Press Release: Panasonic Announces 4K Mirrorless DMC-GH4

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Bryce Comer

I downloaded a few GH4 clips & put them up against my EX-3

You can't judge it that way, you have to place the camera's side by side.

[Ronald Jackson]

Here are a few GH4 4K ("Ultra HD" in fact) clips. Straight off the camera. I've not been able to view in 4K yet. This iMac will only do 2K.
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmfw_0STJHNNcD47P4aa2ptOw6UNRSFIx

Ron

[Nigel Barker]

I don't have a 4K monitor either but viewing on my 30" 2560x1600 HP LP3065 those images are very detailed & there are a fair few more pixels than 1920x1080.

BTW what lens are you using for those shots?

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

the camera did lock up once at the end of the evening and I had to remove and reinsert the battery to make it shut down and start up again properly. This seems to be a problem that has been reported by more users so something is going on.

Got a faster 64gb Kingston card that has around 80/90mbs write and read speed and no problems yesterday and I filled the card completely.

[Ronald Jackson]

Nigel, the wildflowers with the 14-140, the birds with a Sigma 500 and 1.4X TC , Nikkor mount.

I would've used my 80-400 Nikkor plus ETC with my GH3s but so much more to lose without 4K on the GH4.

Not the easiest combo to focus with or control depth of field.

Had a look on a 4K telly and not bad. The clips are at 3840 x2160 25p UHD bit I'm unsure at the moment whether to stick to UHD 30p, which apparently MBP Retinas and the cheaper 4K monitors happy with.

Ron

[Ronald Jackson]

And per Noa's post I purchased a couple of Transcend Class 3 64Gb cards which seem okay.
I hate not having two cams one with a long lens the other with a shorter zoom but £1300 each a bit steep. Wonder when the price will drop, as it did for the GH3, September?


Ron

[Noa Put]

I have just looked at Philip Blooms review of the gh4 and he says something I don't understand, If I understand him right he said that you can get about 30 minutes worth of footage from a 32gb card when shooting in the 4K 100mbs mode, on another site where they reviewed a preproduction model they where talking about a half hour on a 64gb card??

2 weeks ago I managed to shoot 52 minutes worth of footage on a 32gb card, if I check in mediainfo it says about 80mbs in average with around 105mbs max? Why are there so big differences in claimed amount to be recorded, I clearly seem to get much more on a card then most.

[Evan Donn]

The data rates are variable, so they're highly dependent upon the content of the video. Footage with a lot of detail and motion will eat up space on the card quickly - something like an interview shot on a tripod with a seated subject will give you a lot more time on the same card.

[Noa Put]

I have not shot much static content, but anyways good that I can get at least 1,5 hour out of one 64gb card.

[Ronald Jackson]

My files are bigger if I attach an external mike.

Ron

[Ronald Jackson]

Here's a short video cobbled together via Mpeg Streamclip. Settings 1920x1080, 29.97p, 100Mbps, Slow Effect 31%.

I was quite pleased with this as the GH4 won't do slo-mo in 4K/UHD.

Dark Green Fritillaries In Slow Motion. - YouTube

With a Nikkor AF-S 80-400 lens.


Ron

[Noa Put]

I haven't tried this yet but was that clip shot at that 96fps mode? Eventough the resolution seems to get a visible hit it still would be sharp enough to mix with other 1080p dslr cameras.

[Ronald Jackson]

Yes , 96fps.

I was hoping to be able to incorporate some slo-mo footage into a UHD timeline (FCPX) but I was a bit concerened about loss of quality. Haven't got round to trying any GH4 stuff yet in FCPX. I much prefer shooting to editing, but will have to give it a go. At the moment I'm trying various GH4 settings.
ETC in 50/60p the next one.

With my GH3s I was able to edit with a 50p timeline which incorporated 25p footage with ETC and 24p "slo-mo". All 1080p of course.

Hoping for the equivalent with the GH4 , all "UHD".

I don't have a 4K monitor, waiting/hoping for a price drop and better choice, and my iMac and MBP can't output 4K or UHD resolution, will though do 2560x 1440 so halfway there perhaps. A new MBP at some stage.

Ron

[Noa Put]

Went to the beach yesterday and shot some random stuff, I shot in the cine-d preset to test that out and found out the histogram gives a false interpretation where your exposure is in that mode, often the histogram showed I had a perfect exposure but all shots came out underexposed, I know I should have used the zebra's as well as they gave a better indication but I was not sure which one to trust so decided to underexpose as it's much harder to get any detail back from overexposure.

The 2 times I have shot in standard preset both histogram and zebra's gave me a quite accurate reading on where my exposure is, only in cinelike d I seem to have to rely more on the zebra's. I shot this using a 14-140mm f3.5/5.6 lens with a nd filter, shot in 4K, then downsampled to 1080p and uploaded to vimeo who again downscales it to 720p, long live 4K... :)

There where some very harsh light conditions as most was shot when the sun was at it's highest point, some shots (like the first one) was shot a bit later in the evening which gave a better result in overall color, there is a reason why you best shoot around the golden hours in the morning or evening.

The beach on Vimeo

below a link to the youtube video, I think it's time Vimeo starts delivering some decent 1080p view for their paying plus members, youtube is years ahead in outputquality even up to 4K, my video is much sharper on youtube then on vimeo because it is 1080p.
Edit, I provided a direct link, the embed video here from youtube is noticeably softer then when I view it directly on youtube, weird.

link:
youtu.be/xBMFJy4GWKM

[Bryce Comer]

Ronald,
Just wondering how you are finding the GH4 compared to your EX3 in low light. I just received my GH4 yesterday & did a few quick test shots last night as the light was failing. I had the cameras set up side by side & simply swapping my 80-400mm Nikkor lens between the two. To my surprise, the GH4 was nowhere near as good in low light as the EX3 at the same settings. Colour rendition too was way off on the GH4. I hope it is simply the set up of the camera that i have wrong. I will try again tonight, but just wondering if this is to be expected.
Regards,
Bryce