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GH4 4K Panasonic video camera, official topic
  • 3230 Replies sorted by
  • One of the things clearly in the comments is that the vast majority of posts are by stills shooters. They want Crisp resolution. So they definitely go for the larger pixels of the larger sensor, the A7s. An awful lot of video/cine shooters want clean images and high-res lenses, but don't want to feel like in every image they're studying the minutiae of the pores of a spider's "skin". As someone coming originally from a stills background, and still shooting a D3 with its "only" 12mp sensor ... that camera has some of the more awesome pixels and processor I've ever seen. In large prints it holds up quite nicely against a D600's much newer and about doubled number of pixels.

    But for video editing ... I've worked with footage from both the wife's D600 and my GH3, and ... the GH3 is really my fav between the two. The GH4 footage has fewer of the annoyances of the GH3 (much better skin tones among other things). That's directly comparing a FF against an MFT ... so I don't find dPreview comparing an MFT against a FF as bizarre as some of the folk there do.

    From what I've seen, the A7s has some nice features and capabilities. As has the GH4. They aren't necessarily the same best features. So one maybe more suited to one person than another. And both very useful tools as they are.

    Like the old Nikon vs Canon. Um, yea, both. I've never owned Canon pro gear, had a bunch of Nikon. So what? Canon makes some good stuff too.

  • Panasonic GH4 Underwater Camera Review

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    http://www.backscatter.com/learn/article/article.php?ID=201

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  • Someone 128GB SD use?

    The manual puts it only recognizes up to 64

    Thank you

  • I use a 128Gb Transcend R95 with no problem in all modes. Izhar

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    GH4 is not just a stills camera, it's a hybrid. The GH3 made a huge splash in the HD-DSLR, or rather, "HD-DSLM" market, and the GH4 improved upon its already-impressive set of video features and image quality. The big story with video on the GH4 is, of course, 4K. Offering both Cinema 4K and Ultra HD/4K resolutions, the GH4 is ready, out of the box, for all your ultra-high-res video needs. Full HD also gets a significant boost in image quality with a trio of high bitrate options (200, 100 and 50Mbps), and there's a vast array of professional-level amenities, from focus peaking and zebras for highlight clipping to timecode and luminance and black level adjustments.

    Video quality, not surprisingly, is very impressive with highly detailed picture quality and excellent dynamic range. While the default Photo Style is a little heavy on contrast and highlights were easy to blow out, like most settings with the GH4, it's very easy to tweak the image styling, tone, sharpness and contrast to your liking or needs, including two new cinema-style presets.

    http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/panasonic-gh4/panasonic-gh4A.HTM

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  • 1st AWARD WINNER EUROPEAN PHOTO & VIDEO CAMERA 2014-2015 - Panasonic LUMIX DMC-GH4

  • @chef

    It is EISA awards, you just pay enough and they make categories for any camera you want to push :-)

  • As I am in the process of ordering a GH4 (yes it is still a process here in Australia- don't know how long next shipment will be)- I wanted to make sure I get a few things straight: (Please correct me if I am wrong)

    Moire is a bit of a problem in 1080.

    Colour is ok

    Gh2 still rocks

    However 4k has no issues as far as moire and can be converted to 4:4:4 easily from in camera footage.

    So basically gh4 is almost like blackmagic pocket camera in 4k mode? (Obviously not raw- but expose and white balance right and no problem! (Without moire issues that blackmagic have)...

    So this is looking very nice then for gh4 land?

  • @alcomposer I have experienced moire issues at 4k when grading and re-scaling to HD. I need to do some tests to see how to reduce the effect. The whole downsampling issue to 4:4:4 remains somewhat theoretical as the downsampling does not remove issues caused by the 8 bit recording, mostly banding in graduated skies etc. However I do love this camera. Great images and plenty of features. The HD modes are better than some people are reporting. I shoot in HD mostly and am very happy with the results.

  • @caveport I have yet to run into a single instance of noticeable moire. and creating 4:4:4 out of 4k is 100% true, I'm not so sure about 8 bit though. One is color depth the other is color resolution. The biggest benefit of converting to 4:4:4 is for green screen. If you don't do that then you probably won't notice a difference, doesn't do anything for color banding.

  • @caveport - I had terrible aliasing problems down converting 4k to hd in avid. Turning in camera sharpening down to -2 cured all my problems

  • I had terrible aliasing problems down converting 4k to hd in avid.

    It must be just bad downscaling algorithm used by Avid.

  • So whats the best algorithm, in Premiere..After Effects CC 2014?...just a straight scale down, I insert the 4K vid on the 1080P timeline. So do you just scale it down on the timeline when you need to, thats how I currently do it (I use the 4K shots for zooming and panning)...and the other sections I simply scale down. I mean I know this works and looks good, but is there anything I am missing, some kind of hidden setting maybe that ensures a better downscale in the actual timeline? Cheers

  • @VK - I think so. Maybe things will improve when they develop DNx4k - but for now, the -2 sharpening helps hugely. The image is still as sharp as I would ever want.

  • @mrbill, @Astro, @Caveport, @IVIaverick52 - downsampling would be achieved with FFMPEG.

    Also Andrew Reid posted on a forum that Thomas Worth (Rarevision Software Designer) is working on an app - (Basically a command line process which could easily be rolled into an app).

    Here is Thomas' link for his app:

    http://www.mediafire.com/download/opo43u4xv5bdgxo/gh444.dmg

    OS X only for now. Windows can use the FFMPEG script...

    The converting has to be done correctly, you can't simply resize the image- as @Vitaliy mentioned in another post the pixels have to be summed together. By resizing you are simply getting an average of the values and throwing away the rest.

    Here is the correct topic and FFMPEG script: http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/10637/4k-downscaling-progress-topic/p2

    GH4 looks good then!

    Cheers, Al

  • @Astro,

    I use Avid Media Composer Also. I transcode all of my footage to 1080P 24fps DNxHD 175X in Sorenson Squeeze Pro 9, then import it into Avid MC, it's a fast import.

    Avid MC will import the 4K footage into whatever resolution you setup For "Import" in the "Media Creation" settings tab. However, when I did so it always crushed the blacks even though I used the same Luminance setting in-camera as I was using in avid(16-235 GH4 to 709 Avid MC or 0-255 GH4 to RGB Avid MC). I also didn't like the look of the footage of the Avid MC Import/Transcode either. So I trancoded it in an outside Transcode/Video Conversion Program like Sorenson Squeeze Pro 9 and the imported Sorenson DNxHD 175X trancoded footage looked much better with no crushed blacks.

  • @bleach551 - I've never found any quality advantage in using a third party app to get dslr footage into Media Composer - if your gamma was changing on import/transcode, I would respectfully suggest you haven't been selecting the right color space for your import. Up until fairly recently, .mov and .avchd files have always been an rgb import - that's all change with the GH4. I must have transcoded close to 2,000 GH4 clips to date straight into our avids without a single gamma change. Shoot 16-235 (because that's how Avids map luminance) and import rec601/709. If you specify an RGB import, then you definitely will get a gamma change. FYI, we're running the latest version of quicktime on pc machines, which is one revision later than the avid specified one, but seems to work fine.

    We always AMA link, and then transcode - it's twice as fast as an ordinary 'file import'.

  • @alcomposer - thanks for posting that, I did see it earlier over on that website. It appears to be restricted to a mac platform, and we run all our machines on pc (various flavours of avid) or unix (flame and smoke) machines. As mentioned previously, taking sharpness back to -2 on the GH4 cures my aliasing problems, and in combination with taking noise reduction back the whole way, the camera produces astonishing resolution without sharpening artifacts.

  • @Mrbill,

    I also know how to import footage into Avid. I am using a Mac not a PC and I was using 4096x2160(Cinema 4K) 24p for import, along with the the "Natural"settings. I use DNxHD masters of my clips for use with other programs like Final cut pro 7. You keep your workflow and I will keep mine.

  • http://www.atomos.com/shogun/

    Check what the HDMI port can do. Cinema DNG RAW! Perhaps the GH4 RAW rumours are tied in to this?