Now that Panasonic has officially announced the Lumix S5 Full frame camera which we saw as a direct replacement for the GH5 line even when now it seems a GH6 may be in the cards for a future release, it is now time to examine the slow motion modes on the camera to see if they stand a chance at becoming a feature which will be a seller for the new device or just one more feature.
When the GH5 was announced about 3 years ago it came with a 180fps 1080p mode that was better than many camera’s 120fps modes and quickly became our favorite Lumix camera for slow motion as we noticed how the quality of the 240fps mode on the GH5s low light geared camera was heavily inferior in resolution. The GH5 really became the best value along with the G9 for 180fps slow-mo modes in Full HD.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
The Lumix GH5 is still one of the best video powerhouse cameras ever produced. It doesn’t overheat, it shoots incredible 4k oversampled video at up to 60fps 4k or 180fps 1080p with near Full HD quality but it’s Achilles heel, the Micro 4/3ds sensor which is small and quite inferior in low light compared to Full Frame or even APS-C rivals. The GH5s is the low light lower megapixel version with dual Gain senor which is actually very clean in low light and can go toe to toe with the best out there but has no IBIS which is a big loss.
Now Panasonic is set to announce the Lumix S5 Full frame mirrorless camera which essentially migrates most GH5 features into a full-frame body with nearly the same introductory price of $1998 USD but improves 4k 60p with 4:2:2 color at 10-bit instead of 4:2:0 8 bit on the GH5. You get IBIS, and also the 180fps Full HD of other S L-mount cameras by Panasonic. It is still too early to tell what kind of quality the 1080p 180fps mode will be capable of but it does hold promise as the S1H and S1 do a pretty good job on these modes.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
It’s here, yes it is finally here you are not seeing things. In what may be the most anticipated camera release in years, Sony has finally unveiled the a7s III video-centric mirrorless camera. It has all the new performance benefits of processing and AF seen on other Sony bodies but now applied to a 12 Megapixel back-illuminated full-frame sensor geared to shoot pristine 4k and be able to shoot stills as a secondary function. The original 5D from Canon shot 12.8 MP in 2005 when it was introduced and it is still being used out there by many professionals as it was and still is a wedding workhorse. However 15 years later which in the camera world seems like a century, we get a brand new Sony camera with 12MP and that is actually a great thing!
The slow motion on this camera has a lot of good but also some hidden secrets that you should know about before plunking your hard-earned cash. We get what may be the best 120fps 4k footage we have seen in any camera under 10k USD at full 4:2:2 10 bit quality which after looking at the samples left us with nothing but praise to see such a well-executed mode with the added benefit of being able to shoot nearly 1hr worth of it before the camera temperature spoils the party. Excellent performance!→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
Canon has now released the final specs and estimated release dates for the EOS R5 and R6 cameras. There is a lot of good advancement in features especially in video mode as what many believe is an afront to Sony and Panasonic who dominate video recording on ILCs. The R5 can record 24fps and 30fps 8k video or 8192 x 4320 pixels in RAW quality which is a staggering 1TB of storage or 2600 Mbits/s for only 51 minutes of recording time. That means that every hour you will eat up through a full TB of your RAID backup storage. We see this mode being transcoded to an intermediate format like Blackmagic RAW or BRAW or Apple ProRes as soon as possible.
There is more bad news, on the 120fps 4k front there is no other option of recording but All-I which saves every frame independently in 10-bit 4:2:2 which is good for excellent quality but at the cost of 1,880 Mbits/s which is 224MB/sec or 13,447MB / minute of recording time. Better get a ton of memory cards and hard drives ready!→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
Due to reader demand, we are posting new slow motion samples for the Galaxy S20 line. We see just slight improvements over the Galaxy S10 in terms of detail and color but since the phones are the new flagship for the defacto Android international brand, there is a lot of weight in what it can do when it comes to the video mode. There is no secret that Samsung has stagnated in slow motion since the Galaxy S8 and the S20 is an evolutionary step with better reproduction and more intelligent capture but not really groundbreaking.
There is no increase in frame rates above 960fps at 720p and the resolution is not even true 720p as it is jagged and stair-stepped in detailed shots. We kind of see it as a 480p mode upsized to 720p. We do gain a 1 full second record time instead of 0.4sec on the S10 which is a big improvement even when the resolution is still kind of identical. It would have been great if Samsung could have done a solid and created a true 960fps 1080p Full HD Mode. We will have to wait for another crack at it on a future phone.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
Krontech.ca the makers of the Chronos affordable professional high speed camera have released the Software version 0.4.0 Beta of the camera platform. The cameras will now be using an embedded build of the Debian operating system which was already the default OS for the Chronos 2.1 HD. All Chronos 1.4c cameras can now be upgraded to the new Beta version free of charge Follow this link for the official thread.
We tested the software briefly and found it to be responsive and solid. However as a Beta, you should be ready to find some glitches here and there, if you are doing mission-critical work you should wait for a full release before updating to be on the safe side, we recommend it for most users who are not shooting once in a lifetime events. If you do find bugs please contact them to help squash them out.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
