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GH4 4K Panasonic video camera, User reviews and opinions
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  • tylerknighttylerknight

    @soulkeeper Sorry I should've specified settings!

    Cine-V 200 to 1600 iso with a few random shots at 3200 iso.

    I haven't seen the noise that people are talking about that's for sure!

    4k UHD 24p

  • cinemasteve87cinemasteve87

    Hi Everyone, here's a car expo event teaser I shot on the GH4. Most of the time I had the GH4 mounted on the Varavon Birdycam 3-Axis Gimbal. The shot at the very beginning is with the DJI Phantom 2 with a GoPro Hero 3+. I'll share a longer cut later on so please enjoy!

  • AstroAstro

    @tylerknight Great looking vid...very nice dark shots too!! (Cine V or Cine D?)

    I finally got my GH4 a few days back with the 12-35mm lens...gotta say I love it, pre ordered and paid for over 2 months ago.

    I had used the Gh2 for a long time, and thats a great camera but the GH4 really is on another level. One of the first shots I tested (with all profiles) is shooting through some shadowy trees into the bright blue sky (right outside my door).

    This is a difficult shot cause the extremities between the shadows and light is so great...and the GH2 always blew the sky out or the shadows were too dark to bring up in post even with the best hacks.

    Well...a bit of tweaking and the GH4 handled it so well, detail in the shadows and no real sky blowout (this is with very bright white clouds...). I even pushed the shadows +5 and highlights -5 and that worked fine...great looking image and no extra noise.

    I shot last night at 200 thru to 3200 ISO and again no real noise problems, I have read the complaints about this for months now...and I dont see it (yet) so I dont know what its all about.

    And another thing, I thought the micro jitters in 4K would be bad, but with the OIS on in the lens I was able to get really nice hand held shots too, I simply wasn't expecting this! In my books the GH4 is an awesome camera.

  • tylerknighttylerknight

    @astro Thanks!

    It was all shot on Cine V which is necessary for keeping clean video in low light with the GH4. I have found that the connecting factor in everyone that has issues with low light noise is using Cine D

  • AstroAstro

    @tylerknight
    Yep I really liked your vid, very clean looking and nice shades and colors too, I like that look a lot.

    Could be that the connecting factor is Cine-D, I plan to do more tests tonite, so I'll check that out.

    Basically I wont have time to do any serious shooting until a week or two, so its a good time to do some tests. Cheers

  • neosushineosushi

    Hey guys, here's a music video we shot with the GH4 (FullHD 100mbs 50p).

    I had a pretty hard time hiding the noise because of our terrible masterpedestald (+15) and highlights/shadows (-2/+2) settings. But here it is :

  • AdamTAdamT

    @tylerknight I agree that shooting Cine D at higher ISO is a no-no, but in my tests I'd say that the same is true for Cine V -- just to a lesser degree. Natural seems to produce a considerably cleaner result than either of the Cine profiles.

    Part of the reason for that, IMO, is that Natural simply produces a BRIGHTER image at the same exposure and ISO, where Cine D is darkest, Cine V next, and Natural the brightest. I shot a test scene and looked at the mid-tones on a waveform monitor and found that with Cine D they were in the 23-33 range. With Cine V they were 23-35. But with Natural, the same mids were in the 35-52 range.

    Basically you have to crank the Cine D shot's gamma from 1 to around 1.63 in order to bring up the mids, but that also stretches out the blacks to where it's hard to get a good balance without crushing the blacks or bringing out hellanoise in the shadows.

    Long story short: for me it's Natural in low light and Cine D in good light.

  • SangyeSangye

    I'm trying to decide between the GH4 and the A7s as my next camera. I'm upgrading from a GH2, so already owning lenses / Speedbooster for M4/3s is an argument in favor of the GH4.

    However, low-light performance is important to me, and dynamic range is very important as well. That's why the A7s is entering the equation. 4K isn't an end-all-be-all requirement for me, but I like my video looking sharp; downscaling the GH4's 4K to 10-bit 4:2:2 at 1080p is attractive, for sure. The GH4's more professional features like variable frame rates from 2-96p, and the YAGH adapter, are certainly attractive too.

    The A7s also suffers from gnarly rolling shutter, which of course can be somewhat repaired in post, but that's an undesirable extra step for me.

    What do you all think? How much of an edge does the A7s have over the GH4 in low-light (ISO 6400 - 25,600), and even more importantly in dynamic range? Does the GH4 look video-ish to you when shooting in bright sunlight? Just a month ago, I was leaning towards the A7s. But now that I've thought some more about it, the GH4 is looking like the more attractive option for the money.

  • discomandavisdiscomandavis

    @neosushi great video, gh4 really is a great camera! Nothing you can do about the warp stabilizer half way through?

  • AstroAstro

    @Sangye I only quite recently got the GH4, but I am having no real problems in low light, provided there is some light getting to the sensor and the camera is not drastically underexposed. Personally I am really happy with the GH4, I like detail too (I call it detail cause sharpness is a slightly different thing)...anyway the fastest lens I have right now is the 20mm 1.7 and that is a great lens for low light for me, that said the 12-35mm F2.8 is an awesome lens for 90% of shooting (for me) But if you used a speedbooster and a fast lens I am sure you will get great results with the right settings.... stay away from extreme settings like boosting the master pedestal to +15 and iDynamic, iRes etc on...and boosting the crap out of the shadows, especially in the beginning.

    Coming from the GH2 (I did too) the GH4 is AWESOME!!...others may feel differently, but thats my opinion so far. I thought jello and RS would be bad in 4K, but with the 12-35 OIS and smooth hand held shots in 4K, I have no real problems its pretty darn smooth. I dont have an A7s...but I have read a million reviews Is the A7s better in low light?...hell yes...its better than practically any camera, its not called the low light king for nothing. It shoots a beautiful looking video too, a really nice look.

    Is it better in Ergonomics? definitely not...funny review here...worth a read, I laughed hard when reading this, the guy is funny.

    http://www.reddit.com/r/Filmmakers/comments/2a574a/sony_a7s_ergonomicsusability_first_impressions/ and also here

    http://eriknaso.com/2014/07/20/things-that-drive-me-crazy-about-the-sony-a7s/

    The rolling shutter thing is apparently good as long as you are not in Full Frame mode...in Full Frame mode its pretty horrible, the image has a lot of Jello too. For me, taking everything into consideration lenses, RS, Ergonomics, ISO etc.. I decided to go with the GH4, and I am glad I did.

    A comparison of features here http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?325566-Quick-review-of-A7S-vs-GH4

    Video reviews of both here

    Hope this helps Cheers

  • neosushineosushi

    @discomandavis : thanks a lot :) Actually, I have tried many options of the warp but it just didn't seem to work properly :/ I still need to improve on my steadycam skills (merlin 2 here). Had I shot in 4K, I would have been able to work better with the warp though. But losing slow motion is a huge deal for me :/

  • neosushineosushi

    @discomandavis : sorry about the previous comment : my client had just activated the youtube stabilization... Thanks to you I just mailed him to remove it. Should be better in a few hours (just a little shakier... but more natural and nicer picture details)

    Thanks again :)

  • PhilMyselfPhilMyself

    A black & white test in slow motion of dancers on a parisian rooftop. Great camera !

  • Ru_CRu_C

    @Vesku & @dvbrother . Thank you ! Yes, having fun with manual mode & have F2 mapped to 'preview' now for others. That's better !

  • MikeLinnMikeLinn

  • discomandavisdiscomandavis

    @neosushi np, glad to know you could get it solved. sorry if i came off offensive, I actually really liked the video.

  • chefchef

    another review… he claims low light less noise with CineD at -5-2 0 -2 0 highlight & shadow 0 luminance 0-255 MPL +15

  • neosushineosushi

    @discomandavis : absolutely not ! Your critic was precious ! Thanks again !

  • RRRogerRRRoger

    Mike thank for the wedge video.

    I grew up going to the Newport jetty to body surf. The big difference is that we did not wear wet suits even in the winter. No one did. The other difference was that the "new" short boards were 9-10 ft long. Very rare to see one out there, as they usually ended up in two pieces.

  • aaronchicagoaaronchicago

    I don't believe Cine V gives you less noise in the shadows. I think it's just easier to see your exposure while filming to get the proper black level.

  • EnoEno

    We just finished editing our first 4K event shot on several Panasonic Gh4's + Panasonic and Nikon lenses.

  • Sph1nxsterSph1nxster

    @eno NAILED IT

  • MikeLinnMikeLinn

  • fancydancerfancydancer

  • RRRogerRRRoger

    nice Manhatten Video Only thing I dissagree with is "chews thru batteries" I've shot 1080 P60 for over two hours and still had some left on one battery.

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