Pro Moviemaker Autumn 2018

GEAR SONY A7 III V PANASONIC GH5S

GH5S

IMAGES For shooting stills, even fast action, the Sony excels but it designed to be a stills camera. The Panasonic is compromised as it is aimed at filmmakers only.

IMAGE STABILISATION

HIGH FRAME RATES If you want to record in very fast frame rates for super-slow motion, the Panasonic delivers as it record at 240fps in full HD. And there is also the capability of shooting 60p in Cinema4K. This means you can have half-speed slow motion in an all-4K movie, plus HDR if you want. For speed freaks, the GH5S dethrones the 180fps GH5 as it can record 10x slow motion at 240fps in 1080p HD, although the image is cropped as frame rates of 200fps or higher. The Sony looks relatively pedestrian as there is no slow- motion at all in 4K. But it does do very nice 120fps in HD, for 5x slow motion on a 24p timeline. And this is without cropping. A clear winner here, as Sony has built-in image stabilisation and the Panasonic doesn’t. Although the Sony system isn’t as good as the ones fitted to the latest Olympus and even Panasonic GH5, it’s still excellent and canmake handheld shots a reality inmany situations. Although the GH5 has great stabilisation, the GH5S omits it: the larger sensor doesn’t leave enough room. The only solution is to fit one of Panasonic’s own image-stabilised lenses. Panasonic says filmmakers often use their cameras onmotorised gimbals or tripods, so it’s not needed. In fact, they claim a solid-mount sensor is the only option as the Sony’s moveable sensor can shake in extreme situations; although it does feature on pretty much every other mirrorless pro camera. Winner: Sony, obviously!

A7 III

MONITORING A big issue with shooting video on a mirrorless camera is that it’s not easy to monitor the output on the small screen, which are often lacking the serious professional- level tool you really need. The GH5S has vectorscopes, waveforms and preview modes for anamorphic, Log and Hybrid Log Gamma shooting. And of course there is focus peaking and zebras which can be set to different colours different brightness settings for full customisation.

The Sony has peaking and zebras, but no scopes or waveforms. Just a histogram, a legacy of its main use as a stills camera. The GH5 has Hybrid Log Gamma view assist to assist when shooting Log and LUT monitor display. You can load up to four LUTs to give your footage a look similar to what it will be when graded, and you can now apply this to playback, as well as the camera’s live view preview.

Winner: Panasonic, thanks to its pro-level tools

Winner: Panasonic, as 240fps HD and 4K60 wins

GH5S

A7 III

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PRO MOVIEMAKER AUTUMN 2018

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