jurgen

Having some menu quirks - for instance, if I am in video mode on the dial, and I go into the menu, then down to the Playback tab, and then into the playback menu itself (arrow over into the actual list of options), the screen goes black for a quarter of a second, the mic shuts off, and then the screen comes back on as normal. The audio comes back as soon as you exit the menus. Not an issue in any practical sense, but quirky.

Also, going into the menu system when I don't immediately start on the playback tab (so if the last time I left the menu I was in the, say, custom tab), the screen is ever so slightly dimmer. When I go into the playback menu itself, the screen brightens up by a very faint amount. This also happened on my old GH3 and I've seen (and heard of) it on GX7's, so, again, not any sort of issue, but quirky.

edit - Also, I've been stopped twice on the street while shooting photos and asked if I was using a GH4. As an introvert, I consider this to be a considerable flaw :lol:  

(Also also, I live in Austin, Texas in the United States, so I guess Panasonic does have some US market penetration!)

Here's the scoop on mine:

In modes other than video, there's a "beep" that gets recorded that varies with shutter speed. Not an issue, because you're not in video mode. This seems to be on every GH4.

In video mode, if I plug my VideoMic into the mic port and don't turn it on, a hum/buzz gets recorded to the file. I don't know if this is normal for any camera with something plugged into the port, but it seems to be true for the GH4.

With the mic on, I can't hear a thing. Boosting gain to +6, headphones maxed, there's no noise. It sounds like shit because everything is being topped out, but if there's an "unnatural" noise it's entirely covered by the noise floor. I cannot hear anything in a practical situation (mic plugged in and on), and I have tried my hardest to isolate noise and provoke a buzz.

Right now, the only "problem" with the GH4 is a few firmware quirks with the way the menu operates. I would say that if you want one, it's a definite buy. Worse comes to worst, you get it fixed under warranty if a problem ever develops (so many people seem to forget that these things come with full warranties!)

GH3 files as well. This is a RAW converter problem, has to be.

I'd wait for proper raw support before making any conclusions.

 

Did you try with GH3/GX7 files? I'm curious if it shows the same. Might be a software problem.

 

Maybe send Iridient an email, they might have a clue why this shows up.

Just downloaded and opened a GX7 file (1/500 shutter speed, ISO 200).

Much to my surprise:

http://imgur.com/BkBdBYe

"Dead" pixels, or ... something.

I think something is amiss with the way that Iridient processes RW2 files. It doesn't make sense that literally - without a single exception - every single Panasonic RAW file I've opened (on Iridient across two separate computers) has shown these black dots.

Good thinking, Julian.

Have already asked him:
 

"Most modern digital cameras these days do a very good job automatically mapping out dead pixels prior to the RAW image data even being stored to file. In my limited tests so far with the GH4 I didn't find obvious dead pixel issues, but may have misse them, and I assumed it was doing a good job with this internally.

Many RAW processors always automatically do dead pixel filtering, in Iridient Developer for various reasons (most cameras don't need it, it's nice astrophotography to be able to turn such filters completely off, etc) by default I typically do not.

See the Detail pane in the Settings window of Iridient Developer where there are adjustable levels for the "Dead Pixel Threshold". If you set this filter to High, this likely will clear up any such issues.

I'll do some further investigation into this and perhaps will turn on the dead pixelfiltering for all images from the GH4 in a future update.

Best regards,
Brian Griffith (author of Iridient Developer)
Iridient Digital

And he may very well be correct - on an E-M1 or 5D, for instance, there may be some sort of dead pixel filtering before RAW data is ever saved. But either this isn't happening or something is wonky with Iridient's profile (and PhotoNinja's as well, as some of the spots [but not all] appear there as well). If it were only my camera I would say, okay, dead pixels, send it in for warranty. But it's not - it's every GH4.

So that, to me, is the curious part.

my first Panasonic G6 had dead pixels on the sensor straight out the box - I had to send it back and get a replacement

the replacement was fine

my dead pixel issue looked like your problem does on your pictures

 

it does happen so consider returning it

Most of these aren't my pictures, but pictures from six or seven different GH4 RAW samples around the internet (imaging-resource, photographyblog, quesabesde, etc.) They show up in every GH4 RAW photo I've seen, making me think that either something is happening with Iridient, or something has changed from the way the GH4 handles RAW photos in camera.

Flower picture from photographyblog.com's review:

http://www.photographyblog.com/reviews/panasonic_lumix_dmc_gh4_review/sample_images/

http://imgur.com/yZW5P4H
http://imgur.com/FMFCwPG
http://imgur.com/RmMT2dA

These are just cherrypicked from around the frame, there are probably 20-30 spots I counted scanning at 100%. This was an image shot at 1/400 at base ISO. (viewed in Iridient - it's in every other photo I looked at on there as well).

Again, I don't think this is a big issue, but ... weird that it's in every copy, at least when viewed in Iridient.

I just did a 600% punch in on 4K video - no problems, clean image.

ACR might fix them automatically, but the strangest part of this to me is that it's not a one off thing - they show up in every GH4 RAW photo on every camera I've seen.

I'll do some more looking around, and keep an eye on it with my own copy.

That's been suggested elsewhere, but I don't think so, as they're randomly assorted camera to camera (though always in the same spot for each particular camera).

At this point, I'm pretty convinced it's artifacts introduced by various RAW developers.

Curious! Just downloaded the same file. In Iridient, all the black spots are still there.

Hmm. Maybe it's an Iridient thing, as I've been thoroughly mocked elsewhere for not assuming from the get-go.

Thanks for your help, Julian!

Also, as a quick aside - any harm in running pixel refresh more than once? I've done it a couple times and while I can't see any harm in it (or imagine there being any), the thought just crossed my mind that maybe it shouldn't have been done.

Download a exif editor. Open the GH4 raw files and change the camera model flag to GH3 or GX7. Now you can open then raws in ACR. See if you get the same problem.

Trying to. I've got ExifTool running on my MacBook and for some reason the commands keep kicking back errors.

exiftool -model="GH3" *.RW2

kicks back a "FILE NOT FOUND" error message.

Any ideas?

Might be an overanalysis, but I've been shooting a lot of stills on my GH4, and because I normally edit in ACR+Photoshop (for which there is no GH4 RAW support yet), I've pretty much been jpg's only to this point.

I decided to give Iridient and PhotoNinja a go earlier today, and I had some strange discoveries.

In both programs, at between 100% and 200% view, there are what looks like dead pixels throughout the frame (maybe 10-15 scattered across).

They look like this:

http://imgur.com/FxCJ8rl
http://imgur.com/5H2RGHU

And at first I thought I just needed to run the pixel remap, which I did a couple times, to no avail. All spots still there, still in the same position. So then I started to worry that maybe I had a serious dead pixel problem which would show in video, so I shot a bunch of different stuff at 4K, cropped way in, and the image was clean as a whistle.

So then I got curious, and I started downloading every other RAW GH4 photo that I could find (a whole range of ISO's and shutter speeds) from five different sources, including a couple Spanish sites and imaging-resource.

Here's what I found on imaging-resource, and every other site:

http://imgur.com/h1sMlyG

Link to download: http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/panasonic-gh4/panasonic-gh4A7.HTM

Every single RAW photo from six different GH4's has this black "noise" in it, at shutter speeds from 2 seconds to 1/8000 and ISO's from 200 to 3200 (high as I looked). It looks like dead pixels, and it responds to the dead pixel filter tool in Iridient, but it's weird, because it's pervasive throughout every single photo from every camera I've seen. Is it possible this is an artifact from the GH4's image processing, or perhaps a hitch in the way Iridient processes images? For what it's worth, some of these spots (though not all) also show up in Photo Ninja - this is, again, true for all six cameras, every single photo.

Any thoughts, anyone?

There isn't any buzz is a marketing trick of a sony lovers :) they see their A7S surpassed in everything from GH4.

Is a artificial sound make at computer :) and impossible sound beacous there isn't mecanical shutter in videos ;)

Ask Andrew he has tested the cam and not reported this

 

If the sound is true is a iusses of that cam not all GH4 but the sound is unnatural and tremendous artificial :)

curious ;)

... I own a GH4. Everyone in that thread owns a GH4.

 

Is this true? That's not what I've been seeing people say. The second link jurgen provided says:

 

• The buzz is always there: It is present whether or not a microphone is plugged into the GH4 and at all audio gain levels.
• The buzz is recorded to all clips created by the GH4 (see below for samples).

 

There is some dispute about whether it's actually being recorded or whether that particular poster is improperly normalizing his audio. What we might be hearing is the noise floor, heavily boosted.

For what it's worth, in video mode, with both the on-board mic and my standard Rode VideoMic, at all gain settings (-12 to +6), it sounds "normal" on playback. Shitty with the gain up so high, but "normal". No motorcycle like buzz.

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?323353-audio-bug-discovered

http://suggestionofmotion.com/blog/panasonic-gh4-audio-buzz/

An audible "buzz" that can be heard with the GH4, one that changes frequency based on modes/shutter speeds.

I can recreate the "problem" on my copy (as can seemingly everyone), though I would never have noticed had someone not mentioned it.

The second link has the steps to recreate, if anyone else is interested.

Curious!

If they really have this up their sleeves and didnt show it off at NAB, that was just dumb. Why would not want to show your new 4K camera off to all the pros who will buy a few of them. 

I don't know if making that sort of splash is as important to a company like GoPro, where the product is at once "niche" and ubiquitous and they have a huge percentage of the marketshare. Someone else mentioned Apple, and I think that's a good analog for the type of market GoPro operates in.

Great choices! I think this is an excellent move.

 

I personally would hate EOSHD to become just another one of those sites. Here opinion is discussed openly, and that makes a difference, but I would totally understand if Andrew came to the conclusion that it is not worth the rudeness and ungratefulness he has to put up with.

It still can be. I've never seen a genuine opinion shut down on this site, regardless of how far it strays from conventional wisdom. I have found respectful disagreements to be welcome if not encouraged. With that said, I have also seen rudeness, cockiness, malice, and ill-temper attempting to pass itself off as "just a genuine opinion what's the big deal," and on that I agree with the overall sentiment of this post wholeheartedly - it needs to stop because it detracts greatly from the benefit you can get from scrutiny among friends. 

I would be in favor of stricter community moderation as a first step, with more aggressive steps taken as needed. There are plenty of other festering cesspools of partisan hatred on the internet. EOSHD is (and should continue to be) a place for honest, frank, respectful discourse.

People will always attack others who tell the truth.

I cannot speak for everyone on this forum, as I haven't been here very long, but I know of many people who greatly value your work, opinions, and willingness to look honestly at things, myself included.

The vocal minority is just that - small, but loud. I can't tell you to ignore them, as I wouldn't be able to either, but please know that most of us see it for what it is, and are on your side.

It is not an oversight, but a technical issue: they want to avoid media fragmentation which may result in unexpected recording stops.

No, I mean that it's a design oversight. I understand that as they had the cameras working before release, the ability to format/delete media might have caused fragmentation. But to then just say, "okay, forget it!"? That's pretty crazy.

I'm still sort of baffled as to how they designed three cameras without the ability for format/delete clips and view remaining space. That's not a small oversight ... it'd be like if they left the locking mechanism off the lens mount three separate times. Sure, you can use it, but ... why isn't it there?

Damn, GH4 skin-tones look nice: 

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!

I would buy a Pocket Cinema Camera if they updated firmware so you could format cards in camera. I don't think that's ever going to happen, though, so I will spend my money with Panasonic and/or whoever else looks like they give a shit about the market they chose to enter.

Press release (in Japanese):

http://translate.google.com/translate?depth=1&hl=en&ie=UTF8&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://www.olympus.co.jp/jp/news/2014a/nr140407mfourthirdsj.jsp

43rumors.com article:

http://www.43rumors.com/jvc-joins-the-mft-system-and-will-show-new-mft-4k-camera-soon/


This is cool, I suppose, though ... JVC? They're still around?

Be interested to see what they come up with!