GH4 is shipping
- Thread starter kloner
- Start date
DucktileMedia
Drone Enthusiast
will be great to see what you have to say. What gimbal are you using it with?
Benjamin Rowland
Member
Ours just shipped too. Psyched about seeing what it can do. It'll be nice to have a lightweight 4K camera.
EastCoastJib
Member
You guys planning on recording in camera or external HD? What drive you planning on using if external?
Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk
Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk
SoCal Blur
Member
I'm waiting to hear the reviews from you early adopters. I'm torn between the GH4 and the Black Magic. GH4 is more afordable but I'm still unclear as to what color space it records 4K in. I think its only 4.2.0 which makes the video harder to use for greenscreen stuff. I would like to have at least 4.2.2.
econfly
Member
You can get 4:2:2, apparently, but only with an external recorder (like the Atomos Ninja Blade). Internally, it's 4:2:0. Some note that 4K of 4:2:0 can be downsampled to 4:4:4 1080p in post, but there may be compression issues. The GH4 records 4K at 100Mbit/sec and 1080p at 200Mbit. Both are excellent data rates in general, but still less than the Blackmagic Pocket uses (220Mbit for 1080p). Encoding matters, but less data ultimately has to cost something.
Having said all of that, I think these are two very nice 1080p options, but with vastly different operating experience. The GH4 will be (don't have one yet) a pretty user friendly setup and I expect the 1080p out of it will be terrific and significantly better than that from the GH3 (4K doesn't really interest me at this point). The BMPCC produces some really wonderful video, but lacks a lot. ISO is limited (the BMPCC is not a low-light or even dim light solution), focus and exposure setting are just rudimentary, you can't format a card in the camera or see how much space is remaining, battery life is terrible, etc. But having said that, I think for flying the BMPCC is very very nice. And if DJI would get their BMPCC zenmuse out the door I could say for certain if that's true. It's pretty much a given to fly in manual exposure mode, in good light, with fixed focus, etc. So for this purpose, the BMPCC's limitations are not really a problem. For on-the-ground use the GH4 might be the winner -- not because I expect the video will be any better, but just because the handling and UI will be so much more developed. Plus, on the ground it will be easy to use a secondary recorder like the Ninja Blade to get the full quality that the GH4 is capable of capturing.
DucktileMedia
Drone Enthusiast
I'm curious to see how the Sony a7s competes as well. Though sony glass is atrocious.
The theory about downsampling color space makes no sense. You downsample resolution, not gain color detail and less compression. But who knows, with all the fancy software out there maybe I just dont know what's out there.
I read another review on the YAGH on the GH4 FB page and he was pretty un pleased with a few things. It sounds like the Atomos Shogun thats coming out for $2k and records 4k through HDMI is the way to go.
The theory about downsampling color space makes no sense. You downsample resolution, not gain color detail and less compression. But who knows, with all the fancy software out there maybe I just dont know what's out there.
I read another review on the YAGH on the GH4 FB page and he was pretty un pleased with a few things. It sounds like the Atomos Shogun thats coming out for $2k and records 4k through HDMI is the way to go.
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econfly
Member
I agree with you about downsampling. It can't be alchemy. If a video stream is encoded and stored at 100Mbit/sec, then no amount of math can turn that information into a higher effective bitrate. Now if you have a pure uncompressed 4:2:0 4K stream then, sure, it's possible to convert it to a lower resolution stream with more per-pixel color information. But that's irrelevant given the compression at play.
In a perfect world 4K would be wonderful even if 1080p is the target -- just the ability to frame / crop in post would be very useful. But in reality, I wonder how useful it is if the signal is so compressed. And for flying I really wonder how much jello or noise is going to be in the 4K signal. It will be like shooting with a 2x zoom on a per-pixel basis, and that has to make stabilization all that much more important.
First I've heard of the Atomos Shogun -- thanks for mentioning it. Looks very nice.
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Reasons why NOT to purchase the YAGHG with the GH4, (it requires DC input) just use an external recorder that can also handle your sound.
http://filmmakermagazine.com/85486-5-things-i-learned-about-the-panasonic-gh4-at-nab
The Ninja star will also be very interesting when it comes out if you only require HD gives you 4:2:2 10 bit
http://www.atomos.com/ninja-star/
I have seen reviews of the GH4 which gives terrible Jello in 4K but no problems in HD
I called my dealer here in the UK a couple of days ago, and they said they are still not expecting them until 3rd/4th week in May, even though they are already in USA
http://filmmakermagazine.com/85486-5-things-i-learned-about-the-panasonic-gh4-at-nab
The Ninja star will also be very interesting when it comes out if you only require HD gives you 4:2:2 10 bit
http://www.atomos.com/ninja-star/
I have seen reviews of the GH4 which gives terrible Jello in 4K but no problems in HD
I called my dealer here in the UK a couple of days ago, and they said they are still not expecting them until 3rd/4th week in May, even though they are already in USA
Patscherpofel
Member
I am wondering how to remotely operate the GH4...what is this 2,5mm input? is it Lanc like on the Pocket camera ?
Patscherpofel
Member
oh sweet, what is the best lanc controller for our purpose?
I have the Startosnapper2 ,but the support for it is pretty dissapoiting
it works good for start stop on the Pocket, and just saw on their website it also does a pretty nice focus pulls, but there is not much help to set this up
wonder if it would work with the gh4 too
I have the Startosnapper2 ,but the support for it is pretty dissapoiting
it works good for start stop on the Pocket, and just saw on their website it also does a pretty nice focus pulls, but there is not much help to set this up
wonder if it would work with the gh4 too
fdproductions
FD Productions
#econ, your dead on about everything except the 1080p @ 200Mbit part. I thought what you thought in that the footage would be substantially and visibly better but unfortunately truth be told its not. Worse than that is I thought having more focus points when doing aerials would be so much sicker but in reality its kind of not at least in the GH4 my experiences have shown more struggles to find focus and it seems to even scramble more. i was hoping the 4 was going to be as ground-breaking as the gh3 was but so far from what i've seen its clearly not. another fing annoying part is they've put so many options now for lighting its almost impossible to just have it on automatic and be fine, oh and you can't be in A mode and shoot 4k internally you must be on manual camera which means you must set all your white balances, f-stops, isos prior to flight and if a cloud comes over head you have to bring it down and readjust, super pain.
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DucktileMedia
Drone Enthusiast
You should NEVER use auto white balance. Try doing a timelapse with that on and it will look as amateur as can possibly be.
fdproductions
FD Productions
fdproductions
FD Productions
ok i won't lol, but the modern day mirrorless AWB on the lumix seem pretty sharp to me or i just may be lazy lol
DucktileMedia
Drone Enthusiast
No doubt the auto features are very good on most modern cameras. But if you get used to using it you will one day find you were in a rush and come back to everything looking green or some very off color. And unless you are shooting in RAW, it's trash. I do timelapse photography and you have to be very careful that nothing is Auto as it will come out as flicker on those few frames the camera decided to adjust things ever so lightly different. For video it's kinda the same thing only worse as it's less correctable in post. Sometimes what I do is shoot a photo in AV and see what the settings are. Then transfer them over manually. Only thing being if you are adamant on using the double shutter speed rule this might not work.
Im pretty sure it will grow on you once you start to learn what it is good/bad at.
Download a little app called "field tools" to your phone and give hyperfocal distance for focusing a go, infinity settings on lenses are not the way to go.
4K will show up lots of flaws that people have not been used to with HD, everything will have to be that much better.
Think on the bright side, you have a good head start on everyone else, as they haven't even arrived in the UK yet.
SoCal Blur
Member
Question: The title says "GH4 vs GH3 4K Footage Night/1080P Day." How is one supposed to know which is which just watching the video? Its a series of rapid shots strung together with no indication which camera took the footage.