Panasonic GH6

[hyalinejim]

1 hour ago, PannySVHS said:

Muaha, they look exactly the same!

Lol! In all fairness and after looking closely at the above, the GH6 does seem to have slightly finer detail and a slightly softer and more natural look when viewing at 100% in 4K. But it's subtle!

I guess with GH5 V-Log a lot of people might have left the NR and sharpness settings at their default settings instead of turning them down to the minimum and this may have contributed to the idea that the GH5 is overprocessed.

@deezid might chime in with his experiences as I think he now has a GH6

[J.D.]

I'm very disappointed in the update from an anamorphic options viewpoint.  One, they refuse to give us the 3.3K 4:3 option in ALL-I (or lower resolution), and none of the anamorphic options are available in ProRes or ProRes HQ.  I like my anamorphic footage to have some grit to it.  The 3.3K handled that well as it was closer to film resolution.  Now it has that pristine anamorphic look I really don't like.  The fact that they put anamorphic options in Long GOP still baffles me when they had it perfect on the GH5.

[Robb]

2 hours ago, hyalinejim said:

Lol! In all fairness and after looking closely at the above, the GH6 does seem to have slightly finer detail and a slightly softer and more natural look when viewing at 100% in 4K. But it's subtle!

I guess with GH5 V-Log a lot of people might have left the NR and sharpness settings at their default settings instead of turning them down to the minimum and this may have contributed to the idea that the GH5 is overprocessed.

@deezid might chime in with his experiences as I think he now has a GH6

I was going to say exactly this. It's subtle, but the GH6 looks softer. Great grade btw. Similar to the GHAlex workflow with the nice highlight rolloff.

 

FWIW his sample footage of the GH6 vs Alexa were indistinguishable to me. Like you, he's still doing some tests but so far he told me this is his favorite camera ever by far. 

[hyalinejim]

7 minutes ago, Robb said:

Great grade btw

Thanks! It's a lut I made that emulates Portra 400 film as scanned on a minilab scanner (which I've posted about here before). Since negative film has quite a lot of stops above middle grey and only a few under, the highlights are relatively low contrast compared to the shadows.

[PannySVHS]

26 minutes ago, Robb said:

FWIW his sample footage of the GH6 vs Alexa were indistinguishable to me. Like you, he's still doing some tests but so far he told me this is his favorite camera ever by far. 

Wow, sounds like great things to come. Though the lack of all intra or prores for anamorphic modes is a pity. Did they also exclude Prores for UHD 3840x2160? I could'nt find it in the list. Would be akward. Prores LT please. 444 for the HD modes if possible.

[projectwoofer]

Don’t know….the GH6 seems too bulky and heavy for a M43 camera to be fun for me. And that whole DR boost thing with its native ISO in order to have a bit better DR which is still lower than my S5. I can understand that professionals would love it though.

[newfoundmass]

I'm going to be able to play around with one in a few weeks but overall I'm pretty underwhelmed from what I've seen and heard. I know people who absolutely love it, but when really looking at it a lot of the things that I'd want are actually in the GH5II. 4K 120p would be nice, but I don't need it, especially since I've gotten really good results from using Topaz Video Enhance AI to upscale 1080p 120fps. ProRes is nice, but it'd be nice to have ProRes LT because 95% of the time I don't need HQ or even standard ProRes. The better stabilization, low light, audio controls, etc. are all very welcome but again they're not something I NEED.

There's really just not a ton of reasons why I'd need to upgrade from the GH5 short of my GH5 dying, but even then I think I'd probably just buy a used GH5 or another used S5 before considering a GH6. That I'd have to rig a GH6 up with an external battery solution doesn't help its case. Maybe the battery life of the GH3, GH4, and GH5 spoiled me, but as an event shooter that likes to work as light as possible, it's a real bummer that the battery life is so poor. 

[kye]

17 hours ago, hyalinejim said:

I don't like it either! Especially when doing long interviews 😞

I definitely thought I noticed a difference between the GH5 and S series cameras. But, forgetting about noise, high ISO performance and recovering from bad exposure and concentrating only on the "organic" versus "artificial" continuum I don't see a difference between the GH5 and GH6 set at the same exposure when examining single frame. Here are some examples. Both cameras are ISO 400 V-Log and have been colour and exposure matched. GH5 is first, then GH6 in each pair:

 

 

That's what I mean about the image being essentially identical for my purposes. Maybe the detail is slightly finer and less coarse in the GH6??

Of course, this comparison ignores temporal characteristics (maybe the noise pattern is nicer on the GH6?) as well as the extra dynamic range in DR boost which will differentiate it from the GH5, as well as the VLog colour being a nicer starting point on the GH6 if you're just going to use Panasonic's luts.

That is a very good point!

Thanks!

I've noticed a huge difference in 'feel' when colour grading between the GH5 and the BMMCC, with the BMMCC just doing exactly what you wanted it to and the GH5 colour feeling like it was arguing against me all the time.  This was between the GH5 in 150Mbps 4K or 200Mbps 1080p vs the BMMCC in Prores HQ (~176Mbps 1080p) so it's not a RAW vs compressed issue.

What are your impressions of colouring the GH5 vs GH6 footage?  Does the GH6 feel nicer to colour grade?  

It was kind of hard to quantify, but when I pushed the BMMCC footage around (warmer, cooler, greener, more magenta, etc) it just did what you'd expect - it felt simple, whereas with the GH5 it felt like some parts of the image would do the right thing but others wouldn't - like it was complicated and resisting and squirming, and basically the colour turned to shit pretty quickly.  This might have been related to not getting the WB correct in-camera?

I would imagine that a proper implementation of V-Log in the GH6 would help in the grading experience, and I'd imagine that any sufficiently skilled colourist could probably get good results from either camera, but for us not-so-good colourists I'm wondering if there will be a difference in difficulty where the GH6 is easier to grade than the GH5 footage?

I'm also keen to hear your impressions of the h264 vs h265 vs Prores codecs, including the analog vs digital aspects of the aesthetic they each have.  I'm imagining that the Prores would have a nicer noise floor for example, more like film than digital.

[FoxAdriano]

On 7/6/2022 at 8:15 AM, Phil A said:

Waveform is quite likely only for video function, for stills you probably have to activate the histogram if you want to see that.

Thanks for your reply. I have no experience with GH6 and stills. Could you tell me which GH6 profile do you prefer to take portraits? Is choosing V-Log a bad idea for portraits in stills? Generally which profile do you use? Thanks again.

[webrunner5]

Well, I made a total liar out of myself and went and bought another Panasonic GH5 with V Log in it. And to make it even more crazy I bought a Canon FD 300mm f2.8 lens, the big white one, with it, and the older 14-140mm Panny lens, the black and gray one.

With the newer firmware updates the GH5 has gotten a lot better than when I had mine before.  Pretty hard camera to beat used even today.  The 300mm ought to be good for birding and well why not. I am going to use it with my EF to M4/3 Speedbooster so will be interesting. So now I will have even more stuff.

[Phil A]

8 hours ago, FoxAdriano said:

Thanks for your reply. I have no experience with GH6 and stills. Could you tell me which GH6 profile do you prefer to take portraits? Is choosing V-Log a bad idea for portraits in stills? Generally which profile do you use? Thanks again.

I don’t think you can use V-LOG for pictures. It was like that on the GH5 which I have, doubt it was changed on the GH6?

I always shoot raw and then develop in Adobe Lightroom.

[J.D.]

We have the GH6 for work. 
 

The lack of anamorphic shooting options frustrates me as we have a slew of anamorphic lenses. There is no 3.3K (which desqueezed would make a nice 4K image). Instead, we got 5.7K anamorphic and 4.6K anamorphic at 48fps?!?

 

I can only reason was to shoot anamorphic in high resolution and slow motion as high of a resolution as they could (4.6K). The issue I have is the 3.3K 4:3 desqueezed gives it that nice textured Super 35mm look. 5.7 is too clean for anamorphic for me.  

I’m confused as to why that was omitted. Not to mention all the anamorphic modes are 10 bit 420 Long GOP with no ProRes options at all.  The GH5 is a Anamorphic beast IMHO.
 

 

[kye]

1 hour ago, J.D. said:

We have the GH6 for work. 

The lack of anamorphic shooting options frustrates me as we have a slew of anamorphic lenses. There is no 3.3K (which desqueezed would make a nice 4K image). Instead, we got 5.7K anamorphic and 4.6K anamorphic at 48fps?!?

I can only reason was to shoot anamorphic in high resolution and slow motion as high of a resolution as they could (4.6K). The issue I have is the 3.3K 4:3 desqueezed gives it that nice textured Super 35mm look. 5.7 is too clean for anamorphic for me.  

I’m confused as to why that was omitted. Not to mention all the anamorphic modes are 10 bit 420 Long GOP with no ProRes options at all.  The GH5 is a Anamorphic beast IMHO.
 

The GH6 is the likely replacement for my GH5 but I'm waiting until I start travelling again until I buy something.  I'm hoping that Panasonic will gradually "fill out" the modes and options.

Off the top of my head, these are some of the things that people are talking about:

• Digital zoom (2x and 3x would be great)**
• 1080p48**
• Prores 444 (12-bit!!)**
• Prores LT (UHD 328Mbps or 6K ~750Mbps)
• UHD resolution modes
• More of the lower resolution modes (like you're saying with the 3.3K anamorphic)
• SSD recording
• USB-C charging

** - these are the things that I'm seriously hoping for.  

The GH6 anamorphic modes and especially anamorphic stabilisation will only become a larger and larger feature once the new batch of anamorphic glass from China really comes in.

At the moment the camera market seems to be very fragmented and the GH6 has a number of very serious but unlikely competitors.  For me, the weaknesses of the GH5 are the DR and lacklustre colour science.  The camera industry has made huge improvements on these since the GH5 and the GH6 doesn't appear to have caught up to the leaders.  As such, and chasing those things, the two main competitors are the Sigma FP (FF, spectacular DR and colour, lacking codecs and stabilisation - either IBIS or OIS lens options), or potentially something from Blackmagic if they get their shit together and release a camera with the image of the 6K or 12K UMP but that will fit into the same seat as me on planes/trains/ferries/etc.

However, if someone (Deezid?) is getting Alexa-like results from it then I'm all ears (or eyes!) about how that's possible and what working methods that might involve.

[PannySVHS]

That they left out Prores for UHD and anamorphic modes plus Prores LT in general is really akward. Internal NDs would have helped this camera on the number 1 spot for mirrorless video. The latter cannot be changed. A GH6Cinema could change that. But by then a S2H will rock the market. If Sony is clever they give the A7s3 a mode without noise reduction. Until that does not happen, i would consider the Gh6 more compelling due to its "organic" low light image, which the Gh5 does not provide btw.

[PannySVHS]

I´m on the fence of selling my S1 and getting a GH6. But I cannot afford to risk possible streaking on a paid gig. So still on the fence and maybe even more rightfully so, if battery life seems so underwhelming. I wouldnt want to expect @kye to take the risk and let us know, if his then GH6 would have at least the battery life of his GX85 in DGO and 60p mode. That would be the absolute minimum I would like to accept from a camera like the GH6.

[kye]

1 hour ago, PannySVHS said:

I´m on the fence of selling my S1 and getting a GH6. But I cannot afford to risk possible streaking on a paid gig. So still on the fence and maybe even more rightfully so, if battery life seems so underwhelming. I wouldnt want to expect @kye to take the risk and let us know, if his then GH6 would have at least the battery life of his GX85 in DGO and 60p mode. That would be the absolute minimum I would like to accept from a camera like the GH6.

I stopped being a tech early adopter a long time ago, now I wait for the tech behemoths to beta-test their products on other people and work out the bugs (you know, or don't) before jumping in.

My plan is to hold off on buying anything until I start travelling again, which is COVID dependent and let's just say that I think that'll be a long time.  Even then, with the improvements in Resolve and my glacially-improving colour grading skills, I could easily hold-off for a trip or three and just keep using the GH5.

Right now, the cameras that are most interesting to me are my BMMCC and my GF3.

[hyalinejim]

1 hour ago, PannySVHS said:

, if his then GH6 would have at least the battery life of his GX85 in DGO and 60p mode

I can run a test for you if you tell me the parameters you're interesred in. I can run record on a full battery and see how long it lasts.

[PannySVHS]

Hey, that would be fantastic. I´d suggest Dynamic boost in 4K60p, 10bit 422, Long GOP. That should be the most challenging and with the most interesting feature of Dynamic boost included. Thanks a lot! @hyalinejim

That´s a strategy I highly recommend. I hopefully will get to use all my equipment more and also sell what I don´t use. You also got the mighty and beautiful GX85, the dear friend of your GF3.:) @kye

[hyalinejim]

On 7/9/2022 at 4:43 PM, PannySVHS said:

I´d suggest Dynamic boost in 4K60p, 10bit 422, Long GOP.

I've just pressed record!

[hyalinejim]

1h 29m 17s

This is in 4k 60p LongGOP with DR boost.

Static scene exposed at +0, camera on tripod, IBIS off, LCD flipped out with backlight at 0 brightness.