welcome to the channel folks my name's shane in today's video i'm going to
share with you five things i learned about the panasonic lumix gh5 mark
ii before i destroyed it the selfie screen snapped right off i'm going to share with you how i did
this and how you can avoid it happening to you with any camera that you choose to use
at the end of the video so if you want to hear about that stay tuned until the end
i'm going to break this video down into sections so you can skip ahead back and forth if you so
choose if you're coming from a micro four thirds camera or a panasonic camera in general there's a
lot to like about this a couple of things that are missing but a lot of stuff has been added
and improved that i don't hear a lot of people talking about let's get into it
first up let's talk about video quality because this is a no-brainer if you plan on buying a new
camera as soon as i hooked this up i noticed a few differences in the look of the footage
the first one being of course you get 10 bit at 50 and 60 frames per second which will appeal to
a lot of people but aside from that we also get vlog l as standard so very similar to that of the
panasonic gh5s and the footage grades beautifully the biggest thing that i noticed about this camera
is just how well v-log grades it doesn't have that overly sharpened look that you find in a lot of
micro four thirds cameras it's very reminiscent of that of the panasonic s5 and yes i currently
own one so i have tested them side by side in many ways this is as i predicted it would be
a micro four thirds version of the panasonic s5 and i'll talk more about the difference
a little later on but overall in terms of what you get picture quality out of this it's really
really good just in terms of straight out of camera color science i'm going to give the nod
to the panasonic gh5 mark ii it's very close but slightly different to that of the panasonic gh5s
which has more of a magenta skin tones thing going on but this straight out of camera i'm
a big fan of the color science now there's two slight exceptions to this rule cine d
and cine v these are supposed to be upgraded and in some ways they are but i found i didn't like
them at all on this camera when you compare them up against the panasonic gh5s or gh5 so
it does something really kind of weird to the skin it almost shifts the color of your nose blue and
i just had no luck with it whatsoever so if you do like cine d out of this camera and you choose
to use it it has better low light performance than that of the panasonic gh5 at the same iso values
so i did a low light test in this room with a couple of candles and no other lights and i found
that the panasonic gh52 had far less noise in the image over the original gh5 now this isn't a low
light beast whatsoever so if you still want that micro four thirds get a gh5s but it did far better
than i was expecting there's definitely some sort of new de-noising algorithm going on when
it comes to this camera especially when you start pushing the iso values up higher the second thing
that surprised me about the panasonic gh5 mark ii was just how great 6.5 stops of stabilization is
now that shouldn't surprise me being that i also own an olympus om-d e-m1 mark ii which has the
best stabilization i've ever used in any camera this is still the best minus catalyst software
with sony cameras but that takes an additional step right so if you want great straight out of
camera stabilization then the panasonic gh5 mark ii is a step up over the original 6.5 stops versus
5 i think isn't doesn't really sound like that much but it does equate to better stabilization
especially if you're doing any type of vlogging now if you're the camera operator you're doing
some stationary shots the is boost in this is fantastic it's just as good as the panasonic gh5
except now it doesn't get sticky when you pan left to right that was one of the biggest complaints
on the gh5 over time as other camera companies got better at it but the gh5 was a little sticky
when you go to pan this works great with both stabilized and unstabilized lenses the third
thing that really surprised me about the panasonic gh5 mark ii is its auto focus performance now i've
tested and done many videos on the autofocus performance on all the panasonic cameras over
the years and i have to tell you that this is the best it's been alongside the panasonic s5 up until
getting the mark ii the s5 was by far the best face detection which is a mode i'd actively avoid
is great on the s5 and it's finally great on the panasonic gh5 2 now is it phase detection good or
dual pixel autofocus good no it seems to work best as jordan drake said in one of his videos from dp
review at the higher frame rates and also at the faster shutter speeds and he's right that's where
this shines so i've been filming everything in 50 frames per second being that i'm in a power region
and then cutting it back to 25p on the timeline and it works a treat so face detection is actually
very usable just to give you a heads up on my settings with autofocus in case you're
wondering how i got these results for any of the face tracking tests i left everything set to zero
that's right i didn't do anything special with the camera and this would be a first
any of the talking headshots that i like to do with these cameras or even the gh5s
i set up a one area mode or the new one area plus mode on this and that works a treat as well i turn
the sensitivity all the way down so it doesn't pulse it does slow down the reaction time of the
autofocus but you don't get that same sort of hunting issue or it's nowhere near as prominent
so panasonic they're getting it right it's taking them far too long but they're on the right track
the fourth thing that really surprised me about the gh5 mark ii is its slow
motion capabilities i would have no hesitations recommending this for someone who wants to do
slow motion with the exception of you don't get sound at the higher frame rates and you also have
to manually focus but just in terms of straight up picture quality this is up there with the fuji
xt4 and i think it looks better than the gh5s now i wish they had have put the slow and quick menu
option on the dial like they did with the s5 being that these cameras are so similar to each other
but i guess it is one of those things like if they change too much on a camera that everybody knows
people probably wouldn't like it and i predict the gh6 will have the slow and quick menu button
on the top that's just my thoughts about it no auto focus in the higher frame rates and
no sound unfortunately but the picture quality in 1080p looks awesome the fifth thing that surprised
me about this new camera is a bit of a two in one so i'm going to cheat and put two things in this
was the battery so we get the same exact battery that you get in the panasonic s5 and i thought oh
no i'm gonna have to buy all new w batteries and i've got a collection of like eight panasonic gh5
batteries that won't work in this camera but it does so if you've got old panasonic batteries it
will work in this camera whereas in the in the panasonic s5 you can't use the old batteries in
the new camera it just won't fit if you've got a panasonic s5 and a gh5 mark ii you'll get the same
battery and they're interchangeable and you've got two batteries at your disposal so that's
really cool and all of my old dummy batteries that i use when i'm doing long-form content like this
work fine in the new gh5 mark ii which is this one right here the second part of this two-in-one is
in regards to the audio preamps now if using the 3.5 millimeter input jack you can now reduce the
input gain on your microphone or while it's packed down to negative 18 db or minus 18 db
which is great usually that's only -12 and you also get a mute option if that's important to
you as well so i think that the audio input has been improved these preamps sound just as great
as the old ones but with more flexibility in terms of being able to reduce gain while this camera can
do lots of other stuff i haven't commented on like vertical video shooting and it saves the metadata
in the camera can also be used for live streaming i only really like to comment on the stuff that i
try and that i actually use so i'll save that and go watch other videos where they showcase that but
overall if you're in the market for a panasonic gh5 or you just want the update when new firmware
additions will be pumped through to this camera to get the gh5 mark ii it is a better camera
now there's one big thing that's missing on the panasonic gh5 mark ii and on the s5 and it drives
me crazy and this may be a deal breaker for you so i wanted to put this in just as a little bit of a
sign off on the things that keep some balance in this review so there's no touch to focus right and
that's because i don't have a selfie screen no i broke it off i'll talk about that in a sec but if
you ever use manual mode on a gh5 you can swipe on the screen and it will lock focus wherever
you like the s5 and the gh5 mark ii doesn't have that as of shooting this video now i've reached
out to panasonic and a few lumix ambassadors and no one can find out how to turn that on
it's really weird that no one's talking about that so if you're a big fan like i am of setting manual
focus up swiping on the screen having it lock onto your subject or on yourself which is how
i use this gh5s this won't do it neither will it s5 so where's that functionality panasonic
bring it back man that was one thing that really sort of went when how do i do this so the similar
functionality is now you push the button on the back to lock autofocus sort of like auto focus in
manual focus mode but it's not the same touch to focus on the screen is so much better if there's
a way to bring it back panasonic please do so so it's gotten to that point in the video where i'm
going to share my stupidity with you about how i smashed my panasonic gh5 mark ii the second time
i took it outdoors i couldn't believe this was like within four days of owning it or something
like that right it was just crazy so the way that it happened was i was outside doing a talking
headshot video like this i turned around from the tripod the wind kicked up and it swung the tripod
down smashed this onto the ground the selfie screen went flying it's in the box right now
and yeah it just was absolutely devastating i've never had a tripod flip
i've also never had a wind gust kick up like that without really any warning it was
windy but it got far worse like that it was just as i was thinking i'm probably done for the day
i turn around i go to grab my bag this thing falls down smashes and the screen comes straight
off the good news is that this still works irrespective of having the screen on the back so
yeah i'll give you some close-ups of how the hinge looks but odds are going to get the hinge replaced
and the selfie screen reattached once panasonic have all the parts in australia here so
yeah brutal absolutely brutal so if you've ever used the tripod before do some of them
have a hook on the bottom and what that hook's designed to do not just for hanging them up
thanks peter gregg for the tip on this one but they're actually designed to weigh the tripod down
it's something that i was completely unaware of i've never had this problem with anything falling
over before outdoors or a big gust of wind like that kicking up so the winds got so bad here that
some trees came down and everything so it was full on and it was completely unexpected and i've never
done that to a new camera and part of me was like oh just part of it dies inside when that happens
but you know it can be fixed so i am gonna get it fixed now if you're new to the channel i'm gonna
do some comparison videos coming up as well as an autofocus guide about the panasonic gh5 mark ii
so stay tuned for that if you have any questions about this camera that hasn't been addressed in
other videos or in this video please let me know thanks again for watching catch you soon see ya