec.2020 for an HDR1000 target) or finally providing myself with a crop-sensor companion (that compliments the S1) for those shooting outings where it becomes the better tool than the FF sensor. (For my needs the 5DII/7D, then a7r/a7sII/a6300 combos covered my needs, so I've been, er, "circling the airport" the past couple of years trying to answer "S1/? combo" for myself.) Trust me, both of your recommendations have been bouncing around in my head for some time now! LOL

As for the GH6, it is most certainly providing users with a robust (and compelling) feature set in regards to its video output capabilities straight-out-of-the-box, the wealth of 10-bit All-I and ProResHQ options has my serious attention!

Internal RAW needs to be a priority here for team Panasonic, their competition is now making it a "thing" and it is (and will be) the deal-breaking, er, "killer app" for those of us who require dongle-free simplicity and stealth...especially as the GH6 ages through its life cycle.

FWIW, I've already let Panasonic dangle (and entice me into a purchase with the possibilities/potentials of) an internal high-speed bus and XQD/CFExpress slot with my S1's and then not deliver on those possibilities and potentials even with some token and/or heat-time-limited ProRes or RAW recording options. So that, um, "failure to deliver" has now become a factor in my decision-making and a part of me is now loathe to volunteer myself again as a full-MSRP early-adopter for them again with this new release.

"Fool me once, shame on you...fool me twice, shame on me" and all that.

Either choice (i.e. learning how to shoot for and process for HDR1000 with RAW with a ninja and my S1's, or having more pixels-per-duck and 300fps and ProRes HQ and learning how to target HDR1000 at more than thrice the price with a GH6) exciting times ahead with where I can take my learning! 🙂

[webrunner5]

I follow jonpais on my email, not a big fan of his attitude overall but he seems to be pretty good with the HDR stuff and it looks like it is a Very expensive way to go. Not counting hard to edit on and on.

 The only thing I have that does HDR is my iPhone, and I don't use it much because of the damn Dolby Vision thing. I hate this crap with so many different standards. Drives me crazy. But I have a BenQ 32" 4K monitor I can see it on, probably not that good to edit HDR with though, unless you buy a super high end monitor.

[Jimmy G]

2 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

I follow jonpais on my email, not a big fan of his attitude overall but he seems to be pretty good with the HDR stuff and it looks like it is a Very expensive way to go. Not counting hard to edit on and on.

 The only thing I have that does HDR is my iPhone, and I don't use it much because of the damn Dolby Vision thing. I hate this crap with so many different standards. Drives me crazy. But I have a BenQ 32" 4K monitor I can see it on, probably not that good to edit HDR with though, unless you buy a super high end monitor.

Funny you mentioning Jon, I've been following his own HDR explorations and experiments over at his Deajeon Chronicles web pages...

HDR – The Daejeon Chronicles

https://daejeonchronicles.com/category/hdr/

...seems, like many of us, he's trying to sort through the changing landscape from 100-nit SDR to 1000(and beyond)-nit HDR.

I agree, the various standards (Dolby, ACES, HDR1000, or even just going home-brewed as many seem to be doing, etc.) gives one good reason to pause and try and figure out the best path forward. These are not inexpensive choices even at the Indie, Wedding, Boutique, and (cough) Prosumer levels, etc. and methinks we're all looking for a sensible and affordable pathway forward for ourselves.

Say what folks may about iPhone with Dolby Vision, in its own way it is helping folks visualize where and how both the increased DR and luminance will look and help better the understanding of "what it is" and "what it offers" from both the creation and consumption sides of things. These truly are exciting times for those wading into the mix!

From my studies and observations of the current use of the technology it seems as though 1000-nit DCI-P3 is where things are currently settling for home distribution and consumption. And that, depending on how important it is for the creator to see their grading choices being fully (or as nearly fully) seen accurately with their consumers will fuel their choices (decisions) per Dolby Vision vs ACES vs home-brew, etc..

It seems to me that if color accuracy is mission-critical for one's client (or one's personal standards) then finding the appropriate end-to-end solution will require more thoughtful decision making for one's gear investments. While I do not have to work with corporate branding folks or particular wedding clients for whom color accuracy might/will be paramount, I do run into enough color inconsistency with gear for my outdoor shooting that I would very much like to improve upon. I can't tell you how bad many camera sensors I've encountered when challenged with this seemingly innocuous target...

violet flower at DuckDuckGo

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=violet+flower&t=h_&iax=images&ia=images

...hint: those images are mostly all wrong! Ha! Color is not a minor or inconsequential thing for this user.

That said, I am very pleased with how my S1 handles the majority of color situations for my needs, and I am greatly encourage to hear from Panasonic that the color coming out of the GH6 will be able to use the very same V-LOG LUTS as the S1, S1H..."Thank you!" Panasonic engineers for getting that new MFT sensor to perform so closely with your FF sensor!

My goals for this year are to learn how to shoot and grade for 1000-nit DCI-P3, so, for me, getting accustomed to and familiar and comfortable with the wider DR and increased luminance and color information will likely be the biggest areas for that education. 🙂

[hyalinejim]

22 minutes ago, Jimmy G said:

I am greatly encourage to hear from Panasonic that the color coming out of the GH6 will be able to use the very same V-LOG LUTS as the S1, S1H

This is interesting. Do you remember the source for that? Did they go so far as to say that the colour reproduction of the GH6 in VLog is very similar to the S series cameras?

[Jimmy G]

56 minutes ago, hyalinejim said:

This is interesting. Do you remember the source for that? Did they go so far as to say that the colour reproduction of the GH6 in VLog is very similar to the S series cameras?

<<

The LUMIX GH6 offers the renowned colorimetry of the VariCam line of cinema cameras and uses their V-LOG picture profile and wider V-Gamut. For monitoring your work and to see an image that is no longer in LOG, the GH6 includes the V709 LUT (Look Up Table) with Rec.709 standard in the camera by default, this LUT can be output over HDMI or to the cameras monitors or both. It is possible to install your own LUT’s into the GH6 and access them from the V-Log View Assist menu. For users of the Varicam and EVA1 the GH6 can support LUT’s in their .vlt format, and for users of other camera systems we also support the .cube format.

>>

From Panasonic's GH6 Press Release here...

The LUMIX GH6, a Compact Next-generation Mirrorless Camera Featuring Unlimited C4K/60p in 4:2:2 10-bit, 5.7K/60p in 10-bit and 4K 120p HFR / FHD Maximum 300fps VFR Video Recording | Panasonic North America - United States

https://info.panasonic.com/news/lumix-gh6-compact-next-generation-mirrorless-camera-featuring-unlimited-c4k60p-422-10-bit-57k60p-10

 

And these were the Panasonic VariCam LUTS to which I was referring...

VARICAM LUT LIBRARY | Support | Cinema Camera Global | Panasonic

https://pro-av.panasonic.net/en/cinema_camera_varicam_eva/support/lut/index.html

[hyalinejim]

That's very interesting! I see they make the same claim for the S series cameras. I'd love, at some stage, to see a side by side of the same colourful scene from the GH6 and one or more of the S cameras to see how much the colours match, or not. I guess there are different sensors so there may still be variation.

[kye]

3 hours ago, Jimmy G said:

From my studies and observations of the current use of the technology it seems as though 1000-nit DCI-P3 is where things are currently settling for home distribution and consumption.

Walter Volpatto also mentioned that he's never been asked for a HDR output that wasn't limited to the P3 colour space, so it seems that you're right that 1000 nit P3 is becoming the standard.

3 hours ago, Jimmy G said:

It seems to me that if color accuracy is mission-critical for one's client (or one's personal standards) then finding the appropriate end-to-end solution will require more thoughtful decision making for one's gear investments.

Colour accuracy is a pipe dream and (besides "how can I get my iPhone to look like an Alexa") is the topic that gets the colourists the most excited.  

The best approach that I've seen the colourists take is:

• grade on a calibrated display
• keep a calibrated consumer-grade 709 display handy and check it every so often to make sure you're not doing anything stupid
• get whatever display the Director is viewing your work on and check it on that too
• once it leaves your studio, forget about it
• whenever someone important (other than the Director) starts yelling at you incoherently about the colour being completely screwed, arrange to have them visit your studio and show them what it looks like on your reference display and make sure to explain in great detail how expensive and calibrated everything is

If you want to talk about accuracy, let's start the conversation discussing the final season of Game of Thrones......

1 hour ago, hyalinejim said:

That's very interesting! I see they make the same claim for the S series cameras. I'd love, at some stage, to see a side by side of the same colourful scene from the GH6 and one or more of the S cameras to see how much the colours match, or not. I guess there are different sensors so there may still be variation.

It seems to be an approach taken by other manufacturers too - shoot a scene at "correct" exposure on multiple models of their cameras using their standard log profile and you should be able to pull all the footage into post, apply their LUT or CST, and everything should match across all the cameras.  

Canon did that with the XC10 - matching it to the C-series line, which was why it took the same ridiculously expensive media as the C200/300 but didn't use the cards to even remotely near their performance, and used the C-Log profile but didn't use the full 0-1024 values but instead mapped the XC10 limited DR to where that DR lined up with the same values coming from a C500 or whatever.

In the case of the XC10 it meant they basically crippled the camera for the sake of compatibility, but it would have been great to be able to use these for BTS and reference use (which seemed to be something they did) and not have to have a separate colour pipeline in post, which would have been really useful for the VFX folks who might want to see the setups and might also want a colour reference from that.

[Jimmy G]

1 hour ago, kye said:

whenever someone important (other than the Director) starts yelling at you incoherently about the colour being completely screwed, arrange to have them visit your studio and show them what it looks like on your reference display and make sure to explain in great detail how expensive and calibrated everything is

Well, being both the director and client I guess I've streamlined my color-grading pipeline immensely! Ha!

But, to my "violet" problem (and akin)...that I can reproduce an output that closely resembles (dare I say, matches?!) an actual sample of that same flower in hand I'll feel that I've come a long ways towards a sense of (what I refer to as, ahem) color accuracy.

:)

P.S. I've never watched a single episode of GoT, so the reference is lost on me.

[mercer]

16 minutes ago, Jimmy G said:

But, to my "violet" problem (and akin)...that I can reproduce an output that closely resembles (dare I say, matches?!) an actual sample of that same flower in hand I'll feel that I've come a long ways towards a sense of (what I refer to as, ahem) color accuracy.

If you're looking for color accuracy, you'd probably be better off looking at a Sony camera and use one of their picture profiles. Their neutral profile always seemed pretty accurate and allowed a little wiggle room to adjust contrast and saturation to taste.

Or maybe grab a camcorder. I feel a lot of people would be better off with a camcorder for video than mucking around with Log profiles in photo cameras.

[leslie]

On 3/9/2022 at 9:02 AM, hyalinejim said:

The GH6 is in stock at my local camera shop in Dublin, Ireland, where I bought my GH5 when it was first released. If I wasn't living on the other side of the world, literally, I think I would pop in and pick one up to see what all the fuss is about.

they have opened up travel here in aus. Dunno about nz ? but it would probably be worthwhile ducking home for a visit, getting a camera  and avoiding the import duty. If its anything like aus 🙄

[hyalinejim]

Well I'll be heading back in the winter (Northern summer) for good so yeah I think I'll definitely wait until then. The GH6 is a bit cheaper in Europe than down under, like so many things are... cough, cough MILK AND CHEESE yes I'm talking about you. I don't know how it is Aus but in NZ you'd better be doctor or a lawyer if you fancy a cheese toastie and a glass of milk 😂

[Jimmy G]

2 hours ago, mercer said:

If you're looking for color accuracy, you'd probably be better off looking at a Sony camera and use one of their picture profiles. Their neutral profile always seemed pretty accurate and allowed a little wiggle room to adjust contrast and saturation to taste.

Or maybe grab a camcorder. I feel a lot of people would be better off with a camcorder for video than mucking around with Log profiles in photo cameras.

Well, I "did" Sony with their a7R, a7SII and a6300, which covered my FF and crop needs quite nicely with the added bonus of the a7SII opening my eyes to what the creative possibilities and capture possibilities were now available with high-ISO for low-light shooting environments. My love affair with their cameras was short lived, however, as I was not a fan of their bluish cast in daylight conditions and, most importantly, their poor (for me) ergonomics...I truly did not like how they handled (as in, they never felt intuitive) nor how their menu system was implemented (er, slapped together).

As for camcorders...they were, once-upon-a-time, the natural evolution for me after years of shooting Super8 (Canon A1 Hi-8mm, and various Sony camcorder models culminating with the 3-CCD VX2000) until the 5DII arrived on the scene. Until then a shooting day became the hard choice between stills or video but not both, I was never ever going to lug two completely different setups into the field. The 5DII changed all that, one could now do both stills and video and my days of camcorders was officially over.

From my journey through Canon to Sony to Panasonic I feel as though I have arrived home, they get most of what is important to me right. My FZ1000 (my toe-dip into Panasonic a few years back) and 2x S1's have become invisible appendages to me in the field, when I raise the camera to my eye I can nimbly adapt any setting change I require without fuss or having to give much, if any, thought. That's gold to me. That and I simply love the files it produces, whether stills or video...if I "got it right in camera" or "close" I find my time with post processing is minimal, limited mostly only to exposure tweaks without much concern for any color tweaking. And that's gold to me, too. I look forward to shooting with their gear...a feeling that Sony never fostered for me.

Methinks the GH6 will eventually turn out to be more than the "cat's meow" for me for my crop sensor needs...well, once I get over being P.O.ed at Panasonic over the whole "making me spend for CFExpress for my S1's for no damn good reason"! LOL

In the meantime I'll wait to see what the new Fuji cropper (X-H2?) brings to the table. ;)

[kye]

4 hours ago, Jimmy G said:

Well, being both the director and client I guess I've streamlined my color-grading pipeline immensely! Ha!

On what I shoot I'm everything... director, cinematographer, audio tech, editor, colourist, and Head of Distribution.

You'd think that would make things easier, but it just means that instead of a room full of people all blaming each other and feeling good about their own work, I just sit quietly wondering what went wrong and wishing I was better at literally everything!

4 hours ago, Jimmy G said:

But, to my "violet" problem (and akin)...that I can reproduce an output that closely resembles (dare I say, matches?!) an actual sample of that same flower in hand I'll feel that I've come a long ways towards a sense of (what I refer to as, ahem) color accuracy.

That's probably pretty easy.

Shoot a few test shots, then just adjust the curves to get the right output.  Specifically, Hue vs Hue, Hue vs Sat and Hue vs Lum.  You'd be amazed at how powerful those are.  if you start with Contrast/Pivot/Sat and then do a pass on those Hue curves you can really get a good grade very simply and easily.  

I use them a lot when grading videos from here in Australia where the grass is almost always patchy and somewhere between lush green and straw yellow, and trying to get a shot-to-shot match when you're pointing in different directions and seeing different bits of lawn.

4 hours ago, Jimmy G said:

P.S. I've never watched a single episode of GoT, so the reference is lost on me.

The final season (and one episode especially) of the show was so dark that it was difficult to follow what was going on in the show - it was a social media shit-storm, the cinematographer blamed the viewers:

https://mashable.com/article/game-of-thrones-too-dark-cinematographer

and websites got a lot of mileage talking about how to re-watch it so you could actually see it:

https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/29/18522550/game-of-thrones-got-season-8-hbo-battle-of-winterfell-long-night-fix-tv-settings-darkness

In reality, it was a large-scale test of how content is consumed in the real world because they pushed how dark the final grade was (which was appropriate to the narrative and subject matter), and the answer was that basically the entire pipeline isn't setup for dark things to even be visible, let alone somehow ..  "accurate".

[MrSMW]

2 hours ago, Jimmy G said:

when I raise the camera to my eye I can nimbly adapt any setting change I require without fuss or having to give much, if any, thought. That's gold to me. That and I simply love the files it produces, whether stills or video...if I "got it right in camera" or "close" I find my time with post processing is minimal, limited mostly only to exposure tweaks without much concern for any color tweaking. And that's gold to me, too. I look forward to shooting with their gear...

Yep. Very important to me also.

I’m not opposed to change other than when it’s change for change sake or because the new latest thing ‘might’ make a difference.

2 hours ago, Jimmy G said:

n the meantime I'll wait to see what the new Fuji cropper (X-H2?) brings to the table

Another yep. That’s one of four options potentially that I may sometime in the future switch or upgrade to:

Fuji XH2

Panny S1/S5 line ii

OM-1

Sigma FP next gen

But as above ONLY if there is a compelling enough reason for me to do so that makes it worthwhile as changing an entire system is a pain in the ass on so many levels, but principally familiarity.

GH6 is also potentially on the table, but right now, the OM Systems option has slightly more appeal…

For video, either of the current 4/3 options could easily meet my needs, it’s just the stills side that concerns me.

I have had various 4/3 cameras before but they fell slightly short compared with Fuji APSC I was using at the time, so compared with 24mp full frame, never mind my 47mp S1R…

I could easily switch back to 4/3 for video without testing as it’s a known quantity for me, but for stills, I’d need to run some tests.

Fortunately, all/any change is off the table until at least this next Winter!

[Jimmy G]

7 hours ago, kye said:

>snip<

...I just sit quietly wondering what went wrong and wishing I was better at literally everything!

LOL, nicely put, methinks we're not alone on this one!

7 hours ago, kye said:

That's probably pretty easy.

Shoot a few test shots... >snip<

I'm not sure what the solutions will be for my, um, "difficult subjects" (i.e. those flowers or birds or insects, etc. for whom I'll need to give some color adjustment/fine-tuning and attention to) all the more reason for my desires to broaden my understandings of natural color and how the camera interprets it moving forward...I need a good foundation to build upon.

 

7 hours ago, kye said:

The final season (and one episode especially) of the show was so dark that it was difficult to follow what was going on in the show... >snip<

Ahh, thanks for the reference! 😉

__________________________

5 hours ago, MrSMW said:

But as above ONLY if there is a compelling enough reason for me to do so that makes it worthwhile as changing an entire system is a pain in the ass on so many levels, but principally familiarity.

I don't mention the option of an X-H2 lightly for those very reasons, beyond the prohibitive costs changing and/or adding another system is truly not a decision to be taken lightly. That said, should they provide some key features (i.e. great/similar codecs, internal RAW) that are of key interest to me and help me move and educate myself in the directions I'm looking to go I can see myself being willing to brave the detour for the experience.

I'm impatient and excited to work with 12-bit RAW files, Panasonic needs to deliver on this internally with the GH6...it's becoming a deal-breaker for me. The "used ninja" option I'm weighing is far from any sense of ideal or in-field practicality, it would be just to generate a whole slew of RAW test shots for me for various environments and lighting conditions for my experimentation and education, then I'd sell that crap off ASAP. Camera, lens and shoe-mic only for my journeys, Panasonic. Let's rock this town! :)

 

[mercer]

@Jimmy G I understand your desire for raw files, once I started shooting raw on my 5Diii, 5 years ago, I was hooked and every new camera release since, although tempting with their new features, always seemed lacking. 14bit Raw is very addictive.

Since this is a thread on the GH6, I won't waste too much space pushing other cameras, especially since the ProRes HQ files should be pretty juicy, but since you also mentioned macro shooting, I figured I'd mention it... have you seen this 5Diii macro video posted on the Footage forum by Zero Landscape?

Since you mentioned owning a 5D at some point, I figured it was worth mentioning.

On another note, since you're already invested in the L-mount, why not be on the lookout for a used Sigma FP for some uncompressed internal 12bit 1080p raw, or 4K raw with a small and unobtrusive SSD?

Anyway, sorry for the detour...

GH6. 

[Mmmbeats]

The high-contrast streaking issue seems to be rearing its head a bit unfortunately.

 

(not personal experience, just what I'm seeing online)