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

    @itrofnoc take a 4K UHD clip with a lot of detail on a wide lens and f/5,6-8 aperture, extract an image out of it, resize it at 3000x 1700+ or whatever the 3K resolution is, then up-sample again to 3840x2160 and compare the two of them, for me they contain about the same detail. If you are not convinced than film a ISO test chart for resolution and you will discover the same thing.

    You can achieve true 4K only if you film at a higher resolution 6K or grater, than down-sample to 4K.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    take a 4K UHD clip with a lot of detail on a wide lens and f/5,6-8 aperture, extract an image out of it, resize it at 3000x 1700+ or whatever the 3K resolution is, then up-sample again to 3840x2160 and compare the two of them, for me they contain about the same detail.

    Well, it is flame. Please either use existing or make new topic in Offtopic category.

  • EnoEno

    @Vitaliy_Kiselev , it is an user opinion and a simple test, but if people want to dig into it more, a new topic can be created. I have no problem with the camera what so ever, just stating a fact I discovered, which I doubt is surprising.

  • MikeLinnMikeLinn

  • MikeLinnMikeLinn

    http://studiocanoe.com/expeditions/

  • LunyAlexLunyAlex

    Hey guys! I'm new here. New to Video. New to the GH4. I'm really...really new. You're better off picturing me with my thumb in my mouth as I type this.

    To the point:

    1. Thank you for the lovely thread. Reading it has been a joy and it has proven very useful in my decision to pick up a GH4 tomorrow and learn a few things about video/film.

    2. I don't think I've seen this posted in here. There was that huge debate about Cinematic look some pages back (it was fun to read). Now, I'm a complete and utter noob, so be gentle with me, but this is the video that impressed me the most out of all GH4 footage I've seen (I've been staring at GH4 videos all week long.)

    (I hope I'm linking this right). To my, admittedly inexperienced eyes, some of these scenes look like straight out of a Christopher Nolan film. Again, I'm a complete noob... but damn that looks good. I'm sure a lot of it is in the fantastic grading and post production work, but ... again... DAMN ... that looks good.

  • SuperSetSuperSet

    An observation.. a lot of dudes that use Adobe AE to grade are really good at it. Especially that dude!

  • jamjam

    Another Gh4 test video, this one using Photoshop CC. [link]

  • joe1946joe1946

  • joe1946joe1946

  • MikeLinnMikeLinn

  • MikeLinnMikeLinn

    http://www.mikekobal.com/blog/?p=11744

  • neosushineosushi

    @Eno

    I find very interesting your comment (about 3k). I think it would be interesting to know how many of us who edit in 4k, actually own a 4k monitor. I believe 99% of us shoot 4K with our GH4, and export in 1080p.

    As I am going to start producing a 20min. movie in C4K (broadcasted in theater 4k conditions). I'll have to test the GH4 with a real 4K screen, and I must say I am anxious at the result... especially regarding the noise...

  • EnoEno

    @neosushi there is no mystery in my statement about GH4 4K being actually a 3K as resolution goes. It is a known fact that Bayer pattern loses some resolution in demonstrating, actually GH4 is quite detailed in comparison to other 4K cameras out there (Canon 1Dc is even worse, I found it's resolution to be about 2,5K). You only get true 4K resolution by downscaling 6K or more to 4K (directly in camera or via editing).

    On a 4K screen you will see some noise out of GH4, even at minimum ISO ( I always shot with NR at -5) but it can very well be cleaned up until ISO 3200 in neat video (see the tread about neat video). Anyway, most of the directors introduce noise afterwards in post to emulate film, so is you are after a filmic look, dial some minus sharpness, contrast and minimum NR in the camera and you can achieve great results on natural profile. The only thing I strongly recommend is to shot only as flat as you need. By lifting the shadows to much in GH4 you will encounter nasty surprises.

  • MckiniseMckinise

    @Eno Interesting that you would mention the GH4 basically having a 3k resolution. How do you feel the Samsung NX1 will compare to the GH4 in that regard? It supposedly has the processing power to render an image as high as 7k.

    Also, since you recommend not selecting too flat of an image, are you basically shooting in Natural with minimal changes to the profile other than Noise Reduction?

  • EnoEno

    @Mckinise yes I basically shot on natural color profile with NR at -5, with sharpness and contrast dialed a little bit to - depending on the situation. I also tried Cine D (it has horrible colors after grading and it's somehow darker at the same settings compared to natural), I tried iDininamic (very big mistake) etc. For me a custom natural profile works wanders.

    Theoretically the NX 1 should have higher resolution than GH4 if it's resizing the full image to 4K, in practice we must wait and see. For further discussions about this camera we can use the dedicated topic: http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/11275/samsung-nx1-1500-4k-flagman/p7

  • JFighieraJFighiera

    @neosushi Agree with Eno

    To achieve true 4K resolution, say 2160 true lines (vertical resolution) you need much higher than 4K source downscaled to 4K.

    FYI, same goes for Full HD: It has been shown via various resolution charts tests that typical DSLR camera can resolve only 650 to 750 lines (vertical resolution) when filming in Full HD instead of true 1080 lines (vertica resolution).

    GH4 can achieve 800 lines (vertical resolution) in Full HD. GH4 filming in 4K and downscaling to FHD can resolve true Full HD 1080 lines (vertical resolution) and even more 1100 lines exactly.

  • EnoEno

    For best results (grading is a must) I use: -5 NR, -1 to -3 contrast, saturation 0, -3 to -5 sharpness, neutral profile. In post I grade the colors and tonal curve, add noise reduction and sharpness.

    If I don't necessarily what to grade, I use: neutral profile with everything on 0. 0 sharpness makes the files very sharp but also rough and the noise in amplified than if I set a - sharpness value and sharpen in post.

    -5 sharpness and iResolution to maximum also looks interesting. I did some tests, but for normal grading -3 sharpens with iResolution extended is optimal. iResolution functions as a sharpness + masking from what I saw.

  • xrayspecsxrayspecs

    I shot this on the GH4 for an actor friend, as her pitch to the producers of the Fargo TV series. What I loved most about shooting at 4K was the leeway it gave me to recompose shots during editing. Nods (and apologies?) to the Coen Brothers.

  • mankus71mankus71

    A short film not shot in 4K. Took advantage of the camera's different frame rates. Shot on Zeiss ZF.2 Duclos modded lenses. Big thanks to the community for making this camera what it is.

  • neosushineosushi

    @Eno : Thanks a lot for the explanation. I had no idea about these results, and find it extremely informative! Thanks for sharing that with me. I totally agree with you on the "as flat as need" -> I have already done multiple tests to find that cine D with contrast 0 is as "flat" as you can go with this camera (IMHO). Anything else (MP, curves) turns this very nice camera into a noise machine.

    @JFighiera :thanks also :)

    I'm back on shooting some more corporate stuff tomorrow, so I'll be checking other settings in my gh4, but so far I am not that impressed with it. Its good, but I still find that most of the reviews treat this camera as a good to go for full hd - by using the internal 4k - and don't really care about the 4k output...

  • MckiniseMckinise

    @Eno Why do you set it -5 on NR?

  • AstroAstro

    I agree with most of the points made here about the Gh4 settings. Actually I use Natural or Standard a fair amount of the time, and minimal settings on the Contrast, Noise, Hue settings etc.. I personally find CineD with the contrast wound right down to be almost unusable, I know people are trying to get a flatter than flat image, but to me that defeats the purpose of the camera and the image it produces are washed out flimsy looking and generally not very pleasing.

    As far as iDynamic goes, I have had great results with it in high contrast scenes (I have done countless tests) where there is a lot of light and dark shadows under trees and so on. What it does do is lift the darkness of the shadows a bit so you can see more detail. Does it introduce noise in this circumstance? None that I can see even on higher ISO's.

    But where there is very low light then iDynamic definitely introduces noise, so its very useful in certain scenes, I live in Australia and the sun is very bright and iDynamic has enables me to really get some great footage that would be very difficult to get with a lot of cameras.

    What about curves in the highlights and shadows, I use those too, but in moderation like -2 for highlights and +2 for shadows, this works for me...noise? I cant see any. At the end of the day you have to make your own decisions on these things, others opinions can be a help, but you have to find out yourself what works for you.

    I also use -5 noise reduction as Eno does...but not always, it depends on the scene, sometimes -2 is good too or even 0.

    When I first got the GH4 I was a little underwhelmed...mainly cause I did not know how to set it up, but recently (especially using the 4K photo mode) I have been blown away by some of the footage I have gotten from this amazing little camera, the level of detail (detail...not sharpness) is incredible.

    As far as ISO goes...yep I also find it usable up to about 3200 as well, many say its unusable above 800, I havent found that to be the case at all.

    As far as the 4k detail goes I put up a separate topic in case there is any kind of lengthy discussion on this, its here http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/11558/gh4-4k-image-analysis-is-it-really-4k Cheers

  • EnoEno

    @Mckinise I use -5 NR because the detail is much better preserved and the noise structure is granular, mostly luminance noise that can be cleaned very well. If you try a test on IS) 3200 with NR at -5, 0 and +5 you will see what I'm talking about. 0 and +5 have a tendency to make macro blocs noise which can't be cleaned + the resolution is lower. This statement is valid if you want to post process your files, if you intend minimal or no grading, the 0 NR setting is acceptable. I wold avoid +5 setting though.

  • nic2011nic2011

    At the first test I had a fair bit of trouble: PP + SG were lagging and freezing, random crashes, stuttering TL/CTI ... etc. Now at the second test I used only mov-files of the GH4 instead of mts of the GH2 - 1 shot with the iPhone 5. Again, just some older random footage. I deleted the media cache, the cache files and the settings XML file. And it seems that this was a good idea. Now everything worked fine - no problems so far.

    So if you have trouble too try the following:

    • Sign out from Creative Cloud, restart Premiere Pro, then sign in • Trash preferences • Ensure Adobe preference files are set to read/write • Delete media cache • Remove old plug-ins • If you have AMD GPUs, make sure CUDA is not installed • Repair permissions • Disconnect hardware including AJA box • Reboot

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