Panasonic gx80 for weddings

[Noa Put]

I ordered a gx80 to complement my JVC at my next wedding, my main interest was it's stabilization and while I only just got it I immediately went off outside to do some handheld shots with my 75mm f1.8 lens and no, I did not run around like an idiot like I see many do because the stabilization is not designed for that. :) I want to take headshots at a reception, in the church, closeup beauty shots of jewelry or during make up and everything handheld with either my 42,5mm f1.7 or my 70mm f1.8. So that means holding the camera absolutely still, maybe do a slow sideways motion with my upperbody while keeping the camera pointed to the same position or just a very slow pan or tilt.

I don't have much time yet for a better test but below video looks frikkin awesome because it's with an unstabilised 75mm prime (or 150mm full frame equivalent), only when I make a sideways motion the stabilization "twitches" a bit because of the stabilization getting confused which I have seen reported but this is very promising because it will even be better with my stabilized 42,5mm lens.

In this video I am not leaning against anything, just holding the little viewfinder against my eye which is the only point of contact.

Wadaya think, not bad he?

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Private video on Vimeo

[Noa Put]

Next up low light which was second important on my list

I shot this with my gh4 and a 14-140mm lens at f3.6 and 6400 iso and shot in 4K, did the same with the GX80, both where set in standard profile with everything at zero.

Low light performance seems to be the same and the gx80 looks cleaner but that is most likely because of a aggressive noise reduction which crushes the blacks completely in the progress, just look at the space on the left behind the door, there is nothing there on the gx80. The gx80 certainly needs some toning down of contrast and saturation but that I will have to experiment with later on. I don't see it as a problem though but will find out soon enough at my next wedding.

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[Noa Put]

and last one shot with the gh80 in 4k with the 14-140mm (or 28 to 280mm in full frame), this lens is stabilized and I just updated teh firmware on that lens to make it work together with the camera inbody stabilization so that's 5-axis now.
first shot I was leaning against a fence with only other point of contact the viewfinder against my eye, the second shot I was not leaning against anything so only point of contact was the viewfinder against my eye.

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[Andrew Maclaurin]

Looks good!
Hopefully the twitches will be predictable as they are the biggest problem that I have had with stabilising systems.

[Steve Burkett]

Looks great; there's rumour this will be applied to the GH5. I really really hope so.

[Noa Put]

Been a few hours out to test the stabilization, shot with a 12-35mm f2.8, a 42mm f1.7 and a 75mm f1.8.

The 2 stabilized lenses had a firmware upgrade to get the dual is working. My conclusion is that jitter free shooting handheld is no issue at all, all three lenses I tried, incl the 75mm gives very stable footage when you hold the camera still, even with the not so good ergonomics of the camera. Only when you start to move like when you pan or when you move forward or sideways you need to be careful because you can get some unwanted movement. This is not a camera to run around with, for that you use a gimbal.

The tiny viewfinder is very good, even when shooting outside it was easy to see a clear enough image, the lcd screen also allowed me to see what I was doing, even in full sunlight.

I was able to get about 38 minutes worth of footage on one battery load before I got a almost empty warning.

I shot in 1080p 50p natural preset with all set to zero because I wanted to see how it performed in that case and because I wanted to slow down the footage, the location I shot at is a very good test for aliasing and moire and I got some very nasty aliasing on vertical lines.

When I dialed the sharpness way back it was a bit less but still very visible, only when I shot in 4k, dialed the sharpness way back and edit in 4k the aliasing is much less visible and acceptable.

For my next wedding I will shoot in 1080p 50p anyway as I will be shooting with either the 42mm and 75mm at it's widest f-stop for the shallowest dof and since I will be mainly shooing closeups of jewelry and headshots then aliasing isn't a problem and I can slow down the footage when needed.

I added some minor blur to the footage to decrease the aliasing a bit, everything is slowed down in post and a few clips I have stabilized a bit more in post, especially the ones where I moved forward or sideways with the camera.

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Here you can see the aliasing with 1080p footage with sharpness at 0
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and here when it's shot and edited in 4k with sharpness dialled back
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[Noa Put]

First stabilization "bug" found while shooting with the 12-32mm kit lens, have not been able to replicate the problem so not sure if it was linked to the kitlens or not. In my second shot it disappears when zoomed in, I didn' t notice the problem while I was shooting, I saw it however in that first shot but it disappeared in anything I shot after that.

gx80_stabilization problem on Vimeo

[Noa Put]

Made some gh4 comparisons, mainly when using the 75mm you see how powerful the stabilization can be, I also noticed now the color from the gx80 is more natural then on the gh4 when using the same image presets (natural in this case) , grass on the gh4 always looked like it's radioactive, looks to me Panasonic has done some tweaking.

gh4 vs gx80 stabilisation test on Vimeo

[Craig McKenna]

Noa, the film you posted earlier that's 2 minutes and 2 seconds in length is well worth everyone's time! To think that is all shot handheld is commendable. I absolutely loved the movements and the use of leading lines matched with the rule of thirds. Incredible stuff!

[Andrew Maclaurin]

In the 2.02 length video you can see the small jumps in a couple of moving shots. I wonder if that's just how the system works or later firmwares might improve it.
I'm seriously thinking about leaving my Canon C100 for business jobs and investing in a couple of lightweight cameras like this foe weddings as I'm tired of lugging around heavy gear.
I'll be following your posts closely. Thanks for all the info!

[Peter Rush]

Incredibly smooth for hand held - very impressed (with both Noa and the camera) what's the autofocus like?

[Noa Put]

Yet another quick test but this time in 4K to see how much better it would look like compared to 1080P, To me the difference is very noticeable, if you want to limit aliasing and moire then there is only one option, shoot 4k. This was shot with picture profile natural with sharpness, saturation and contrast dialed all the way back. Only added some sharpness back in post. This was shot with the 12-32mm kitlens.

panasonic gx80 4K aliasing and moire test on Vimeo

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Andrew Maclaurin

In the 2.02 length video you can see the small jumps in a couple of moving shots.

You definitely need to be careful with pans, tilts don't have that issue

Originally Posted by Peter Rush

what's the autofocus like?

Still need to test this.

[Andrew Maclaurin]

Any signs of over heating?
How do you think it would handle the darker moments at a wedding?

[Noa Put]

I have not testing for overheating yet, lowlight performance looks like the same as the gh4. Eventhough it was a very limited test you can see it here: http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/wedding-...ml#post1915125