Gordon Laing reported a 1h 57min cont. runtime at 4K/50p filling a 128GB card, with several minutes left for a new card. The body felt warm, but not hot at the end. Good news indeed!
Next project I’ll rent or buy a gh5. It ticks most of the boxes and for a small camera seems good.
The only thing that is missing (except for internal ad’s which no camera this size has), and phase detect autofocus like the 70/80d. The contrast detect with some fine tuning can work, but it has to be configured for every scene.
I know the gh3 would autofocus pretty well if set up right, the gh4, not so much as the processor was overcooked running 4k and trying to make contrast detect work.
I’m also not wild about hotshoe mounted devices, like the xld sound inputs, because it puts stress on the hotshot and makes it difficult to mount the camera in a cage. I wish it had a remote cord or could be mounted on the side, but for 2 grand for the camera, you really can’t complain.
I’m not that worried about 4:3 sensors and if it will go to 800 iso then I’m fine.
I do wish panasonic had faster zooms, but if you need shallow depth of field and a faux higher iso, the voightlanger f .95 lenses will do the trick and give you two stops over most of the 2.8 lenses, though manual focus only.
The thing I noticed with my gh3’s is the shadows easily pull up in resolve, I’m sure the gh5 will be as good if not better.
I really would like to see the gh5’s with the 400mbs upgrade, I think April. That will add more data and an easier to work file.
It’s interesting I’ve tried and owned a lot of these smaller motion cameras and combo cams, FS 300, GH3, A7sII, 1dx, 5d2, D70. The D70 autofocuses like magic, though the file is minimal.
The smaller cameras are great because they are lightweight and fast, but anytime I mix footage with them vs. my MX Reds, I always want to kick myself for not just shooting everything with the RED’s as the RED files look like cinema film and the smaller cameras kind of have that smooth digital look, but that’s personal preference.
I would suggest if your working hand hold, to go to a cage with rails and/or a slightly heavier system because these cameras are so lightweight, even with I.S. you can get some frenetic shake if your working long days.
The only thing that concerns me is I’ve heard that panasonic has given up on cameras, or maybe still cameras. Where this leaves the gh5 I don’t know, but I’d hate to see it go the way of the Samsung NX1, though the gh5 seems to be selling quite well, so maybe that’s not a concern.
I have a lot of 43 glass pane, only, voight but no real clear answer if the internal I.S. works with anything but the pana lenses.
IMO
BC