What settings for punchy sharp footage?

[Bill Grant]

hello everyone,
I have had my GH4 for about a week now. Paired with the Olympus 12-40. I have not been able to get hardly any usable footage from the camera. Primarily the issue has been missed focus, exposure, and white balance. I'm not seeing the detail, sharpness, and dynamic range that the reviews have been raving about. I shoot primarily with monopod, slider, or tripod and I have not found rolling shutter or shake to be an issue with the Olympus. I am shooting in the 59.94hz mode and 4K 23.98. I have tried a lot of the modes and adjustments but primarily people are suggesting to shoot flat, and I want useable footage right out of the camera. I have been using the Canon DSLRs full time professionally since 2009. I am familiar with how to get decent shots on innacurate LCDs and manual focus, exposure, etc. I was really expecting more from this camera based on the reviews I saw from Dave Dugdale and Phillip Bloom. I currently have 2 5DmkIIIs and a 70D and this GH4 serves as my 4th camera for constant wide shots at weddings. I am ok with that for now, but would love to incorporate the 4K into establishing shots and interviews for corporate work. As it is, it looks like handycam footage to me, and I feel like it's a settings issue. Can you guys give me some settings you are using to success with the GH4? Considering I don't want to grade every shot. Thanks.
Bill

[Noa Put]

It would help if you could show some footage to have an idea what you have to deal with.

I shot below video just after I got the gh4 with the 14-140 stocklens and used the cine-d preset, I did mess up with the exposure because I was using the histogram which said I had right exposure even though all turned out underexposed, I did however managed to correct it in post with little effort. There is plenty of detail in there. Currently I use the standard preset for my weddings but plan on testing the cine-v preset soon for my personal projects but I will turn contrast and saturation all the way down to see what I can do with it in post. The standard preset does oversaturate the reds a bit too much for my taste but have not found much time to experiment. That preset does match my sony camera very well.

The beach on Vimeo

[Bill Grant]

Private Video on Vimeo

password is gh4

Here is an example of issues with DOF or finding focus or something and overexposure and just general muddyness with the image. I'm not sure which preset was used. The closeup shot at the end looked in focus and exposed properly in the LCD. I'm just not using this camera very well.

[Bill Grant]

Private Video on Vimeo

password is dress

This is a shot between my 5DmkIII and GH4. Looks pretty muddy and yuckers to me.

[Mark Williams]

I am shooting standard and cine-v with all zeros and getting good results. Also, using auto-focus which seems very accurate. Maybe something is wrong with your lens. Video below best played from Vimeo site.

Bald River Gorge Wilderness on Vimeo

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Bill Grant

[url="https://vimeo.com/103933210"]The closeup shot at the end looked in focus and exposed properly in the LCD.

My experience now is that the zebra"s are pretty accurate and so is the histogram, unless you are using cine-d, then it's better to rely more on the zebra's. When I shoot in the standard preset I use both the histogram and zebra's and they have been a great help in nailing my exposure. You should not rely on what you see on your screen but use the zebra's and the histogram for that purpose, I have the zebra set at 85%.

In the motion picture menu set the luminance level at 16-235 as well and see if that helps in getting a better exposure. About the soft picture, I always have my camera in manual focus mode, I just point at what I want in focus, press the shutterbutton so it locks on that and start shooting, if I need to refocus during filming I just touch the screen where I need refocussing and let the camera refocus or just press teh shutterbutton again if my subject is in the center of the screen.

[Paul Cherubini]

Are your Vimeo videos configured to play back at 1080? If not they will play at 720 and therefore will look soft. Also, try posting a video to Youtube. GH4 4K videos look sharp on Youtube if played back at 720 and viewed at a small screen size or played back at 1440 at a full screen size.

Outdoors, I like to use the Scenery preset with Contrast -1, the rest zeros, except sometimes I like the Saturation +1. On sunny days I select 5300 Kelvin temperature as the white balance.