Andrew Reid

  What exactly is limiting about Nikon glass which adapts to almost every camera on the market?   Are you confusing it with the Nikon MOUNT itself?   Nikon lenses are just as adaptable as the Contax Yashica stuff.   Nikon lenses adapt to Canon mount as well.   So if you end up with an EF adapter on your GH4 you can still use them.

Now available...   http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/cameraraw8-5-cc.html   It's a beta and expires end of July but by then the final version will be out anyway.   So for those GH4 raw stills you can't go wrong with this in the meantime!

To: Thom York From: Google   Dear Mr York   We have heard you are a musician. We think that's cool. Have a cigar.   Yours sincerely   Google bot

Yes but someone has to manage and negotiate on behalf of the artists. Can you imagine the hassle that Google would have to go through negotiating rights with the individual artists by email!?

I at first thought it might be a problem of supply (too much) and demand. But then I thought... no, there's plenty of demand and actually the supply of GOOD music is tiny compared to how much crap there is out there.   So somebody somewhere is hiving off the cash big time.

Editor's note: While the GH4 guide takes pride of place on my home page I am using the forum as the regular EOSHD news-feed and blog-roll.   This YouTube story puts the Vimeo copyright stuff into a whole new light.   Apparently YouTube are launching a streaming music service to compete with Spotify. It's subscription based and ad-free, but the royalties Google want to pay to the musicians is miniscule. We're talking REALLY minuscule here, and Spotify is no angel. Radiohead took steps to withdraw their music from Spotify when they saw the fees. Google is a much larger, much more cash-rich company, yet their royalties for streaming are smaller than Spotify.   On the one hand YouTube has enormous traffic, so the stakes are high. Google with their business head are right to drive a hard bargain with the music industry on this... Especially because the platform is the number 1 promotional channel for the music industry.   Because of that, Billy Bragg has accused YouTube of trying to 'strong-arm' record labels into accepting extremely low royalties for the subscription fee music service... I.e. if you don't join the service, you won't be welcome to promote your artists.   I can see how it works two ways for the record labels, but the problem for them is that streaming long term is going to replace record sales.   How the hell are they supposed to make money?   All the free promotion in the world is useless if you have to sell everything for a pittance.   It gives you an idea perhaps of a potential strategy the music industry is using with Vimeo. Stung by YouTube's low streaming rates and a minuscule share of advertising revenue, they are holding a gun to the head of Vimeo in order to (I think) to drive a hard bargain when it comes to allowing their music to be streamed on Vimeo clips.   Already I feel safer uploading a non-commercial artistic video of my own to YouTube knowing that at least (in some minuscule way) the record label and artist are getting paid, via advertising. I don't like advertising on my videos but it's better than not being able to exercise artistic freedom in music selection and having Vimeo reject the video outright and not give a penny to the music industry for use of the song.   If YouTube can up their rates to the music industry, then the advertising revenue will go a long way to freeing up visual artists in terms of using the music...   The musician gets paid, the record label gets paid, both get exposure and the visual artist gets a career leg up and the video isn't compromised by lack of choice on the sound track.   Seems like a perfect deal to me...   Let's pressure Google into making it happen. I'm totally with the small record labels on this one.   Further reading: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27694353

If Canon version of the Sigma 18-35mm F1.8 is EF mount not EFS, all's good to wait...   I have the Nikon version, it's a spectacular lens.

Happy grading!   dfd08999706a7d549171626a2c550237   I'm going to give it a spin myself of course, but let me know how you find it...

DXOMark's lens ratings are flawed in my opinion because they depend on the megapixel count of the sensor.   Why introduce the sensor as a variable to your lens testing?   It doesn't make sense!

DSLRs are internally colour grading the image don't forget. Photo styles.   Yes I feel you're right about compression - that is one of the major causes of the banding.

  I liked this! I'm very much thinking of featuring the music on EOSHD. Cheers!

  That's an interesting thought.

  Good luck doing that in your NLE :)   If there is a way, do correct me if I'm wrong :)

Glenn, not unexpected to be frustrated with a user interface after 1 day of use.   I've been using Premiere for 10 years and it still has annoyances ;)   But you get used to it believe me... I like it...Straight forward and quick. It's FCPX I couldn't get my head around. Maybe I'll try again one day.

The EOSHD Panasonic GH4 Shooter’s Guide is now available 8bit DSLR codecs get quite a lot of bashing for banding, and it is something we're well used too... A sky or a wall taking up half the shot with only 4 or 5 shades where there should be a silky smooth gradient with thousands of tiny steps in-between darker and slightly lighter areas of the image. However one of the first things I noticed with the Panasonic GH4 was that banding was greatly reduced and it looked like my 10bit Blackmagic footage, even though it was still an 8bit codec (internally with 4K). Why such a turn-around for an 8bit codec? It turns out the 4K mode on the GH4 holds the key to hiding this banding... yet it is something we can apply to all DSLRS... Here's how...   Read the full article here

Never mind... figured it out. Works. Thanks guys, I'll blog this.

Thanks for the post by the way JCS. I don't disagree with a lot of what you're bringing up.   So monochromatic noise in Photoshop... Can we do the exact same thing in Premiere to the GH4's 4K output before downsampling, for smoother banding?

Well that is exactly what I am saying about the noise and compression.   Compression hurts the noise-dither, making banding more apparent.   And buy the way, I shrunk your banding image...     Guess what, the bands are thinner on the shrunk version... Whudda thought!?   Downsampling 4K to 2K clearly has makes gradation finer...   And if everyone agrees on the 4 8bit numbers = 1 10bit number, then surely when we take dithering, finer gradients and grading a ProRes file into consideration, you are going to see less banding aren't you?   For those with 10bit LCDs can you download this 10bit TIFF from a 16Bit Photoshop gradient and tell us if you see the banding. I do on my iMac display. http://www.eoshd.com/uploads/16bit.tif

8bit has easily enough to give you a sky with more than 4 bands gradient. It has enough for 256 shades in that sky.   The banding in Ebrahim's sample was caused by compression in-camera and then compression of luma in post, with a high contrast. I can break 10bit footage in the same way if I ramp contrast all the way up. Just tried it.   I just did a quick test, nothing special... But clearly the gradient is handled just fine by 8bit HDMI and 8bit 4K. The 8bit 1080p has banding caused by compression. The compression removes the dithering between shades.   Peep carefully.... :)     In conclusion...You only REALLY need 10bit if you want to grade heavily. You shouldn't normally notice the difference between 10bit and 8bit footage. Bodes well for the A7S doesn't it?

  I already told you several times what I think...   Compression is a factor, as is exposure.   I also said countless times before... 10bit luma is is not the same as having 10bit colour.   I also told you that David Newman of CineForm / GoPro backs up the 8bit 4K -> 10bit 1080p argument as does Thomas Worth of Rarevision. If you can't listen to the experts, I as a non-colour science engineer will have no chance in putting you straight!!

I have a suggestion...   Some of you will have access to 10bit (or better) already. Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera, 5D Mark III raw, external HDMI on the GH4 itself.   It is this you need to compare the 8bit 4K to when doing tests for banding.   The banding test on its own is a bit pointless.

It's actually a plugin for forums that makes idiots go away.   Oh... I wish.

  Here's an example from me...   Top shot is 100% crop of the 4K image. You can see some banding. Bottom shot is 100% crop of the 4K down sampled to 1080p. Much smoother looking and crisper.

It looks like mega extreme push or pull, no wonder it is shot to pieces.   Try instead shooting a detailed surface which is unevenly lit, say with a light source at one edge of it, shoot it in 4K then don't touch the image, just convert it to 1080p 10bit ProRes. Only after that, see how it grades compared to the 8bit 1080p files direct from the GH4.

I believe what you're seeing in that frame is not the result of 8bit colour but actually heavy compression.   Bland areas like skies are more heavily compressed than areas with fine detail.   Also remember that colour remains 8bit... it is only the depth of the luma channel and colour sampling which benefit from the downscaling from 4K to 1080p.