AF kinda working on GH5, but cant bit Canon 80D yet,hopefully they run a new update, that can improve it even more. I use AF mostly on the gimbal,so that will be very helpful.

This feels like Andy Bernard apologising and sucking up....... over auto focus... ok

Why I gave a thumbs down:
I think you're giving this "issue" and Max more attention than they deserve. I've been a viewer long enough to know your heart is in the right place and your intention is to help out GH5 owners (like myself) get the most out of their cameras but that isn't the same intention as Max. He may be a professional photographer like you in the real world, offline, but when he makes his YouTube videos he's a reviewer, a critic, and whether a critic is right or wrong it's never worth your time engaging with one.

Sure, some people may be convinced by some weird artificial tests designed to find edge cases that mess up the camera, but mainly you're just feeding the trolls who latch on to bad reviews and want to spread it everywhere. You've given your channel a new platform for these people by bringing Max into it, and responding directly to him and directly to the people commenting on your videos now saying bad things about the camera.

I know as a professional photographer and a professional photography teacher, you want to help people and that's great. I don't mind your video showing the camera being successful and talking about what settings you used, but that should really be the end of it. Ultimately I don't come to your channel to hear you apologizing and excusing and making nice with critics. Critics by their very nature are looking for trouble and they're always followed by people who want to cause even more trouble. I come to your channel for camera information, for information on how to set up a studio shoot, how to take great photos, how to stream, or how to do any of the things you do. I come to learn, and I think you're happiest on your show when you're helping people learn.

The best revenge is in living well, and ultimately no matter what some online critics say about the GH5, there's going to be real content creators like +PierreTL and many more who will simply shoot great video and be thrilled with the GH5 and talk about what the camera lets them do. Those are the people I want to see you engaging, if you're going to bring anyone on your show.

This whole thing reminds me of "Antennagate" with Apple and the iPhone 4. In the end, it was a huge story and Apple felt forced to hold a special press event. The number of actual customers impacted enough to contact Apple was less than 20 out of millions of buyers, but because everyone played along with a couple random internet critics it was a big story and had a big impact on sales. Months later, it came out that Samsung was paying people to trash their competitors on internet comments and the iPhone 4 was a likely victim.

I'm not saying Max is on Sony's payroll, but one doesn't need to be paid to have a bias. We all have biases. You openly acknowledge your bias, but I've yet to hear Max acknowledge his. Ultimately he's just trying to produce a different sort of content from you, and everything he does is going to revolve around that. You can tell from the clickbait-style video titles and loads of opinion statements masquerading as fact that his loyal viewers lap up and spread everywhere with greater and greater hysteria. I'm sure he's a nice guy, many in the critical media are, but there comes a time when you have to decide if it's really worth giving them and the trolls following them a platform when all you really want to do is make educational videos and enthuse about a cool new camera and what it lets you do.

I'll keep tuning in, but the sooner you get back to real world practical photography and videography content, the happier this viewer will be.

Didnt care in continuous af...

facepalm, no reason for this vid

Joseph, appreciate your humility. It takes a great man to admit to a fault and fix it. This is apart from a good content that you provide us with. Easy subscribe.

this is ridiculous c'mon guys its just a camera.

Help!
I can't get the AF+MF setting to work on the GH5.
Meaning, if set to autofocus, I can't manually override the focus even when half-pressing the shutter or using the AF lock button.
I've tried this with both the "Continuous AF" on and off and in both AFC and AFS/AFF modes.

Any ideas what I am doing wrong?

Using an Olympus 75mm native prime.

JOE SUBBED... dont care for this max guy though he seems nice ......

I just subscribed to your channel is excellent

I swear Sony is just paying trolls over this...this crusade to discredit a camera is ridiculous. It's a camera...and it's relatively cheap for what it can do...what more do you people want? Why so much energy to smear it?

Joe,

I appreciate this video and you disclosing that you are in fact paid by Panasonic (be it as a contractor or an employee). Even though you you strive to stay objective, as you said, you are not going to say the product is bad as there is that relationship there.

No matter what, your first responsibility is to panasonic based on your relationship with them. Even though you may provide a lot of value in your other videos, simply due to your relationship, you cannot be taken with a grain of salt as it relates to Panasonic. ( and I totally get it as a former contractor with HP and others).

The GH5 debate/concerns is getting to be ridiculous. I just don't believe it should be the concern many are making it out to be. Really looking forward to getting reviews with people who have looked more in depth at every possible setting and different situations like you two will do. I just watched Tony & Chelsea Northrup's "Panasonic GH5 Real World Experiences (early review)) video and the first section was about the AF. I agree 100% with what was said there by their cameraman Justin. Basically he has shot probably a full days worth of real world video using continuous AF (over a 3 day period for a drone review they are doing) and it has done a very good job. It did have some issues, but as Tony mentions, so does his Sony cameras. Overall Justin said the camera did a really good job with autofocus. Obviously he goes on to talk about other items, but a good initial early review by their main cameraman https://youtu.be/ooZotxjWRpY

My Premiere crashes while I am trying to edit Gh5 footage, did some googling it seems I'm not the only one with the issues. I don't think it's my hardware either, I have a pretty decent PC with SSD...any thoughts?
Thanks

you guys should meet up and do a boxing match just for jokes

I really appreciate these reviews and I can only describe them as ART. Art is a discipline of influence either positive or negative and as long as, it is being discussed, it is an important and relevant to a specific topic in that timeframe. What I'm trying to express is that I'm a big fun of the gh line of the cameras with investments in the top M4/3 lenses. I think the time came to switch to a different system that will allow me to be more of a end user instead of the techie that knows all the setting for all different shooting scenarios. With all that said I'll be sending my gh5 package back. Thank you for running all these tests that made me realize the power of decision is mine to know what in a tool I can benefit more from.

i have a hard time believing you when you say you never tought of testing video AF while recodring internally (vs recording externally) it does not make any sense. your position of saying that prosumers mostly focus manually when recording video is a valid point though ( that is why panasonic did this choice of delivering a camera with UNUSABLE video AF with internal video recording , they are not stupid it is a compromise they willlingly made). your position should have been : "ok guys we know gh5 has a UNUSABLE internal video AF but the workaround is a $995 external recorder" (no camera is perfect, it is always compromises, sony did deliver a camera not so long ago that obliged you to record externally if you wanted 4k video). i owned a gh1 for many years and i like that they found the niche of "good video quality at a low price" but with gh5 it is too little too late, they should have gone for 8k@24 intead of 4k@60, it will cost them their crown of kings for "good video at a good price" they repeatedly earned with gh1,gh2,gh3 and gh4 but, unfortunaletly for us, it stopped with the gh5.

Hi Joseph. Could yout est the AFF in video? Thi guy seems to obtain very good results with it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4qr3TdkT0c&feature=youtu.be. thank you!

Well....the last question by Max is the eyeopener: in the extended online manual Panny DOES say AF is not perfect...That is what we are seeing...

Hey Joseph, enjoing your shows since some weeks when i became interested in the gh 5. great show! I got a question also: how do you manage the streaming and the sourceswitching when going from camera to another cam, or side by side as in this video. You always press a button at an unseen device, would be totally interested in what that hardware/software solution is. Best regards, Thomas

Hi Joseph. GH5 has arrived. However with suggested setting in AF Tracking, performance seems slightly hit and miss so far. There is a work around for me. With my GH4 I shoot manual focus run & gun with the assistance of the one push auto focus button located on AFS/AFF switch. Press to snap focus to the target and done when at F5.6, 70mm, perhaps 15ft distance. There is sufficient DOF to get a useable image.. This feature is almost available on GH5 when the AF + MF menu item is on. An icon displays on the monitor screen for you to tap giving a focused image in manual, focusing same as GH4. Problem is bright daylight makes it difficult to locate on the display. The AF+MF needs to be ported to the AFS/AFF button same as GH4. Could you discuss this with your colleagues at Panasonic for a fix. This feature takes away the uncertainty and focus hunting that can occur when doing professional work. Thank you for your help.

Panasonic did say one of the reasons they don't use PDAF (Phase Detect AF) is to avoid the missing pixels you get with "standard" PDAF pixels, which are usually treated as dead pixels, although I can't comment it that came from engineering or marketing. The Canon DPAF has PDAF pixels everywhere, but uses them for image data too so you don't lose any pixels.

BTW when I was testing the GH5 (I had one 5-6 times, although only f/w 1.0 the last couple of times) I was unimpressed with the video AF under certain circumstances, especially fairly close in so-so light where it could take several seconds to AF, overshooting and coming back a couple of times (with a DFD supporting lens). The lock-on tracking seemed good, but it's always hard to work out how much of that is just "not changing focus" rather than tracking.

Also in good light a lot of people just stop down instead of using a ND filter, so you an have tons of DoF anyway which makes focusing very easy and assessing people's tests tricky.

My main video-AF issue is when you are shooting something that isn't happening again and the AF decides to wander off and focus on something else. My GH4 does this enough that I generally avoid video AF. Based on my using a GH5 I'd put that in the same category (frankly I think VLoggers should probably just get a Canon M5 with its DPAF if they can live without 4k).

One final point, remember Panasonic's DFD focusing only works with Panasonic lenses, not Olympus lenses or any adapted lenses (e.g. Canon lenses via a SpeedBooster). I think it's great for stills on my GH4 except from time-to-time (1 in 250 to 1 in 1,000 shots, I wonder if light reflected from water is the issue) it gets fooled, shows you a completely blurred image and is really hard to convince it isn't in focus, it can take seconds to sort out).

I've never used Auto-focus in video in the last 5 years, now especially with the A7s2, it has been impossible to use AF. Sooo, I don't think I care too much, any moderately good AF with this beast would be good enough. :D

This is soooooo flipping cool! Honestly...gosh I gotta post more, maybe one day someone can have beef with me...cause we could make great tubes like this one! Great tubes!

Dang the 5D4 got a bad wrap but GH5 is like, oh we know you're disabled but we'll find out how to make your wheelchair roll faster 😝. You guys are soft! Ha

Thanks both of you for the excellent video discussing the Panasonic AF issues; it is appreciated. However, my question relates to the DIFFERENCE between your 2 images on the video. PhotoJoseph your presentation image seems professional & understated, whilst Max appears more real life. Both acceptable, but I am wondering PhotoJoseph what camera, lens, mic & lights you were using to get your look, as it seems to be the better image that we wish to portray for our training videos? Are you able to divulge these secrets of your presentation style?

Thanks guys. I have done many tests with my GH5 and 12-35 V2 as well, but have never had it not focus and I get very fast focus, with pretty much every setting, when I drop out of the image and then back in (even in a very busy background). One thing I immediately noticed is having a lighter background makes every AF option look pretty good. Introduce a contrasty/busy background and things change quickly. I decided to continue all my tests with a busy background to see which option really stands out. I still have a long way to go, but some things I am finding. Custom settings off is not a good option for continuous AF with objects in the background. -5, +3 (as shown in another video) also not great with any AF option. -1, +3 helps quite a bit, but still a fair amount of hunting with multi and 225. From a vlogging perspective single point has been the stand out option so far with face tracking a close second. F2.8 at 3-4 feet or so, with your typical side and back shifting, single point won with focus area size at 4th from the smallest square. Face was very good as well. Single point actually took quite a while to focus on the background when I moved out of the shot. Face focused on the background quickly when I moved out. Strange to me. When I went to F4.0 it helped both improve a bit more. I was not able to duplicate Max's poor/slow focus with most of my settings...even with a very busy background and not great lighting at times. The main issue that eliminated most options was the pulsing or hunting. Either way...I am glad you two are going to get together and see what you come up with. Having a list with "best option for a particular shot" is a great idea. I have done enough of my own tests, using a very busy background, for me to know the GH5 is very capable of good video AF for what I need.

Well done Max & Joseph, this could have gone south so I take my hat off to you both. I have just purchased a GH5 for my business so looking forward to you guys working togeather to work out some good settings for the autofocus.

Great interview Joseph.

An excellent video and great response. I think we all make mistakes at times, I know I certainly do, and your video acknowledging it is a very refreshing one. I only recently came across your channel but look forward to seeing more of your stuff.

People say that this being a 2000 dollars camera should autofocus perfectly. The point is, this camera has features for 10000 dollars(even C300ii cannot do 60p in 4k inside the camera), it is packed with professional beauties, has perfect autofocus with touch screen, and yes, it is NOT for vloggers. It is for filmmakers.

How do I become a pro like everyone online is? Please help me out!@!! what camera should i get?

HEY PANASONIC... kick these two a $500 credit to pay for the trip/hotel and a few beers.
Good job Max and Joseph. Thanks for getting together and helping GH5 users. I am now subscribing to both of you. Two different personalities and skill levels.

gh5 af sucks period end of story. You guys getting together isn't gonna do jack. Stop wasting time on af and how about making a short film or something showing off what the camera can truly do.

This being my first introduction to both of you, and I may be way off the mark, but it occurred to me that perhaps the two of you could meet at place to shoot your test that's halfway between you both. A Place that perhaps you've wanted to shoot but for one reason or another you haven't had the opportunity go. Just a thought.
Enjoyed the show.

Apparently, the new 60p Panasonic Continuous Autofocus improves over the old 30p because of sampling rate is x2. When shooting still photos, the autofocus is much faster with even greater sampling rate. The mechanism behind should be discussed, this is the main point.

Joseph you don't have to apologize. There is no perfect camera and people always something have to say. I use both panasonic and Canon. Apples and oranges and life goes on. Enjoy using them and people just relax.

Great to see this result, looking forward to the joint video.Looks like something good came out of a sticky situation they may even lead to a better joint relationship for the future

I got to the 15 minute mark, learnt a little about where you both live etc, etc, and thought I wonder what's been put up on Personal View.

Looks ok to me with @c3hammer's test.
http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/16622/panasonic-gh5-camera-actual-users-feedback/p4

Joseph is a true gentleman ! 🤘🏻
Have huge respect for both of you guys!

The "Depth from De-focus" basics existed since the 1980's (google it). It requires a few frames/samples to be recorded so that the system can compare the content and decide on the best focus point. Of course this requires the system to understand the out-of-focus characteristics of the lens, hence not all lenses are DfD compatible. It was impossible to achieve back then due to the massive processing requirement. Having said that, I think there is room for improvement in the future. Panasonic should really dedicate a microprocessor for auto-focus.
What's good with Panasonic's implementation is that ALL the light can be used for auto-focusing, which means (theoretically) that the camera can focus in very dim light.

I understand why some get frustrated in getting the GH5 work to its potential; but probably due to my somewhat extreme "left-brainedness", I easily spend hours/days optimizing and tweaking things-- probably well past the point of diminishing returns in many cases.

Although I only got my GH5 a few days ago, I have had a G85 and a GX85 for several weeks now. Anyway, I have been working-up 5 different great sets of video acquisition configurations; and I am finding that with the exception of low light and poor contrast in mediocre lighting, I am getting similar, and sometimes better results than the SONY A7S, A7S II, A7R II, Nikon D750, or D610 and 7100. While the non-Panasonic options are more fully usable out of the box in terms of auto-focus video, once configured the GH5 absolutely amazes me. I have found a couple little quirks that I am sure they know about and will fix in their coming firmware releases, but I have found workarounds for them.

Again, it took me a total of maybe 12 hours of actual experimentation over the past couple days to get a tremendous set of autofocus video configurations. To me, a couple days of learning and experimentation does not seem like a significant amount of time, considering the benefits of learning to leverage this amazing creative tool (I often say that given the amount of time and money invested in great leading edge solutions like the GH5, the least I can do is to spend some real time learning to use it well).

We use Blackmagic (4K production, 4K Studio, URSA mini Pro and Micro 4K's), and love the fact that with the exception of very low light, I believe that our GH5 is a lot more practical, creatively usable and easy to transport and use. Every camera or other tool has its strengths and weaknesses, the GH5 is a great fit for us for many of our use cases. For the most part, between the GH5 and SONY A7S II, we can cover 95% of our common use cases. So, although we are anxiously waiting for A7S III or whatever they name it, and the upcoming firmware fixes and scheduled upgrades of the GH5; we have never had so few camera models cover so much of our needs before.

So, although it only took a couple days, maybe for other less "patient" individuals, Panasonic might consider providing pre-configured settings combinations for typical use cases. I know that this approach worked well for other companies, and given the amazing level of tweakability that Panasonic provided with the G85, which I completely appreciate and totally salute-- GREAT JOB PANASONIC, AND GREAT WORK AND MUCH THANKS TO YOU PHOTOJOSEPH AND MAX!

I have subscribed to both Max Yuryev and more recently ***** for their excellent presentation and in depth look into cameras and photography. PhotoJoseph has a completely different style to Max and I can understand why many are provoked by the former's video here. In all fairness, YouTube is a wonderful platform for connecting with people and PhotoJoseph has achieved that through his video. I wish both parties the best because I enjoyed both's content greatly and hope that subscribers to both parties are able move on and support their channels in order to see these great content being pushed out regularly. Have an awesome weekend, guys! :-)

Damn I was so ready to buy this camera! So my question is can you simply keep you finger on the shutter button and push it half way occasionally to make sure you are in focus. I seems Joseph's assistant was doing that and it work well. I have been dealing with focusing on my Canon 5D mark 2 so I am use to using manual focusing. I would like to have the option to auto focus however.

Good stuff, enjoying the collaboration you guys are doing to have a discussion the rest of us can benefit from. Thanks!

Ok I've jut done a test using 60 p and 1080 and I have to say the auto focus, to my eyes, looks as good as the sony's in Max's test. I did some quick dolly shots into a subject as well as whip pans and it locks on very fast. In the dolly shots you don't even see it loose focus.

I then changed to 4k but still 60p and it was just as good.

So in my very brief tests I'd say to get good results you have to be at 60p. I also had the focus speed at +1 and sensitive at 0

In regard to the advanced manual about AF problems in 4k:

When I saw Max read and then explain the Panasonics manual's answer I thought he did not understand what the manual tried to explain, because he oversimplified the manual's answer into: "so it's normal to not have good autofocus in 4k".
However I believe there maybe a flawed translation in the manual. To me 'Highly accurate focus' sounds like a description of 'very responsive' in the 'responsiveness' setting. The 'reduced Auto Focus speed' is about the focus speed setting. The way that I read this answer is that is when the user cranks up the responsiveness setting to the highest and focus speed to the lowest, the AF will appear not to work. What I believe may be happening in the processing is that the focus change is below a minimal
change given the short measuring interval time the 'very responsive' setting allows for. When the camera measures the second time, there is no (too little) focus change, so the camera does something else (stop focussing/ move back to previous focus?) instead of keep on moving the focus.

I think unravelling this new AF system is going to be a great job for forums like this. I wish Panasonic would explain to us how the AF algorithm works in more detail. The quirks Peter Gregg explains, 60p, pre focussing (grid and white + sign on the main subject TO TELL THE CAMERA WHAT THE MAIN AND PREFERRED SUBJECT IS(!!!) and then pressing record.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyTggg5NcIk

Hi Joseph and Max, the AF has some quirks Panasonic has not told us about.
To help you out take a look at Peter Gregg's video on GH5 AF. https://youtu.be/CyTggg5NcIk
In short: Panasonic has a complicated system, with some hidden quirks.
Peter Gregg has fairly good results doing the following:
- 60p 4k / UHD
- 225 focus points
- response speed +5, focus speed +3
- acquire focus on the main subject (using the finger to move the centre
(white plus)on the main target)
- hit the Record button right away.

Apparently the AF 'learns' to recognise the initial subject as the main subject,
and is like a magnet tenaciously wanting to return to that initial subject (!). I think this helps to explain why the AF held on to Max face not shifting to his hands or the holding on to the door and not the model.
I hope this helps, and I can already help this discussion and AF exploration already helped me understand the AF more, so we can use this to our advantage and enjoy using it more.
Panasonic should have explained their AF system better, to a deeper level, so users know how to get the most out of it.

This is a beautiful way to communicate and solve problems. You both rule.

what's the focus like in 6K still mode?