leeys

you say in 4k there is a crop factor of 4.0 (37mm/9.1mm) so must we also multiply the aperture by the crop factor to get the full frame equivalent as i read in many articles ? so is the lens a f11.2-f16 equivalent ? (how bad is it going to be in low light ?, i don't understand if this "full frame aperture equivalency" is just good for the depth of field equivalency or is it also applying for the quantity of light going onto the sensor ? if so f11.2 is going to be really dark for indoor shooting )

 

if it makes it really bad choice  for indoor shooting and this camera is only good for outdoor bright sunlight shooting, then why no wait for the gopro4 that will also do 4k (>15fps) it will be cheaper, smaller and water proof (but lack the zoom). it is supposed to  be out within 2 weeks.

 

I knew the stupid FF equivalence advocates were going to cause this kind of confusion sooner or later. It only refers to DoF equivalance. For exposures f/2.8 is f/2.8. The actual transmission value is another thing altogether.

I know it doesn't work in the GH3, so...

 

If you need a remote, you can get a cheap wired one.

Anyway, I'm eating my words at the moment. I love the image I can get from the D5300 but boy were you right about the GH4 all those months ago. Sigh ... if only I'd come to the HDSLR party 6 months later I would've spent my money on one GH4 instead of a G6 & D5300, which now look a bit HV20-ish in comparison.

 

The GH4 is blowing my mind. Someone just uploaded some raw 10-bit 422 from a Ninja to your GH4 review thread and it is beautiful to grade. Also, part of me now actually prefers the GH4 in low light to the 5D because of the grain quality - the 5D has a bit of FPN I really don't like. Colours aren't as good but hey, your June 3rd 'surprise' may help the low light issue? 

 

I need to stop coming here: Trying not to jump to the GH4 but posts like these aren't helping. xD

However consider the Speed Booster and an APS-C F2.8 zoom if you want a shallower DOF. The Tamron 17-50mm F2.8 for example is even cheaper.

 

Ugh, ok, this is one of the few things I can directly comment on from experience. Back when I had the GH1 I tried adapting the 17-50. The Tamron's focus throw is terribly short, and the sloppy plastic build just made it even doubly harder to get accurate manual focus. Not recommended due to the exercise in frustration. Beautiful optics though.

Great review Andrew. Thanks! Pardon for the mega-reply post.

 

I'd really like to get the GH4 once I have the possibility, and wondering if can use my lenses on it with electronic control? Does the Speedbooster give you this possibility? If not, how do you control your settings with speedbooster? sorry for my ignorance and thanks in advance,

 

Currently, no you can't. Aperture is controlled manually from the speedbooster for lenses that don't have an aperture ring (Nikon G), and I don't think there is an EF to M43 version yet.

 

At this point in my tests I concluded the GH4 and BMPCC dynamic range was roughly about the same... Around 10 stops. Still less than the 14 stops of film but still up there with DSLR-stills photos.

 

...

 

On DXOMark the 5D Mark III's sensor is rated for about 11.5 stops and the GH4's sensor is rated for approximately 11.5 stops also (similar sensor as GX7 and GM1). If you look at the raw stills from both cameras you get a nice 11.5 stops, or roughly close to that figure anyway.

 

Curious, what film has 14 stops? I remember using print film for stills that had that lattitude but most projection film has about 10-11 at most. Some even had less.

 

I think the GH4 should have about 12 stops from my memory, like most current M43 cameras. It's really very good, as good as a lot of Canons. It's really a failing on Canon sensor tech. Sony and Panasonic are really pulling ahead if Canon don't start producing something new.

 

If they can do a 0.5x speed booster for m43 they can also do a 0.5x or even more speedbooster for FF. Can't wait for it, but they are going to charge a lot for it.

 

Uh, they can, but you need to use lenses that have a larger coverage than FF, since Speedboosters are focal reducers. Essentially, you're looking at 67 lenses, even then there might be vignetting.

 

Sensor has a very fine noise in the raw files which is very film like, and ISO 6400 is perfectly usable. I also find the electronic shutter very nice, and once you go back to mechanical shutter on other mirrorless cameras, that feels really dated somehow.

I'm sure you were describing separate use cases, but just to be certain: The electronic shutter still has a limit of ISO 1600 when in use, right?

Technical arguments aside... how well does it work practically? I'd like to know compared to a 2k 8 bit compressed file and a 2k raw file, how well does a 4k supersampled to 2k file grade? Will it be closer to the 8 bit file than the raw file?

Maybe you should stop communicating using the Internet. It's not real anyway, going by that logic.

 

 

That's the saddest future perspective ever made! I hope to die before!

We are humans and one of the best thing we ever made is Art.

A real paint is a real paint, a future oled 5000000k touchscreen paint will never be the same. How could you even thinking something so horrible? A paint is something real, real colours on real surface, real light, real shadows, not pixels under a glass surface, not bit and megabytes, not a stupid files to share on Facebook, what a f$%k! 

The touch of an artist, how he use the brush, the mix and use of colours, is something you can never never and never have with digital garbage. 

But the real big question is why? Why use screens? To "carry all your equipment on your pocket when leaving" ? WHAT???????

Wow, really not seeing much difference between the two. Had to go back and forth a bit there. I think for relatively static shots it's not going to help that much.

D400 with the same specs but in APS-C would have made great sports,wildlife and cinema lineup for the next years to come, only surpassed by double exposure sensors.

Please don't start. I've already given up on *that* dream.

 

 

You can't generalize. It depends on the bargaining power.  In this case Nikon doesn't really have a video market (to protect), and Sony does. 

Sony the consumer electronics company and Sony the electronics fabrication plant are two distinct groups with their own management and KPIs. I'm more likely to believe (and do believe) that Nikon just aren't very interested in winning the video war.

My research shows only improvements are 1-60p  2-HDMI out whilst internally recording and some kind of improved timelapse mode (!)  

Anyhow I guess this is still a huge improvement upon the D4 as it was unusabely soft. 

 

The press conference mentioned ProRes in one of the slides. I'm hoping it means an actual implementation of it.

 

But it still seems to me like a joke for a 6500$ camera. They have XQD cards which can write from 125megabyte/s to 400. If they had spent 2 days coding they could have come up with 1080p compressed raw. Let's see if the 24fps continuous raw works longer than 20secs.

 

It still is mostly a stills camera. I got to take it for a spin, it's as fast befits a top level DSLR. Alas that speed doesn't really translate to video, obviously.

The D4 and D800 already have aperture control in live view. 42MBps, that is mega bits? Ridiculous. 

I'm an idiot. That's wrong. It's megabits, not bytes! Sorry.

 

I believe you cannot change aperture during video recording though. That was the impression I got.

This probably won't be the choice for many here, but as I'm sitting here at the press conference, there are a few interesting tidbits, like ProRes support, 42Mbps at 50/60 FPS and finally, aperture control during movie live view! There's also a silent still mode that does 24 FPS at HD resolution. Could be useful if there's some form of lossless storage.

I think we'd be lucky to see 24/25 FPS with a higher bit rate, nevermind 4:2:2.

Nice FAQ, thanks!

That makes sense since the Extreme cards are only rate to 45Mb/s. You may want to correct your article as only the PRO cards are rated to 95Mb/s and you say that the 95Mb/s cards won't work. Also, the UHS-I PRO card doesn't do 280Mb/s, that is reserved for the UHS-II cards.

I'm now getting a little confused. Sandisk rates their cards in MB/s, while bit rates are measured in Mb/s. There's a factor of 8 between the two, right? So we're talking about 750 Mb/s for the Extreme Pro cards, and 500 Mb/s for the new Extreme cards (80 MB/s read, 60 MB/s write), or did I miss something in my thinking?

But given the choice I will always choose a compressed codec over raw, as long as the image quality is in the ballpark, I don't have an overwhelming desire to spend hours in Resolve doing heavy grading work on everything I shoot. There's also space considerations and it does creep up on you after a while with the Cinema DNG files.

 

Granted, I've only graded really tiny projects, but coming as a stills shooter who only shoots in raw, going back to a compressed codec is kinda like going back to 2001 with JPEG photos. I feel a little restricted by the lack of options in post-processing. While it's currently the least of my worries (there's a ton of other things to learn in the transition to video), I still feel having the option there will be good, especially so if there is some groundbreaking software in the future, like the Aperture/Lightroom did for raw on stills.

This is a pretty amazing looking camera, and even if I were still doing purely stills, I'd still consider it. 1/8000s shutter with 1/250 flash sync, and hopefully a better EVF are all solid upgrades. The increase in burst shooting and the new defocus AF thing look interesting as well. I might get it regardless. I just hope I can afford it!

 

On using a video stream as a way to get stills: Not until they have the software to help with sorting 30000 photos. There needs to be some way to streamline and automate this process. First company to get it right will kick off a new style of shooting stills.

 

Unlike your suggestion of stills vs video, I don't think Panasonic should split the line. I want a camera that is capable of both stills and videos - that's why I bought the GH3! What Panasonic should do instead, is to *market* it better. Highlight the stills improvements strongly in stills oriented sites, and video in the video sites.

 

Granted, with the GH4, it might not be so easy, since 80% of the engineering went towards improving the video side, but Panasonic can do a better job, me thinks.

 

Olympus don’t want to be too good at video, in-case their cameras become known for it. They want to be associated with photography professionals and not cat-video YouTube uploaders, just in case they might get popular with filmmakers and sell us lots of cameras.

 

It's probably a poorly thought-out reaction.

 

First, still cameras probably outsell video cameras 10 to 1.

 

Second, Olympus sees Panasonic's attempts which have rendered perfectly fine cameras like the GH3 "only good for video" in the eyes of many stills photographers. Also, outcry by many photographers who "don't want video."

 

Third, see first point. Bean counters play it safe.

 

Result? Crappy video implementation.

I still like my GH3 in many ways, but that 5 axis stabilisation is a real killer feature, be it for stills or videos.

 

A missed opportunity for me is the lack of PDAF during video. Maybe in the next version?

I'm sure just like the Oscar nominations, there is a certain amount of politics and networking involved. No one is going to trust a startup without some serious lobbying.

As someone who started as a photographer (and is still primarily one), going back to post-processing work without raw data is like going back to 2001 digital cameras and shooting in JPEG. Sure, it's a lot more taxing with video, but the flexibility and higher quality are so worth it.

 

As for the lifespan of 4k, mass market adoption won't happen until everything is in place. The camera is just one part of three.

Unless by digital photo revolution, you mean things like iPhone... In which case i agree there is still room for improvement, but it will never reach DSLR levels or have interchangeable lenses, other than the odd gimmick... So no major effect on Canon or Nikon.

Just want to say, it does - both Canon and Nikon's compact camera business are hurting, and that's costing them a fair chunk of both revenue and profit.

 

Both companies need to adapt. Even Canon's real cash cow, their business automation division, isn't immune as paper use is decreasing every year. I don't have any particular real insight, but video is not going to save either company on its own. It needs to be something else on top of that, or something different entirely.