Andrew - EOSHD

Wow, this thread is fired up.  I really think the GH4 looks good, maybe surprisingly so, but then so does the GH3. Both cameras can hang with the 5D3R raw if you put them in the right setting and use them in the right way.  I see the GH4 as a nice improvement over the last generation, but it's lack of raw support means it's not for me. 

 

Resolve 10 actually now does a better job than Adobe at debayering DNG. Resolve 9 was ugly and had no noise reduction capability at all. You need at least a very light colour noise reduction going on, which ACR applies by default. When you convert the 14bit raw files to 10bit ProRes, you will not notice a drop in image quality (as long as you grade in 14bit before the conversion). 10bit is enough. Most of our screens are 8bit. 8bit as an acquisition format, now that's different... it isn't enough for everyone, which is why the GH4 has the 10bit 4K output over HDMI for the Atomos Shogun. Problem solved. Granted not yet... but by the time the A7S is out the GH4 will be shooting 10bit 4K compared to 8bit 4K from the Sony. A considerable advantage but not as noticeable to the viewer as the effect a well handled full frame sensor has.

 

I'm planning a more in-depth test between full frame 5D3 raw and 4K GH4. First the 2.2x crop needs to be tested more, without Speed Booster. Secondly more variety of subject matter needs to be shot including people, but with a variety of camera positions and focal lengths. It will be interesting to see if full frame loses it's edge when we go to a longer focal length and tighter framing, because here the smaller sensor is actually an advantage.

It's a variable bitrate codec and it probably leaves 20Mbit in reserve for a particularly challenging few frames to avoid corruption.

 

Try a sudden whip pan of a forest of trees at F5.6 or a sudden flare up of the entire frame whilst shooting something with tons of detail in it, that will really push the codec to the limit!

Hi Andrew,

 

What are your color profile settings? Cinelike D? (0,0,0,0,0)? Doing anything with the Highlight/Shadow Curves?

 

All CineLike D -5,-5,-5,-5,0 and no change to the highlight / shadow curves.

The GH4's resolution is mind blowing there. Really impressive. I think it will be amazing for green screen work specifically. Cinematically, sharpness is not exactly a look I would always want to go for, but you can always use lenses or post to unsharpen or add more character. Vica versa is not possible (i.e.: adding detail where the resolution isn't there) so definitely not putting down the sharpness. Amazing detail out of the box, no hack.

 

As for the "video" look people talk about... what video cameras are people comparing the GH look to? I think often its either 30p, bad lighting, stock lenses, using all auto settings and ultimately a basic point and shoot handheld style that give these cameras a "video" feel. The whole "video look" comments are quite ridiculous really.

 

The article wraps up my sentiments perfectly. The single hesitation I have is that its not full frame. FF is not a gimmick - it allows for wider shots to be used with lenses performing at their intended focal view. Better low - light. Shallower depth of field. I like all of these features quite considerably... making my expectations very high at the upcoming Sony A7s.

 

I think whoever is not really needing a new camera would be sensible to wait 6 months. Now that the GH4 seems to set the standard for sharpness and detail... who knows, maybe the next 4K beast will feature a global shutter. That would be a real winner.

 

Whatever the case, at $1700 this is very very tempting. Lets just cross fingers for the A7s as being a good FF alternative. 

 

Yes that's pretty much my single reservation as well, that it isn't full frame! A7S is definitely high up my list to try out.

 

As for sharpness, the GH4 at -5 sharpness is actually quite soft in 4K at 1:1... when the image is down sampled to 2K certain downsampling methods can make it look a bit too sharp. Simply add a slight Gaussian blur in post. It will be interesting to use my LOMO anamorphic on it wide open too.

What do you think of this gh4 versus a blackmagic pocket? 

I have the impression that blackmagic has a more cinematic look but maybe it's something you can have in post with the gh4 or it's always have a more "video" look more suitable for documentaries than fiction?

 

The Blackmagic is practically designed from the ground up to deliver a cinematic look out of the box, whereas with the GH4 it is more at the discretion of the user. If you mishandle it, then it is easy to end up with an image which is too sharp, too flat and too lacking in character. If handled correctly the GH4 is as cinematic as just about anything else out there if not more so.

If one had to make a film out of that footage I would pick the GH4.  Beautiful crispness!  However, I don't feel any of that footage showed the low-contrast look possible with the 5D3 RAW, and not the GH4.   In the scenes where there was wide dynamic range, like when you shot under the arches, or into shadows, it seemed both cameras were similar.  The GH4 did look more contrasty, but not by much. 

 

I believe, if you shot indoors the difference between the cameras would be more pronounced.  Outside, the un-modified brightness just overwhelms both cameras.

 

Thoughts, Andrew?

 

A low contrast look is not superior. You can make the GH4 and 5D raw look as flat as a pancake if you want to. Question is what is the benefit? If your monitor had a low contrast look you'd return it to the shop! I don't know why people think a flat look is superior. For grading raw has no look. It isn't flat. It is raw data straight off the sensor that describes colours, whites and blacks. Why compress all that into the mids and get grey? I blame stuff like CineStyle for the confusion.

No mention of low light? Big win for the 5D.

Already tested for those paying attention, it isn't a big win for the 5D actually!

 

Funny how certain people elicit oohs and aahs about sharpness and then put 40 or 50 year old (sometimes uncoated) lenses on these cameras. 

 

Nobody wants to see ultra sharp footage of people's faces, especially when the skin tones are produced by a GH series camera. 

 

There's nothing wrong with the skin tones on the GH4 at all. They benefit from 10bit luma at 2K for a start. 10bit everything at 4K if you are going to use a Shogun. The colour reproduction is good and skin tones grade well especially with a boost to the red channel in post.

For the neumanfilms comparison the Epic and 5d3 looked out of focus.  He says in the comments he was focused as good as possible, but he doesn't say on what object so I don't believe they were.  So that particular video is useless as far as a comparison.

 

As for Andrew's, the shots really do match together quite well. Obviously more detail in the GH4 so I think it would be superior for documentaries.  There are a few shots where the 5d3 seemed to have a little bit more dynamic range, but not by much at all.  I guess the best person to make the comparison is the person grading the footage.  Which camera can get to the image you want the easiest and most reliably, that is the only way do decide because in this test the images are equal.

 

It was a good test in my opinion. It clearly shows that the Epic has a stronger OLPF and a softer result ungraded. Ungraded raw is very different to GH4 4K where a certain level of sharpening is already applied in-camera even with sharpness all the way down at -5.

 

Yes the Epic looks surprisingly soft, almost as soft as upscaled 1080p from the 5D Mark III raw footage.

 

But with a little sharpening in post it would have been much closer.

 

Am I the only one surprised at how well the 5D Mark III blow-ups look under the microscope at 4K? I expected there to be a bigger difference. My opinion is that in terms purely of detail, 4K vs 1080p depends on how you're going to present / show the end footage to the audience and even on the eyesight of the audience, but clearly taking a full pixel readout of the sensor in the GH4 for 4K has resulted in overall image quality leaping forwards, not just in terms of resolution. Said this all along.

Right on cue the BMC Users are declaring GH4 as "horrible" and "atrocious". I feel like a peace keeper because i love both!

 

I stay off that forum, it's a total abject waste of my time to be involved in defending cameras. Defend a country! Defend a person. But not a bloody camera :)

Dilemma of the century. Do you take the advantages of raw or 4K? Do you take the full frame sensor or the crop? Do you take the DSLR form factor or the advantages for video of mirrorless?

This is something I've been really trying to draw a conclusion on in recent weeks for my own sanity!

Read the full article here

When the new camera is coming Im always again and again surprised what a turd footage is used by manufacturers to promote it.

 

Once again... Panasonic are not using this Driftwood thing to promote the GH4.

I just miss the full frame sensor and 14bit colour.

 

You will see in my review if it is a big issue or not.

The 5D Mark III raw has a very similar look. I've shot with the GH4 and that side by side and the video is coming soon with the main review. There's nothing really 'wrong' with the colour, it just depends how you grade it. The main drawback for me is that it isn't full frame.

This isn't a centre piece for Panasonic's promotion of the GH4, it is just what Nick Driftwood wants you to believe. Because he presumably thinks there's some kind of career reward in being nice to big companies. The thing is there really isn't. Panasonic just want to sell cameras and make money, they're not really in the best position to be picking sensitive artists to give demo units to. I just walked past a DPReview gold badge on a GH3 box today, just randomly on a store shelf. I realised if it wasn't for me writing the GH3 video page in that review and putting my argument across to the editor that it deserved a gold reward because of the video capabilities (DPR felt it merited a silver, because as a stills camera it lacked any real outstanding spark) that badge wouldn't exist. I felt a bit sad that in some ways my review and my views were being commercialised to sell cameras, without any reward for me, and nor should there be as it would cause bias. That's why I prefer to get minimally involved with stunts like this and marketing. If I make a short film with the GH4 it will be because the camera suits the material, not because I want to score attention with Panasonic, because like I say, there's no real reward for doing so and it is not really what I want. I want attention from other filmmakers and the audience instead. You have to question Nick's motives for making this to be honest and trying to pass it off as a wannabe Panasonic promo video.

It all depends on what you want to do.

 

For some stuff I prefer the 5D Mark III and certainly raw video on it is mind-blowing for work involving rich colour saturation, heavy grading and low light. I also love the full frame rendering of my lenses.

 

The GH4 in terms of 4K and usability of course is a big win, but the smaller sensor and the stills are not up to 5D Mark III level. Still pretty good though... how much stills quality do you NEED? That's the question to ask, not so much whether the GH4 is rated that way or this way.

I feel I have the knowledge and temperament, though I'm not always around work depending, but I'd be happy to assist :)

 

I agree. You are now upgraded to mod status sir  :)

 

Now then... if all the mods fall out... who will mod the mods? ;)

http://nofilmschool.com/2014/05/first-short-film-shot-on-4k-panasonic-gh4/

Check this out & read the comments. It seems it's common knowledge now that the GH4s image is very video-y and incapable of producing filmic images. I am stunned by the amount of comments saying this. I know it's pure crap and in the right hands it can produce a filmic image, maybe harder than say a Blackmagic but still do-able.

 

This was shot on film...

 

 

Therefore I have decided film is incapable of producing a filmic image!

 

The first comment on nofilmschool kind of sums it up

 

If I was the CEO of Panasonic, I would buy this film and immediately take it down. Then tell these “filmmakers” to stop using the GH4.

 

Give a hack a camera, and a hack of a film comes out...

Why the hell is this kind of thing annoying?

RichG101, mtheory, jonpais, JohnBarlow and Andy Lee you are now mods :)

Andrew, not to the extent found on speedbooster.

And the question now is how much you need to stop down to get rid off purple fringing, corner softness and vignette ? if you end up at 1.8 then what's the point ? no full frame look on 2x crop sensor at 1.8, or at least not so much SDOF you would get on FX.

There is no cheating with speedboster, you eighter get the best lenses or a full frame sensor that shoots 4k.

I have seen speedbosters on gh3 and the purple fringing is wayyyy worse than a dedicated lens from Panasonic, the purple fringing is much thicker on speedboster and quite visible.

 

You're very confused aren't you.

 

It isn't all about aperture and you're really highly dramatising any issues. Soft corners, vignette, purple fringing, are really not much of an issue compared to the lens used normally wide open on a larger sensor. In fact the image in the centre of the frame gets sharper. I suggest you use one before critisising!

 

You do get true Super 35mm rendering of the lens with Speed Booster and that means all the characteristics of a larger sensor.

 

Instead of using a 25mm for example you can use a 35mm lens. Longer focal length = shallower depth of field.

Did anyone checked how heavy the chromatic aberrations are with a speedboster ? it's bad, purple fringing never leaves the image and you can't correct it in lightroom :).

Why bother, get a 1.2 lens or a nokton and lose the canon lens.

 

Hmm. Purple fringing at F1.2 on any lens is there. Even the Canon 50mm F1.2L. Same with the Nokton.

 

When you stop down on the Speed Booster chromatic aberrations and fringing disappear.

I had hesitated to try this for so long, but finally today a brave EOSHD reader sent me a tweet saying he had fitted his BMCC Speed Booster (with protruding rear-glass) on his GH4. It just goes straight on. First a BIG disclaimer. Speed Booster adapters have adjustable glass which can sit closer or further away from the sensor to fine tune infinity focus. On some adapters this will mean potentially it will clash against the inner housing of the mount and be damaged if used on a Micro Four Thirds stills camera. Therefore I do not take responsibility for any loss or damage if you try this.

Read the full article here

lol what, you still need your earthquake?

 

Would Fukushima have happened without one?

There's no such thing as a "perfectly safe nuclear industry".  Try saying that to people living in a 5000 mile radius round Tchernobyl or Fukushima.  
There's not a single nuclear plant which has insurance, simply cos they can't find an insurance company willing to cover the risk.

 

In Belgium, with it's "perfectly safe nuclear industry", 2 of the 3 plants have had to shutdown due to tiny microscopic cracks in the plant's core.  Noone inside the perfectly safe nuclear industry knows how to solve it, or what to do with the core and the rest of the plant.  The plants will very probably never startup again.  

 

Nuclear energy creates a wonderful legacy for our children and great granchildren : nuclear waste.  Which will be here at least as long as we are.  Plenty of it was dumped in the oceans, is leaking now and we have no idea what to do with the rest of the waste that's stored all over the planet right now.

There's plenty of sustainable alternatives, the nuclear lobby is heavily subsidized (even after +40 years of development they can't function without heavy national and supranational funding).  A recent EU report was censored because it mentioned how nuclear and fossil energy are subsidized more than sustainable forms of energy.

 

I'd rather live nearby an ugly windmill than within 1000 miles of a nuclear plant.

 

Yes all correct.

 

But still no tsunami or magnitude 9 earthquake in central Germany. Odd.