Simon Shasha

Rolling-shutter/jitters seem well controlled in this GH4 1080P test - mind the odd intro:

The Odyssey 7Q doesn't have a 4K HDMI input and you don't need it to record 10bit out of the GH4. I'll try the 10bit 1080p to my Blackmagic Hyperdeck Shuttle and see what it looks like.

 

Atomos Shogun will be necessary for the 10bit 4K, or the YAGH box with Odyssey 7Q via HD SDI.

Ahhh, I see! I've got my heart set on the Shogun anyways :) I only suggested the Odyssey because the Shogun isn't out yet :)

Also, I noticed the Atomos Shogun can do 10-bit ProRes/DNxHD up to 120FPS in 1080P - I wonder if it can some how tap into the GH4's 96FPS before it encodes it to a 24P wrapper? Would be amazing if it could!

Andrew, there are some really nice shots in you 96fps test! You're right too - it works well on faces, moving objects, shallow DoF stuff.

I wonder if its possible for Panasonic to make it resolve a better image via firmware? Regardless, what I found funny was the 96fps out of the GH4 is still sharper than the video my Canon DSLR 60D and 7D produce, ha!

Also, is there any way you can get your hands on a Odyssey7Q? I'd really love to see 10-bit out of the GH4 - I'm hoping to use the GH4's 1080P 10-bit @ 60FPS to inter-cut with my Blackmagic Pocket.

Really loved the 96fps test, Andrew, keep up the good work! And thanks again for all your hard work!

I didn't elaborate about the benefits of full frame or the shallow depth of field but unfortunately you didn't get the point...

I was talking about the A7s 1080p capabilities that apply to present day filmmaking.

Please understand that this is an APS-C camera as well in 1080p, so that makes your comment irrelevant about shallow depth of field. APS-C is equivalent to Super35mm the filmmaking industry standard.

Regarding 8bit 4:2:2, have you ever worked with C300? Do you think it is not adequate for broadcast?

or have you ever seen any FS100 S-log 8bit 4:2:0 in 24Mb/s AVCHD footage? Is it not good enough for most video work?

People need to concentrate on what they can properly use right now.

APS-C is plenty capable of shallow DoF. What I was saying was how a lot of things filmed on full-frame often abuse shallow DoF to the point where it's disorientating. Regardless, go to any film set that is shooting on an APS-C sized sensor and ask the focus-puller or cinematographer what aperture they're at for most of the film - any money says they'll tell you between F5.6 to F8.

I've worked with C300. Not a fan to be honest. Found the skin-tones very "crayon" like. If that makes sense? The 1DC even more so.

The FS100 I rented every week for the good half of a year - too electronic for my liking. Something I put down to the 8-bit and highlight roll-off. Not to mention the motion cadence.

Anyway, it's all trivial :) Like I said - to each their own :)

Right now most of us we are going to shoot 1080p for a great many projects and the A7S wins this battle hands down. On paper it looks like the most complete 1080p DSLM ever made, it offers almost everything we have ever asked for... So many, real world, filmmaking capabilities such as full-frame, APS-C, extreme low light, no nonsense decent codec (50mb/sec for 8bit 4:2:0 is enough for me 200mb/sec is overkill), S-log picture profile, no need for expensive adapters, even 120frames slomo in 720p(by now obsolete...) and uncompressed output (yet only!)8bit 4:2:2.

However, most people argue about the lack of internal 4K recording!

Obviously 4K is the future but untill our workflow gets properly 4K with equivalent monitors, PCs, GPUs, TV sets etc. this camera is going to be king for the budget, indie filmmaker. I believe 4K needs a couple of years before it gets industry standard, yet people are already sold to it before they have or can even use it. We've already seen cameras that promise the future and do not deliver now(Blackmagic anyone?) and when the future comes they are already out of specs.

Don't forget that, with this mindset, next year GH4(another excellent offer) is going to look so... well, last year. Such a shame really!

Believe me, A7s isn't "everything we ever asked for". If it was, it'd have 10-bit at the least. Have you ever worked with a true 10-bit video image as opposed to 8-bit? It's a world of difference. Anyone that tells you otherwise simply doesn't understand colour-science, colour-precision, dynamic-range preservation, nor colour-grading.

Further, every one that goes on and on about "the benefits of full-frame" either doesn't realise that full-frame is very hard for precise focus-pulling, nor do they understand that, when shooting 4K, your focusing better be on point. Full-frame is actually very unfriendly for filmmakers - especially "one-man-army" type filmmakers. In indie filmmaking, a small sensor is actually your friend.

F4 is very shallow on full-frame - usually one has to stop down to F5.6 to even make the focusing manageable (and by doing so, you'll be pumping up the ISO to compensate for closing your aperture down), let alone viewable. For some strange reason, shallow depth-of-field has become synonymous with "cinematic". For me, when I see ultra shallow depth-of-field, especially the overuse and abuse of it, it simply screams "amateur", "novice". Especially when it is accompanied by God-awful jitters and micro-shakes.

People need to concentrate on composition more than shallow DoF - and in my humble opinion, light and shadow gives a sense of depth far more than shallow DoF, or the Z-Axis benefit that comes with full-frame sensors (which is a concept I've never really agreed with). Light and shadow is far more important when creating the illusion of three-dimensions through a two-dimensional medium such as film.

But to each there own. For me, tha A7s will be something I buy more for my street photography than video. I'll throw my old Canon FD and Nikon-F glass on there. I don't need auto-focus. In fact, I detest the hell out of auto-focus.

For those that go A7s, be sensible in your composition. The last thing anyone wants to see is 95% bokeh like we did during the 5DMKII days.

In my opinion, A7s is probably the more "fun" camera. I think it benefits still photography more than it does video. The GH4 is by far the more sensible video/film camera - 4K 10-bit at up to 30FPS, 1080P 10-bit at up to 60FPS, a sensor-size with manageable DoF - especially for "one-many-army" type filmmakers.

But like I said, to each their own.

I don't know what it is, but I prefer the flat profile on the GH4 almost more than any grades I've seen.

Nice find!

Haha! I'm the exact same!

Damn, GH4 skin-tones look nice: 

Is the GH4 HDMI 1.4 or HDMI 2.0?

Andrew, when filming in 1080P on the GH4, did you find the image looked better at 200Mbit ALL-I or 100Mbit IPB? Would love to know! :)

According to Den Lenie, it does do 10-bit 4K:

"The sensor reads out fully at 4k and via micro HDMI you can record 10 bit uncompressed to a 4k recorder. We used the Blackmagic Design Ultra studio Pro that records Ultra HD." 

http://www.fstopacademy.com/blog/sony-alpha-7s-first-hands-on-shooting-review/

Not posting any images yet but in my testing so far I am seeing very little difference when I grade the 8bit 4k as apposed to the quasi 10 bit 2k footage. They both have banding when pushed too far at about the same point. Honestly the resolution loss is the most noticeable difference I see. I even programmed my own method for doing the down sampling to insure that the pixels were being combined in floating point format to get 10 bits of data.

 

What I am seeing is that having 10bit doesn't have near as much of an impact if there is no increase in dynamic range. Down sampling may give something similar to 10bit color but it doesn't increase the dynamic range captured in the scene in any way so it is not a noticeable improvement in what I have seen so far. 

 

Also it is not anywhere near the Alexa with 10bit log encoding, the amount you can push the footage is insane because the 10bit log encoding is being efficiently filled with more dynamic range rather than just higher precision colors. 

 

The 4K footage looks great but that is about it.

I can say that banding is very rare when grading 10-bit ProRes from my BMPCC, and I have so push it very, very far to bring out any sort of banding.

I'm a bit worried sharing these, mainly because I'm paranoid I did something wrong on my end, regardless, I think it's good to share. First, I think the shot I used is a "worst case scenario" type of shot - because the shot itself is of a bland, bright sky that contains strong highlights and deep shadows (a real killer for 8-bit codecs as many of you know). Second, I think it reminds us that there is nothing like a true 10-bit codec, as opposed to 8-bit 4K being down-sampled to 10-bit 1080P (which in theory, works, but I think in reality it seems to fall apart somewhat - again, this may be a fault on my end). All in all, I think people shouldn't even begin to pass judgement on the GH4 until we see how it record in true 10-bit. I really hope that someone can show us true 10-bit out of the GH4 soon! I'd love to use the 10-bit 1080P at 60FPS that the GH4 is capable of to complement my Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera for slow-motion shots  :) 

Anyway, here are the shots I spoke about above. I simply imported Andrew's 4K ProRes file into Premiere Pro CS6, and did a light "Shadow/Highlight" recovery to see what kind of data I could get out of such an extreme shot - and guys, please remember that it is an extreme shot as it contains both strong highlights and deep shadows - I think any camera would struggle in this situation to be honest. However, the increase in colours that 10-bit brings would have definitely helped in the gradation I think. Also, I should point out - these are 8-bit JPEGS, however, I did render the shots as "Uncompressed 10-bit  YUV" (by way of Blackmagic's Premiere Pro rendering preset for Premiere CS6), and the results (in regards to the gradation) were the same. Anyway, enough of my ranting and raving, here are the shots:

ORIGINAL


ATTEMPTED SHADOW/HIGHLIGHT RECOVERY

 

"I have just done a low-light test vs the GH3 and 5D Mark III (raw) at ISO 800 to 6400 which I’ll publish later on in the diary. It’s quite an eye-opener."

This has got me nervous! Hope the GH4 really did well here!

Also, Andrew, did you get a chance to test the 1080P in 10bit?

And did you manage to achieve a flat/log profile by means of one of the cine-like gamma options?

Would love to know!

I just want to confirm something; in order to get 1080P 10bit 4:2:2 up to 60FPS, the DMW-YAGH is not needed - only a Convergent Design Odyssey 7 + Convergent Design SSD? Is that correct?

But if it's conformed, wouldn't that mean that the result was already recorded in some type of codec already? The HDMI out should show live stuff direct from the sensor and it can't possibly make a "live" conformation from 96fps to 24fps because that would not be live at all. And if it's playbacking, it can't show more information that the file has and as all internal recording is 8-bit 4:2:0, outputting 10-bit 4:2:2 would be impossible.

You're probably right!

I guess it's gonna be 10bit @ 60FPS...

Andrew

First, thanks for taking the time to write this article! Much appreciated!

I've been thinking, is it possible to get those 96FPS in 10bit?

In your article, you pointed out that the 96FPS is conformed to either 24P, 25P, or 29.97P. Now, a lot of external recorders, when recording 10bit ProRes of DNxHD, max-out at 24, 25, 29.97, 30FPS - the Odyssey 7/7Q can go up to 60FPS when recording 10bit 1080P.

I was thinking, since the GH4 conforms the 96FPS to either 24P, 25P, or 29.97P, shouldn't it, theoretically, be possible to get those 96FPS in 10bit to an external recorder - since those 96FPS are conformed to a lower frame-rate that the external recorders can actually handle?

What do you think?

BMPC Effective sensor size: 12.48mm x 7.02mm

 

Crop factor is 3x compared to full-frame (36mm x 24mm), 2,88x compared to 16:9 fullframe (36mm x 24mm).

Thanks. So does that mean my SLR Magic 12mm T1.6 HyperPrime takes on, roughly, a 35mm FoV after crop (12 x 2.88 = 34.56)?

Can someone please confirm the crop-factor of the BMPC S16? Is it 2.88x?

Needs to be 10-bit!