Differences between Q0, Q1, Q3 and Q5?

I would love to be able to wrap my head around these different settings.

Can someone explain what the differences are between these settings, and what situations they are best suited for?

Thanks in advance.

Qx is a variable bit rate compression where higher Q mean higher bitrate when need.
If picture are out of focus bit rate can go down, if picture had depth of focus can grow until max value.
here a sample about Q version for pk6

Schermata 2021-04-29 alle 22.14.32.png (158.34 KiB) Viewed 5690 times

Regarding the differences in degree of quantization, Q0 will record the most detail and Q5, the least. The detail refers to areas that have edges so for example if you pixel peek at a sunlit with waxy leaves such as my camilla plant, you can see that Q5 does not look identical to Q0 as there may be some loss of detail. But viewing motion video of most subjects, Q5 is very popular and may be considered visually lossless.

The addition of Q1 and Q3 probably make this difference very hard to detect even if pixel peeking. I’m anticipating standardizing on Q1 when I would have used Q0. Because I appreciate being able to reduce storage and prolong recording time compared to Q0.

I’m anticipating standardizing on Q3 when I would have used Q5. Because I appreciate having a greater confidence in the details at the cost of a small reduction in recording time compared to Q5.

Sorry I’m not able to illustrate Q1 and Q3 performance at this time, but in the past I have compared the results of Q0 and Q5. The differences weren’t that easy to detect and in many shooting situations would not be apparent. Choosing between Q1 and Q3 can only make them more acceptable depending on scene and the shootists choice.