GH5 I.B.I.S. Not working?

MandicReally · August 7, 2020

I’ve had a GH5 for about a year and a half now. In that time I’ve never been as enamored with the IBIS as everyone and their brother is. I’m starting to wonder if that means something is wrong with the camera. Now I’m wondering if there is some way I can test the IBIS other than renting another GH5 to compare against?

Since day 1 I’ve been using the Panasonic 12-35 2.8 lens (gen 1) which has IS. So my GH5 should have “Dual I.S.” when using that lens. But it has NEVER shown the “Dual I.S.” Icon. Only ever the normal shakey hand icon like it does for non-stabilized lenses.

This week I bought a BlackMagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K and texted it in a shoot. Using my 12-35 lens and shooting handheld, I FELT more stable than my GH5 shooting the same way. Which is illogical since the BlackMagic has no IBIS. My laptop is acting up so I haven’t had a chance to compare footage side by side though, so I may be wrong about what I felt.

Lastly, I’ve shot with the Panasonic S1 previously and found the IBIS in that to be AMAZING, I’d be very happy if my GH5 was similar, but it simply isn’t.

I feel stupid that it’s taken me over a year to question this, but I’m usually shooting on a tripod or gimbal anyway and I’ve never used another GH5 to make me question if mine is wrong.

Action_Johnson · August 7, 2020

I don't think the gen 1 12-35 supports dual is. GH5 IBIS should be good, but the IBIS in the S1 I wouldn't describe as amazing. Check out an E-M1X combined with the 12-100 f/4 if you're looking for amazing IS...

MandicReally · August 7, 2020

7 hours ago, Action_Johnson said:

I don't think the gen 1 12-35 supports dual is. GH5 IBIS should be good, but the IBIS in the S1 I wouldn't describe as amazing. Check out an E-M1X combined with the 12-100 f/4 if you're looking for amazing IS...

The Gen 1 lens should support Dual I.S. The Gen 2 supports Dual I.S. 2.0. So the Gen 2 lens is better but my Gen 1 should still support Dual. Any and all info I can find seems to confirm that. I’m going to try firmware updating the lens and camera this morning. I would have sworn I already did the lens when I got it, but who knows.

I overstated how amazing the S1 was, but my point is that the S1 felt significantly better than my GH5. If my GH5 was almost as good as they I’d be happy. But it never has been, far from it.

On the S1 I was able to zoom in to 105mm and get a stable handheld shot while filming. On my GH5 I’m hard pressed to use the same techniques and get a stable shot at 12mm by hand.

MandicReally · August 7, 2020

I think I've figured it out, my Lens Firmware was out of date. I swore I'd updated it when I got the lens, but apparently not. I may have tried to update the camera and lens at the same time, which does not work, you have to update them completely separately. If the Camera Body Firmware is even on the SD card the camera body will say "No Media Present" because the body firmware supersedes any lens updates I guess.

Updated the lens to the "new" (2015) firmware and now Dual IS works and my handheld shot already looks smoother than it did right before updating.