100 ASA or 400 ASA in sunny days - video?

[Noa Put]

My opinion, shoot UHD50P, shutter 1/50 ( so you get the motion blur of 25P )

I was always told that the shutter should always be double the framerate, so 25p should have a 1/50th shutter and 50p a 1/100th of a shutter if you want to retain a normal motion blur. If you want to keep the shutter at a fixed 1/50 or 1/100 you need to use a variable ND filter to controll exposure outside,

Adriano, both Ron and I have a GH5 and edit in Edius so we can give you some tips based on our own experience but they will be very different as Ron mainly shoots indoor with stagelights and I shoot in all kinds of lightconditions at weddings.

As for Cliff's tips, I know he means well but I find he often overcomplicates things when simple questions are asked, it's like asking how to start up a computer and someone trying to explain using binary numbers, ASCII chart maps and how that effects the start up process of your pc while all there need to be done is just push a button :)

If I was in your place having to shoot in the conditions you have mentioned earlier I would shoot with a Natural profile with contrast -2, sharpness-2, NR-2 and saturation-2
Those are my prefered settings when I shoot weddings, I dial down contrast and saturation a bit because with all set at 0 I find the gh5 a bit too contrasty and saturated, sharpness I dial down because I find it helps a bit with very fine detail like leafes in trees or hedges that sometimes cause a flicker on some tv's, dialing down sharpness helps with that, I know many users that dial down sharpness to -5 when they use native Panasonic or Olympus lenses because they find the image is otherwise oversharpened, making it less sharp gives the image a bit more "organic" look or some also say it looks more "cinematic" in that way.
The Noise reduction I dial down a bit as well because at higher iso the image gets softer with a too agressive NR setting.

I also would get a variable ND filter as that will help controll your shutter. You only cannot use a lenshood in that case. Use something like a xume magnetic filter adapter as in that case you can quickly remove or put on the filter meaning no need to srew on or off but just pull off or put on and it will stay in position with a magnetic ring.

I would shoot in 4K50p 420/8bit at 150mbps or you could test 1920x1080 50P 4:2:2 10bit/all-I 200mbs as the gh5 shoots very good HD. I have not tested it but the HD mode could be much easier to edit and faster to export.

As for stabilization, never use e-stabilization and use IS lock only when you want to have extra stability on static handheld shots as that makes a big difference. Don't use "is lock" on moving shots though.

For whitebalance, auto whitebalance is pretty good but best is to learn to dial in a kelvin value so your color stays consistent, what kelvin value you need to use is something you can mainly learn by just doing and looking at the lcd screen and seeing the result on a colorcalibrated screen.

Just do some test like has been suggested here and shoot as much as you can, with very little preparation time you cannot expect a golden advice that will assure you come back with perfect footage, you will have to learn from your own mistakes.

[Adriano Moroni]

Noa, step by step I'm knowing my GH5 more and more but I need to as 2-3 questions:
1) If you use Natural profile with contrast -2, sharpness-2, NR-2 and saturation-2 then when you edit those clips with Edius what do you do precisely? Do you encrease chromatism or contrast or what?
2) I have a good fixed Hoya ND filter. Some days ago I make a lot of tests and I was disappointed by the filter. The images were less defined and with more red color. Yet a fixed ND filter is always of higher quality than an ND variabiler filter. I can't think to use a ND variable filter. In those tests I liked more to play with iris, shutter and ASA at the cost of not applying the ND filter. Maybe I got better results without ND filter.
3) In this time I have always used the WB Preset. Do you think Automatic WB is better than the WB Preset? If you shoot where there is red earth as in Africa, with Automatic WB you will get bad images as if WB become drunk. I did it sometimes with my videocamera and I get red images.

[Ron Evans]

To add a little to Noa's shutter input. Film and video are a series of still images. To make them look like motion they need to have a refresh( flicker rate) greater than 48 refreshes a second. For film this is accomplished with a 2 blade shutter on the film projector projecting at 24fps. In PAL the refresh is 50hz for NTSC 60hz. So a video shot at 25P will have each frame repeated twice. If you shoot at 50fps there will be a unique frame displayed every second. The intent of the shutter speed rule was to make sure that the max shutter did not exceed twice the frame rate since that would make any motion in the frame "freeze " and thus the playback at this minimum flicker rate would stutter. Better to create some blur in the image by lowering the shutter speed. This rule is at twice the frame rate. However once the flicker rate exceeds 50 the effect becomes less. It is still there of course and shooting with shutter faster than 1/100 at 50P will still give the potential for stuttering. But a slower shutter will only apply more blur to the image. Going all the way down to 1/50 and the blur is the same as shooting at 25P. There are now twice as many frames so the resulting motion is also smoother. My reason for saying 1/50 is that if in editing you want to look like 25P all you have to do is start a 25P project and place the 50P file on the timeline and EDIUS will remove every other frame and give you a 25P motion with the correct motion blur of 1/50 shutter. If you shoot with 1/100 shutter it will allow you to take nice still from the video but you will have stuttering if you try to create a 25P file because the shutter speed is too fast.

EDIT: At 50P I should have said a unique frame every screen refresh NOT every second !!!

I would take Noa's advice for shooting outdoors as that is what he does all the time. I am indoors all the time so have the exact opposite from you and Noa. Getting enough light is the task for me !!!!

[Noa Put]

1) If you use Natural profile with contrast -2, sharpness-2, NR-2 and saturation-2 then when you edit those clips with Edius what do you do precisely? Do you encrease chromatism or contrast or what?

I don't do anything in post anymore, for me my incamera settings is how I want it to look, the only adjustments I make are more to match clips up, maybe one camera was a bit darker then the other (as I use multiple camera's) and that one I just correct to match up with the rest, same for whitebalance, if I made a whitebalance error I might warm up or make a shot look cooler but that is not to get a certain look but to correct mistakes.

There is no right or wrong when choosing settings because when you ask 10 people how they set their camera you will get 10 different answers as it's all personal preference.

2) I have a good fixed Hoya ND filter. Some days ago I make a lot of tests and I was disappointed by the filter. The images were less defined and with more red color. Yet a fixed ND filter is always of higher quality than an ND variabiler filter. I can't think to use a ND variable filter. In those tests I liked more to play with iris, shutter and ASA at the cost of not applying the ND filter. Maybe I got better results without ND filter.

Personally I never change aperture while shooting as that affects the depth of field, once I choose a aperture for a particular segment that I"m shooting I won't change it anymore. What I do outside though is change the shutter to compensate for incoming light, I often don't have the time to use nd filters and rather just change the shutter and get my shot then waste time to put on a nd filter and miss a shot. This is not the right way to do it but if you are shooting in a environment where you don't get a second chance for a shot you will go for the easiest way and very high shutters don't ruin a shot, they only mess a bit with motion blur which never is noticed by my clients.

3) In this time I have always used the WB Preset. Do you think Automatic WB is better than the WB Preset? If you shoot where there is red earth as in Africa, with Automatic WB you will get bad images as if WB become drunk. I did it sometimes with my videocamera and I get red images.

I have not shot under these conditions but I can imagine the auto whitebalanse gets confuced with all the overwhelming red color it's seeing. I would just use a preset for sun or cloudy conditions depending on the weather conditions which could be anywhere between 5000 and 10000 kelvin, if I was you I would invest in a good external monitor to get a better representation of the color you eventually will be getting, I read a lot of praise on the 5 inch smallhd focus monitor. That could make it easier to dial in a kelvin value untill what you see on the monitor matches the scene you are shooting.

[George Dean]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

if I was you I would invest in a good external monitor to get a better representation of the color you eventually will be getting, I read a lot of praise on the 5 inch smallhd focus monitor. That could make it easier to dial in a kelvin value untill what you see on the monitor matches the scene you are shooting.

I'm currently shooting with a GH4, thinking about adding a GH5 and keeping the GH4 for a second (B roll) camera, so am following this excellent thread, as well as, others and enjoying the wisdom of Noa and Ron.

So, nothing to add of value to the topic, but a comment if you were to consider Noa's suggestion to add a monitor.

From my experience shooting with a Canon HDV and Atomos Samurai Blade, when I went 4/3 with the GH4, it was almost immediate that I realized the advantage and added an Atomos 7" Ninja Flame monitor/recorder. When I pickup a GH5, it will also include an Atomos Ninja Inferno 4K/60p monitor/recorder. It's a bit of expensive kit to add considering it will also require a cage, drives, batteries, etc, but once you experience the Ninja+GH(x) combination it is difficult to go without it, at least for me. Just wanted to add this to Noa's excellent suggestion. Here is a link to a demo video https://www.atomos.com/ninja-inferno

[Adriano Moroni]

I have a curiosity that grips me and I would like a precise answer from those who did the test. As I said, I would like to buy a very good variable ND filter (I already have a fixed one) and I have heard that maybe B & W BW1075251 is the best among variable ND filters. It costs around 200 euros. Since I value the quality of the image, I would like to know how much this filter can degrade the image more than a good fixed ND filter.