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GH4 4K Panasonic video camera, official topic
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  • @mpgxsvcd thank you for the clarification. You're correct, I can only dig up stills DR and nothing for video on the GH3. Bottom line the only thing I care about is if the GH4 holds up in post for moderate grading.

  • think it was @kholi who made a good point somewhere about the video: the skin tones look plain awful. it does get a bit better when you download the file (there is a dropbox-file floating in the internet), but still... i have to agree.

    Skin tones always come into play. It is something like transparent highs and involving middle in the audio :-) To be serious, talking about skin tones has almost no point except flame, as you do not know original color, you do not know lighting, you do not know any processing or white balance. So it becomes blah, blah, blah.

  • I'm not clear what the "33 percent" refers to, if it is 33 percent of the total DR that is huge, and if 33 percent of one stop that is almost nothing. 10 stops plus 33 percent=13.3. I never believe the figures anyway. Remember CRT monitors where they counted the bezel?

    It means DR increase. You can read about DR on DXOmark, for example. On sensor it is defined by maximum fill to noise floor relation (and noise floor can be measured even at 1:1, meaning that noise is same as useful signal). So, to increase you can increase well capacity or you can decrease noise. Btw, this is why DR for larger sensor with same resolution is usually higher.

  • nikon d4s launch tomorrow. wud b interestin to see where nikon stands in terms of video

  • All vids so far look more or less shite (well, that 4k look sort of ok, though not exciting in any way), like the camera has not been in the hands of someone who knows how to wield it. That wedding photographer video was waaay overexposed for most parts (no, you can´t make a high key with moving images in the same way you do it with stills) and post handling seemed "enthusiast" at best..

    But, let´s wait and see until someone who actually shoots video primarily does something with it.

  • Thanks Vitaliy--I just didn't see how it equals 1/3 of one stop if the sensor has a range of 10-12 stops.

    Looking forward to comparisons with BM4K, the new Sony and of course the Samsung Note 3.

  • I see that the same pointless complaining is happening again, like it happened with the GH3 announcement, like it happened with the GH2 announcement, etc.

    Buy it or don't buy it. I just want HDMI liveview on my G6 and I'd be perfectly happy.

  • Skin tones are maybe the most useful place to judge color. Meaning that if human skin looks ok, probably rest of the picture does too. And if it doesn't, well, the rest of the frame shows it too more or less. I definitely want to see GH4 sample videos with some skin!

  • I red this camera can play slow motion videos upto ...fps??? Can somebody confirm frame rate? Also, as you know, 4K is just a marketing, it can be done easily in post production, same as going from 480p to 720p/1080i few years back(I still have up-converting Panasonic DVD player!!!). The history repeat itself! I guess, the biggest issue with new videos formats is the bitrate higher then 20-28mbps filling up SF memory cards... hardware limitation, not the sensor... the CPU! I heard GH4K has 4 cores CPU processing unit. Is that true? Which one? ARM? x86? ARM processors is a way to go with Linux OSs(not saying Android)... Is USB 3.0 here yet? If it's not supported then I have no idea what Panasonic engineers are doing! And, I hope, they calibrated colour filter properly this time in low light like Sony does it!

  • @gk5

    I suggest to read something before posting, using correct terms and thinking first, ok? :-) And not post stuff like "4K is just a marketing, it can be done easily in post production, same as going from 480p to 720p". Really.

  • Lol... did I say, I red it, didn't I? :)

  • Of course Panasonic puts out THE camera that checks pretty much every box we have ever requested. 4k, uncompressed 10-bit 4:2:2 output, up to 96 fps in full 1080p, improved dynamic range, extremely high bitrate internal codecs, better noise performance, an accessory with 100% professional HD-SDI and XLR connections, all in a camera with the ability to use almost any lens ever produced. All this for a speculated $2K price point and people are still whining about the "Sony look" of the GH3 sensor. Panny is basically bowing to our requests for the perfect affordable camera and all you can do is spit on them over trivial crap. If this camera is any less than $2.5k I will literally throw my credit cards at my computer screen.

  • @IVIaverick52

    You get a gold star my friend.

  • Excuse my mundane question: Does the GH4 have any builtin microphones? I didn't find that mentioned in the specs posted so far. I just found builtin stereo mics mentioned in here.

    @IVIaverick52: I agree, but will "throw money" on the seller not before I had a chance to review raw files taken from the camera, directly.

  • @ IVlaverick Totally agree. End of discussion for me.

  • @karl what raw files? ;)

  • @itimjim: "raw" as in "recorded on the SDXC card by the camera itself, not post-processed in any way".

    The "Light of the Yucatan"-4k-promo-video, for example, is so full of compression artefacts that complex scenes (e.g. the waves on the water in the pond) look like shit. I am hopeful that such "compression to death" will not be seen in original files as recorded by the camera, but I want to know for sure before being sorry...

  • There is no 30 minute limit if you buy a USA cam, just bring your surfboard and jammies to California, catch some rays, and take the cam home.

    @DrDave thanks, mate....I will seriously consider this :-D

  • @karl sorry pal, I was being sarcastic. Regarding Yucatan, we both know what YouTube does to quality footage. Only time will tell if it's any good, but my instinct says it will be excellent and the uncompressed stuff will be up to pro standards.

  • I took the trouble to read the links about dynamic range, but I did not see anywhere how the figure of 33 percent equates to 1/3 F stop on the GH4. But I happy to wait until I see the cam. If anyone knows the formula send me a pm. Perhaps they are including the switch from 8 bit to 10 bit in their figure of 33 percent, as a jump from 8 to 10 bits, mathematically would translate to 2 full stops as far as the AD converter is concerned. Of course no cam has actual DR of the theoretical range of the converter.

  • @gk5

    I can't tell if you're joking, or an uninformed 13 yr old.

  • @IVIaverick52 Finally someone talking the truth, been on that mindset since the announcement.. To me this is the all in one camera Panasonic truly delivered, and they bring the goods everytime... I'm in. 96fps improved DR from what the GH3 can do 10bit 422 even if it's through an external recorder, better low light what more can we ask for.

  • @Vitaliy +100 "Skin tones always come into play. It is something like transparent highs and involving middle in the audio :-) To be serious, talking about skin tones has almost no point except flame, as you do not know original color, you do not know lighting, you do not know any processing or white balance. So it becomes blah, blah, blah."

    see http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/comment/159208#Comment_159208