Clearing up the utter bull**** in this Tony Northup Panasonic S1 video

[dr_jon]

The point about equivalent aperture isn't just DoF, it's noise too, as most of the noise comes in with the light and a physically smaller aperture (i.e. higher f/ equivalent number) lets in less of it. Up to a point you don't care, then you do...

I like the point about using the crop Sigma on the S1, but then you can only shoot cropped video so more one for the pros with a budget.

[Orangenz]

Great article Andrew. It needed to be said. 

[IronFilm]

21 hours ago, EspenB said:

Well, not if you want that dual pixel AF

Not if you want AF in 4K!!

 

14 hours ago, currensheldon said:

Yea this video is ridiculous, especially since he has never touched the camera.

With that said, I am a bit disappointed in the Panasonic S1. Mostly due to the lack of codecs that the GH5 (now a two year old camera) offers. And yes, it will get 10-bit 422, but I am actually curious of which is better (with all things being equal).

- 10 bit 422 LongGOP at 150mbps or

- 8 bit 420 All-I at 480 mbps (EOS R)

Even with a lower bit-depth, my knee jerk reaction would be that triple the bit rate would result in a fuller, more gradable image than the 10-bit. Anyone test these two side by side? At the same time, I really like the 10-bit 422 150mbps on the GH5 and think it looks pretty great. 

Bit rate is at times a bit less important than the codecs used. 

As there are poor compressions, and there are inefficient compressions. And Canon is infamous for using awful ones in the 4K DSLRs, which leads to bloated overly large file sizes. 

I'll take the 10bit 422 option instead please!
 

[Grumble]

I've had a hands on with the S1 and S1R and there is a lot to like about them. The viewfinder is amazing, menus are well laid out, button and dial layout is fairly sensible (though I wish the playback button was on the right hand side of the body). However the ergonomics of a camera is something that's very subjective. Being that I have small hands after being out shooting with the camera for around 30 minutes it became painful to hold as the grip was too large (for me). Also the body cap is really tricky to take off the camera as it's really thin and hard to get a grip on it and that's with my deft pickpocket sized fingers! Thankfully I rarely ever really interact with body caps once a lens has made it's way onto the body, but it is still an ergonomics issue.

By the same token I know people with larger hands have problems with the size and shape of the Sony cameras, which I find the most comfortable to use if the full frame options.

It's great that there is choice on the market but it really irks me when people say the ergonomics of camera x are better than y when it's really subjective and personal to each individual.

I wish Panasonic all the best as I think they've put together a pretty decent overall package.

[Kisaha]

15 hours ago, Grumble said:

I've had a hands on with the S1 and S1R and there is a lot to like about them. The viewfinder is amazing, menus are well laid out, button and dial layout is fairly sensible (though I wish the playback button was on the right hand side of the body). However the ergonomics of a camera is something that's very subjective. Being that I have small hands after being out shooting with the camera for around 30 minutes it became painful to hold as the grip was too large (for me). Also the body cap is really tricky to take off the camera as it's really thin and hard to get a grip on it and that's with my deft pickpocket sized fingers! Thankfully I rarely ever really interact with body caps once a lens has made it's way onto the body, but it is still an ergonomics issue.

By the same token I know people with larger hands have problems with the size and shape of the Sony cameras, which I find the most comfortable to use if the full frame options.

It's great that there is choice on the market but it really irks me when people say the ergonomics of camera x are better than y when it's really subjective and personal to each individual.

I wish Panasonic all the best as I think they've put together a pretty decent overall package.

Very true, ergonomics (except some measurement facts, like screen brightness/viewfinder quality/limited touch screen capabilities/e.t.c) are somehow subjective.

Personally, I am considering the GH5 - especially with m43 lenses - a bit bigger and heavier that I wanted it to be, and A7 cameras (even the iii) a bit smaller and lighter, especially for full frame lenses.

The P4K is "unnecessary" wide!

Can you comment on other aspects of the S1 experience? AF? Overheating? Menu and operation similarities with the GH5?

[thebrothersthre3]

5 hours ago, Kisaha said:

Very true, ergonomics (except some measurement facts, like screen brightness/viewfinder quality/limited touch screen capabilities/e.t.c) are somehow subjective.

Personally, I am considering the GH5 - especially with m43 lenses - a bit bigger and heavier that I wanted it to be, and A7 cameras (even the iii) a bit smaller and lighter, especially for full frame lenses.

The P4K is "unnecessary" wide!

Can you comment on other aspects of the S1 experience? AF? Overheating? Menu and operation similarities with the GH5?

I find the GH5 body perfect in terms of comfortable handling. I like small bodies as long as the grip is nice (the original BM Pocket is a good example). However I'd gladly take a larger body if If a smaller one means overheating. Everyone has different preferences of course. 

I actually think the Fuji cameras are a good compromise for smaller body and smaller lenses. Their 23, 35 and 50mm f2 are tiny, and the 18-55 is pretty small too considering its a zoom lens. Again though the grip on the XT3 and 2 is too small for my taste, I'd prefur an XH1 size body. 

[McHammy]

Dear Andrew,

thank you for your articles and wonderful site full of enthusiastic discussions. I learned a lot from these discussions over the past years - especially on the anamorphics side of things. 

That said, the increasingly aggressive tone in your articles saddens me. Why is this necessary? That is not to say that I agree with Tony Northrup‘s video ... but is it really that important? 

I would love this forum to remain the place of positivity, creativity and artistry - something I look up to. 

There is no reason why it cannot remain that. 

Kind regards, Eric

[Video Hummus]

On 2/15/2019 at 10:35 AM, currensheldon said:

- 10 bit 422 LongGOP at 150mbps or

- 8 bit 420 All-I at 480 mbps (EOS R)

Even with a lower bit-depth, my knee jerk reaction would be that triple the bit rate would result in a fuller, more gradable image than the 10-bit. Anyone test these two side by side? At the same time, I really like the 10-bit 422 150mbps on the GH5 and think it looks pretty great. 

Bit rate has less affect on grading potential than the color depth and chroma subsampling. If you want to grade a look into your videos, or are shooting a lot gradients or contrasty scenes, you’ll want that 10-bit AND 4:2:2.

However if you like the colors right out of the camera, like many canon people do, and don’t mind a little color banding here and there than 8 bit is fine if your not heavily grading.

BUT like other people have mentioned different cameras have different compression hardware and Canon’s 480Mbps all-I isn’t necessarily the same codec quality as Panasonic’s 400 Mbps all-I.

In Panasonic’s case, their 150Mbps LongGOP encoder is solid in almost any case except when motion cadence is of particularly importance (sports) or the scene has a lot of random motion (ocean waves). That’s when All-I comes in.

For example I find Sony’s 8bit 100Mbps codec pretty crap compared to the 100Mbps IPB one in the GH5.

I do wish however that Panasonic would release a firmware update for GH5S that would allow a rec. format that had 10bit and VFR that doesn’t cap out at 60fps. Or better yet 4K option higher than 60fps. I’d even take a 5 min record limited 96fps 4K HD wide (3840x1600). The sensor can do it! I’m not sure that is going to hurt their cinema sales. People buy cinema cameras for the ease of use and with more robust ports and battery options and monitoring solutions.

[jack jin]

On 2/15/2019 at 1:22 AM, Andrew Reid said:

Huge by what standards? Tiny by video standards. Smaller than even an FS5.

For something that sits between the Panasonic GH5 and 1D X Mark II in size and weight terms it's not "HUGE"!

Sigma will release their ART lenses for L-mount and there will also be an EF adapter.

Problem solved.

L-mount makes for a very adaptable system as I am finding with my Leica SL which I enjoy immensely and I don't own a single full frame Leica SL lens (just the small 23mm F2 APS-C).

The Panasonic lenses are expensive because they are pro lenses. Canon, Sony, same pricing.

Yes it would be nice to have some more affordable primes and better AF - for sure.

On the S1R the 4K/60p is full frame.

On the S1 it's a 1:1 readout Super 35mm. Nobody complains the 4K/60p on the X-T3 is "only" Super 35mm! (Actually a bit more cropped, around 1.7x).

I admit this is the main area for improvement, but there's a lot of cinema shot in manual focus, to say the least... Maybe we are just being lazy, demanding AF all the time for video.

I found it pretty organic looking, with superb colour. I still have the original 4K files on my card. Maybe I should show them in a follow-up post. Also the low-light performance was outstanding.

You show me the perfect camera!!

Well if you are comparing to the gh5s, it looks worse, better then sony, but would be lovely if the colors and highlight roll off are up to the gh5s level, and if panasonic can give us 400mbps all i and turn off the in camera noise reduction, it will be pretty great. and yes, WE WOULD LOVE AN FOLLOW UP POST WITH MORE FOOTAGE, most people shot in cinelike d with horrible colors, so it would be great to see some more footage shot in standard color profile or natural color profile.

[tomsemiterrific]

On 2/14/2019 at 10:59 AM, anonim said:

I think that it is wrong direction of thinking to compare Tony N's one person's youtube exhibition and eoshd concept of existence.

Two totally different approaches that at any means can't be comparable in term of quality - that means reality - of influence. Here we have hundreds of personalities becoming from the whole spectre of competency, background and usage, endless devoted testing and retesting, thousands contributions from different angles and points of view - and in the other side is just one man and one woman with all of their simply human prejudices, assumptions and often contradictory daily opinions, obviously urged to pump new reviews every week as important material resource. Here we have very live pattern of society, and there just classical self promoting show. Tony is better half of its presentation just showman who - as all showmen - actually lives on giving people opportunity to kill boring time.

So, any dispute with Tony N. about camera is wrong as premise. That's because his ultimative goal is not at all objective review, but publicity. Nothing especially wrong with it in world founded on fakery - he just tries to swim in it as notorious and less or more skillful conformist.

Saying that - it maybe good idea to see again Bertolucci's The Conformist

I agree with one caveat: Northrup does influence a LOT of people. I really think his errors, misconceptions, and  and omissions ought to be pointed out and explained. But attacking him personally, justified or not, can easily look like sour grapes and pettiness.

Stick with the objective content of his commentary and you'll be fine and end up looking good. Will you look as good as Chelsea? Probably not---but still... 

[anonim]

5 hours ago, tomsemiterrific said:

I agree with one caveat: Northrup does influence a LOT of people. I really think his errors, misconceptions, and  and omissions ought to be pointed out and explained. But attacking him personally, justified or not, can easily look like sour grapes and pettiness.

Stick with the objective content of his commentary and you'll be fine and end up looking good. Will you look as good as Chelsea? Probably not---but still... 

Yes, but how could we know for sure that Northrup influence a LOT of people? It may be, or maybe not, we are just free to subjectively estimate this... That's why I accentuated rather "quality - that means reality - of influence".

Being so often and openly without experience, as also superficial and contradict (even for short period I watched their reviews expecting at least serious approach) they simply look as pair that successfully found business field for further exploration of their entertainment/earning/happy family tactic ... in show-effort better comparable, for example, with that old guy in whose showroom  is forever Christmas (I forgot name), or that  bald-one Nikon martyr with many tatoo.

Not it is just bubbling youtube level par excellence, it is also clip always between two immediately  preceded and followed with opposite and most often equally fast/banal elaboration - i. e. they live perfect in their ecosystem. So, imo they could be very happy that EOSHD just give them more publicity in its totally different, honest, live check and exchanging/fighting thought-ecosystem. (Isn't it so that we here also have pretty temperamental anti-Panasonic or anti-Nikon, anti-Sony etc. knights for the utmost value of another manufacturer of choice that nicely correspond with N's fluid favorite-attitude?)

To put it simple, it seems to me that those who could be influenced by Northrup's acting and leisure profile (being it lot or little in number) - simply deserved them and will always search precisely for them as mentors or idols  Those influenced, actually, wish to look as Northrups in total - superficial, ready for high-selfestimation achieved by buying new cameras as cheap surrogatе of real creative suspension. N's always have some information and some (in advance paid or just after-earned) comic quasi important interpretation, in last time more and more profetic predictions. This time and this turn, it looks that they are little bit frustrated that Panasonic doesn't estimate them as important, or they are maybe just get hints from Sony or so.

I'm not sure that some especial psychological+mess-of-facts-and-lies combination of "utter bullshit" could be cleared in serious fact-confrontation... reckoning on better influence. It may be or not... and exactly such possibility to put in question everything is, for me, rare and utter value of this anti-N forum.

[Castorp]

The problem is that Northrup, unlike some other YouTube entertainers, makes claims to be fair, objective and unbiased.

If you make the claim to be fair and unbiased and in the service of the consumer who is trying to find the right camera, when actually the reality of what you do is completely different, that’s a big problem. It could be called misleading on a good day and outright lying on a bad day. 

 

[thebrothersthre3]

Way better than the GH5 and its not released yet. Could become something usable.

[anonim]

2 hours ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

Way better than the GH5 and its not released yet. Could become something usable.

Thanks, I'm not competent for AF usage, but what I notice at first glance, it is IMO better skin tone rendering (richer in nuances and more natural) on Panasonic.

[thebrothersthre3]

It looks like the Nikon may have been overexposed, looking at the house behind him. 

[anonim]

Overexposed at the face area?

[thebrothersthre3]

8 minutes ago, anonim said:

Overexposed at the face area?

Actually you are right, the Panasonic skin looks much nicer. 

[Jocelyn Deguise]

On 2/14/2019 at 5:38 PM, Video Hummus said:

Just came from Tony’s Myth V Reality Canon RP addition (with a RP giveaway!!!) No crapping on anybodies dreams there. Just a relaxed hand waving and “who needs this or that” line.

Watch them side by side (S1 vs RP) and tell me this man isn’t full of a bunch of canon $100 bills.

watch for yourself if you can stomach it. You might win the turd of a camera he is giving away

 

The guy is a fucking joke.

 

He's probably loving the attention he's getting here.

On 2/14/2019 at 5:38 PM, Video Hummus said:

 

 

On 2/21/2019 at 6:47 AM, Castorp said:

The problem is that Northrup, unlike some other YouTube entertainers, makes claims to be fair, objective and unbiased.

If you make the claim to be fair and unbiased and in the service of the consumer who is trying to find the right camera, when actually the reality of what you do is completely different, that’s a big problem. It could be called misleading on a good day and outright lying on a bad day. 

 

 

Nah: it's always lying, whatever the day.

[webrunner5]

Well now he is talking about a Canon 500 Dollar FF camera. Makes some good points but man that seems like a real long shot from Canon or any other company.

 

[thebrothersthre3]

43 minutes ago, webrunner5 said:

Well now he is talking about a Canon 500 Dollar FF camera. Makes some good points but man that seems like a real long shot from Canon or any other company.

 

Not a bad move on canons part if true.