Tag Archives: GH5s

Alice Camera and why the Future is Bright!

Alice Camera

The Alice Camera, launched to great success this month has to be the most hopeful product for the future of cameras that we have seen lately. It marries the Sony IMX294, a 10.7 megapixel 4/3 sensor with a custom chipset including the Edge TPU chip from Google for AI and an FPGA for calculations.  The result is a camera body with the same sensor as the GH5s which is a killer low light camera capable of excellent 4k footage and images with super low noise.

Then the camera back is attached to your Android or Apple smartphone to gain an interface and software to control it. The camera is capable of using the latest research for computational photography including HDR with multiple exposures merging, tracking, night mode, averaging of pixels, and as an open-source architecture, you can add features by other coders or your own to make the camera increase the feature set. → Continue Reading Full Post ←

Lumix Camera as a Webcam using USB for free!

Lumix Camera as a Webcam

Panasonic has released a Beta tethering software package for use in Windows 10 that allows you to control your Lumix camera from the computer to shoot images and video while at the same time use it to monitor the live view video signal with now the specific change that lets you remove the overlay display items from the camera to get a clean feed to your video conferencing software.

However, it is not that easy to get it to work and requires a couple of free pieces of software to let you extract the live view feed from the camera and redirect it to a video conferencing application of your choice.  We were able to get it to work well and it really makes a difference compared to the small sensor webcams you have been using.  Place a 1.4 lens in the camera and look at the beautiful feed that will result by using a professional camera and optics system to make you look better.

Lumix Camera as a Webcam what you need:

Cameras supported on the first release of the Beta.
(Note you will need to input your camera serial number to download the software)

  • DC-S1R
  • DC-S1
  • DC-S1H
  • DC-GH5S
  • DC-G9
  • DC-GH5

Official Computer Requirements:

  • OS: Windows 10 (32bit/64bit)
  • CPU: Intel CPU of 1 GHz or higher
  • Display: 1024 x 768 pixels or more
  • RAM: 1GB or more (32bit),2GB or more (64bit)
  • HDD: Free space of 200 MB or more for installation
  • Interface: USB 3.0/3.1

It is good to see the Lumix GH5 on the list as it is one of the best Lumix cameras for video recording ever released and many of our readers own it.

In order to get the video feed to get routed to your video conferencing software you are going to need to install these three programs in your Windows 10 PC:

  1. The Luimix Tethering Software Beta!
  2. OBS Free Open Source Video Capture Software!
  3. OBS Virtual Cam Plug In!

The excellent video below by Richard Wong will guide you through the steps to do this properly and activate the software for a variety of uses.  Support Richard by subscribing to his great channel here!

Setup your Panasonic Camera for Live Streaming / Webcam (GH5/G9/S1/S1H..etc) by Richard Wong:

Things to think about:

Make sure you have enough battery. On our test GH5 we needed to have battery power or AC connected for it to work as USB power is not available.  If other cameras can do it from the Linux Family it becomes easier as the PC can feed power essentially forever while you video chat.

There is some lag reported by users as the PC is taxed by capturing the video bypass and encoding can create a delay for webcam uses.  It is all a function of the speed of your computer here and the faster the better.  It would be ideal for Panasonic to allow for direct webcam pass-through from the Lumix cameras to video streaming software without requiring OBS. By using a driver the camera would show up as a webcam option without configuration steps. Lag should also be eliminated. This however is a workable solution and great first step.

The software as of now is only available for Windows 10, Mac OS and Linux support is not yet here and we hope it does in the future. Windows is being used as a testbed for bugs and once it is stable and solid enough we could see it being ported to at least Mac OS X.

Enjoy your new professional streaming solution and wow your boss, co-workers, friends or family with a beautiful image.  -HSC 

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BEST SLOW MOTION CAMERAS OF 2019!

As 2019 comes to a close its that time to take a look back through the year’s camera releases and see which delivered the goods at an affordable price in slow motion.  Phone slow motion continues to be a strong category, so strong in fact that we made a Best Slow Motion Phones of 2019 list that you can see here.

Stagnation in many camera segments aside from phones is still ongoing, the semi-professional and pro markets stay at 120fps and 240fps with the occasional 320fps camera that delivers just a tad better quality but at a price.  For professional slow motion, there were announcements but not a shipping product yet, however previously released cameras like the Chronos 1.4c and edgertronic still own the affordable quality market. Read on for our best of 2019 results!

BEST SLOW MOTION CAMERAS of 2019:

Without further ado here are what we believe are the best value slow motion cameras in their respective categories for the year 2019:

Best Slow Motion Phone Category:

We had 5 finalists for slow motion phone of 2019 and while the Mate 30 Pro below got the top marks, the iPhone 11 and OnePlus 7 series had great showings, go to the dedicated article for the rest of the phone options.

 Huawei Mate 30 Pro:

Coming out of left field from a company that has been in the news as being in trouble with the US government, the Huawei Mate 30 Pro which is not shipping in the US officially but can be found from online import sellers, is the slow motion phone champ of 2019.

Huawei Mate 30 Pro Slow Motion Specs Dissected:

  • 120fps 1080p Continuous
  • 240fps 1080p Continuous
  • 960fps 1080p for 1 full second (960 frames in total)
  • 1920fps 720p for 1/2 second  (960 frames in total)
  • 7680fps 720p interpolated 4x (lasts for 32 seconds on a 30p timeline.)
  • All super slow motion modes at 960p and above last 32 seconds of playback at 30fps regular speed.
  • The entire buffer for the slow motion feature is 2GB and gets filled by data then dumped and encoded on the fly by the Kirin 990 chip.

This is the first phone that truly records 1920fps slow motion in 720p mode for 1/2 a second or 960 frames and then does excellent interpolation to a whopping 7,680fps 720p to create mind-bending images.   It is especially good for people, animals, and hard non-deformable objects. It will of curse fail as any algorithm with fluids, powders, and heavily detailed objects and will create a soft mushy in-between frame in those cases.  If you do not choose interpolation mode then you can get real slow motion for up to 32 seconds of playback on a 30p timeline which is excellent for a phone.

If you decide to buy it, the phone has a few issues to keep in mind. Due to US government restrictions, it will not ship with a  full version of Android with the Google Apps and not have access to the Playstore.  However several workarounds have been worked out in forums to make this phone usable. The other is that it is a Chinese phone which may need you to get help from someone who understands/reads Chinese to make the setup and get to work in English after.    We do not recommend this phone as your main handset as the support of updates will probably be negated in the US but if you are in China, this is a great flagship phone.  If you are outside of China, make sure you can live with the limitations in the software.

960fps,1920fps and 7680fps test – Huawei Mate 30 Pro incredible Slow Motion by Slow Experiment:

As you can see from the sample above and these other samples at HSC, the quality is quite good and the time is usable easily as a sports and experimentation high speed mode.  It will of course not replace a dedicated slow motion camera for quality work but it is still an amazing development to get real 1920fps 720p and 960fps 1080p even with some artifacts in a portable device.

Huawei may be in hot water with the US government for some time but they have consistently delivered amazing hardware that is probably the cutting edge worldwide.  We are excited about the future of phone slow motion and considering the giant leap that happened here, it is not unrealistic to think that really good 1080p 2,000fps or similar could be very close.  At least for a small-time recording but it will really be magical.

Huawei has made an incredible slow motion phone on the Mate 30 Pro and if they read this, send a handset our way to test and offer samples of reference.  As of now, their new handset is the one to beat. -HSC

Mid Range Professional Cameras:

This year the semi-pro camera market had some very good surprises when it comes to cameras that can shoot RAW files at very high quality and also allow for windowed slow motion modes.

Two of our picks are from Blackmagic design which is a known name in the affordable quality camera market. They have been able to deliver RAW and compressed RAW with BRAW format for very little investment compared to many other brands.  The quality delivered by these cameras are really cinema-quality so the trade-offs when stepping down are more to do with changing a camera system for producers rather than giving up the footage grading ability or low light performance.

Third Place: URSA MINI PRO 4.6K G2

The URSA Mini Pro G2 had a firmware update mid-year that allowed for 300fps in a windowed 2k pixel mode that has great quality and can be stabilized for excellent 1080p production quality.  For under $6k for body only the price is not that high for a camera that can really bring your production values up.   It gets a third place because the cost of owning the camera goes up with accessories like media, lenses, batteries, monitoring, and storage for editing. A good kit can easily get in the 15k range. The BRAW format is excellent but not for everyone.  ProRes is also a possibility and probably what many producers will shoot in when need to deliver in a rush.

High Speed Frame Rates on the URSA Mini G2:

Blackmagic RAW 8:1

4.6K Full – Up to 120 fps
UHD Windowed – Up to 150 fps
HD Windowed – Up to 300 fps

With 4k UHD at 150fps it makes for a killer feature rarely available on other cameras and the 300fps in HD or 2k allows for that extra oomph within your creative shoot.

300fps UMP G2 test 190629 by Reel Eagle Studios: → Continue Reading Full Post ←

Canon & Sony stagnate at 120fps!

Canon & Sony stagnate at 120fps

The recently announced Canon 90D, Canon EOS M6 II, Sony a6100 and Sony a6600 are cameras that refine everything that is already a current technology but bundle it in a lower price package with great performance. However, it is clear from the spec sheets that high frame rates have stagnated for the past few years in these camera lines with a maximum of 120fps at 1080p.

Sure some of them offer full-time autofocus in slow motion modes and face tracking which in the case of Sony is so good that you may not even match it if you had the best focus puller in the business hired for your shoot. But the frame rate war seems to be left to other camera lines and brands. Panasonic, for example, offers up to 180fps in their new S1H camera which should be in theory the best Panasonic mirrorless camera ever made and it should also allow for outstanding quality in 1080p 180fps.

Sony a6100 MSRP $748.00 Body Only:

Video

Recording Modes XAVC S
UHD 4K (3840 x 2160) at 24.00p/25p/29.97p
Full HD (1920 x 1080) at 24.00p/25p/29.97p/50p/59.94p [50 Mb/s] /100p/119.88p [60 to 100 Mb/s]
AVCHD
Full HD (1920 x 1080) at 23.976p/50i/59.94i/59.94p [17 to 28 Mb/s]
External Recording Modes 4:2:2 8-Bit
UHD 4K (3840 x 2160) at 24.00p/25p/29.97p
Full HD (1920 x 1080) at 24.00p/50i/50p/59.94i/59.94p
Recording Limit Up to 29 Minutes, 59 Seconds
Video Encoding NTSC/PAL

Sony a6600 MSRP $1,398.00 Body Only:

Video

Recording Modes XAVC S
UHD 4K (3840 x 2160) at 24.00p/25p/29.97p [60 to 100 Mb/s]
Full HD (1920 x 1080) at 100p/119.88p [60 to 100 Mb/s]
Full HD (1920 x 1080) at 24.00p/25p/29.97p/50p/59.94p [50 Mb/s]
AVCHD
Full HD (1920 x 1080) at 50i/59.94i [17 to 24 Mb/s]
External Recording Modes 4:2:2 8-Bit
UHD 4K (3840 x 2160) at 24.00p/25p/29.97p
Full HD (1920 x 1080) at 24.00p/50i/50p/59.94i/59.94p
Recording Limit None
Video Encoding NTSC/PAL

Example of Sony’s a6000 series slow motion mode:

Canon 90D MSRP $1,199.00 Body Only:

Video

Recording Modes MP4/H.264
UHD 4K (3840 x 2160) at 25p/29.97p
Full HD (1920 x 1080) at 25p/29.97p/50p/59.94p/100p/119.88p 
HD (1280 x 720) at 50p/59.94p
External Recording Modes 4:2:2 8-Bit
UHD 4K (3840 x 2160) up to 25p/29.97p
Recording Limit Up to 29 Minutes, 59 Seconds
Video Encoding NTSC

Canon 90D Slow Motion Sample from Canon:

Canon EOS M6 Mark II MSRP $849.00 Body Only:

Video

Recording Modes MP4/H.264
UHD 4K (3840 x 2160) at 25p/29.97p
Full HD (1920 x 1080) at 25p/29.97p/50p/59.94p/100p/119.88p 
HD (1280 x 720) at 50p/59.94p
External Recording Modes 4:2:2 8-Bit
UHD 4K (3840 x 2160) up to 25p/29.97p
Recording Limit Up to 29 Minutes, 59 Seconds
Video Encoding NTSC/PAL

Canon EOS M6 Mark II Slow Motion Sample:

As you can tell from the above video specs there is nothing but siumilarity between these cameras. Is as if Sony and Canon got themselves in a room and made a pact to create the most similar cameras possible to not rock the boat and leapfrog one another.

120fps in NTSC and 100fps in PAL at full HD 1080p are the most you can expect from any of these cameras. By price alon the a6100 seems to be the better bargain but Sony lenses are usually more expensive than the similar Canon counterparts. As a system you will be served right by both with a large array of choices and budgets. For frame rates alone however, we cannont recommend any of these cameras for your arsenal. Youa re better off getting a Sony RX series or Panasonic Lumix GH5, G9 or S Full frame to get better speeds at up to 240fps in the case of the GH5s.

Canon Korea has provided some sample footage at 120fps from both the 90D and the M6 Mark II. The quality is very good compared to previous Canon 60fps 720p video in their cameras which is a good sign. However, we can clearly see some moire and compression artifacts though not unacceptable for production. There seems to be a restricted codec compression at work here. The Canon color science did pass through with gorgeous quality right out of the camera which is still better than Sony’s or Panasonic for skin tones and reds in our opinion.

EOS 90D] 4K Movie | 30P | No Crop | City:

Sony has not provided 120p samples but we should expect quality similar to the a6500 shown above. Good and dependable but still also restricted in Codec.  Canon and Sony are really competitive as options with these cameras which oddly enough were released very close to each other.

It is funny how Panasonic with the GH5 from March 2017 is still a better video camera with up to 60p 4k and 180fps 1080p after so many years lead time.

If we could recommend a camera to our readers from the ones in this article it would be easy to do so on the case of the a6100 and EOS 90D and M6 Mark II.  The Sony a6600 does have unlimited recording and S-Log among other video features but hardly worth 2x the price as the a6100 especially since it shares the slow motion 120p component with the only difference being selectability fo frame rates from 1fps to 120fps.

EOS 90D] 4K Movie | 30P | Crop | City: → Continue Reading Full Post ←

BEST SLOW MOTION CAMERAS OF 2018!

BEST SLOW MOTION CAMERAS 2018

As 2018 comes to a close it is time to look back through the year’s camera releases and see which delivered quality at an affordable price in slow motion.  Phone slow motion options above 480fps were a big surprise this year and the frame rate quality improved in other cameras up to 240fps.

There has been a stagnation in the mid to professional camera range at the 240fps with no big improvements afterward. The best quality and value once again came from the Chronos 1.4c from Krontech and the edgertronic cameras which offer professional quality results at a very reasonable price. Read on for our best of 2018 results!

BEST SLOW MOTION CAMERAS of 2018:

Without further ado here are what we believe are the best value slow motion cameras in their respective categories for the year 2018:

Best Slow Motion Phones:OnePlus 6, 6T, Samsung Galaxy S9 and Note 9, Sony Xperia XZ2 and XZ3 series!

The best slow motion phones of 2018 are in our view the OnePlus 6 & OnePlus 6T which offer the same Slow Motion quality and features at 480fps 720p with a recording time of 3.75 seconds which translate to a full minute of playback at a 30p frame rate timeline. This is unmatched by any phone and while the quality is still not ideal, it is, however, the undisputed king of usable slow motion.

Other phones in the running like the Galaxy S9 and Note 9 offer 960fps recording for up to 0.2 and  0.4 seconds which is a very short time frame to catch the action. Sure they offer twice the frame rate as the OnePlus 6 at 720p HD as well but the time restriction just gets it to second place. The Samsung phones do have better 240fps continuous recording which is something to take into consideration.

The Xperia Sony Phones XZ2 and XZ3 are 960fps phones that record at 1080p resolution which is a first for any phone. Problem is they record at just a very tiny sliver of time. The 0.1-second recording is so small a window that the phones are just next to useless for serious slow motion use.  Furthermore,  the phones at 720p only double that time recording to 0.2 seconds which is 6.4 seconds of slow motion at 30p playback.

OnePlus 6 vs Samsung Galaxy S9+ super slow-mo by Fun4sure:

The big surprise in the phone space was the iPhone is no longer a class-leading slow motion phone, same goes for the Google pixel which capped performance at up to 240fps only.  Both of the big tech companies nearly forgot about slow motion this year while our phone leaders OnePlus, Sony and Samsung used it as one of the top features to tout the feature set.

As a Side Note, OnePlus just released a new variant of the OnePlus 6T called the 6T McLaren Edition which also offers the exact same camera performance in the regular 6 and 6T. The big change comes in faster charging and a 10GB RAM memory configuration which will probably be unnoticeable compared to an 8GB 6T in real use. The extra price tag is mostly for the look and feel so we recommend the 6T and regular 6 OnePlus variants as better options for value. All of these phones have the exact same slow motion specs.

Winner: OnePlus 6T and OnePlus 6!

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Mid Range Professional Cameras: Panasonic GH5s, Sony a7 III, and Sony PXW-Z90V!

3rd Place: We were excited by the announcement of the Panasonic GH5s earlier in the year as the rumors showed 240fps 1080p continuous recording.  Sure the spec was included in the camera but the results were an aliased and moire prone image that made it unusable for professional use at 240fps. The camera does offer excellent 1080p at 120fps and slightly reduced resolution at up to 190fps.  The 240fps mode is usable but you will not want to shoot anything for a client with it as the quality drop is severe.  The Panasonic GH5 of 2017 is actually a higher quality 180fps image than the GH5s which seems to be based on the sensor itself being able to out resolve and scale the image down with more detail retention. We still think that unless low light is your prime focus, the Panasonic GH5 is still the better choice for frame rates in the Panasonic portable Mid-Range Professional cameras.

Panasonic Lumix GH5S + DJI Ronin-S | 240fps Slow-Motion Footage by Tom’s Tech Time:
→ Continue Reading Full Post ←

Double Your Camera Slow Motion Frame Rate For Real!

Double Your Camera Slow Motion Frame Rate

Ever wondered how super slow motion in the past was capable of multi-thousand fps performance with just film exposures? Well, they used customized camera rigs that combined multiple rolls of films, mirrors, and synch cables to essentially get a result beyond what the limitations of the equipment forced upon the shooter.

In a very cool video by Camera Tech on Youtube from 2015 they were able to get a custom mirror rig to shoot simultaneously on two GoPro cameras with a semi-translucent angled mirror that splits the light to each camera lens by 50% making it possible to sum both frame rates in post by alternating the frames captured by both cameras with a very slight time difference equivalent to 1/frame rate expected.

Double Your Camera Slow Motion Frame Rate:

Video by Camera Tech Explaining the Process:

Super Slow Motion – True 480 fps video with GoPro Hero 4 by Camera Tech:

Full Sample Video: Super Slow Motion – True 480 fps with GoPro Hero 4 by Camera Tech: → Continue Reading Full Post ←