Travis Johansen - Minneapolis
Director of Photography & Producer
I'm a DP and Producer in Minneapolis Minnesota.
I think it makes sense to have an easy replacement for the gh5, at that lower price point. I can't imagine them selling much without a better autofocus, and some updated specs.
I was just having a conversation this morning thinking about signing up for Netflix DVD subscription. The thought process was that there are actually a number of films that I never watched that were cultural icons, and as Netflix loses more and more titles to the different splintering licensing deals, it feels like all those classic movies which originally were streaming are now behind other paywalls.
So despite paying for Hulu and Netflix and prime, there's still a very large amount of movies that are simply not available.
With that context, I think it's pretty cool to see Amazon acquire MGM to bring more content available online.
I don't have strong feelings whether Amazon or Netflix should have been the one to acquire them, but I'm glad it wasn't one of the smaller platforms which feel like more of a pain in the neck or legacy cable networks trying to build a castle moat around their content.
I love the dual NP batteries, the ability to load lots, and the cross conversion.
I would love to see a couple things they are able to make it possible
Ability to charge the batteries via USB and the DC port, or the ability to pull power from the USB port to power something like a wireless HDMI receiver to make it an all-in-one wireless directors monitor
Another feature that super cheap monitors tend to have but the higher end ones don't, is the ability to add contrast and saturation manually just up or down for each of those settings. If you look at some old cheap monitors, they didn't have the best colors to begin with so they often had that feature just so that you can make the picture look good.
One thing I have found is that when shooting with a variety of cameras, I don't always have the right lut to preview. So if I could just have a menu system that allows some basic image adjustments like that for your preview, it gives you a pretty decent way to see your image regardless of what camera you are shooting on.
Lastly, and this is probably the biggest one, I remember when black magic only let you double tap to zoom in. Eventually they added pinch to zoom, and let you drag around the image with your finger on the screen to move what you are zoomed in on. I often found myself zooming in 5to1 or 10to1 when checking critical focus say on somebody's eyes during an interview since some Cinema cameras don't have good auto focus
Travis Johansen
DP/Producer in Minneapolis MN
www.providfilms.com
It would be really cool if they had included this firmware update for the gh5 as well. A lot of the features here are not adding extra processing intense tasks, just small things that are more user friendly.
What are things that I really enjoy since picking up a few blackmagic cameras is how they keep updating their older models adding new features. So it's cool to see Panasonic doing some of the same thing
Working as a DP / video producer in Minneapolis, I picked up a pair of the GH5 and seriously loved the cameras for their crash cam size and 4k 60p with articulating screen, great battery, and Ibis... Such good ibis.
I still have those cameras though I haven't shot on them for quite some time due to the fact I wanted a higher quality look - so I added the BMPCC 4k and 6k. Those are solid cameras but I still miss the compact size and ibis...
But the main thing that would get me to come back?
If they could match my a7iii phase AF performance.
I'm situations I need continuous AF, it's the only camera I grab. No 60p 4k, no 10 bit, not the best IBIS but it is ok, screen tilt isn't the best, but man.... When you are on a gimbal shooting solo following someone running at shallow DOF while riding a segway... You NEED phase AF.
Travis Johansen
DP / Producer in Minneapolis MN
https://www.providfilms.com
Having been a Panasonic gh5 customer and user with a pair of them, I still have them on the shelf but have not used them in more than a year.
A couple things that really piqued my interest here is the rtmp support for streaming if it is reliable and works continuously without overheating or having issues, that would be a game changer particularly when doing multicam setups with a super small crew on site
Having vlog and 6K at 30p, plus a excellent evf built in and ibis that is truly unmatched, you could definitely have a unique spot in specific use cases