Leica is doomed : GH6 still uses Depth from Defocus

[nicci78]

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Why being so stubborn ? 

Panasonic GH6 did not have Phase detect AF. Still the defective Depth from defocus system. More useless in 2022 than ever.

Worst no stacked sensor either. Which means slower read out time to feed the Depth from defocus algorithm.

I have a bad feeling for future Leica mirrorless cameras being also stuck do DfD due to Panasonic cornering itself in a technology dead end.

 

Edited February 22, 2022 by nicci78

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[Slender]

Bro, most people using GH6 for serious video won't use autofocus lenses, they far prefer wonky vintage faux anamorphic glass, so why bother?

The SL2 crowd here has loads of M lenses for it, and then again MF in video feels/looks best. Ask former Sony junkie Steven who eventually converted.

DFD for stills is more than adequate for the targeted audience. You are never going to be shooting the olympics or NatGeo wildlife with GH6 and 4/3 lenses. Chill

FP-L is phase detect... does that make it great?

What is going to set the trend should be the S1H replacement as Lumix true flagship camera.

Edited February 22, 2022 by Slender

[Simone_DF]

9 minutes ago, Slender said:

Bro, most people using GH6 for serious video won't use autofocus lenses, they far prefer wonky vintage faux anamorphic glass, so why bother?

True that, but you can't rely only on a small niche to make a profit in the mirrorless world, you have to aim at a more general audience.

But DFD should be greatly improved on the future S1H successor due to more powerful chips. Hopefully they'll use a stacked sensor on their full frame flagship too

[Slender]

1 hour ago, nicci78 said:

Worst no stacked sensor either.

Read the opposite already?

[tom.w.bn]

vor einer Stunde schrieb Slender:

Bro, most people using GH6 for serious video won't use autofocus lenses, they far prefer wonky vintage faux anamorphic glass, so why bother?

 

I know anamorphic lenses (vintage or new) and these filters that create a anamorphic look with non anamorphic lenses. Do you mean these filters?

[Fotoklaus]

vor einer Stunde schrieb Simone_DF:

True that, but you can't rely only on a small niche to make a profit in the mirrorless world, you have to aim at a more general audience.

But DFD should be greatly improved on the future S1H successor due to more powerful chips. Hopefully they'll use a stacked sensor on their full frame flagship too

The general audience doesn´t buy a big, bulky Full Frame Camera from Panasonic. In the market of mirorless cameras is Sony, Canon, Nikon, then there is huge gap. Then Fuji, Olympus and then Panaosnic. Leica SL... the few of the few.

[Simone_DF]

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Petapixel's article has an interesting take:

"Panasonic says it understands phase-based systems are more popular but explains that the development on the GH6 was started just prior to the launch of the GH5. It has been working primarily on increasing dynamic range capabilities at that time and not on phase detection. Panasonic was then faced with a choice: it could scrap the design it had spent a large amount of time working on or it could keep going on the current design that would focus on dynamic range instead. Obviously, the company chose the latter route.

Panasonic says this doesn’t mean it won’t go phase-based or even time-of-flight in the future, but right now with this camera and its development cycle, this was what it could do. To assuage those who aren’t convinced, Panasonic says it tripled the power dedicated to the autofocus processor and belive it will be faster, better, and more reliable by a notable amount. With higher speed signal processing by the Venus Engine and an improved autofocus algorithm, subject detection performance has been dramatically enhanced to achieve higher precision focus. The company has also improved the intelligence behind the DFD system which makes it better at recognizing and tracking subjects."

https://petapixel.com/2022/02/21/panasonic-launches-the-gh6-25-2mp-5-7k-10-bit-video-active-cooling/

We'll see how marketing sweet talk translates in real life, and hopefully we'll also see these kind of improvements in a S52 or whatever will come next in full frame land

 

[BernardC]

The GH6 sells to working videographers. It's a production workhorse, as were previous GH cameras. As slender mentioned, AF isn't a big concern for the GH crowd. Frankly, AF is more likely to ruin a shot than it is to help.

For AF to be useful in video, it would need to know which part of the frame it should focus, given the narrative arc of your scene, and also when and how fast to shift between focus planes. It would also need to anticipate movements, since it's common for a focus rack to start ahead of a shift in action... Leica isn't locked-in to Panasonic's choices, and panasonic isn't locked-in to the choice made in the GH6 (as pointed-out in the interview above).

Of course I realize that this type of thread is for entertainment purposes only: "Nikon is doomed! Canon is doomed! Sony is doomed! Fuji is doomed!" It's all in good fun.

[Reddy]

GH6 and Leica?? This is a video centric camera for people who like run and gun shooting and able to put on DJI with the follow focus. Plus this does internal ProRes RAW which is around half of population in the video world would use. In the FB Panasonic group there they ain't interested in Leica glass at all, maybe interest in some R lenses or the cine lenses. Those are totally different group of people. They care about recording time, noise, video format, file size, which program to use etc.

AF for weddings maybe okay but for serious videographer they will tease you why you don't do MF for video, that's what most of the people do with their skills and get paid for living. AF can't do exact picture or scene for 10 or even more retake the same shoot, you and the actors need to know the positions blah blah blah...

Things like this, have you ever see an AF tilt and shift lens made? on a busy street for panorama architecture?

Edited February 22, 2022 by Reddy

[beewee]

15 hours ago, Simone_DF said:

Panasonic says this doesn’t mean it won’t go phase-based or even time-of-flight in the future, but right now with this camera and its development cycle, this was what it could do. To assuage those who aren’t convinced, Panasonic says it tripled the power dedicated to the autofocus processor and belive it will be faster, better, and more reliable by a notable amount. With higher speed signal processing by the Venus Engine and an improved autofocus algorithm, subject detection performance has been dramatically enhanced to achieve higher precision focus. The company has also improved the intelligence behind the DFD system which makes it better at recognizing and tracking subjects."

This seems to match with what Kai Wong showed in his youtube review. The responsiveness of the GH6 is much better than the GH5 and accuracy seems decent too. It would be nice if the SL2 and SL2-S had enough processing headroom to benefit from whatever is going on with the GH6 AF algorithm.

[Simone_DF]

4 hours ago, beewee said:

This seems to match with what Kai Wong showed in his youtube review. The responsiveness of the GH6 is much better than the GH5 and accuracy seems decent too. It would be nice if the SL2 and SL2-S had enough processing headroom to benefit from whatever is going on with the GH6 AF algorithm.

That would be great, but most likely we'll have to wait for a SL3.