Panasonic GH6

[webrunner5]

That is super clean video, the whites are white, the black print is black...eh well eh... 😵

[kye]

4 hours ago, hyalinejim said:

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.

What was the ambient temp?

[mercer]

4 hours ago, hyalinejim said:

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.

That's not bad at all. I was starting to think that it was getting OG BMPCC type of numbers with how much I've heard about the bad battery life. 

[hyalinejim]

6 hours ago, kye said:

What was the ambient temp?

Not more than 25C

[webrunner5]

29 minutes ago, hyalinejim said:

Not more than 25C

cool that's cool.

[kye]

1 hour ago, hyalinejim said:

Not more than 25C

Yeah, that's the common methodology.

As someone who has overheated an iPhone while out shooting because it was over 40C / 104F and in direct sunlight, I'm not spending even $100 on something that was only guaranteed to work flawlessly in Iceland, let alone $2000!

I've seen a few YouTubers have cabinets they test things in now, so they do their tests at 40/104 or 38/100 which makes more sense.  This is the only temperature test worth anything, unless your camera never goes outside.

[hyalinejim]

1 hour ago, kye said:

temperature test

Just so we're all on the page: I was testing battery life, not overheating. Of course, the figure doesn't mean anything until it's compared to something else. I'll try to run the same test on a GH5 to compare.

 

2 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

cool that's cool

Not in Ireland lol! Hottest day of the year so far 😂

 

[kye]

4 hours ago, hyalinejim said:

Just so we're all on the page: I was testing battery life, not overheating. Of course, the figure doesn't mean anything until it's compared to something else. I'll try to run the same test on a GH5 to compare.

Ah, of course!  My bad.

[PannySVHS]

Thanks a lot! @hyalinejim That sounds pretty good. 10bit 4K60p with dynamic boost downsampled from the 5.7K sensor is a quiet a task. Was it 422?

[webrunner5]

Well, here is a picture of the beast rig.

 

[webrunner5]

Picture with the Panny 14-140mm kit lens.

[webrunner5]

First picture taken with the 300mm. Exciting isn't it. That thing is about half a block away lol.

 

[hyalinejim]

3 hours ago, PannySVHS said:

Was it 422?

Yes, it was!

7 hours ago, hyalinejim said:

I'll try to run the same test on a GH5 to compare.

 

GH5 ran to 1h 44m 56s! (4k 60 8bit 420)

So why are people, myself included, moaning about GH6 battery life? Perhaps the GH6 battery eats battery faster when not recording? I might try a test where both are switched on but not recording and see when each one dies.

That's kind of a drag, though, as I'd have to sit there and watch them... unless I had a third camera that can record forever, which I don't 😂

BTW am I right in saying that on the GH5 you can't use V-Log view assist during playback? As in, it will always be in log? If so, that's another thing I like about the GH6: you can show the client the shot you just took and not have to say "It looks all grey and washed out now, but I'll fix that in the final video, don't worry!"

 

[kye]

8 hours ago, hyalinejim said:

Yes, it was!

GH5 ran to 1h 44m 56s! (4k 60 8bit 420)

So why are people, myself included, moaning about GH6 battery life? Perhaps the GH6 battery eats battery faster when not recording? I might try a test where both are switched on but not recording and see when each one dies.

That's kind of a drag, though, as I'd have to sit there and watch them... unless I had a third camera that can record forever, which I don't 😂

BTW am I right in saying that on the GH5 you can't use V-Log view assist during playback? As in, it will always be in log? If so, that's another thing I like about the GH6: you can show the client the shot you just took and not have to say "It looks all grey and washed out now, but I'll fix that in the final video, don't worry!"

Why are people moaning about battery life?  I think a huge proportion of camera criticism is emotional, not rational.  Take the GH6 for example, people were comparing the battery life between GH5 and GH6 (perhaps without facts) and are critical of that, but then they compare the DR to something like the P6K and are critical again.  This thread is full of combinations like that. 
Instead, had they compared the DR between the GH5 and GH6 they'd be complimentary, and compared the battery life between GH6 and P6K they'd also be complimentary.

Realistically, you have to compare all aspects of one camera with all aspects of another.  Comparing the DR to camera X and battery life to camera Y implies that I can buy a camera with the DR of camera X and the DR of camera Y, which of course doesn't make any sense.

Anyway, I'm very curious to hear about how the battery life compares.

In terms of how to compare the GH5 vs GH6 battery life on standby, use the timelapse mode on your phone (and have it on charge) and put a clock in the shot.  You only need a rough comparison (if they're within a minute or two of each other then that's good enough) and there's no huge file-sizes to deal with, and no media management - just review it on the phone at the end to see the times they shut down and then delete the clip!

[Robb]

On 7/7/2022 at 3:40 PM, hyalinejim said:

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.

Wouldn't mind sharing that would you? I would happily pay for it. I'd like to mess around with it. It's very nice! 

[MrSMW]

3 hours ago, kye said:

Why are people moaning about battery life?

Was the same with every Fuji X camera for the decade I was using them…

Was it great? Compared with a DSLR? Nope.

Was it terrible? Nope. But I could easily get 1000+ frames out of any Fuji X camera shooting Jpeg + Raw. Easily.

Video, a good hour plus and other than for the longer stuff such as ceremonies and speeches, I can’t remember now if the XT3 could run off a power bank or not but pretty sure at least the XT4 and XH2s do.

Same with the Panny S cameras. Almost every review ‘reports’ not great battery life based on quoting the official spreadsheet figure of whatever it is, 350x shots.

If you can’t get triple that, you are doing something wrong.

And if you can’t for whatever reason, just have a spare battery in your pocket and take 10 seconds out of your life to swap to a new one.

One of the most overrated topics in cameraland.

[kye]

39 minutes ago, MrSMW said:

And if you can’t for whatever reason, just have a spare battery in your pocket and take 10 seconds out of your life to swap to a new one.

One of the most overrated topics in cameraland.

One thing that really changes this is the gradual adoption of in-camera charging, and now USB charging.  I figure that you're either:

1. On a dedicated shoot with a rig etc
2. Doing handheld run-n-gun where the cameras are on your person the whole time, being used or just being carried
3. Being on a tripod, either waiting or recording long takes

The first is sort of a professional set and so operator can factor in a change of battery every so often, or can rig a V-mount.  Longer battery life is a consideration but something that I'd imagine can be managed.

The second is what I do.  I typically have two cameras, one in-hand and the other clipped to a strap of my backpack.  In this configuration I could have a USB charger and a cable routed in my bag to emerge near the mount on my chest, so when a camera was clipped in there it was also charging.

The third could simply include a USB charger on the tripod.  If someone was taking a camera on and off the tripod then the tripod would act as a charging station for it, essentially meaning that every time it was taken off the tripod it would have a refreshed (or completely charged) battery.

Assuming battery life being the better part of an hour (or more) then these situations seem quite convenient.  I travelled with my GH5 for weeks across multiple trips and had long days shooting where I would carry the camera for long periods and turn it on to take shots then turn it off again.  I only own two batteries for it and never ran out of battery or had power anxiety.  I am careful to always fully charge both batteries and to download from the card each night, but it was never a stress, and most days I didn't even need the second battery.

I standardised on a charging setup of a wall-powered USB charging hub (with 6 super-speed USB charging ports) running into the third-party dual battery chargers, so I can charge two batteries on one USB cable.  Its travel friendly as the USB power hub takes 110-240V 50-60Hz, plus I could use the chargers from my laptop if I wanted to, and even from a USB hub in my bag if I really needed that support in the field, but I've never needed the chargers to leave the hotel room.  I might if, for example, I went on safari in Africa and was staying away from mains power.

I have those USB double-chargers for the XC10/BMMCC (same battery type), the GH5, the BMPCC, the GX85/GF3 (also same battery type), and two for the Sony X3000 action camera (one for the camera and one for the monitor).  Often they come as a package with a couple of third-party batteries (I recommend Wasabi) so they're very affordable.

A good tip for a setup like that designed for travel is to make sure you use it at home too, so that way you've verified that it is working and reliable.  I normally travel with a spare USB charging hub and also the charger that comes with the camera as a default, although if the camera can charge internally, I wouldn't need the factory wall charger as the camera could be the fallback option.

I'd imagine you have a slightly more serious setup for weddings, with multiple cameras and many more batteries, but the principles would be similar I would imagine.  A good idea that I saw once, maybe from the f-stoppers guys (?), was to mount all the adapters and chargers onto a piece of corflute (corrugated plastic) with zip ties.  It weighs almost nothing but you can make a nice compact layout, neatly route the cables, means that packing and unpacking it is one item not a dozen (so you don't forget any) and it can even be mounted vertically in the hotel or vehicle etc whereas a bunch of floating chargers would need a flat surface and get tangled and generally be a pain.  

I haven't done this yet because I typically travel with different cameras each trip, plus the location of wall outlets etc changes a lot between hotels.  I also travel with a USB charger for my phone and a power brick for my MBP.  Both of these are also backups for charging if I needed them.  USB as a charging standard really is great as it centralises all this stuff.

[MrSMW]

1 hour ago, kye said:

I'd imagine you have a slightly more serious setup for weddings, with multiple cameras and many more batteries

I have a pair of S1R's on me at all times shooting hybrid, ie, photo and video clips, anything from 10-15 hours and swap batteries late on when they show around 1/4 power. More 'precautionary' than anything so I don't get caught out at a critical moment. I have 4 other spare batteries so not even a concern.

I then have the S5 on a tripod with a cine lens. I only use it for ceremony and speeches and unless it's over an hour, just switch the battery the one time after ceremony and that's it.

The S1H moves between tripod (ceremony & speeches) to monopod rest of the day and might consume 2 batteries.

The ZV1 (backup C&S) is the only one I bother to use a power bank with these days as the battery life on that really is a bit trash! Just clamps to a tripod leg.

Drone came with 3 batteries and I never get through all 3 on a single day shoot.

I think if I had something like a Sigma FP, I would however go for either a mini clamped on power bank, or better still, a cable and belt loop battery (dummy internal) which would run the thing all day without issue.

I could do the same with any of the above as a 'poor man's version', ie, just stick the power bank in my back pocket but the reality is battery life is a near non-issue to me. Never has been.

Other than the ZV1, I have more than enough spare battery power for my needs and whether at home or away in my caravan/travel trailer, have a charging station set up where before bed, I just drop in all/most of my batteries and all my audio gear is internal USB.

Wake up in the morning, all recharged.

But this is just my use case.

[hyalinejim]

On 7/6/2022 at 8:05 PM, hyalinejim said:

it seems like the battery life is really shit compared to the GH5

Well, I have to eat my hat 😳 😂

I did another test and ran each camera on standby using previous settings. GH5 lasted around 1h 50m and GH6 lasted 2h 17m.

Now, the GH5 battery is older and has been through quite a few cycles, whereas GH6 battery is brand new.

So why is everyone saying GH6 battery life is way worse? Aside from the fact that when recording it does eat battery a little bit faster, maybe it's because the GH6 battery is not fully charged until all the lights on the charger go out, and people don't realise that?

BTW, in standby mode GH5 died around 5 minutes after the red flashing indicator, and GH6 was more like 10 minutes.

[FoxAdriano]

Please don't laugh because I'm not an expert in photography. Out of curiosity: with GH6 when you make stills, you usually use Manual or semi-automatic profiles, for example with aperture priority, etc. etc.

Instead I would like to know if in the video, do you usually use the AUTOmatic White Balance or the white preselection?