Musty

So I played with the GH4 this afternoon at Jessops, Oxford Street, London. Although I spent around an hour with the camera, I was not allowed to record any footage to my SD card as the Panasonic rep said that the unit was a pre-production model without the release firmware. Being a nice chap, he did allow me to test many of the video functions and looked closely at the 2 Cinelike profiles the camera has, Cinelike D and Cinelike V.
 
I've never held a GH series camera in my hand before, so I was very suprised by the light weight of it. I'm used to the weight of my 5D MKIII with lump of L glass, so it was lovely to hold a camera that felt so nice in my hand. The OLED screen was very sharp and clear and worked perfectly to pull focus. The EVF was bright and full of detail. The eye piece was ultra comfortable. Focus peaking worked an absolute treat. A quick word about the autofocusing, its very impressive and I noticed no 'hunting'. I think it will be pefect for shooting with the 96fps function when you want to track something that is moving at speed.
 
The Cinelike profiles look interesting and I believe no footage we've seen so far has used these profiles to capture footage. Cinelike D is pretty much like a Technicolour style flat profile which is probably going to be the most used one on the GH4. Cinelike V seems to crush all the shadows into black and I found it hard to see what purpose this profile would serve.
 
The DR of the GH4 looks really good. Even though we were inside near the back of the store, when shooting out towards the windows, plenty of detail was retained outside. I know on my 5D, lots of it would have been blown out, almost white!
 
Unfortunately, I was not able to look for moire or aliasing as we could not connect the GH4 to a monitor and it was too hard to notice it on the OLED or EVF as they are too small.
 
In all, its a great camera and I can't wait to see more footage from it in the coming weeks. I did get the Panasonic rep to watch my showreel and while winking at him said I've love to shoot something for them :)
 
If you have any Q's please feel free to ask. Finally, some photos of the Cinelike profiles, this is the best I could do :(
 
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Adrian

So I played with the GH4 this afternoon at Jessops, Oxford Street, London. Although I spent around an hour with the camera, I was not allowed to record any footage to my SD card as the Panasonic rep said that the unit was a pre-production model without the release firmware. Being a nice chap, he did allow me to test many of the video functions and looked closely at the 2 Cinelike profiles the camera has, Cinelike D and Cinelike V.
 
I've never held a GH series camera in my hand before, so I was very suprised by the light weight of it. I'm used to the weight of my 5D MKIII with lump of L glass, so it was lovely to hold a camera that felt so nice in my hand. The OLED screen was very sharp and clear and worked perfectly to pull focus. The EVF was bright and full of detail. The eye piece was ultra comfortable. Focus peaking worked an absolute treat. A quick word about the autofocusing, its very impressive and I noticed no 'hunting'. I think it will be pefect for shooting with the 96fps function when you want to track something that is moving at speed.
 
The Cinelike profiles look interesting and I believe no footage we've seen so far has used these profiles to capture footage. Cinelike D is pretty much like a Technicolour style flat profile which is probably going to be the most used one on the GH4. Cinelike V seems to crush all the shadows into black and I found it hard to see what purpose this profile would serve.
 
The DR of the GH4 looks really good. Even though we were inside near the back of the store, when shooting out towards the windows, plenty of detail was retained outside. I know on my 5D, lots of it would have been blown out, almost white!
 
Unfortunately, I was not able to look for moire or aliasing as we could not connect the GH4 to a monitor and it was too hard to notice it on the OLED or EVF as they are too small.
 
In all, its a great camera and I can't wait to see more footage from it in the coming weeks. I did get the Panasonic rep to watch my showreel and while winking at him said I've love to shoot something for them :)
 
If you have any Q's please feel free to ask. Finally, some photos of the Cinelike profiles, this is the best I could do :(
 
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Adrian

I had the same dilemma as you... but I quickly got over it.
 
I've had a 5D MKIII since it was launched and back then, the quality of the H.264 was decent enough. Since ML gave us RAW, I've been shooting nothing but RAW ever since. ML RAW is amazing and I never thought I'd own a camera that could shoot such beautiful footage as it does... Unfortunately, it is still only a hack and even though it is getting more and more stable, you cannot trust it on a paid job. It will crash on you or it will stop recording due to a bug and it will happen during an important take or during a moment which once missed will be gone forever.
 
This was unfortunate enough to happen to me a month ago and it was not a plesant experience. It actually made me look like quite a fool and potentially has lost me more work with that client.
 
I Pre-Ordered the GH4 without too much thought. It will without doubt shoot some of the best 1080p we've seen from a stills/video camera. Most of the sample videos being uploaded by testers are not so good, likely to be because they are photographers with no real interest in the GH4's video capabilities. A few good videos are starting to surface though. I really would like to see something shot with the Cinelike profiles.
 

 
I'd obviously love to stay with Canon as I've invested a lot of money on some fine EF glass and the thought of having to start from scratch with MFT is a little daunting, but exciting. It would be great if Metabones hurried up with their EF to MFT adaptor, but there is no sign of it still. I will most likely replace my EF glass with the nice SLR Magic Cine lenses.
 
Maybe Canon will suprise us at NAB, but doubtful.
 
P.S - Anyone in London should get to Jessops on Oxford Street tommorow. They will have a fully working GH4 there between 10am and 4pm. I'll be heading down there with a fast SD card... fingers crossed!

I had the same dilemma as you... but I quickly got over it.
 
I've had a 5D MKIII since it was launched and back then, the quality of the H.264 was decent enough. Since ML gave us RAW, I've been shooting nothing but RAW ever since. ML RAW is amazing and I never thought I'd own a camera that could shoot such beautiful footage as it does... Unfortunately, it is still only a hack and even though it is getting more and more stable, you cannot trust it on a paid job. It will crash on you or it will stop recording due to a bug and it will happen during an important take or during a moment which once missed will be gone forever.
 
This was unfortunate enough to happen to me a month ago and it was not a plesant experience. It actually made me look like quite a fool and potentially has lost me more work with that client.
 
I Pre-Ordered the GH4 without too much thought. It will without doubt shoot some of the best 1080p we've seen from a stills/video camera. Most of the sample videos being uploaded by testers are not so good, likely to be because they are photographers with no real interest in the GH4's video capabilities. A few good videos are starting to surface though. I really would like to see something shot with the Cinelike profiles.
 

 
I'd obviously love to stay with Canon as I've invested a lot of money on some fine EF glass and the thought of having to start from scratch with MFT is a little daunting, but exciting. It would be great if Metabones hurried up with their EF to MFT adaptor, but there is no sign of it still. I will most likely replace my EF glass with the nice SLR Magic Cine lenses.
 
Maybe Canon will suprise us at NAB, but doubtful.
 
P.S - Anyone in London should get to Jessops on Oxford Street tommorow. They will have a fully working GH4 there between 10am and 4pm. I'll be heading down there with a fast SD card... fingers crossed!

Hey guys,
 
A couple of stores in London will have a working GH4 with a Panasonic rep this weekend. The dates are Friday 14 March, Saturday 15 March and Sunday 16 March 2014 from 10-4pm at the following stores:
Jessops, 129-131 Oxford Street, London, W1D 2HU Park Cameras, 53-54 Rathbone Place, London, W1T 1JR Full press release here: http://news.panasonic.co.uk/news/panasonic-announces-preview-campaign-for-dmc-gh4-79357
 
I'll be there to check it out on Saturday around midday.
 
Looks like Panasonic are also giving away a free battery and battery grip with every GH4 purchased! They are really gunning for it!
 
Adrian

Hey guys,
 
A couple of stores in London will have a working GH4 with a Panasonic rep this weekend. The dates are Friday 14 March, Saturday 15 March and Sunday 16 March 2014 from 10-4pm at the following stores:
Jessops, 129-131 Oxford Street, London, W1D 2HU Park Cameras, 53-54 Rathbone Place, London, W1T 1JR Full press release here: http://news.panasonic.co.uk/news/panasonic-announces-preview-campaign-for-dmc-gh4-79357
 
I'll be there to check it out on Saturday around midday.
 
Looks like Panasonic are also giving away a free battery and battery grip with every GH4 purchased! They are really gunning for it!
 
Adrian

I have gone for it! I had a play with one at the photographic show in Birmingham and the LCD & viewfinder where lovely. Also looked at some sample footage on the 4K LCD, which was incredible. It was next to a GH3 so could give it a good comparison (well as much as you can at a show). Along with the other obvious changes I think its also slightly heavier.
 
When I saw the price was just £1299 I couldn't resist. Pretty much the same price as a EM-1 + a free battery grip into the bargain.

All that remains is someone to put out some well shot, edited and graded footage. Some of the footage some testers have put out is absolute junk.
 
Andrew, will you or have you already in your hands on a GH4? I'm thinking about jumping off the Canon ship as is seems to not have much direction.
 
Adrian