Panasonic DFD

I'm in a bit of a quandary. I have a m4/3 kit based around an EM1 mki, EM10, and EP5 with the Olympus f2.8 zooms and 4 nice primes. At this stage I'm looking to get more into video -  i already shoot quite a bit - and so I want a more video capable camera with 4K. The EM1 mkii would be nice but doesn't have all the video functions I need so consequently I'm looking at the GH5. My question is the Panasonic DFD focus is based only upon Panasonic lens profiles so if I get a GH5 will using my Olympus lenses mean decreased AF performance and so will I need to start acquiring Panasonic lenses as well?

My personal belief is that it's not really that Olympus lenses on Panasonic bodies are slow to focus but rather that Panasonic lenses are especially fast to focus. I really do not mind owning some Olympus glass even though I have GX80.

Dual IS is the real reason going for Panasonic + Panasonic can be tempting to be honest, unless of course you are shooting something very fast.

Raist3d wrote:

Paul Amyes wrote:

I'm in a bit of a quandary. I have a m4/3 kit based around an EM1 mki, EM10, and EP5 with the Olympus f2.8 zooms and 4 nice primes. At this stage I'm looking to get more into video - i already shoot quite a bit - and so I want a more video capable camera with 4K. The EM1 mkii would be nice but doesn't have all the video functions I need so consequently I'm looking at the GH5. My question is the Panasonic DFD focus is based only upon Panasonic lens profiles so if I get a GH5 will using my Olympus lenses mean decreased AF performance and so will I need to start acquiring Panasonic lenses as well?

The DFD will work better with Panasonic lenses, and yes, a full profile will realize the full benefit. However, as the Japanese GX850 brochure states, there's a partial DFD benefit even using non-Panasonic lenses (which does include Olympus lenses).

I can say that my GX850 focuses better than my OMD EM5 MKII, Pen-F. Even the GM5 without DFD focuses better than those. But the EM1 MKII represents a major performance jump for Olympus...

My take honestly is- if you need video and by that I mean serious video, go for the GH5. It will still focus very fast with whatever lenses.

If you need ultimate speed/AF performance, but just pretty good video, go with the Olympus.

Honestly I think more than the AF, the first question is how serious you need/are into video. The GH5 may be overkill - or not.

What I can say though is that none of my Olympuses focus the Panasonic pancake F1.7 MKII which I adore accurate on most situations when it should, while the Panasonic bodies do.

My EM1.1 focusses the 20mm f/1.7 mk1 fine.  Never had missed focus.  Noisy and a bit slow but accurate.

Andrew

Raist3d wrote:

ahaslett wrote:

Raist3d wrote:

Paul Amyes wrote:

I'm in a bit of a quandary. I have a m4/3 kit based around an EM1 mki, EM10, and EP5 with the Olympus f2.8 zooms and 4 nice primes. At this stage I'm looking to get more into video - i already shoot quite a bit - and so I want a more video capable camera with 4K. The EM1 mkii would be nice but doesn't have all the video functions I need so consequently I'm looking at the GH5. My question is the Panasonic DFD focus is based only upon Panasonic lens profiles so if I get a GH5 will using my Olympus lenses mean decreased AF performance and so will I need to start acquiring Panasonic lenses as well?

The DFD will work better with Panasonic lenses, and yes, a full profile will realize the full benefit. However, as the Japanese GX850 brochure states, there's a partial DFD benefit even using non-Panasonic lenses (which does include Olympus lenses).

I can say that my GX850 focuses better than my OMD EM5 MKII, Pen-F. Even the GM5 without DFD focuses better than those. But the EM1 MKII represents a major performance jump for Olympus...

My take honestly is- if you need video and by that I mean serious video, go for the GH5. It will still focus very fast with whatever lenses.

If you need ultimate speed/AF performance, but just pretty good video, go with the Olympus.

Honestly I think more than the AF, the first question is how serious you need/are into video. The GH5 may be overkill - or not.

What I can say though is that none of my Olympuses focus the Panasonic pancake F1.7 MKII which I adore accurate on most situations when it should, while the Panasonic bodies do.

My EM1.1 focusses the 20mm f/1.7 mk1 fine. Never had missed focus. Noisy and a bit slow but accurate.

That's great and one would expect that from a camera that has phase detection. But the other Olympus models don't fare as well. I certainly expect the EM1 MKII to do much better here than any previous Olympus model.

Andrew

Supposedly the EM1 only uses PDAF with MFT lenses in CAF.  Who knows.

Andrew

Raist3d wrote:

In GF 9, even when using micro Four Thirds lenses other than ours, we can improve AF performance by utilizing a part of DFD technology.

Interesting.  I missed whenever you previously posted this.  Thanks for posting it again.

It seems to me that only a few years ago, no camera with a narrow depth of field had good continuous autofocus for video. Even professional camcorders weren't good - they have small sensors and a wide depth of field and a lot is in focus all the time. But that makes continuous autofocus that much easier.

Then came the Canon 70D and Dual Pixel autofocus. It is pretty good with continuous focus for video. Most (all?) Canon models since then have it. Then more recently came some Sony models, I think that A6500 leads the pack, which has continuous autofocus close to the Canon.

So, I think it has only been about 3.5 years since any camera has had continuous autofocus.

Well, it looks like the GH5 is not great for continuous AF.  Perhaps better than any previous Panasonic, but not great.  And perhaps it is better with a Panasonic lens than an Olympus or other brand lens, but regardless not great.  And not great may indeed mean not usable.  Just better to manual focus.  Or stop down the lens to make the job less challenging.

BUT,  I have the 70D and don't use it for video much.  Because the quality just sucks.  I'd rather use my Panasonic LX100 and focus manually and get much better results.

BUT,  It seems to me with Sony you get a camera that overheats, and has poor menus, and you have to choose between low quality lenses, or really expensive lenses.  I'm totally not interested in Sony.

SO,  I think the GH5, or another cheaper Panasonic camera is still the best compromise for use in video unless you really value continuous autofocus over things like video quality and usability.

After all that - I don't think I really answered your question.  It may be better with Panasonic lenses, but you may just have to try out with your Olympus lenses and then decide.  Note that I don't think the Olympus has better continuous autofocus for video than Panasonic.

I mix and match and in my the experience Oly lenses on DFD is only one factor; and in general, I wouldn't worry about it.

Each individual lens will behave differently on different cameras.  My only Oly body is an E-PL5 so it's not a fair comparison, but the 40-150/f2.8 is way faster to foucs on my GX8.  The 75mm/f1.8 is near enough the same on both bodies, which is significantly slower than the 40-150.  So I would say, if you can, carry your bag to the store and test your lenses on the GH5 side by side with one of your Oly bodies.

If you can test, make sure you have a memory card.  Color differences between the mfg's is noticeable and something I would recommend you look at before you commit.

I also think video AF is a different beast than stills AF (on any M43 camera) and it will give you more to deal with than any native M43 lenses.

Kev

Here's an article explaining DfD technology. A key quote:

Of course, given that the camera needs to understand each lens' bokeh characteristics in great detail, the first question we asked was what will happen as Panasonic develops and releases new lenses: Will the GH4's firmware have to be updated every time a new lens comes out? The answer was that, while the GH4 will contain a database of all the current Lumix lenses, new models will have their bokeh profiles stored on internal memory in the lens itself. So, no camera firmware updates needed, each new lens will carry with it the information needed to make DFD work.

This naturally leads to the next question: What about third-party lenses? As you might expect, the GH4 doesn't contain a bokeh database for every non-Lumix lens out there, so third-party lenses will revert to Panasonic's (already very fast) conventional contrast-detect AF algorithms.

Cheers,

Rick

IMHO most replies above - while going to a lot of detail - are looking into the wrong direction. The OP is considering Pana for its video features. Hence what matters is also video AF performance with different lenses and this is a totally different game than AF performance for stills (which is for the most part good enough in either case).

Actually if judged on the one dozen  or so posts in this forum from the last couple of days alone GH5 video AF performance leaves a few things to be desired, and this is based on tests using PL lenses. So whether Oly lenses make it much worse was not a question so far.

My advice to the OP is to think twice about whether you will actually deploy the GH5's extra capabilities in video - do you have the intent, time and infrastructure to work with 10bit 4K 60fps 400MBS material for grading before scaling it all down to a format that  can be consumed today?

The GH5 is a great camera (I own it) but it may not be what gives you the biggest benefit for the money today.

Rosetta wrote:

IMHO most replies above - while going to a lot of detail - are looking into the wrong direction. The OP is considering Pana for its video features. Hence what matters is also video AF performance with different lenses and this is a totally different game than AF performance for stills (which is for the most part good enough in either case).

Actually if judged on the one dozen or so posts in this forum from the last couple of days alone GH5 video AF performance leaves a few things to be desired, and this is based on tests using PL lenses. So whether Oly lenses make it much worse was not a question so far.

My advice to the OP is to think twice about whether you will actually deploy the GH5's extra capabilities in video - do you have the intent, time and infrastructure to work with 10bit 4K 60fps 400MBS material for grading before scaling it all down to a format that can be consumed today?

The GH5 is a great camera (I own it) but it may not be what gives you the biggest benefit for the money today.

As I've said previously I think it's brave to rely on the GH5's video AF for anything you can't repeat. I found this showed the issues quite well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PE9SbpVnrss&t=1536s
I do think low light and fairly close distances are the biggest issues.

Rosetta wrote:

IMHO most replies above - while going to a lot of detail - are looking into the wrong direction. The OP is considering Pana for its video features. Hence what matters is also video AF performance with different lenses and this is a totally different game than AF performance for stills (which is for the most part good enough in either case).

Actually if judged on the one dozen or so posts in this forum from the last couple of days alone GH5 video AF performance leaves a few things to be desired, and this is based on tests using PL lenses. So whether Oly lenses make it much worse was not a question so far.

My advice to the OP is to think twice about whether you will actually deploy the GH5's extra capabilities in video - do you have the intent, time and infrastructure to work with 10bit 4K 60fps 400MBS material for grading before scaling it all down to a format that can be consumed today?

The GH5 is a great camera (I own it) but it may not be what gives you the biggest benefit for the money today.

Oh very serious about video. I've been a finalist in a film festival and am shooting more and more.

Trouble is I'm going round in circles. Canon has the best video AF system, best colour science, but either offer crap codecs or only 1080. Sony has the next best AF implementation but has over heating issues and colour output that can be difficult to grade. Panasonic has nice files, good codecs, but decidedly iffy AF implementation from what I've seen of the reviews of the GH5.