The Panasonic GH5 is one of the most highly-anticipated compact cinema cameras of the year. It is the first of its kind to finally break the barrier towards a compact form-factor 10-bit 4K acquisition in the realm of (somewhat) large sensor cameras. Here is our lab analysis, where we will evaluate all the pros and cons of the new GH5 sensor, with a focus on the new 4K 10-bit mode.
Note that we used a production camera model with preliminary final firmware (v1.00) for this test.
Panasonic GH5 Review
After a short delay, here is our long awaited Panasonic GH5 lab review. We tried to publish this earlier, but our questions surrounding the 10-bit mode required more investigation before we could put this new camera to use. Yesterday we finally received firmware 1.00 with a V-log activation, and were able to re-test and confirm our findings. Also check out the preliminary hands-on that Graham did in January.
Panasonic GH5 with a Speedboster Ultra and the Zeiss 50mm Cp2 Macro Lens
In this Panasonic GH5 review, we will run the usual tests we do here at cinema5D, and look at several important sensor attributes like dynamic range, sharpness and rolling shutter performance. We will also try to evaluate the low-light performance and take a particular look at 10-bit.
We test all cameras with the same Zeiss 50mm Cp2 macro lens (more on how we test HERE). In the case of the Panasonic GH5, the lens was attached via EF-mount with the Metabones Speedbooster Ultra adapter, which gives us excellent optical performance. For our dynamic range test we use a DSC labs XYLA-21 transmissive test chart, and to measure sharpness we use a combination of a subjective chart and a huge 8K Imatest ISO chart. Let’s get started.
The Panasonic GH5 Introduces 10-bit 4K
That the Panasonic GH5 introduces 10-bit color depth is this camera’s most interesting feature, and one that had many filmmakers (including myself) excited for the last couple of months. But looking at the camera’s specs, there are other aspects to like:
- MFT-size sensor with slightly larger sensor area than the GH4
- 5-axis internal image stabilisation
- Internal 10-bit 4:2:2 in 4K (up 30fps)
- Internal 8-bit 4:2:0 in 4K (up 60fps)
- Up 180fps in 1080p
- Dual SD card slots
- No recording time limit
- V-Log Gamma (paid upgrade $100)
- Affordable price
A firmware update later this year will bring 6K photo mode, anamorphic recording as well as internal DCI 4K 10-bit with a 400mbit all-I codec. Currently, we’re stuck with 150mbit, which is fine too and should give us great results.
But let’s go into 10-bit color depth right away. We were really eager to test it and expected to see silky smooth skin gradations and footage with rich color information from Vlog recordings. After all, many of us have been shooting 8-bit color for much too long and the step up to 10-bit should make a huge difference, going from millions into 1.1 billion colors, especially as we’re using flat gamma on all our productions now, with V-log on this nice new GH5 camera to be specific. Many were frustrated with Vlog on the GH4, so let’s see how the performance was improved.
Panasonic GH5 10-bit & Vlog Problems
We were initially impressed when we saw GH5 10-bit footage. With the right coloring or LUT, the results do look more organic and filmic than most of what we’ve seen in the area of small form-factor cinema cameras that shoot 8-bit. But after trying Vlog and tweaking the colors a bit more, I just couldn’t get those skin tones to look nice. In fact, I had to give up at one point and accept what was dawning on me: something was wrong with Vlog on the GH5. But a claim like that after a simple look at random test footage is never enough, so the only way to confirm this observation was to do a proper side-by-side comparison with a few other cameras. Luckily, we also had a Sony FS7, Canon C700 and Canon 1DC lying around at cinema5D HQ. Two of those cameras shoot 10-bit internal, and one of them is in fact a seriously expensive and high end camera (C700), so that should give us some perspective.
Panasonic GH5 Skin Tones Vlog – Minimal Grading, 10bit
So we recorded my hand and face to demonstrate the way this sensor interprets skin tones. The color depth is set to 10bit, we shot in V-log and did a rough rec.709 grade to match the other cameras. Skin tones are kept natural – by which I mean that yellow and green tints were kept “as is”. What was a bit disturbing to me is not only that some areas of the shot exhibit very basic color information, but that the adjacent color areas are so diverse. In one place my hand is green and in another it is pink and there is no gradation in between. These are very clear low bit-depth artifacts which don’t make me look very flattering.
The window on the left is a 150% crop of my cheek with a 25% boost in saturation, so you can see the areas of separated color more clearly.
Panasonic GH5 Skin Tones Vlog – Minimal Grading, 8bit
Here is the same shot in 8-bit mode on the Panasonic GH5. The poor color gradation is slightly more obvious here, but to be honest I cannot spot a huge difference in comparison to 10-bit. But shouldn’t 10-bit give us 1024 colors for each channel, resulting in over a billion distinct colors???
It is true that a flat gamma like V-log greatly diminishes color information in exchange for extended dynamic range and softer highlights and shadows. But still, I was a bit underwhelmed with the many color areas I saw on the GH5. So, let’s take a look at the other cameras.
Canon 1D C Skin Tones – Minimal Grading, 8bit
Here’s the Canon 1D C. And yes, I can see the same kind of minimal color information there, resulting in large areas with a single color. What I also see is that different areas of my skin have different colors, but I see fewer pink and green blocks, resulting in a better skin tone harmony. Anyway, the 1D C is a dead horse, so let’s move on to other 10-bit cameras.
Sony FS7 Skin Tones – Minimal Grading, 10bit
Ah, finally, the Sony FS7 brings a “bit” more depth to our eyes. Surprisingly, I can still make out those color artifacts in the skin, and bit depth seems to be less than expected, but clearly not as bad as on the GH5. When we look at the 150% crop window on the left, we can see that those patches have both better skin tone harmony and fewer color blocking artifacts.
Canon C700 Skin Tones – Minimal Grading, 10bit
Here is where it gets interesting. The Canon C700 is a camera that comes in a huge form factor and with a high price tag. A serious moviemaking camera. The latest flagship Canon C camera also shoots 10-bit ProRes in 4K DCI, so that’s what I chose for this shot. Of all the cameras, this one definitely gave us the best skin tones, best color harmony and the least color blocking artifacts. But still, I could make out rough color gradations in several areas.
10-bit Conclusion
Panasonic GH5 Skin Tones 10bit compared to other cameras
It seems that none of these cameras truly records 1.1 billion colors and, unless my skin is made up of distinct color patches, there seems to be more to “10-bit color” than we know. Having tested and evaluated many camera sensors here at cinema5D, I can tell you this: none of this camera tech is as easy and simplistic as it might seem. Camera manufacturers try really hard to make it all work according to our expectations, but there are limitations everywhere. So if you truly want a 10-bit look in scientific terms, you should probably just keep in mind that we always get less in practice than on paper, so simply shoot 12-bit…
As for the Panasonic GH5… There really seems to be a problem with Vlog’s bit depth and colors, with skin tones being particularly problematic. In a last effort, I also tested sky gradations, because this is how everyone else seems to tests color depth too:
Panasonic GH5 10 bit color depth. Graded with official Panasonic Vlog to rec709 LUT
I applied the official Panasonic Vlog to rec709 LUT to the shot above and increased contrast. The image wasn’t altered in any other way. We have forwarded our findings to Panasonic and hope that this issue will be resolved in one of the upcoming firmwares.
Many people had hopes that the GH5 would solve many of the problems everyone had had with Vlog on the 8-bit GH4. Unfortunately it seems like those problems persist.
Better 8-bit / 10-bit Quality in PP “Neutral”
Now if we put Vlog aside for a moment and look at a different picture profile we get a big surprise: Those color gradations look nicer than on most other compact 8-bit cinema cameras we’ve seen before. Really nice!
Panasonic GH5 – Picture Profile: “Natural” – Nice color gradations
As you can see in the shot above I used PP “Natural”. The results were pleasing, both in 10-bit as well as in 8-bit mode. There are no pink and yellow color artifacts and colors and gradations seem correct. Even when we push that image’s contrast we see there is a lot of room for grading before the image finally falls apart:
Panasonic GH5 – Picture Profile: “Natural” – Contrast Pushed
The only thing we noticed was that there is again, no difference between the 10-bit recording and the 8-bit recording. When we push the contrast to the extreme (image above) we can spot where the colors break apart, but they do so on both recordings, so there is actually little to benefit in shooting 10-bit on the Panasonic GH5 whatsoever. A pity! Never the less, even the 8-bit mode, in any picture profile besides Vlog, looks very nice in terms of 8-bit color depth.
Dynamic Range
Now that this is out of the way, let’s focus on another important camera attribute – dynamic range. A good dynamic range rating allows us to capture a larger range of shadows and highlights in high-contrast scenes – an important property when it comes to evaluating a camera intended for filmic use.
Our software was very strict with the GH5. We always take noise into account, because in all honesty, a very noisy image can only be recovered up to a limited degree as image information is quickly lost. With our usual SNR threshold of 1/0.5, our software measured a rough 10 stops of usable dynamic range on the Panasonic GH5. This is a slightly sub-normal rating. Both the Sony a7S II and the Fujifilm X-T2 have a higher rating. Here’s a screenshot of the dynamic range of a few popular cameras:
Panasonic GH5 Dynamic Range Test
We can see that the sensor’s total dynamic range is higher than those 10 usable stops, but in a real world scenario we think the noisy shadows will many times have to be cut away in grading. When used correctly, this camera can still produce admirable results. On a subjective scale – and if you don’t mind some noise in your images – this camera can probably give you 11 usable stops when you’re careful. You should just try to avoid underexposure on the Panasonic GH5.
Noise and Low Light
In terms of noise and low light, the camera actually doesn’t perform as bad as expected when looking at that dynamic range chart at ISO 400, because in reality the camera also produces those same 10 stops of dynamic range at ISO 800. Quality only slightly degenerates at ISO 1600, and is at its breaking point at ISO 3200. At ISO 6400 the image clearly has much more noise and the color in the dark areas shifts towards yellow and magenta. You should only shoot beyond ISO 3200 with caution.
In this image you can see a 100% crop of dynamic range steps 6 to 14:
Panasonic GH5 Lowlight ISO 800 to ISO 6400
On top of that, the MFT sized sensor and MFT mount also allows us to use the Metabones Speedbooster Ultra, which gives us an extra stop of exposure range and nice super35 shallow depth of field. So even though the out-of-thebox lowlight performance is only average, the Speedbooster can help us out a bit and improves the overall look as well.
Panasonic GH5 and Metabones Speedbooster Ultra
Rolling Shutter
The Sony a7S II suffered from strong rolling shutter problems, a phenomenon also referred to as “jello”. The rolling shutter phenomenon that we see on most CMOS sensor video cameras is also present on the Panasonic GH5, but is much less severe in comparison to many other cameras.
This is also down to the sensor size of the GH5. The MFT-sized sensor makes rolling shutter less of a problem.
Image Quality
Image Detail is the aspect where the Panasonic GH5 performs very well. If you disregard the 10-bit color blocking artifacts, the overall image is very organic and has very nice detail, comparable to cameras like the Fujifilm X-T2 or FS7.
100% crops for Image Detail
In terms of aliasing, the Panasonic GH5 also performs very well. In comparison to the aformentioned cameras, though, it is a bit weaker on vertical aliasing as the lines in our 8K test chart couldn’t be separated as nicely as on the FS7 for example.
Panasonic GH5 Vertical Aliasing
Panasonic GH5 vs. Sony a7S II – Subchart Image Details
The Sony a7S II has a problem with contrast areas. This is where the camera’s image gets soft and loses detail. The Panasonic GH5, in comparison, resolves all aspects of image detail very nicely and outperforms the a7s II in that regard, as you can see in the shot above. The slight grain (noise) in the Panasonic GH5 looks nice and filmic.
When using Vlog, it is important to set Sharpness (S) and Noise Reduction (NR) to -5. This gave us the best quality on the Panasonic GH5. Otherwise the image would look oversharpened.
180fps Slow Motion
It is nice that the Panasonic GH5 gives us the option to shoot 180fps in HD resolution in such a small form factor. However, as on most other cameras this is much better on paper than in reality, because the true resolution and quality is actually less than 1080p.
Panasonic GH5 Slow Motion 180fps Image Quality compared to 25fps. 100% crop.
As you can see the quality in HD resolution is very nice whereas in slow motion mode, at 180fps, the image has visibly lower resolution and leans more towards an actual 720p.
Conclusion
This has become a very long article, but some of those issues we found required some investigation and explanation. In conclusion it is no doubt that the Panasonic GH5 is a very tempting offer when you look for an affordable, compact cinema camera that can potentially produce some great looking footage. There is a 10-bit option, a 4K mode with nice details and a 180fps option. In reality though some of those features are a bit disappointing in practice.
Log gamma has become the goto option for filmmakers who want high quality cinematic results and avoid the “digital look” that some of those cameras can produce. Also it offers the most flexibility in grading and opens up a world of possibilities in terms of LUTs and camera matching. Unfortunately in our tests we saw that Vlog was a “bit” disappointing on the GH5, same as on the GH4 before it, and cautiously I would go as far as calling it “unusable” for most professional applications at this time. The color artifacts and underwhelming “10-bit” performance make videos shot on this camera hard to use in post and the 10-bit mode has almost the same look and quality as the 8-bit mode.
If you can put the issues with Vlog aside and if you can settle with the other picture profiles, then the GH5 has some nice things in store for you. Even though most of its sensor performance (detail, dynamic range, lowlight, 180fps) is only average, the internal image stabilization was a pleasure to use for handheld applications, it gave me a very cinematic handheld look, the peaking is very useful and special features like the histogram and anamorphic recording options make this a more cinema capable camera than most other small handheld devices before.
At the end of the day, if you had your money set on 10-bit, the Panasonic GH5 is currently not the most convincing choice and personally I would still rather pick up an 8-bit Sony a7S II or another one of those more affordable new MFT mirrorless cameras like the Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II (review here) or Fujifilm X-T2 (review here). We have forwarded our remarks to Panasonic and hope they will react and fix the issues we found via a firmware update soon.
Pro’s
- MFT sensor works very well with Metabones Speedbooster Ultra for nice shallow depth of field.
- 5-axis internal image stabilisation
- Advanced video shooting functions like peaking, histogram or anamorphic mode
- Very nice quality 8-bit mode! Up to 60fps in 4K
- Good image detail
- Up to 180fps (Quality is not up to 1080p standards though)
- Good rolling shutter perfomance
- Dual SD card slots
- No recording time limit
- Affordable price
Con’s
- Vlog is seriously flawed at the moment
- 10-bit 4:2:2 mode looks the same as 8-bit 4:2:0 mode
- Dynamic range is limited
- Lowlight is average
- 180fps mode has much less quality than actual 1080p
- Some Canon lenses did not work with the Metabones Speedbooster
We hope this review helped you. Please consider getting your gear from one of our recommended retailers and let us know your own thoughts and observations in the comments.
cinema5D instaLUT B1010 applied to Panasonic GH5 10bit test shot as presented earlier in this test.
Panasonic GH5 LUT – cinema5D instaLUT FREE
This LUT is made for VLOG ON THE PANASONIC GH5 only! Vlog is a paid upgrade on this camera.
This LUT is ideal for people who don’t want to tamper around with colors too much or who want to get a nice and filmic basic look in post. This LUT imitates our instaLUT B1010 that we first used on the Arri ALEXA and DJI Inspire 2 here.
Furthermore this look works to improve the GH5 skin tones in Vlog. While it won’t completely remove the bit depth / skin tone problems the GH5 currently has, it squeezes the skin tones and removes oversaturated dark areas a bit.
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Here are a few shots where you can see the LUT applied to Panasonic GH5 footage. These shots have the look applied with no other modifications.
The post How Good is the Panasonic GH5? Lab Review Reveals 10bit Flaws in Vlog + FREE GH5 LUT appeared first on cinema5D.