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Great looking GH4 footage


Clayton Moore
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I think your test is not so instructive (because of the one-sidedness of your subject), but filming with a anamorphic lens is the best to overcome the video-look of the GH4!
Look at the vimeo-clips from Seb Farges - very good examples!

By the way, the Bolex-Moller 16/32 1,5 is really one of the best anamorphic lens! Gratulations!

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I think your test is not so instructive (because of the one-sidedness of your subject), but filming with a anamorphic lens is the best to overcome the video-look of the GH4!
Look at the vimeo-clips from Seb Farges - very good examples!

By the way, the Bolex-Moller 16/32 1,5 is really one of the best anamorphic lens! Gratulations!

Yes, I'm familiar with Seb Farges footage.  He does excellent work.   I wasn't really holding my footage up to compare with his.  I was just making the point that you could get good looking footage.   All I really wanted to do was check whether the Bolex and the taking lens were working properly.  I was actually a little surprised at how rich it looked.​   My favorite Bolex/GH4 footage by far is Mauri Galiano's stuff from Madrid.  He does some very nice music video work.  You can search for him on Vimeo.

 

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Clayton,

thank you very much for posting the link! I adore these cars. Wish I were there at SPA!!! Great footage. For some time now I have the GH4 (since the GH2 and GH3) but I have not used it yet. I am not sure about it. Sometimes it seems to me the GH2 had the most intrestiing image of all the GH's? The problem with the GH4 is that the m4/3 lenses are not very good for what most people call filmic look. But this video is great. I like it very much. Never mind it looks like video or like film.

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Using my Panasonic lenses less and less I have to say. The 100-300mm is a kind of specialty lens which is nice to have on hand and the pancakes are just incredibly small. But what optic feel concerned I'd very much prefer the Olympus line-up as far as native e-lenses concerned. To me they're somewhat like the Sigma ART line-up. Clean, sharp, but not in a videolike sense, which with the Pana's is a little harder to shake... the Olympus lenses have some nice character, rendering and color reproduction. Love the 45mm f/1.8 and the 12-40mm f/2.8 (also have the 60mm f/2.8 macro). I'd love to get the 75mm f/1.8, but for that kind of money you can buy another Olympus body! The 12mm f/2 has come down in price a tad bit, but same story more or less (wouldn't mind having it for the BMPCC though). The 25mm and 17mm f/1.8's are pretty cool too from what I've read/seen, but I kind of already got that range covered in meanwhile. Panasonic's own lenses... unless they're not Lumix, but Leica branded, such as the 42.5mm f/1.2 (and I thought the Olympus 75mm f/1.8 was expensive, lol) they tend to be a little too modern looking. Pretty much tack sharp, but kind of emotionless... little cold, contrasty, not as creamy in rendering.

Picking the right lens, will get you the right look. Lately I've been leaning more towards good old vintage glass and quality lenses meant for larger format cameras. They just render nicer, have a chiller vibe to 'em. Especially when you're not just using a regular dummy adapter, but a lens turbo with optical elements to widen the lens and boost performance. Surely part of getting the right look is applying a grade that fits the piece. Naturally I'm more attracted to the still somewhat flat look over the crushed blacks and heavily saturated stuff out there.

All that said. There we absolutely some nice shots in there and overall was a really enjoyable watch.

@ Rudolf: nothing wrong with the GH2. It's still an absolute charming camera to me. I love the look you can squeeze out of it. If you have one, definitly keep it. If you don't and can get one on the cheap, definitly worth considering to add to your inventory still.

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Looks great for "TV" broadcast High Def look, but not for narrative work. GH4 just looks like ultra sharp HD Video too me. The new footage posted from Kinemax looks excellent to me and more along the lines of the image I like

 

 

 

 

 

​The problem is *not* the camera (GH4, etc).  The problem is not understanding how to light your subject.   If you don't want an HD TV sitcom look, for gods sake don't light it that way.  The Kinemax shots are lit like a TV drama or sitcom.

As usual, it's not the camera, it's the entire pipeline from composition and motion to lighting, filtration, lens selection, sensor latitude and post production.   You could name the specific touchstones along the way, but the time for blaming your camera is long past.

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... Picking the right lens, will get you the right look.

(only partially -- it will change the look for better or worse)

... Lately I've been leaning more towards good old vintage glass and quality lenses meant for larger format cameras. They just render nicer, have a chiller vibe to 'em. Especially when you're not just using a regular dummy adapter, but a lens turbo with optical elements to widen the lens and boost performance. Surely getting the right look is applying a grade that fits the piece. Naturally I'm more attracted to the still somewhat flat look over the crushed blacks and havily saturated stuff out there.

(yes, vintage glass from the 60's and 70's can help a lot.  I like old Nikons, Minoltas, Zeiss Jenas.  Some of my favorites are my Minolta Rokkor 58mm f1.2, Zeiss Jena Flektogon 35mm f2.4 and Zeiss Jena Biometar Zebra 80mm from the Pentacon Six.  My Helios 44-2 and Bolex work beautifully together.  From a more practical standpoint make sure that if you need follow focus you use a lens that takes focus gears fairly easily.  i usually find though that people spend way too much time obsessing over hardware and forgetting how to compose and execute their shots.  got get Mastershots from Amazon.   it makes the difference between something static that looks like a 5 year old birthday and something dramatic and artful.)

 

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​Absolute! But I thought he is filming with a hacked GH2...

​He still does some on the GH2, but for the last several months I think nearly all his stuff is GH4.   He has a great GH4 photo mode demo for those who are thinking of using 2x anamorphics on the GH4.   His demo was enough for me to finally buy a GH4.  Can't wait to drag out my Sankor 16D for the great night flares.

 

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As an example of what can be done with any good, modern camera...  I think you could probably replicate this scene quite easily if you had the time, the actors and the proper lighting.   Here, crushed blacks are half the fun.  We should do "replicate this Blade Runner scene" as a weekly challenge. :)  Compare this to the KineMAX snapshot.

 

blade-runner-6.jpg

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Clayton,

thank you very much for posting the link! I adore these cars. Wish I were there at SPA!!! Great footage. For some time now I have the GH4 (since the GH2 and GH3) but I have not used it yet. I am not sure about it. Sometimes it seems to me the GH2 had the most intrestiing image of all the GH's? The problem with the GH4 is that the m4/3 lenses are not very good for what most people call filmic look. But this video is great. I like it very much. Never mind it looks like video or like film.

Pictorvision (formerly WESCAM) said the two cameras they fly on unmanned helis are Epics and GH4's.  Thats for feature film and brodcast work.  

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Yeah, I don't know why people get their panties knotted about certain digital cameras not looking cinematic enough.  These are judgements based on what exactly?  Vimeo or YouTube videos from amateur goofballs like me slapping a kit lens on a camera body, lazily applying some ill-conceived color grade, and uploading it?

Jeeze, if it looks too "digital" to you, change the lens, change how you shoot, change the color grade. Okay, maybe a certain camera gets you closer to a subjective cinema-look to start, but it's still up to you to finish the job.

If you can't find a recipe to make your shots cinematic, you're doing it wrong, not the camera.

I'll guarantee you someone with talent and skill could grab my modest Panasonic GM1 and make visually stunning shots while I could run around all day with an Alexa and create a pile of worthlessness if I didn't know what I was doing.  

Too much worrying about the wrong stuff when it comes to cameras, I think.

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Yeah, I don't know why people get their panties knotted about certain digital cameras not looking cinematic enough.  These are judgements based on what exactly?  Vimeo or YouTube videos from amateur goofballs like me slapping a kit lens on a camera body, lazily applying some ill-conceived color grade, and uploading it?

Jeeze, if it looks too "digital" to you, change the lens, change how you shoot, change the color grade. Okay, maybe a certain camera gets you closer to a subjective cinema-look to start, but it's still up to you to finish the job.

If you can't find a recipe to make your shots cinematic, you're doing it wrong, not the camera.

I'll guarantee you someone with talent and skill could grab my modest Panasonic GM1 and make visually stunning shots while I could run around all day with an Alexa and create a pile of worthlessness if I didn't know what I was doing.  

Too much worrying about the wrong stuff when it comes to cameras, I think.

​Hahaha ---- I think if you did a blind test with footage shot by someone really good and graded by someone really good no one would be able to tell.   I agree with you 100%  

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I just saw this one yesterday - GH4 / Resolve / FCPX - very nice:

https://vimeo.com/groups/gh4/videos/119679358


Holy crap, look at that dynamic range @50s in! That must surely be a composite shot? Am guessing so because it is locked off, and he shot it at two exposures (one for indoors, one for the track outdoors), then combined them together in post.

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