[surfar]

Other Apsc cams that do 4K are the recently released XE3 and the XT20,in a couple of months the Xpro2 will have a firmware update that will give it 4K.Sony also have the A6300 but it's overheating problem pops up too.

[madbrain]

Other Apsc cams that do 4K are the recently released XE3 and the XT20,in a couple of months the Xpro2 will have a firmware update that will give it 4K.Sony also have the A6300 but it's overheating problem pops up too.

Unfortunately, these Fuji cameras have only a 10 minute recording limit (!) in 4K, so they are automatically ruled out for me.

I have looked at the Sony A7S2/R2 . Those will record up to 30 min in 4K, I believe. But I have read about overheating too even on those.
I think I read somewhere that there was a firmware hack to remove the 30 min limit. Those have been on my watch list, but the price is still quite high at $2K body without a lens.
Still only 30 fps in 4K, 8 bit recording, 4:2:0, and lower bit rates than the GH5, though. But a sensor 4x as big.

[madbrain]

The hard part seems to be that the cost of 4K video capable sensors that are APS-C and full frame in size. I guess it is easier to make smaller sensors that have fast read out speeds. I think the APS-C cameras that feature 4K video are the D500, Fuji XT-2, Sony A6500 -- not sure if there are others out there. Of those, the A6500 is probably the cheapest at 1400.

The Sony A6500 does seem to be the most competitive of those above three. Lower price, bigger sensor and longer 4K video recording time, than the XT2.
Still falls short of the GH5 in fps, color bit depth, recording bit rate, and recording time limit, though.

The sensor in the K-1 doesn't seem to be 4K capable. Pentax would have had to go with the A7r II sensor (if it was available to them) in order to get a more video capable sensor and that certainly would have made the K-1 a lot more pricey. I'm sure the price on those full frame sensors will come down over time, but at present cameras like the D850, A9, A7r II and D5 all seem to be really expensive options to get better video.

Yes, those are quite expensive cameras

You'd be cheaper to get a GH and K-1 then to go with one of those cameras.

I can barely afford one of those, certainly not 2.
IMO, Pentax has no excuse for the sorry state of video on their cameras.

If I had to choose a single camera today for both stills and video, I would probably choose a Sony A7S II with the hacked firmware that lifts the recording time limit.
That's a pricey camera with pricey lenses too. Don't really feel like ditching all my Pentax gear that is just fine for stills.

I don't have the requirement that my video camera should also be my still camera - they can be 2 different cameras. The GH5 would seem to make more sense as a dedicated video camera than all the others.
Sensor is 4/3, but that's still bigger than the sensor in my Canon HG21 camcorder which is my current go-to video camera.

[surfar]

The GH5 would seem to make more sense as a dedicated video camera than all the others.

Do you need what it can do?....its capable of extremely high end stuff,the Panasonic compacts do 4K as well.TZ/ZS series.

[madbrain]

Do you need what it can do?....its capable of extremely high end stuff,the Panasonic compacts do 4K as well.TZ/ZS series.

I definitely need a bigger sensor than my HG21 for my videos which are mostly indoor .

Looks like these TZ/ZS compact cameras all have a 15 minute recording in 4K which makes them useless to me.

[clackers]

I definitely need a bigger sensor than my HG21 for my videos which are mostly indoor .

Looks like these TZ/ZS compact cameras all have a 15 minute recording in 4K which makes them useless to me.

What's the problem with the fifteen minute limit to a single shot, Madbrain?

[Rondec]

What's the problem with the fifteen minute limit to a single shot, Madbrain?

I think Madbrain plays Classical Piano and wants to record whole pieces with several devices at the same time without breaks. The 15 minute limit probably is pretty short depending on the piece of music he is filming.

[clackers]

I think Madbrain plays Classical Piano and wants to record whole pieces with several devices at the same time without breaks. The 15 minute limit probably is pretty short depending on the piece of music he is filming.

Right. I recently recorded a two hour evening of speeches, but of course, cut between devices in the edit (which included two GoPros that like camcorders just recorded until they ran out of battery).

The only thing that really needs to be continuous is the audio - did that on a Zoom recorder and synced it to the video later.

[madbrain]

I think Madbrain plays Classical Piano and wants to record whole pieces with several devices at the same time without breaks. The 15 minute limit probably is pretty short depending on the piece of music he is filming.

Yes, piano and harpsichord. My audio is continuous and separately recorded.
Since I'm an amateur musician , it takes me quite a lot of takes until I get a good one.
Even though I never play any single piece >15 minutes, my workflow is such that I wouldn't want to stop the video recording after the end of each bad take. I might end up going to my remote control a few dozen or hundred times.
I prefer to have the video going indefinitely, just like the audio. I only stop the recording once I know I have a good take. I only stop the video with the remote, to mark the end of the good take.
The camcorder splits video in files of 2GB max each - so I look for the good take in any files that are <2GB . If I had to stop the recording for every bad take, I would have dozens or hundreds of video files of varied sizes, and would not know which ones are good or bad without reviewing all of them. That would be nightmarish as I don't want to go to the PC to save the file in the middle of my playing/recording session.
Sometimes I will do 2+ hours of recording at a time without stopping either the camera or the audio (even I take a bathroom break, I just leave the room and come back) . I don't want the tools to get in the way and it's much easier this way.
It especially becomes impossible to deal with if want to use more than one camera - that really multiplies the video files, if all the cameras cannot record continuously. I have not done that too much due to the fact that the camcorder is my only continuous camera. Everything else (Pentax, smartphone) has some sort of time limit in it which makes it impractical.
I have done it a little bit, but it's really hard to edit, even if I manage to get a decent take that completes within the shorter of all the cameras limits involved.
The HG21 camcorder has the ability to record without a limit; well up to the size of the max 32GB SDHC card.It splits into separate files every 2GB, but the software can handle it without dropped frames. I have actually hit the 32GB SDHC card limit in one session at a time before when I forgot to reformat the card at the beginning of my session.
For audio, I never run out of space as the PC that's recording it has many TB of disk space, and it could record for many days at a time. 32GB SDHC card means about 3 hours of HD in one shoot at 24 Mbps bit rate on my HG21 camcorder. I use a UHS-I card that's 95MB/s and can transfer the whole card to PC very quickly. But usually, I just transfer the most recent few files (most recent takes). Not always, sometimes I'm lucky enough to have more than 1 good take to review in 2 hours, so I do transfer the whole card
The camcorder also has an internal 120GB HDD, but it would be extremely painful to transfer to PC over USB 2.0 speeds, much slower than the SD card. And I would have to take the camcorder off its tripod when I go to the PC. Much better to use the SD card.
Incidently, I just did the math on the GH5 - at the 400 Mbps rate, it will use 180GB/hour of video. 2 hour video would need a 512GB SDXC V60 card, which doesn't exist yet. 256GB V60 cards cost $200.

Since the GH5 has USB 3.1 and tethering, I wonder why Panasonic didn't allow recording video to PC directly via USB . That would solve the expensive card problem for me. I would just need some good USB 3.x repeating gear for the 50ft needed to my desktop in the next room (that's how long my 12 XLR snake cable is). Might be complicated firmware and software to write.
Or maybe just allow recording to external USB 3.x HDD / SSD, that's probably a lot simpler to implement - only firmware to write, no PC/Mac host software, and no need for USB 3 repeater.

Anyway, if I get the GH5, I can probably use a slower than 400 Mbit rate to begin with, until those large V60 cards come down in price. It can still do 4K/60 with my existing U3 cards at lower bit rate.

TLDR Camera with no time limit allows me to record and publish stuff that I am not good enough to ever be able to play live in one take. Cameras with time limits get in the way.