This shit makes me wanna spoon with Philip Bloom, at least he's got a disclaimer and doesn't charge $96 a year.

I think in closed section for payers conclusion is exactly opposite. So, it can be small amount to calm your cinematic ego.

I need to patent the idea. Open review must fuck the camera or lens as hard as it gets, listing all the shortcomings, after this pluses section must tease you slightly and.. stop. Below must be big button to pay to read rest of the article.

Remind me, what's Hurlbut's stature, again... I mean besides being a giant tool?

in case you needed reminding.. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0403397/?ref_=nv_sr_1

you may disagree with his opinion but he can't be dismissed that easily

@mrbill @tired

Let's keep to them topic and without personalities.

After reading Shane's GH4 post, I came from it, being the sharpness he doesn't like. But turn sharpness all the way down and use a softer lens will give you a less super sharp clean "video" look. Then post processing can further get a more filmic look. I love my GH4 because most clients who are not film makers love the super clean sharp look. They are always wowed by it. But for my personal stuff I can get very nice filmic look out of the camera.

My only real beef is that most folks know that you must use faster glass to achieve the same DOF and 'look' as S35. The typical aperture is F4 to F5.6 when shooting cinema on film or an APS-C sensor. On m43 you're going to be around F2.8 to achieve the same look in terms of DOF. In the review they were shooting a T5.6 street scene and acting surprised by the lack of scene separation. That seems like a strange methodology for such seasoned professionals. I get a fantastic image out of the GH4 shooting wide open on the Olympus 12-40mm. Beautiful, real resolution - far from the oversharpened crap that seems to be implied in the review. Then when I hear Canon 1080P being touted in the same or next paragraph as something really special, well that's enough to drive anyone to the brink of madness.

I took away that he was unimpressed by hghight handling and that the noise/grain structure looked electonicky. Yes, "electronicky".

I noted right off, in Hurlbut's piece, that they set the cam for the flattest possible settings for widest dynamic range. Which told me they didn't know how to handle this camera to begin with, and hadn't actually checked out how to work a GH* rig. Then of course, they complained of noise.

Really? That one was absolutely predictable. Yep, set it like that ... you'll get noise. I think they set everything about as noise-inducing as they could, from what I could tell.

Then, naturally ... yea, as noted above, shoot with f5.6 or f6.3, on an M4/3 camera, and complain the background is too sharp ... too video-ish. Uh-huh. So, is everyone on Hurlbut's staff totally clueless about depth-of-field changes depending on sensor-diagonal meausurements? I would hope not, that's a pretty basic professional knowledge bit ... but from the "public" side of this review, totally lacking so that doesn't bode well.

So by the time I was half-way through I was thinking this was a joke of a review as far as for "professional purposes" goes. Other than that I suppose it was ok ... ;-)

@ wallasdaviola I posted that yours is a fantastic video, but somehow my post is no longer showing. So here goes again: awesome video, and brilliant audio recording - congrats!

@mo7ies So what you are saying is that the 'filmic look' comes from the lens, not the camera? I own a GH4 and use the lumix 12-35 lens plus a bunch of old Pentax lenses & while the image straight out of the camera does look like a modern digital image, with a little grading it can be made to look really great. Most reviewers don't have the time to get into the many adjustments this camera has to offer. I love the control I have with different scene settings and color balance. This is a complex camera and people need to invest a little time getting to know how the settings affect the image. It's not perfect but it produces images way better than a lot of 'pro' video cameras that cost a lot of money. I find it interesting that some people will completely dismiss this camera if it does not have the exact features they need, like 120 fps or true log gamma. This is the best camera in a compact format that can shoot great video & stills at a professional quality without needing much gear to carry around.

I love my GH4. My grading is not the best in the world, but I used the GH4 for this short film (45 secs.) for the 2014 Fantastic Fest bumper contest. I was using a Metabones Speedbooster, older Minolta primes and anamorphic front lenses (SLR Magic Anamorphot 1.33X and some personally modified Schneider projection front lenses). (Click the "Like" button there if you actually like it, that's how the contest works).

http://frenzy5.badassdigest.com/entry/im%3A3482/

@caveport Yeah I agree with you, we have a couple of Canons here, I used the GH2 for long while, have done countless tests on the GH4 and am considering the A7s as well...(maybe)

I am also a 3d artist by trade...I design and build 3d worlds, cities etc...mainly for more mainstream apps like Daz Studio and Poser Pro 2014, one of the longest projects I have undertaken recently was a city called Shantara City. I had to build that from scratch. design the models, set the perspective, UV Map, apply and set realistic textures etc...etc..I also build world kits as well (Wordbase-XT). I have been doing this for over a decade...so I know quite a lot about 3d...from base model designing right thru to texturing, lighting and setting up scenes in a virtual world...so cameras can pan thru etc..

Seriously I had to laugh at mo7ies post...GH4 looks 2D, unless you use this lens combination...are you kidding me? Then to try and protect such a ridiculous statement by dragging out the well worn and (yawn) meaningless term like (Fanboys love to flame my posts)...seriously.

Perhaps instead of stating things like the GH4 has a 2d look (...hidden meaning...its true cause I said so...and the fanboys dont like that)

You could try...In my experience the GH4 looks a bit 2D and in my experience the combination of such and such a lens helps a lot...YMMV....something like that. But you ask to be flamed, wanna talk about 3d perspective verses flat look? talk away...I am listening, but you had better know what you are talking about, and you had better explain it well...otherwise modify your posts to be in a little less ( its true cause I said it) mode.

As far as my tests go right now, for me (YMMV) the GH4 is a great camera, capable of doing things I could never do with the GH2, I am not getting a "flat" or "noisy" or "overly sharp" look because I take the time to learn all the combinations, personally I love the aesthetic...my opinion only of course. Does that make me a "disqualified (yawn) fanboy:...personally I could not care less.

@Astro, with your background in 3d work, I'm sure lots of us would appreciate some additional insights and analysis regarding alleged 2d image produced by the gh4. I'm all ears. I have always manipulated 3d as best I could via lighting and composition and blocking. Shane showed how the Cookes make a huge difference as well, but I cannot afford Cooke primes so some empirical data from a 3d artist would be cool vis a vis the gh4.