By Matt Born on 1st Jan 2017
I have always compared it to the A7S or 5Ds, which for us have been much more successful.
Like the A7S mk2, it now has an audio unit that attaches to the hot shoe and gets its power from the camera.
Great, but this means you have to use the hot shoe and can’t put other accessories on it, like a top light or a radio mic receiver. I am sure this will be sorted with some sort of cage with cold shoe mounts, but the Wooden Camera version covers the hot shoe and SmallRig is still in development (although looks really promising). Also, does this shorten the battery life? We haven’t tested it, but if the K2M is anything to go by, it won’t take too much power.
Features include
- Splash and freeze proof up to -10°C, which is ‘cool’
- A phone app can now completely operate the camera via Bluetooth/Wi-Fi connectivity
- Type A HDMI socket (the regular one – like on our monitors and external recorders use), pl
- us the HDMI cable can be locked in, so it is a more secure connection.
- Slow motion is now 180fps (it looks good on the test footage, but it isn’t great in tungsten light.
- Less rolling shutter issues, as the readout speed is 1.66 times faster due to new processer.
- More natural noise in low light, ISO 6400 still looks good. It is Native ISO 400.
- In-camera Image Stabiliser - 5 axes image stabilising. The sensor moves, so the lens doesn’t need to be IS.
- It can output 4k 60p 10bit to external recorder
- Internal recording at 4k 60p/50p – 150mbps – 4:2:0 8bit OR 4:2:2 10bit – except 4k 60p/50p
- No limit to recording time, you can even hot swop cards. 1 hour continuous shooting at 4k and there was no overheating.
Sadly, you can’t use the same cage from the GH4, as the GH5 is 10% bigger and 25% heavier, and also there’s no internal flash unit. It will work with a Metabones adaptor BUT there is vignetting before 20mm.
In the summer 2017 firmware release, there will be 400Mbps all intra and 4k HDR throw HDMI video-out, as well as 6k anamorphic mode, I think this is recording H265. The only other camera to do 6k anamorphic mode is RED, which is a little price jump!
I am not going to run out and buy this, but I am impressed. It looks like it will only build on the success of the GH4.