Personal View site logo
Make sure to join PV on Telegram or Facebook! Perfect to keep up with community on your smartphone.
Please, support PV!
It allows to keep PV going, with more focus towards AI, but keeping be one of the few truly independent places.
GH4 Firmware 2.3, V-log for $99, Epic Panasonic marketing fail
  • 1451 Replies sorted by
  • @shian, this is very interesting - thanks for spending your time with this. One question, did you take a clip with no filter as a baseline comparison?

  • It sounds a bit like the first pink frames with magic lantern raw.

    As far as I know it had to do with the chip that was less sensitive to green. It means the green histogram was a tiny bit smaller on the right end compared to red and blue. There was a small area of superwhites that had only red and blue values and missing green values. At the far right end, you get like:

    RGB: 252, 252, 252

    RGB: 253, 253, 253

    RGB: 254, 254, 254

    RGB: 255, 0, 255 (pink instead of white)

    Raw converters compensate for this and only Panasonic can fix this when the LOG conversion takes place. A great opportunity to bring out a fixed firmware worth buying.

  • very good! :)

  • I'm on a deadline today, so no time to really put into this. Very quickly: the filter doesn't fix the entire problem just half of it.

    The cyan blocking disappears, making the remaining magenta blocking easier to fix without employing NR. It's not a perfect solution. But an improvement. Needs further testing.

    See end of flickr feed for shots - https://www.flickr.com/gp/76276262@N04/33M81z

  • Wow just shows how well V Log handles highlights. Looks amazing.

  • Tested Vlog-L with Sky scenes to see if Exporting Sky scenes as a High biitrate(60mbps) h.264 file would help the look of the sky.

    shot with Voigtlander 42.5mm f0.95 @ between f2.8 to f5.6 and voigtlander 58mm f1.4 @ between f2.8 and f5.6

    music: "I had a farm" (main title) from "Out Of Africa" composed by John Barry.

  • Maybe we could all e-mail Panasonic and politely ask them fix that magenta cyan macroblocking issue in a firmware.

  • @soupertrooper. Ha ha, ha ha ha ha. I think they are convinced on doing it their way. Better if they made a new log profile ONLY for the gh4: GH-Log

  • @bleach551

    Yap, lots of cyan-magenta problems in the clouds. That said, I doubt a 'normal' person will be able to point it... the rest of the image takes you with it!

    (btw, nice, powerful and peaceful piece of music, always love it albeit I don't remember seen the movie)

  • @Jopereira,

    Yes, Its still there in all of its magnificence. I think we will all just have to use 10-bit external recorders with VLOG-L. No matter what everyone on all the forums whom have tried to work around its problems, I believe they all have come to same conclusion...VLOG-L=10-bit external recorder.

    "I had a Farm", which is the main theme song from "Out of Africa" is one of my favorite John Barry movie scores, God rest his soul.

  • @alcomposer Since the bad macroblocking artifacts are caused by the compression, creating a new profile wouldn't do anything. Look here: http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/12795/gh4-firmware-2.3-v-log-for-99-epic-panasonic-marketing-fail/p35 at jopereira's post with the cat and here: http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/12795/gh4-firmware-2.3-v-log-for-99-epic-panasonic-marketing-fail/p36 at Xenocide38's post for proof of this. And yeah I think if a bunch of people e-mailed them it could probably pressure them to fix this issue.

  • I sure hope so @soupertrouper! In my experience these things don't get much time spent on them.

  • I'm not sure how many of you have Magic Bullet Looks, but I started using a 4 way color corrector on V Log footage as the first step, instead of a LUT. It seems to keep the midtones in tact pretty well, unlike an S curve, or 3 way color corrector.

    Barn.jpg
    1920 x 1080 - 1M
  • ^^^ If this were shot for a job it would've been completely ruined by shooting in V-log. It's unreliable and almost unusable, but Panny still sells it for $100! I've already emailed Panny about "V-log L for my GH4" and encouraged them to fix the banding and macroblocking as well as asked if and when there will be another update resolving this, so I encourage all of you to do the same if you would like to get a good non-problematic working profile.

  • Agreed. I'm seriously considering cancelling my order, even though it's now ready for shipment!

  • @tedbrah I sent them an e-mail about the macroblocking, banding sucks but I didn't mention it. I also created a reddit post with all the info if more people want to (politely) e-mail them about macroblocking issues https://www.reddit.com/r/gh4/comments/3mk5cf/lets_ask_panasonic_to_fix_the_gh4s_bad/

  • If it were a problem with V Log only I'd say we have a shot at a firmware fix, but the macroblocking appears on all GH4 profiles. It's just enhanced, and easier to see with V Log.

  • panasonic just updated the image app with new "bugfixed" features...

  • panasonic just updated the image app with new "bugfixed" features...

    Fast for corporate standards :-)

    Anyone have APK of old one?

  • @Vitaliy_Kiselev

    Yes, they are very good solving their costumers problems, unless they charge for it - them, things go a little slower... :)

    A free firmware that gives features for free, was corrected right away...

    A free app that gives access to a free feature, was corrected right away...

    Those who pay for a feature that does not work as it should, should wait until GH5 is out, please.

  • @jopereira

    You mean that Panasonic is not fighting for communism? Morons.

  • VK, i have the apk.