Making the most of the iPhone, GX85 and GH5 and shooting in the real world

[ac6000cw]

10 hours ago, kye said:

Here's the table of the 14-140mm lens.  The "Mid DoF" column is the DoF of a mid portrait shot (chest and up) and the "Close DoF" is just top of shoulders and up:

It's not constant DoF but it's pretty close.  

I then realised that for my environmental portraits, where I want the subject in focus but the background should at least be recognisable, I didn't want something that just had the subject floating in a sea of mush.  Also, nailing focus is more important to me than shallower DoF, and if the focus isn't going to get it perfect every time, and also pick the right focus subject each time, or if there are two people next to each other but slightly different distances from the camera because I'm not standing exactly 90-degrees to the line between them, then I'd rather the DoF be a few meters rather than the shot be missed.

(My bold) I agree - I'm often taking video of moving vehicles where I also want the background reasonably in focus to provide context for the image, so shallow DOF just doesn't work for me/isn't the 'look' I want.

(I also often shoot wildlife stills and video - the inevitable shallow DOF due to long lenses is a real pain to deal with when you might only have a few seconds to get the shot and there are tree branches/twigs in the way - which the AF prefers to focus on of course...)

One reason I often prefer the Pana 14-140 F3.5-F5.6 over the 12-60 F3.5-F5.6 (which I also own) is that the aperture drop off with focal length is slower over the wide to mid range - though the 12-60 is a bit smaller and lighter and much cheaper used.

[eatstoomuchjam]

10 hours ago, kye said:

 I don't know what the AF is like on the 20mm but all I do is frame up a composition, do a single AF-S via a custom button, then hit record and maintain the focus distance during the clip.

For AF-S, unless you're shooting really fast-moving subjects (sports, race cars, etc), nearly every AF lens made since 1995 will be fine.  Even stinkers like the Canon EF 85/1.2L are workable. 

10 hours ago, kye said:

it said that Panasonics DFD sped up their CDAF, and I realised that I never see a CDAF Panasonic camera doing that thing where the focus racks the whole way to one end and then the whole way to the other end before acquiring focus, it just seems to do a quick jitter and it's done.  I never thought about that being DFD but I guess it is.

With DFD, Panasonic made AF-C CDAF about as good as it seems likely ever to be.  If not for the pulsing on still subjects, it would probably be enough for most projects.  My GH5 was always frustratingly close to being usable with AF.

11 hours ago, kye said:

I then realised that for my environmental portraits, where I want the subject in focus but the background should at least be recognisable, I didn't want something that just had the subject floating in a sea of mush.

Sure - people make a big deal of super fast apertures and extreme shallow DOF these days, but f/5.6 at 140mm is still relatively shallow, even on M43.  Heck, even the RF 800/11 has relatively shallow DOF on FF.

11 hours ago, kye said:

Yeah, it's definitely a case of "get the shot" first, "make the scene better by not making everyone uncomfortable" second, and "have a rig with a great image quality" third.

I'd add "Don't make yourself miserable by hauling around a boat anchor on a strap around your neck all day and night."

[ac6000cw]

5 hours ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

I'd add "Don't make yourself miserable by hauling around a boat anchor on a strap around your neck all day and night."

Yes, very much agree - it's why I don't own any huge/heavy long telephoto lenses even though I shoot some wildlife stills and video.

300mm on micro43 is close to the usable limit for handheld/leaning-on-something video even with Oly/OMDS levels of stabilisation, and you can get that with a relatively modest size and weight lens e.g. the Pana 100-300 F4-F5.6 is only 520g and 126mm long.

[PannySVHS]

LX10 is a contender. That lens is pure magic. Ooc color is bland. The cam needs grading. Color is great with the right treatment, which it is in need of though, unless someone finds a way to make the internal profiles shine. In 4K it betters the HD G6 in lowlight, due to its much better codec and is close to a GX85. HD 24p is ok and pretty well resolved. HD 50p has very thin color, so use it only if necessary All in all highly recommended to be checked out by @kye  😊

Here is a clip during a lighting workshop I gave. Simple grading. I don't know what the crazy monologue is from, just in case someone knows German. It's really creepy.😊

 

[jase]

tbh, after having played a bit with Apple Log I concluded for myself that 4k framegrabs are my new way of taking photos that are (for my hobbyish usage) good enough that my a7c stays at home all the time. It is not the most joyable shooting experience for sure and you really have to get close to get some DoF blur, but the quality and turnaround time is just.. perfect for me.

[PannySVHS]

@jase   Didn't you also use to own a GX85 and a GM1 as well?:) I remember a beautiful GM1 nature video. I loved the colour signature of the GM1. It had some of the nicest 8bit lumix images i've seen on the web. I got myself a GM5 last year but I have not really used it unfortunately.

[jase]

6 minutes ago, PannySVHS said:

@jase   Didn't you also use to own a GX85 and a GM1 as well?:) I remember a beautiful GM1 nature video. I loved the colour signature of the GM1. It had some of the nicest 8bit lumix images i've seen on the web. I got myself a GM5 last year but I have not really used it unfortunately.

yep, that was me. long time GM1 and GX85 user. I think you might have meant this video:

good times.

[kye]

7 hours ago, jase said:

tbh, after having played a bit with Apple Log I concluded for myself that 4k framegrabs are my new way of taking photos that are (for my hobbyish usage) good enough that my a7c stays at home all the time. It is not the most joyable shooting experience for sure and you really have to get close to get some DoF blur, but the quality and turnaround time is just.. perfect for me.

Awesome stuff!  The fact that the profile is fully supported in colour management pipelines really unlocks the potential of the camera, and if you are interested in stills and video then being able to pull the right frame from the video means you can capture The Decisive Moment without having to be HCB.

[jase]

9 hours ago, kye said:

Awesome stuff!  The fact that the profile is fully supported in colour management pipelines really unlocks the potential of the camera, and if you are interested in stills and video then being able to pull the right frame from the video means you can capture The Decisive Moment without having to be HCB.

Yes. When starting I was afraid that 4k resolution would be too low and the workflow would be too cumbersome. Turns out the resolution is just fine for my purposes (watching content on smaller screens), has quite some headroom for zoom in. And although the framegrabbing workflow is a bit cumbersome, extracting the perfect frame in combination with 60p in 4k is awesome!

[ac6000cw]

4k/UHD video = 8MP stills which I think is perfectly fine even on a large screen at normal viewing distance.

One of my favourite photos (which other people have also liked) is only a 2MP JPEG, taken in 2015 with a Pana G6 while simultaneously recording FHD video. It's the light, shade and the sweep of the glinting rails that makes it work, not the resolution:

 

[kye]

As I have written about before, the best film-making advice I ever got was to try to the most contrast and saturation into my images.  Once you can push really far then it's easy to not push as far, so it's like doing altitude training, and you don't know the limits until you hit them.

As such, here's a very heavy grade of some night footage from the GX85 and 12-35mm F2.8 zoom.

This shows just how far 8-bit 709 footage can be taken.  It's not free from artefacts, but then again, I see grading issues semi-regularly on Netflix, so...

SOOC:

Grade:

In terms of how far this is pushed, lots of films get into this territory..

I concentrated a lot on matching tones across shots and it was pretty fiddly at times, but I was pushing things.  Realistically I think there's a bit more in the footage and the limitation is my grading.

It's worth pointing out that this was done in Resolve 18, so no Film Look Creator, and no third-party plugins so no FilmConvert, no Dehancer, etc, so some of the things I did might not be the best tools.  When Resolve 19 goes out of beta I'll be rocking the Film Look Creator and Colour Slicer etc, which I think will make this stuff so much easier.