The GH6 is a triumph of practical upgrades (especially for shooting travel)

[kye]

I think the GH6 is a triumph of incremental upgrades that provide a real difference when shooting run-n-gun video in the real world.

With the headline features so prominent, it's easy to miss the many smaller improvements that can actually make a big difference to shooting.

We talk about cameras like they're museum pieces or engineering spectacles, but often these things don't translate to the real world.  The following are my views of the GH6 from the perspective of a travel videographer upgrading from the GH5.  I've tried to include as many example images as I can - please note that these aren't fully graded and are often compromised due to me pushing the limits of what is possible from the GH5, what was possible under the circumstances, and what my limited skills could create...

But let's get some obvious things out of the way first.

Things I don't care about.....

Autofocus
The AF is improved.  People who used the GH5 AF will like the GH6 AF, and people who didn't like the GH5 AF probably won't be moved by the GH6 AF.  I don't use it, basically ever, so I don't care.  If you do care, then good for you..  move along, nothing to see here.

Extra resolution
There's more resolution, but the GH5 had enough resolution for downsampled DCI4K and lower resolutions, and the 2x digital zoom and ETC modes provided useful cropping modes as well.  The extra resolution doesn't really matter to me.

Size and weight
I care about this a lot actually, but it's not substantially larger than the GH5 from the front, which is the dimension that matters when filming in public.  The extra depth is immaterial when you have a lens on the camera.  The extra weight is unfortunate, but isn't that much and is well worth it for the fan and screen improvements.

Internal Prores

Prores is a professional codec that offers considerable improvements throughout the whole workflow.  I'm not going to say much else on this as I created another thread to talk about this but it's great to have the option, and I definitely appreciate it.  Many people were happy with the GH5s codecs, especially the 10-bit 422 ALL-I codecs, which were a shining beacon in a sea of poor-quality IPB cameras, but even those have been improved....

Huge improvements on h264/h265 codecs

The GH5 had 200Mbps 1080p and 400Mbps DCI4K, but the slow-motion modes are limited to 150Mbps (4K60) 200Mbps (1080p60) or 100Mbps (1080pVFR up to 180fps) and the effective bitrate dropped significantly when you conform your 60p or 180p footage to 24p - as low as 13Mbps!!.  The GH6 has 4K60 at up to 600Mbps (SD card) or 800Mbps (CFexpress type B) - an effective bitrate of 320Mbps, and in 1080p240 800Mbps which is an effective bitrate of 80Mbps.  
Oh, and these are all 10-bit 422 ALL-I, as opposed to the GH5 8-bit 420 IPB.
Oh, and also also, the 120p is now in 4K too.

If you're shooting sports this is a big deal as often players are in direct sunlight, depending on the time of day there might not be much ambient fill light, and any reflections from the field may be strange colours such as green grass, or various coloured artificial turf, which will drastically benefit from the 422 10-bit when colour correcting footage.  The extra bitrate is also great for having clean images when players may be bright against a very dark background really highlighting any compression nasties on their edges.  The ALL-I will be great in post too.

I'm curious to see what the 300fps looks like in real-world situations, but I've shot a lot of sports with 120p and it seems slow enough to me.

Dynamic Range Boost

This is a big deal for anyone recording in uncontrolled conditions, and especially for travel.  This isn't a vanity exercise or BS tech nerdery, this is a real creative consideration.  When you're shooting travel, the film is about the location and the experience of the people in that location, and the weather is a key consideration of this.  With the GH5 I often had to choose between clipping the highlights (ie, sky) and exposing for the people.  I also chose to expose for the sky on my XC10 and in combination with 8-bit C-Log recorded a large amount of spectacularly-awful looking footage of my honeymoon.

Here's a frame of C-Log SOOC from that debacle:

The shot was also mixed lighting with the subject in the shade, being lit by a coloured Italian shop-front immediately behind me that was in full sun....

Being forced to decide between the subject and the sky is problematic if the shot you want is "person at location X at sunset" and you can't feature that person and also the sunset.

It's also relevant for anywhere with tall buildings that create deep shade - the below is a nice dynamic image but it's a tad overdone and not how we actually see the world:

My experience with shooting the OG BMPCC / BMMCC is that their ~2 stop advantage in DR over the GH5 almost completely covers this gap.  Images with someone standing in-front of a sunset no longer feature either an anonymous shadow person swimming in technicolour-grain or a digitally clipped sky.

The GH6 DR Boost feature will help in these situations, allowing subjects to be filmed in-context rather than only in select locations were the light is just right but the scene is irrelevant.

Would more be better?  Sure.  I can hear lots of people thinking "go full frame then - moron" but the GH5 was (until now) a camera with a unique set of features not bettered by any other offering for this type of travel shooting, so while the current alternatives give with one hand they also take away with the other, normally taking away a lot more than they give.

Full V-Log

Having a colour profile that is supported natively by Resolve is a huge thing for me, as it allows WB and exposure adjustments to be done in post without screwing up the colours.  This is important because in shooting travel there are times when you can't even stop walking to get a shot, let alone have enough time to pause, get exposure dialled in, and heaven-forbid to pull out a grey-card and do a custom WB!  A great man once said "tell him he's dreamin"!

This lighting all looked neutral to the naked eye - GH5 HLG SOOC:

The advice I got from the colourists on that was to lean into it and just pick one or the other and balance to those, but sometimes the mixed lighting isn't really something you want to lean into....  GH5 HLG SOOC - look at the colour temperatures on the grey sleeve from what appears to be the strip-light from hell hanging just above their heads:

Better Low-light performance

Filming in available light in uncontrolled conditions often means needing to use high ISO settings.

This is a shot I've posted many times before, and the BTS of me shooting it, in a row-boat lit only by the floodlights on the river bank maybe 50m away.  

Notice that the smartphone taking the BTS photo couldn't even focus due to the low-lighting.

It was using the GH5 in full-auto (likely a 360-degree shutter) and with the Voigtlander wide open at F0.95.  I don't know what the ISO on the shot would have been, but there's quite a bit of noise, especially considering this is a UHD clip downsampled from 5K in-camera (200% zoom on a UHD timeline):

I don't mind the quality of the noise actually, and it responds to sharpening really well giving quite an analogue image feel, but if the image is this noisy then the colours aren't going to be at their best, and that isn't desirable.

There are a number of fast primes on MFT (ie, faster than F2) but getting sharp images wide-open is problematic, even from the very-expensive Voigtlander f0.95 primes.

The GH6's improved low-light is great, and not only does it allow recording in ever-darker environments, but it also allows the use of modest lenses and faster lenses stopped down to be within a higher quality part of their aperture range.  An extra $1000 cost on the body of a camera seems like a lot, but if it saves you $500 on every lens because you can buy slower lenses then it's an investment that has a reasonable return.

...and lest you think that the above is an extreme example, having good low-light performance is really just about filming people doing what they're doing, and in case somehow you haven't noticed, it's dark outside about half the time and people go out into it and do things.

Another example, here's a shot taken right at the end of blue-hour:

and minutes later, here's a shot showing what you can get when lit only by the light of a phone, and providing a reference for how dark this location was:

Think of the benefits of better low-light performance here.... it's very low-light, mixed colour temperature lighting, and the main feature is skintones.  The noise on the GH5, with the Voigtlander wide open is pretty brutal:

New Screen

My XC10 has amongst the nicest ergonomics of any camera and a big part of that for me was the tilt screen that didn't get in the way when using your right hand to hold the camera and the left to support the camera and manually focus the lens.  The fact that the new GH6 screen allows for both tilting as well as for flipping is great.

Contrary to what many believe, the 'flippy' screen is actually very useful for filming things other than yourself.  Any time when you cannot stand directly behind the camera is when the flipping screen is useful.  I have used it while filming out of windows (such as in moving vehicles, filming the view around the corner of a panorama framed by an arch, or taking a sneaky shot of the kids around a corner without them spotting me and pulling faces).  

Sometimes you need to hold the camera in funny ways to get a shot:

They're also very useful for those who want to take vertical photos from a low or high angle.

Fan

The GH5 never overheated on me, even in desert conditions, unlike my iPhones have on many occasions, and the GH6 will never overheat either.  It's not an "improvement" in the sense that it doesn't offer anything new, but it is a guarantee that all the extra other features won't come at an unacceptable cost.  Having a camera that overheats is just stupid, and Panasonic doesn't insult us by providing tools that aren't reliable.

Punch-in while recording

Checking focus while recording is a pretty fundamental thing, and the GH5 didn't have it (and didn't have the best focus peaking either) but now the GH6 does.  Boom.

Custom Frame Guides

The frame guides on the GH5 were worthless - pale dotted lines that were difficult to see under ideal conditions, let alone while holding the camera at arms length in a moving vehicle. The GH6 has custom frame guides that have a much more visible outline and also dim the out-of-area image, making it super easy and intuitive to use.

Frame from @Tito Ferradans review on YouTube:

 

I might be tempted to engage this for a 2.35:1 permanently and then choose what ratio to use in-post when I get to editing.  I've tried to shoot for this ratio before with the GH5, forgot and couldn't see the frame guides and intuitively composed like normal, and then downloaded the footage and found that I'd framed every shot too close for the ratio.  Fail. 

Buttons and controls

The GH6 has more programmable buttons than the GH5 (which was already great), and the extra custom slot C4 on the mode dial is very welcome.  I have my GH5 configured to be C1 1080p24, C2 1080p60, C3-1 1080p120, C3-2 4K24 (in case there's something I'd need 24p for), and C3-3 as 4K manual everything for shooting camera tests.  The first four modes are ones I want to just be one dial away while I'm out shooting, so having the extra one is really useful.

The GH5 also saved the preset focal lengths for the IBIS on a per-profile basis, so when you switch profiles you switch focal lengths.  This is important because when the camera goes to sleep it wakes up but forgets the focal length and goes back to the default one for that profile.  As such, you could duplicate profiles and use them to swap between focal lengths, like if you were recording sports on a manual zoom lens, just to name a purely-theoretical example that no-one would ever contemplate....

Better IBIS

The GH5 IBIS is great, and when you shoot with fully manual primes and without a rig, is an important function.  Having improved IBIS on the GH6 is very welcome and can really help salvage shots that wouldn't otherwise have made the cut.  One of the killer features of action cameras is that you can put them anywhere and get a huge variety of images while out in the real world, and that works for MILCs too, but if you're balancing on a chair and shooting at full arms-reach to get a shot and the IBIS isn't able to take up the slack and stabilise it, then it won't make the edit.

It doesn't matter how good the stabilisation of something is, there are instances where it will fail, and I seem to keep finding them.

USB-C port

The Prores and high bitrates will chew through storage and the ability directly record to an SSD would be spectacular.  Being able to charge the camera with USB-C would also be useful in some instances. 

In camera LUT support

I'm yet to see how this is implemented but LUTs can be great references while shooting.  You can use LUTs for things like false-colour, sure, but I'll be very interested in experimenting with ones that are very high contrast to allow for better visibility in bright conditions, and other more extreme applications that help you get the shot.

I normally use the EVF on the GH5 as it eliminates ambient light and adds another point of contact for better stabilisation, but sometimes you have to use the screen and it's not always ideal, so these could be useful for that.

Better colour science?

The GH5 colour science wasn't winning any awards, and the GH6 combination of V-Log + Prores + higher bitrates + higher DR seems to be noticeably better, which is a welcome improvement for me, especially as I am struggling to shoot in difficult situations often involving mixed WB lighting and other nasties.

The latitude tests from CineD look spectacular:

This will allow huge flexibility for imperfect shooting conditions.  Many times I pull up the shadows in an image (maybe I was trying to get the subject and the sky in the shot - shock horror) only to find the shadows a tinted awful mess.  If they look like the above then it will be tremendously useful in practice.

4-channel audio recording with the XLR module

This is slightly tempting for me.

In post I want a stereo ambient sound, and I also want a directional audio from a shotgun mic, ideally with a safety-track.  I can get either of those with the GH5 pretty easily by using the Rode Videomic Pro Plus with the safety-track feature enabled, and simply unplug it when I want a stereo ambience track using the cameras internal microphones (which are good enough if you're only using this in combination with music and other sound-design).

But the problem is that I don't know when something will happen, so if I'm recording stereo ambient sound I don't know if my subject will say something at the same time that a car goes past behind me, and I also don't know if my subject will say nothing while I'm recording directional mono audio and then before I know it we'll be somewhere else and I'll have no ambient audio from that location.  If this situation seems far-fetched, you've obviously never been on a tour bus in a third-world country before, where you might get dropped off near a small market, you then walk though the market with your group, where there is a stall every 5 steps with a different composition / lighting / and ambient sounds, and there is literally only room for people to walk single-file and you don't have time to stop at each interesting booth for a minute as you capture different compositions and audio options without losing your tour guide.  

Being able to stop for a few seconds, smile at the person there, and grab a few seconds of action with directional audio and ambient sounds would be really useful.

 

I don't fancy the added size of the module though.  

Audio screen

The GH6 has an audio button function that brings up an audio screen showing all the audio things you'd want.  Perfect for quickly checking how the audio is going.  With so much going on while shooting it's easy to forget to look at the meters OSD, and having everything in one place seems excellent.

I've screwed up the audio on many occasions, so this will be quite useful.

In summary....

The GH6 has tonnes of little improvements that I think will make it a much more useful camera when out in the field recording things in difficult conditions as they happen.  It looks like Panasonic has done a great job in not just grabbing headlines, but in actually taking the things that niggle or limit real shooters and making them better.

Now, if only the world would return to a state where I'd feel remotely comfortable wandering out into it with a camera in hand.....

[Jimmy G]

Hi Kye, wow, what an in-depth look into this camera...methinks you're very interested to the point of becoming a future owner?! 😉

I'll reserve my points to "output quality" as each of the internal mechanical aspects and features of the camera will appeal (or not) differently to individual users.

To that end, you've covered quite nicely (and better than I have been able to do) the need for wider dynamic range when shooting outdoor environments...the f/stop range on a typical sunny day is just too much for 8-bit Rec709 to contend with for those of us who need/desire/require that the sum of our frame includes everything from the brightest clouds and specular highlights to the detail and vibrancy going on in the shaded regions. Our eyes capture all of that and I have never been ashamed to ask for and seek out equipment that gets me closer to being able to capture that same natural view. I laugh every time I hear/read someone say that this is niche...no more niche than what I came to expect from my old love, Kodachrome 25! LOL

Getting to understand how HDR and 10-,12- (14-, and 16-) bit imaging can help "get me there" has been a challenge up to now...hard for any of us to realize the benefits of these things when viewed on SDR monitors! Ha! Enter my new M1 Max Macbook Pro with its HDR panel, I've devoted this year to finally educating myself on what is possible (and desirable) with the 10-bit footage I've been accumulating with my S1 for the past few years...in fact, I've decided to hunt down a used Ninja V just so I can become familiar with using 12-bit ProRes RAW at learning what it might and might not be "most practical for" for my style of nature shooting. Clearly, not every situation calls for such bit-depth or, even, DR and learning those lessons through shooting will help educate and inform me as to when varying codec choices are called for...all the more reason for my wanting it all internal to the camera (GH6 and future releases), call up a Custom setting and off one goes, er, shoots, no fuss no muss (f*** external recorders, really, I mean that from the bottom of my heart, Panasonic).

Anyhoo, I thought this article and the accompanying two videos would be of particular interest to you (and to all our fellow folks trying figure out the whens and whys and needs for HDR and high bit-depth)...a two-part interview with Kevin Shaw, CSI and founder of the International Colorist Academy (ICA), where he demonstrates where and how the benefits of HDR acquisition come into play...

Is 2022 the Year You Buy Into HDR? - Frame.io Insider

https://blog.frame.io/2022/01/17/hdr-in-2022/

...a college-level education from someone who knows. 😉

 

[webrunner5]

9 minutes ago, Jimmy G said:

Enter my new M1 Max Macbook pro with its HDR panel, I've devoted this year to finally educating myself on what is possible (and desirable) with the 10-bit footage I've been accumulating with my S1 for the past few years...in fact, I've decided to hunt down a used Ninja V just so I can become familiar with using 12-bit ProRes RAW at learning what it might and might not be "most practical for" for my style of nature shooting. Clearly, not every situation calls for such bit-depth or, even, DR and learning those lessons through shooting will help educate and inform me as to when varying codec choices are called for...all the more reason for my wanting it all internal to the camera (GH6 and future releases),

Once you get spoiled with 12bit Raw files there is no going back LOL. 😬 Once you get the hang of editing them it is pretty easy to do, especially in Studio Resolve.

[webrunner5]

The color transformation tool is just super dope in it. You don't need LUTs anymore with it. Do that function, Node, last not first.

[Jimmy G]

49 minutes ago, webrunner5 said:

Once you get spoiled with 12bit Raw files there is no going back LOL. 😬 Once you get the hang of editing them it is pretty easy to do, especially in Studio Resolve.

I'm excited and looking forward to it! I've been cutting my teeth on FCP but I haven't ruled out having another NLE at my disposal along the way. Of particular interest to me are the video scopes in Resolve, as demonstrated by professional colorist Darren Mostyn here...

How to use resolve SCOPES - In-depth with a Pro Colourist - YouTube

 

...I'd wet myself to have that CIE Chromaticity scope in Final Cut! Ha! Truly helps one see where their colors are in relation to the gamuts they shot in and the one's they are targeting for, super useful. Too bad it's only in the paid version of Resolve! Hmm, maybe someone knows of a plugin?

[j_one]

A solid indie budget A-cam and a viable b-cam to other workhorse cameras. The improvements to the image alone get it in the territory of being taken seriously, especially the DR and color improvements. That's what folks have to pay attention to.

I believe the veydra/meike lenses were absolutely made for this camera and its design/function ethos. No other mount has cinema glass that small.

For the fluid small body run-n-gun style of shooting that benefits from phase detect af, pick up the OM-1 or earlier Olympus releases instead.

[sanveer]

Thank you @kye

[webrunner5]

53 minutes ago, Jimmy G said:

I

...I'd wet myself to have that CIE Chromaticity scope in Final Cut! Ha! Truly helps one see where their colors are in relation to the gamuts they shot in and the one's they are targeting for, super useful. Too bad it's only in the paid version of Resolve! Hmm, maybe someone knows of a plugin?

I bought my Resolve Studio 17 for $145.00 on ebay. Lots of people sell them when they buy the Blackmagic.controller. It's just a credit card looking thing now you get.

[PannySVHS]

Great write up, kye!

Veydra primes are pretty and much more expensive than the Meike lenses, unfortunately. Really cool looking beauties.

[Django]

Also ProRes on GH6 seems to be much less image processing heavy so more organic image. No RAW tho.

Overall a great looking camera, the main "issue" I have with it is price.. M43 was initially affordable (GH2 retailed at $900!). 

Obviously the features are night & day.. but this general camera trend of each new model costing more is kind of annoying.

[ade towell]

I agree but guess it's all relative, the Canon R5 is £4300, GH6 way less than half that at £2000.

Think this is a great camera and with the Olympus puts M34 back on the map and hopefully has a decent future. Many folks been writing M43 off but I feel it has a lot to offer. What would really be a statement of intent would be a proper cine/eng zoom with good range, take advantage of the M43 unique sensor size, has been crying out for one for years 

[kye]

9 hours ago, Jimmy G said:

Hi Kye, wow, what an in-depth look into this camera...methinks you're very interested to the point of becoming a future owner?! 😉

I'll reserve my points to "output quality" as each of the internal mechanical aspects and features of the camera will appeal (or not) differently to individual users.

To that end, you've covered quite nicely (and better than I have been able to do) the need for wider dynamic range when shooting outdoor environments...the f/stop range on a typical sunny day is just too much for 8-bit Rec709 to contend with for those of us who need/desire/require that the sum of our frame includes everything from the brightest clouds and specular highlights to the detail and vibrancy going on in the shaded regions. Our eyes capture all of that and I have never been ashamed to ask for and seek out equipment that gets me closer to being able to capture that same natural view. I laugh every time I hear/read someone say that this is niche...no more niche than what I came to expect from my old love, Kodachrome 25! LOL

Getting to understand how HDR and 10-,12- (14-, and 16-) bit imaging can help "get me there" has been a challenge up to now...hard for any of us to realize the benefits of these things when viewed on SDR monitors! Ha! Enter my new M1 Max Macbook Pro with its HDR panel, I've devoted this year to finally educating myself on what is possible (and desirable) with the 10-bit footage I've been accumulating with my S1 for the past few years...in fact, I've decided to hunt down a used Ninja V just so I can become familiar with using 12-bit ProRes RAW at learning what it might and might not be "most practical for" for my style of nature shooting. Clearly, not every situation calls for such bit-depth or, even, DR and learning those lessons through shooting will help educate and inform me as to when varying codec choices are called for...all the more reason for my wanting it all internal to the camera (GH6 and future releases), call up a Custom setting and off one goes, er, shoots, no fuss no muss (f*** external recorders, really, I mean that from the bottom of my heart, Panasonic).

Anyhoo, I thought this article and the accompanying two videos would be of particular interest to you (and to all our fellow folks trying figure out the whens and whys and needs for HDR and high bit-depth)...a two-part interview with Kevin Shaw, CSI and founder of the International Colorist Academy (ICA), where he demonstrates where and how the benefits of HDR acquisition come into play...

Is 2022 the Year You Buy Into HDR? - Frame.io Insider

https://blog.frame.io/2022/01/17/hdr-in-2022/

...a college-level education from someone who knows. 😉

 

Thanks 🙂

Yes, I'll be grabbing one when there's a reason for me to own one...  No plans to go anywhere for quite some time yet, unfortunately!

In terms of HDR, there are actually two conversations.  One is on HDR acquisition, and the other is in delivery.

HDR Acquisition - we already have HDR acquisition, and have had it for decades!  
The rec709 container has about 5.2 stops of DR (source from Sony) - so any time you're capturing images with a camera that has more than 6 stops of DR and delivering 709, then you're capturing more DR than you can output, which is why we talk about highlight and shadow rolloffs - we need to squeeze the 10+ stops of acquisition DR into the output gamma.

In terms of HDR delivery, yes, everything that the colourists are talking about is relevant here.

In terms of the GH6, I don't care about HDR delivery - it's about capturing the scene as it exists.  The output format doesn't matter if I can't do that at the point of capture.

8 hours ago, Jimmy G said:

I'm excited and looking forward to it! I've been cutting my teeth on FCP but I haven't ruled out having another NLE at my disposal along the way. Of particular interest to me are the video scopes in Resolve, as demonstrated by professional colorist Darren Mostyn here...

How to use resolve SCOPES - In-depth with a Pro Colourist - YouTube

 

...I'd wet myself to have that CIE Chromaticity scope in Final Cut! Ha! Truly helps one see where their colors are in relation to the gamuts they shot in and the one's they are targeting for, super useful. Too bad it's only in the paid version of Resolve! Hmm, maybe someone knows of a plugin?

or, if you're just interested in what's in and out of bounds, maybe a LUT that just colours anything outside that range with 100% blue to indicate clipping?  I'd imagine someone would have made a technical LUT like that surely?

8 hours ago, j_one said:

A solid indie budget A-cam and a viable b-cam to other workhorse cameras. The improvements to the image alone get it in the territory of being taken seriously, especially the DR and color improvements. That's what folks have to pay attention to.

I believe the veydra/meike lenses were absolutely made for this camera and its design/function ethos. No other mount has cinema glass that small.

For the fluid small body run-n-gun style of shooting that benefits from phase detect af, pick up the OM-1 or earlier Olympus releases instead.

The Veydras / Meike lenses would be perfect - especially with the better low-light of the GH6 better catering to the slower T2.2 from those ranges.

7 hours ago, PannySVHS said:

Great write up, kye!

Veydra primes are pretty and much more expensive than the Meike lenses, unfortunately. Really cool looking beauties.

I thought the consensus was that the Meike lenses were basically slightly different housings on the same glass?

Still, both are great lens sets!

7 hours ago, Django said:

Also ProRes on GH6 seems to be much less image processing heavy so more organic image. No RAW tho.

Overall a great looking camera, the main "issue" I have with it is price.. M43 was initially affordable (GH2 retailed at $900!). 

Obviously the features are night & day.. but this general camera trend of each new model costing more is kind of annoying.

I think this whole "MFT only has value because it's cheaper" thing is complete BS.

When a person is able to go out into the field, point their camera at something worth seeing, get the subject in-focus, exposed well, compose appropriately, and get a high quality file onto a memory card or SSD, then who gives even the most remote flying f*ck what camera that was shot on?

If Sony released a FF camera the a100C that was $99.95 would that make all other FF cameras problematic because of their price?  "Oh, the A7S3 is a nice camera and all, but it's 40x as expensive as the a100C, so I just can't see how it's worth it".

A camera is a box that you plug glass, audio, a battery, and a memory card into, and you point it at stuff and it turns light into digital files.  Seriously 🙂 

I mean, if we're going to hold onto MFT starting as being cheaper then why aren't we holding onto FF being film?  I don't know about this R5 - FF cameras started off as film and I really don't like that they're all digital now.  MFT was always digital - FF should stick to its roots..  it's so sad what FF has turned into really.  😔😔😔

[Django]

you're missing the point. I'm talking about price increase within same class/category models (i.e GH / A7S etc series).

[PannySVHS]

People with the desire for a fundamental but affordable update could buy a GH4 for 500 USD or a Lumix G9 with the free 10bit update  for 800. These cameras are in the league and much more. @Django GH6 is rather in the league of A7s3 if specs deliver what they promise with that innovative screen, class leading IBIS and more, 5.7K60, minus the DOF from the FF sensor with the same lenses. Give it an affordable focal reducer for around 100USD and you are in S35 land. Wished they had given the GH6 a S35 sensor with the choice of a MFT crop

[Jimmy G]

17 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

I bought my Resolve Studio 17 for $145.00 on ebay. Lots of people sell them when they buy the Blackmagic.controller. It's just a credit card looking thing now you get.

OT (apologies, Kye)

I suspect using Resolve Studio might be my easiest path forward for access to a CIE Chromaticity scope until the kind folks at Apple understand the importance of visualizing one's chromaticity spaces rather than rely on such functions as (oh, say) poorly documented broadcast-safe overlay filters (I will continue to look into whether an FCP plugin might be available for this). It's important (well, to me) to know where my out-of-gamut acquisition RGB colors are falling to better inform my decisions on what I can or should be doing about it with a grade...perhaps I'm over-thinking it at this point in time but I'm trying to build a working knowledge of what exactly is going on with color space chromaticity and dynamic range (real nerdy stuff, ha!).

To your ebay suggestion, thanks, I was unaware that folks were selling their unneeded/duplicate licenses like that...my Resolve license solution was to buy their Speed Editor and get the activation card free. All "down the road" stuff for me as I'm already dropping too many potatoes off my plate! LOL

We return you to our regularly scheduled broadcast...

[Jimmy G]

On 3/4/2022 at 1:28 AM, kye said:

The GH6 has 4K60 at up to 600Mbps (SD card) or 800Mbps (CFexpress type B) - an effective bitrate of 320Mbps, and in 1080p240 800Mbps which is an effective bitrate of 80Mbps.  

Hi kye...a little help here, where are you getting this information?

[Jimmy G]

12 hours ago, kye said:

In terms of the GH6, I don't care about HDR delivery - it's about capturing the scene as it exists.  The output format doesn't matter if I can't do that at the point of capture.

Well, as more and more content is being consumed will continue to be consumed on HDR devices (like OLED, QLD, smartphones and computers) I'm surprised at this response. My read on deliverables is that SDR has not only been "shown the door", it is being gingerly escorted out. It's why I began to shoot 10-bit with my S1's and have been an online hound-dog for internal 12-bit. As I mentioned to a (well-known) Panasonic rep at PDN Expo back in 2018 why I wanted this in their cameras, "just because I can't see it now (in the SDR realm) doesn't mean I won't be able to see it when 10- and 12-bit monitoring and consumption become the norm in a few years, I don't have the luxury of hopping in a time machine to go back and "refilm that solar eclipse" or "eagle snatching that fish" in 10- or 12-bit. However, if I shoot that today for HDR I can always come back in the future to make it shine!"

As the saying goes, "skate to where the puck is going to be".

[kye]

3 hours ago, Jimmy G said:

Hi kye...a little help here, where are you getting this information?

The bitrates are available from most reviews of the camera, this one from newsshooter.com is pretty comprehensive, and for the higher frame rates I just multiply the bitrate by 24 and divide by the frame rate to get the effective bitrate that the viewer will see when the footage is played back at 24p.

In reality a slow-motion shot taken at 200Mbps / 240p won't have exactly the same image quality as a 20Mbps 24p file would have because the subject matter doesn't move nearly as much from frame to frame in the 240p one, but like anything it will be subject specific.  50Mbps is a good amount of bitrate for recording an interview mid-shot with a blurry background as not that much will be moving, but it's no-where near enough if you're recording trees and snow during a blizzard.

1 hour ago, Jimmy G said:

Well, as more and more content is being consumed will continue to be consumed on HDR devices (like OLED, QLD, smartphones and computers) I'm surprised at this response. My read on deliverables is that SDR has not only been "shown the door", it is being gingerly escorted out. It's why I began to shoot 10-bit with my S1's and have been an online hound-dog for internal 12-bit. As I mentioned to a (well-known) Panasonic rep at PDN Expo back in 2018 why I wanted this in their cameras, "just because I can't see it now (in the SDR realm) doesn't mean I won't be able to see it when 10- and 12-bit monitoring and consumption become the norm in a few years, I don't have the luxury of hopping in a time machine to go back and "refilm that solar eclipse" or "eagle snatching that fish" in 10- or 12-bit. However, if I shoot that today for HDR I can always come back in the future to make it shine!"

As the saying goes, "skate to where the puck is going to be".

Let me put it another way.  

When we record a scene with a camera, grade it, and then play it back on a calibrated playback device, the colour and dynamic range that appears on the calibrated display is almost never accurate.  We do all kind of creative things to make the image look more in-keeping with the vision from the director or other people in charge.  We add or remove contrast, we change the WB, we cool the shadows and we warm the mid-tones, we take keys and selectively change those areas to make them brighter or darker or more or less contrasty or differently coloured etc.

In other words, the output is a pleasant fiction.

There are other elements that are a fiction too.  We record at 8-bit and 10-bits and 12-bits and 14-bits and more, the sensor is reading things at a certain bit-depth and doing colour and gamma changes before the bit-depth gets converted to the output format, which is then decoded and processed in a different bit-depth inside the software we're using (IIRC Resolve operates internally at 32 or 48 bits), then output at whatever bit-depth you choose when you select the delivery codec.

Resolution is also a fiction.  The sensor captures an image, it gets de-bayered, it might be downsampled in-camera to the capture resolution, it gets scaled to the timeline resolution in the NLE, and output at perhaps a different resolution again to the delivery format.  Softening and halation and sharpening are applied.  Most/all of these operations will interpolate between pixels so it's not a simple 1:1.

Now, take the situation where you're recording with a GH5.  The camera is capturing 5.1K at who-knows-what bit-depth and perhaps its 10 or so stops of DR, it converts to the colour profile which might crop the DR, it rescales the image to the target resolution, and it saves the file to the codec you've selected.  The NLE loads the file, colour grading does whatever the hell you want to the image, and then it gets exported to whatever delivery format you've chosen.  
If we'd exported that to a rec709 colour space, let's say in UHD or DCI4K, the image will have been downscaled, the bit-depth downconverted, and the colours changed - potentially quite severely.
If we'd exported that to a rec2020 colour space, also in UHD or DCI4K, the image will still have been downscaled, the bit-depth downconverted from whatever was read off the sensor, and the colours changed in basically the same way.

Sony cameras famously had the worst rated colour science, but that was actually the most accurate colour science when it came to capturing things as they really were.  No-one likes accurate colours, and a search for the word "accurate" in any colourist forum would probably only return results from people who stumbled into the discussions and didn't know that the concept is completely alien to the task at hand.

There isn't even agreement about how to master HDR content...  Netflix and creators of broadcast standards have an opinion on how it should be done technically, but there are significant flaws with their logic and there are completely differing opinions, especially from people who are very well respected.

I've linked to the time here:

In his masterclass he gave a slightly different explanation which included the idea that when a person is presented with two displays, one SDR and one HDR, they are likely to adjust the brightness on them differently based on how people grade, so if one of them gets graded brighter or darker (maybe because it's "correct") the user will probably just change the brightness and un-do the "correctness" of the gamma shift.

I'm probably saying this all wrong, but in a sense correctness is a myth - the TVs out there in the wild have vastly different colours and gammas and are in all sorts of different environments too.  The idea of chasing some kind of technical purity is a myth to begin with because colour grading is an art and not a science, and then also once the image leaves the streaming platform then who-knows-what will happen to it once it reaches the consumer too.

Long story long, recording and publishing to SDR is a fiction and always was, and so publishing to HDR can be done just as successfully while still remaining a complete fiction.

Hopefully that makes sense?

[TomTheDP]

Sony color may have been accurate under proper single source lighting in a studio but the real test is under poor lighting conditions. That is where Canon, RED and ARRI are doing their things.

[Mark Romero 2]

Thank you again, @kye, for once more making my life a living Hell...

😀

In all seriousness, I am thinking about getting a GH6 to replace my S1.

The better autofocus, lighter weight, bigger lens selection, ProRes 4:2:2 internal, ability to record to an SSD, all-i codecs, appeals to me, and at 4K 60fps (using the dynamic range boost) of the GH6, the DR is going to be roughly equivalent since I tend to be one of those people more likely to stop down a lens, and the added DOF of m43 would allow me to use faster lenses for the same DOF (so use one-stop lower aperture???) Math is not one on of my skills.

My only two real issue after that is mixing and matching lenses with my full frame S5, and the fact that the S5 has a thirty-minute time limit (and no internal 6K). 

I guess logically I would sell the S5, keep the S1 and add the GH6. But logic and I aren't really on speaking terms 🙈