I'm in the process of going GH4-->G85 myself. For the IBIS and improved low-light, mostly. And hopefully over the summer, after the first firmware update, I'll get a GH5, and the G85 will become my B-cam.

28mbps is pretty low, but it seems like it would be enough for most normal shooting so long as you get most of the way to your look in-cam and thus don't have to push it a ton with grading. I'll be running a 5" Video Assist though, to fix the 1080p bitrate, because I shoot a lot of action, and although all the G85 1080p clips I've seen online look decent enough, none of them have a lot of motion. And the VA now has pretty decent monitoring tools, which helps justify the cost/bulk/batteries. Also the VA gives me a headphone jack so that fixes that issue.

Going for a speedbooster setup seems like a no-brainer for weddings. You gain a stop of light, which helps with the ISO performance, and your sensor is now effectively APS-C size, so shallow DOF is 100% not a problem. The 18-35mm seems like a great pairing, useful range, super bright, and the lack of OIS isn't a problem since the G85 has IBIS (although you should be using a monopod or shoulder rig anyways). Get a fast 50mm and 85mm for the booster and you're mostly set. A Tokina 11-16mm for wide if you need it.

I used the GH4 96fps a few times, at first I thought it was tolerable but even when finishing at 1080p it just looked too soft when cutting from 4K clips, for my tastes at least. For wedding beauty shots with super sDOF it may be fine for you. 60fps is much better quality and is almost always slow enough for me (although I look forward to the 180fps on the GH5 as it looks to be pretty decent). Also remember that if you're finishing at 24p, even shooting at 30p gives a nice subtle slomo, which can be useful if you don't want something to scream SLOOOMOOOOO.

@aldolega I appreciate the response and info! Glad to hear that my leaning towards the G85 and my current lens plan seem to be on the right track.

Also, I wasn't even considering something like the 5" Video Assist. Does the G85 definitely send out a clean image via HDMI out while simultaneously recording to the internal SD card in the camera to make something like that work? I see that the 5" VA can do up to 1080p60fps, 10bit 4:2:2 and looks to have a max bit rate of 220Mbps, right? And you're sure that there isn't compression still happening in the camera, and the VA isn't just wrapping compressed footage with an uncompressed recording format?

Assuming the 5" VA takes the 8bit 4:2:0 28Mbps footage to 10bit 4:2:2 220Mbps for 1080p recording, what happens when I'm recording in 4k24fps? Would I simply just not use the 5" VA for external recording in that case? (Although, it would still be nice to use the monitoring tools for it, if it could stay connected.)

Edit: It looks like the G85 is locked to 8 bit output (even through the HDMI). So I guess using the 5" VA with the 10bit 4:2:2 220Mbps setting would really only net you 8bit 4:2:2 220Mbps footage? That's still much much better than the 8bit 4:2:2 28Mbps the camera records.

Also, thanks for the further lens recommendations. Any particular 50mm or 85mm worth me digging into? (I'd like to stick to the Canon EF mount system). I do have my eye on the Tokina 11-16mm, if I find that I'm often wanting to go wider than the Sigma 18-35 will allow.

@jeanspillane Yea, so my wedding work will be mostly on a monopod. Whereas my short film work will have a mix of shoulder rig, and tripod. So I'll probably have a healthy mix. Definitely makes it tough to select a single camera for multiple use cases.

@Grimor I've actually had my eye on the Glidecam HD2000 as well. Do you think it would work ok with the G85/Speed Booster/Sigma 18-35 setup? My worry is that the lens will be extremely front heavy when compared to a mostly plastic camera. Have you tried any other stabilizers in the rough price range of the HD2000? Just curious what made you go with that one specifically. And is there anything you don't like about it?

A front-heavy lens won't matter on the HD2000, you just mount the camera further back. And use a QR adapter, otherwise setup is very slow, and that isn't what you want for weddings.

As far as I have been able to tell from online research, the G85 does indeed output through the HDMI while also recording internally, and I believe the screen/EVF work as well. So basically I will always be dual recording, on the VA and the camera's card.

The HDMI output is after image processing (debayering, NR, color matrix etc), but before compression. The G85 is entirely 8-bit so yes, although the VA will give you a 10-bit wrapper, it will only have 8 bits of data in it. But that's fine for me, I would rather have the G85's IBIS and better ISO performance, and the VA's high bitrate, than the 10-bit output from a GH4 (which would also not record internally in 10-bit mode). With the GH5 I will obviously do 10-bit whenever possible.

For 1080p the VA's files will be better motion- and detail-wise, compared to the in-camera files, which I will just keep as backups and then toss once I confirm the VA files are intact. The VA files (ProRes or DNxHD, not sure which to use) should also be easier for my aging computer to edit.

For 4K, you can set the G85 to scale 4K to 1080p on the HDMI, so I will have the choice of a less-compressed 1080p VA file with 4:2:2 color, or the stock 4K 100mbps 4:2:0 camera file to choose from. In some situations I expect the VA files will be better, in others the outright res of the 4K will be preferable.

I considered going for a PIX-E5 so I could record 4K as 4K, and I may have done so if it could record 4K60, as then it would still be useful for the GH5. But it doesn't, and an Odyssey or Inferno are waaay too big for me, and frankly all three are way too pricey for me at the moment- I'd rather spend that money on the GH5. So the VA is a good option to tide me over until the GH5, and will most likely get sold off at that point, as the G85 becomes my B cam, which I suspect the internal recording will be perfectly sufficient for.

Lenses, personally I'm going Nikon mount. I have a Nikon 50mm f1.4 ais already, and I'm researching the Nikon 85mms, will probably go for an f1.8 or f2 ais there as well. You could adapt these to your EF booster, just takes a simple ring adapter that you could mount semi-permanently to each lens. Or you could of course go for native Canon lenses, or third-party EF lenses. I really loved my Sigma 50mm f1.4 (Pre-ART) on my 60D back in the day. They make a nice 85mm too, or the Canon 85mm f1.8 is decent too.

Cine-D is available in regular video modes, just not in 4K Photo. I recommend the Leeming LUT One workflow, which uses Cine-D.

www.leeminglutone.com

Bit depth and color sampling are independent; AFAIK the HDMI output is 4:2:2, stated by Panasonic reps when the cam came out.

Yes the low bitrate is 99% likely to be an artificial restriction; no a hack is never going to happen. Panasonic made the GH3 forward harder to crack (and less needed anyways), AFAIK Vitaliy hasn't cracked any Panasonic since the GH2. Don't hold your breath.

I wasn't aware there was a pre-ART 18-35, I thought it was an ART-series from the beginning. For the 50, 85 etc the ART versions are entirely new, and very nice, but pricey. If you don't want to drop that kind of money, I can recommend the pre-ART 50mm f1.4, and the 30mm f1.4, although that's not needed if you have the 18-35.

85 for sure. Leeming lut is very good, but there are superwhites to figure in as well.

@Vesku Those are interesting results. This page seems to show they're pretty close (and actually gives a higher rating to the G80/G85 in ISO levels above 200): https://www.dxomark.com/Cameras/Compare/Side-by-side/Panasonic-Lumix-DMC-G80-versus-Panasonic-Lumix-DMC-GH4___1118_943 (Click 'Measurements' > 'Dynamic Range')

Thoughts on the discrepancy?