Panasonic Lumix DC-G100 120fps Slowmo Full HD and why to avoid it!

Panasonic Lumix DC-G100 120fps Slowmo

The new trend this year is the selfie mirrorless camera being bundled so that Youtube and other social media Vloggers get a camera that can easily capture what they need with little fuzz. It is no secret that camera sales are in free fall and companies will try to market anything and everything to get some sales. Such is the case with the Panasonic Lumix G100. It has a very nice microphone, a diminutive body, a terrific bright day screen, and a very portable and good enough image from a micro 4/3 sensor.

So why all this negativity? Well for a camera that wants to compete with the smaller 1″ sensor but better overall featured Sony ZV-1 with excellent dual pixel tracking AF; the G100 is limited in a variety of ways. The 5x stabilization will only work in 1080p and be only electronic in 4k.  4k itself only lasts 10 minutes which is very constrained for 2020, maybe for 2016 as a spec but not 4 years later. Dig in for more info! → Continue Reading Full Post ←

Galaxy S20 Slow Motion Samples Revisited!

Galaxy S20 Slow Motion Samples

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 ←

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. → Continue Reading Full Post ←

Z CAM E2 M4 Slow Motion With Affordable 4k 160fps!

Z CAM E2 M4 Slow Motion

The new Z CAM E2 – M4 Micro 4/3″ sensor cinema 4k camera offers performance that punches way above its own price weight of just $1,499 @ Adorama which is $500 less than the very similar regular Z CAM E2 just lacking Multicam synch support which is a very minor trade off considering the power and benefits you gain.   It has Triple native ISO of  80 / 160 / 800 and 13 stops of DR using their ZLog profile, and 16 stops of DR in WDR mode which does some HDR processing.

The frame rates are also outstanding for such a low-cost camera and while the higher setting requires H.265 encoding which for many is not ideal considering it lowers the bit depth from 10 bits to 8, it offers what many cameras only dream of.  160fps in 4k in beautiful resolution and up to 240fps in 1080p which has very good quality with some compromises. → Continue Reading Full Post ←