Low Light with the GH4
 

I have been shooting with the GH4 since it's introduction and love that camera. I have not shot much low light and not been impressed with the little I have shot.

I have been asked to do a property video of a fancy house. No people very little movement, mixing video with stills. I will mix HDR/Panos through out. I have a Lumix 7-14.

My questions.

1. What camera menu settings for video?
4k, fps, shutter speed, highest iso.

a. My instincts tell me to shoot MOV, 4k 100m 30p at 1/60, f4 and not to exceed 1600 iso. In a perfect world I would not add additional lighting.

2. My NLE is FCPX on a 5KiMac. I edit stills in LightRoom/PhotoShop.

The output will be for YouTube etc.

a. Project settings in FCPX?

b. How best to handle noise?

c. HDR/Panos files are huge. When imported into FCPX they turn mushy and lose resolution. If the Ken Burns effect is added they jerk across the screen resembling a video shot of moving subject with a very high shutter speed. Any ideas on how to best handle these.

Thanks in advance for your contributions.

Kent

Re: Low Light with the GH4
 

1. I would have said go 1080p since you might need to fit more into your frame. Not sure how big or small the individual rooms are. At the same time, if you're mixing in stills which will look very crisp, 4k might be the way to go. Rendered as 1080p. Highest ISO in 4k? I think you can easily do 2500. As for shutter speed, if you're not moving fast, why not use 1/30? A bit of motion blur is not as harmful as losing dynamic range and "cleanliness" with increasing ISO, and the Lumix 7-14 is an f/4 lens as you already know.

As for 2 I can't help you, I use Premiere. But make sure to post the video here once it's done, I am curious myself!

Re: Low Light with the GH4
 

1. What camera menu settings for video?
4k, fps, shutter speed, highest iso.

in 4K you only have 30fps as choice, like Luc suggested, if there are no people running around you can lower the shutter to 1/30 so you can keep the iso at a lower level. Highest gain is what you find acceptable, I often shoot 3200-6400 iso and eventhough there is noise, 6400 iso looks much better then 3200 iso did on my first dslr, the canon 550d so I am not complaining.

b. How best to handle noise?

Shoot in 4k and edit in a 1080p project, if you downscale 4K to 1080p the noise also gets smaller and less noticeable. Clean with neatvideo. Use a faster lens, the 7-14 is f4.0 which is limiting on m4/3.

Re: Low Light with the GH4
 

If you're going to be doing a lot of that kind of thing, you might think about getting a Metabones Speed Booster and some old fast Nikkor primes. I use mostly pre-AI Nikkors ranging from f1.4 to f2.8. And, the Speed Booster gives another 1-1/3 effective f-stop. My widest Nikkor is 24mm, which with the .64X Speed Booster gives a field of view close to a 35mm lens. If I need wider I have the 12-35 F2.8 Lumix. It's not a bad lens.