Is there a better package than the g80/85 for the price?

[IronFilm]

1 hour ago, ReinisK said:

I really like how the camera handles highlights, much better than the NX1. For 300 I would be tempted to grab another one 😄

Sadly the G85 isn't quite that cheap yet, seems to be hovering just under or around US$400 on ebay. I'd have to be lucky/fast to snap one up for anything cheaper than high three hundreds. 

Keep on debating if I should just go for buying the G85 at around that current pricing, or wait even longer for it to be even cheaper?

Don't think there are any events on the near horizon which should lead to a significant price drop of the G85 on eBay. 

The G95 was a flop, so didn't drastically impact used G85 prices.  A "G95mk2" won't happen any time soon. The G9 has been out for ages and ages, so any impact that made on G85 prices has long ago flowed through. 

Perhaps if the GH6 release is soon and revolutionary, and at a very low price such as US$1.2K RRP then that could force GH5 eBay prices down so low that applies pressure onto G85 prices to fall as well. But I doubt this. My gut guess is that the GH6 isn't until at least late 2020, and that the GH6 will be priced over $2K. Thus won't have any impact on G85 prices. 

Could a camera release from another brand apply that pricing pressure to the secondhand Panasonic G85, the Fujifilm X-T200, Nikon Z30, Sony a6200, etc??? I do not think so. 

What major events might impact pricing? Black Friday Sales are a long way away from happening. NAB is soon ish but a different market niche and won't impact the G85's value.  Coronavirus might only have a (small?) impact on prices going up (not down!), if it leads to a general slow down / inflation of products in the camera industry. 

I could instead move up and get a Panasonic G9 for roughly twice as much, or a Panasonic GH5 for a couple of hundred dollars more, or a Nikon Z6 for only a couple of hundred dollars more than that, but now we're only five hundred bucks away from a secondhand Sony PXW-FS5? Might as well get a proper cinema camera instead of fluffing around with mirrorless! But hmmm.....   a secondhand FS7 isn't really that much more than a FS5, and a FS7 is so much more powerful and valuable to own instead. Yup, here I am right back to considering an FS7 again. OOPS! 

Is a very slippery slope! Where does the madness stop??

Should just get that damn Panasonic G85 asap instead, as there simply isn't a better bang for buck hybrid camera on eBay. And that won't change in the foreseeable future. 

[IronFilm]

1 hour ago, newfoundmass said:

My only real complaint with the G85 is the 60p in 1080p. Wish it had a higher bit rate. 

Or just any slow motion beyond options beyond 60fps, even if just 96fps like in the old GH4

Internal 10bit and slow motion is probably the two biggest factors which could tempt me away from the G85. 
(which the G9 has both of! 4K 10bit 422 internal, or FHD 180fps 8bit)

[kye]

55 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

Where does the madness stop??

When we pick up the camera we have and leave the house

Which a few of us do, but many more do not!

[Kangaroo]

Just got the g85 for 320€ with an olympus kit lens(probably garbage but still), I was doing some test and wow, the quality for the price is amazing, 1080p is good but get 24p only in avchd, the 4k is really great, and I was using a CCTV lens. I tested it against the d600, I know that it's not a camera meant to shoot videos, but even at 1600(g85) vs 800(d600) iso in 1080p the difference is night and day! Photos are a bit meh tough, I already knew, probably a fuji x-t2 would be a better hybrid camera.

Btw the autofocus may not be great but for personal usage it's totally usable, the IBIS works really well and the EVF it's much better than my much more expensive X100f and than the xt30 that I've tried. 

[fuzzynormal]

32 minutes ago, Kangaroo said:

for personal usage it's totally usable, the IBIS works really well and the EVF it's much better

My wife and I shot a doc with the G85 as the b-cam, was not disappointed at all.  If I was told to go out in the field and use this as my only camera, I'd be okay with that.

[Kangaroo]

32 minutes ago, fuzzynormal said:

My wife and I shot a doc with the G85 as the b-cam, was not disappointed at all.  If I was told to go out in the field and use this as my only camera, I'd be okay with that.

I was just talking about the AF in video! It's a bit slow and not super fluid so I would not use it for paid work but the camera it self would be 100% usable for a weeding or whatever as far as I've seen. Tomorrow I'll shoot more with the light of the day. 

What's the quickest way to downscale 4k to 1080p? Does it make sense to scale down the footage before editing to have better performance if the output would be 1080p anyway?

[Avenger 2.0]

1 hour ago, Kangaroo said:

What's the quickest way to downscale 4k to 1080p? Does it make sense to scale down the footage before editing to have better performance if the output would be 1080p anyway?

 

I use handbrake, but maybe there are better options? Use it to mix c100 1080p and M50 4k downscaled to 1080p (as M50 native 1080p is soft).

[fuzzynormal]

3 hours ago, Kangaroo said:

I was just talking about the AF in video! It's a bit slow and not super fluid so I would not use it for paid work but the camera it self would be 100% usable for a weeding or whatever as far as I've seen. Tomorrow I'll shoot more with the light of the day. 

What's the quickest way to downscale 4k to 1080p? Does it make sense to scale down the footage before editing to have better performance if the output would be 1080p anyway?

FWIW, I don't use AF, nor would I be comfortable using it on a paid job anyway, so that part of the camera function is a mystery to me.

We edit everything with proxies and then export in whatever resolution desired.  For instance, we did a 6 part PBS show with 2 GX80's shooting 4K, pulled everything into Premiere, made proxies, edited, and then exported at 1080.  Not really sure what advantage your suggestion of doing scale-down-transcoding would actually offer, but I'm sure there's some situations where it might be useful; just not part of my workflow.

[IronFilm]

6 hours ago, Kangaroo said:

I tested it against the d600, I know that it's not a camera meant to shoot videos, but even at 1600(g85) vs 800(d600) iso in 1080p the difference is night and day! Photos are a bit meh tough, I already knew, probably a fuji x-t2 would be a better hybrid camera.

I assume the G85 is the better one? A good example of how "full frame is better" is not always automatically true. MFT is better than people give it credit for.

[newfoundmass]

On 2/5/2020 at 8:33 PM, IronFilm said:

Should just get that damn Panasonic G85 asap instead, as there simply isn't a better bang for buck hybrid camera on eBay. And that won't change in the foreseeable future.

Honestly it's worth every penny if you can get it for $400. You might be able to find it for slightly cheaper on Craigslist, but probably not much. I'd planned on getting a second one but stumbled on a GX85 for $250 and snapped it up! 

[newfoundmass]

6 hours ago, Kangaroo said:

What's the quickest way to downscale 4k to 1080p? Does it make sense to scale down the footage before editing to have better performance if the output would be 1080p anyway?

I'd edit in 4K and export your finished edit in 1080p. Or just add the 4K footage to a 1080p timeline. No sense it degrading the quality by adding unnecessary transcoding the work flow. 

[ac6000cw]

On 2/7/2020 at 2:33 AM, newfoundmass said:

I'd edit in 4K and export your finished edit in 1080p. Or just add the 4K footage to a 1080p timeline. No sense it degrading the quality by adding unnecessary transcoding the work flow. 

I'd fully agree with that - it also means you can crop/zoom/re-frame/software stabilise with little quality loss (for 1080p output).

Incidentally - if you need to convert 4k at 24p/25p/30p to double frame rate, the 'SVPcode' capabilty of SVP (SmoothVideo Project) is worth a look - I used it recently to up-convert 4Kp25 from the G80 to 4Kp50 to intercut with 4Kp50 from my G9 (final edit was 1080p50). It only costs $25 (for a 2 computer license) and as it uses FFmpeg for encoding, in theory you can output the converted footage in any of the encoding formats FFmpeg supports e.g. ProRes. If you intend to up-convert the footage, i think it's better to shoot it with a shutter speed matching the up-converted frame rate e.g. use 1/100s for 25p - that will look better and also provides sharper frames for the software to work with when it does the motion interpolation.