a full frame camera with the best ibis?

[zlfan]

11 hours ago, zlfan said:

 

in terms of ibis, according to the tests by Richard Wong here in this video, seems to my eyes that:

1. gh7 is a little bit better than g9ii

2. gh7 is significantly better than gh6

3. gh6 is a little bit better than s5ii

4. gh7 is significantly better than Sony and fuji. 

5. he did not test gh7 vs om-1/ii.

my conclusion is that, in the next 5-10 years, at least for another two generations, full frame ibis is not as good as m43 offers. om1/ii and gh7 are the way to go for handheld shooting. these two will be my future purchasing plan. 

cheers,

 

 

another thing to consider is that gh7's s16 4k 60p prores raw hq mode. this alone is worthy to have gh7. in order for a full frame camera to have s16 4k raw, the full frame resolution has to be 12k (12k is 8 times 4k, ff is 8 time s16). this also will take another 5-10 years. 

[bjohn]

1 hour ago, bjohn said:

No worries...as I noted it was a still shot with Sony A7iii. I am foolish enough to attempt taking photos of dancers with manual lenses in dimly lit halls. To keep ISO down I use fast lenses wide open or close to it, which means I rarely nail focus. But the dancers love these photos, especially when focus is not spot on. On this one I used a Minolta Rokkor 58/1.2, probably wide open based on the shape of the OOF highlights.

Actually I misremembered: this was shot on the OG A7s. But based on my experience and the ISO sensitivity charts I've seen, the A7iii matches the A7s in low-light performance right up until the very highest ISOs, which I never use anyway. I used the A7s because this was a non-critical shoot, I was just shooting for fun and wanted to have a lightweight camera, no IBIS, and just shoot and enjoy myself. I brought two lenses: the MC Rokkor 58/1.2 and the MD Rokkor 28/2.

[mercer]

2 hours ago, bjohn said:

No worries...as I noted it was a still shot with Sony A7iii. I am foolish enough to attempt taking photos of dancers with manual lenses in dimly lit halls. To keep ISO down I use fast lenses wide open or close to it, which means I rarely nail focus. But the dancers love these photos, especially when focus is not spot on. On this one I used a Minolta Rokkor 58/1.2, probably wide open based on the shape of the OOF highlights.

It looks great. Love the motion you captured in the still. Still really like the color too. I've been so tempted to try out a Sony camera... eventually the FX30 probably.

[bjohn]

15 minutes ago, mercer said:

Still really like the color too

I checked and I actually applied a Technicolor emulation from RNI on most of my color photos in this shoot (I also did some B&W using Ilford emulations). Straight out of camera with the standard Sony A7s raw profile the colours were very good, but I sometimes experiment with emulations and in this case Technicolor was perfect: it accentuates the reds in a nice warm and soft way. And I did a wee bit of color grading to punch up the blues as I wanted to accentuate the echo of the blue in the shirt that the male dancer in the foreground was wearing with the same blue that was in shirt of one of the dancers farther back. I liked how the pattern of plaids/stripes vs. solids echoed across some of the couples, that was just a happy accident!

[zlfan]

 

 

s9 is surprisingly good at ibis and af. it is small but not evf. not sure if the lcd is bright enough in direct sun. if so, no evf seems ok for operation. I kind of think that this may be a better choice than s5ii/x and gh7. 

[zlfan]

 

s9's ibis seems a little better than s5 ii/x. 

interesting. s9 coupled with small ltm or m primes seems very attractive for street and travel.

no evf is a potential issue. will see how the lcd is under the direct sun. 

[zlfan]

 

[zlfan]

price wise, om5/ii is $1200, s9 is $1500, not much difference. the biggest difference for operation is evf. om5/ii has an ibis of 7.5 stops, while s9 's ibis is 5 stops. 

[zlfan]

I just figure out that this is the full frame version of go pro 12. I always like the go pro 12's stabilization and true pocket size, but go pro 12 cannot be used for low light scenarios. s9 coupled with a pancake lens like 50mm f2 may be a little bit larger than go pro 12, but not much. but s9 can have great low light performance. 

if I go on street or to other cities for traveling, I may just need a go pro 12 with several batteries to cover the day time, a s9 with a pancake lens to cover the night. no need for raw in this kind of scenarios. 

[zlfan]

om1/ii has an ibis of 7.5 stops and many customizable settings, while s9/s5ii/x has an ibis of 5 stops, a little bit worse than em1 mkii, so it is safely to say that ff the best of ff ibis is about two generations behind the best of m43 ibis. there is a possibility that ff ibis can never reach to the om1/ii level due to the sensor size. 

[ac6000cw]

21 minutes ago, zlfan said:

om1/ii has an ibis of 7.5 stops and many customizable settings, while s9/s5ii/x has an ibis of 5 stops, a little bit worse than em1 mkii

10 hours ago, zlfan said:

price wise, om5/ii is $1200, s9 is $1500, not much difference. the biggest difference for operation is evf. om5/ii has an ibis of 7.5 stops, while s9 's ibis is 5 stops. 

The 'n-stops of IBIS' ratings are based on shooting stills. They are a comparison of 'how low a shutter speed can we hand-hold and get a sharp image' so it's about the image being as 'locked down' as possible.

The behavior of IBIS in video mode is normally different, where usually it looks much better if it's 'floaty' to a reasonable extent. Also everyone holds and moves the camera differently, so video IBIS behavior that works great for one person might not work as well for another. You really have to try the camera and decide if you like the video IBIS behavior.

[kye]

5 hours ago, ac6000cw said:

The 'n-stops of IBIS' ratings are based on shooting stills. They are a comparison of 'how low a shutter speed can we hand-hold and get a sharp image' so it's about the image being as 'locked down' as possible.

The behavior of IBIS in video mode is normally different, where usually it looks much better if it's 'floaty' to a reasonable extent. Also everyone holds and moves the camera differently, so video IBIS behavior that works great for one person might not work as well for another. You really have to try the camera and decide if you like the video IBIS behavior.

Also, the 'n-stops of IBIS' spec is a measurement of how much reduction in movement there is of the sensor when that movement is within the movement range of the IBIS mechanism.

There are two problems with this:

1. When people do IBIS tests, the movement that remains in the footage is almost 100% of the time due to the camera shake being larger than the movement range of the mechanism.  So this 'n-stops' no longer applies.
    
2. Different cameras have different ranges of movement of their IBIS mechanism, and therefore, different levels of ability to compensate for camera movement.

When you understand that this is what is going on, you realise the 'n-stops of IBIS' measurement is a practically meaningless number that doesn't really predict the level of performance of different cameras.

[zlfan]

 

 

this guy tested s5ii using the latest firmware. his conclusion is that if the talent is just walking, s5iix ibis using e-stab high at s35 crop can be gimbal like. the footage seems smooth to my eyes. this is really good. as I remember that the steadicam can only do 50mm well, over 50mm it is hard to stabilize. 

[newfoundmass]

9 hours ago, zlfan said:

this guy tested s5ii using the latest firmware. his conclusion is that if the talent is just walking, s5iix ibis using e-stab high at s35 crop can be gimbal like. the footage seems smooth to my eyes. this is really good. as I remember that the steadicam can only do 50mm well, over 50mm it is hard to stabilize. 

I say this as a S5II X owner... a lot of people saying this (and there are more than one) are Panasonic shills.

The stabilization is great, it's why I own the camera, but we're getting a bit ridiculous. 

Less youtube shill videos plz.

[zlfan]

 

this is the last one. I will not post YouTube test any more. 

seems to my eyes, ibis wise,

1. s1h is significantly better than s5

2. surprisingly, gh5 is significantly better than s5 (gh5 ibis is really out of my expectation)

3. s5 is better than Nikon and Sony. 

[newfoundmass]

5 hours ago, zlfan said:

 

this is the last one. I will not post YouTube test any more. 

seems to my eyes, ibis wise,

1. s1h is significantly better than s5

2. surprisingly, gh5 is significantly better than s5 (gh5 ibis is really out of my expectation)

3. s5 is better than Nikon and Sony. 

IBIS on Panasonic M43 cameras will always be better than the IBIS of their full frame counterparts because of the smaller sensor. Still the IBIS in the original S5 was very good. The S5II cut the IBIS gap, but it still couldn't compete with the GH6, G9 or the GH7. Panasonic full frame IBIS is still head and shoulders above everyone else though.

[zlfan]

i will buy an om-1 for my mf lenses handheld shooting. very possibly i will buy a gh7 for mf lenses and in camera raw. 

for ff experience, i will use my trusty 5d3ml and 16-35mm f4 l. mf lenses on 5d3ml requires tripods or gimbals. 

yeh. will wait for another 10 years to see how the paradigm shifts. 

 

[zlfan]

seems to me that in the current paradigm small formats are getting more and more popular, due to the better stabilization and smaller total rig size, m43 cams, 1 inch cams and iphones, half inch go pros, etc. 

ff really needs to be special to be attractive. personally, i'd be interested in an action cam version of s9, a ff version of go pro 12. i think there is still a big market for serious ff handheld shooting too, as s5ii/x excel(s) now. on the other hand, as people go ff, they actually are more serious and pickier, so gimbal or tripod or monopod may be more suitable or more ubiquitous. 

[newfoundmass]

1 hour ago, zlfan said:

seems to me that in the current paradigm small formats are getting more and more popular, due to the better stabilization and smaller total rig size, m43 cams, 1 inch cams and iphones, half inch go pros, etc. 

I don't think so at all. iPhones (and phones in general) are obviously very popular, but M43, 1-inch compact cameras, and action cameras have all been on the decline for a long time. Really the whole industry has been, but GoPro for example lost $75 million last year. Their stock has plummeted something like 97%. The action camera market is not doing good, even though DJI and Insta360 have been pretty aggressive in releasing new cameras. They just don't have the burdens GoPro has, since they are Chinese companies and action cameras aren't their only products.

Sony put out vlogging cameras in the ZV and RX100 series of cameras, but they didn't really set the world on fire. It sounds like Panasonic is going to release something similar but I have my doubts that it'll be successful. Vlogging just doesn't seem to be nearly as popular as it used to be, with a lot of people transitioning to different content and even before they did that a lot were using APS-C and full frame cameras for YouTube, and many others have transitioned to using phones for the short form content they post to TikTok, Facebook, and IG.

M43 will exist as long as OMD and Panasonic want it to, but the GH7 could realistically be either the last stand or it could breath new light into the system. Too early to tell, but it got a lot of praise but whether or not that translates to people actually buying it, who knows? I kind of regret getting completely out of the system, but I'm not entirely sure I wouldn't have ended up having to in a couple years anyway.

[bjohn]

12 hours ago, newfoundmass said:

I kind of regret getting completely out of the system, but I'm not entirely sure I wouldn't have ended up having to in a couple years anyway.

I actually dug in and just bought two new MFT lenses (the Laowa Argus cine lenses, which are fast, relatively light, and should match well with my existing MFT lenses). For me, as a single operator who prefers using manual lenses, small sensors are the most practical choice. Since I'm forced to use wide lenses, I get more depth of field, which means focus is more forgiving when I'm trying to maintain focus on people and other things that move. If I used autofocus I'd go fullframe or APS-C, but based on a few experiences shooting dancers on full-frame with manual lenses I'd rather stick with smaller sensors. I'm using the BMD Super 16 cameras (OG Pocket and BMMCC) for now, and if I ever upgrade it would probably be to the Pocket 4K or possibly the GH7.