Andrew Reid

  The only time the blown-out hair happens is on the slow-mo footage, not the 4K. And it was a challenging shot because of extremely bright direct sunlight on Susanna's hair. She was backlit by it and I was exposed for her face. An Alexa would have struggled with that.   I didn't grade for maximum dynamic range and one of the 4K shots was a bit hot, a bit over exposed.   I am fine with the dynamic range from the 4K files so far. Seems similar to what I am able to get with 5D Mark III raw. The GH4's sensor is rated for nearly 12 stops, same as the 5D Mark III's sensor. Packing that into a JPEG, which is effectively what the 4K video is but more compressed, well... you be the judge. Possible or not? Think about stills. I'd say yes it is possible.

  It ends up being a 0.9x crop with BMCC Speed Booster if you compare it to the typical Super 35mm sensor size. I.e. it goes larger than Super 35mm, but still a 1.4x crop over photographic full frame.

  Try this app -   http://www.eoshd.com/content/12594/exclusive-first-app-resample-panasonic-gh4-4k-8bit-10bit-444

  The Mk II raw with anti-aliasing filter installed is very interesting. It doesn't quite have the ultra-clean feel of the 5D3 so feels more analogue. I am working on an updated Shooter's Guide for both the 5D3 and 5D2, plus have shot a ton of stuff which isn't yet published! There will be many more articles in the coming weeks on this and quite a few surprises :)

My full review of the Panasonic GH4 (final retail unit) is coming next week. Until then I am enjoying Philip Bloom's views on the camera here! A big thanks to B&H Photo & Video in the US for shipping internationally a GH4 unit with no recording limits, I got it before it was even available in Europe. Delivery took just 2 days! Impressed! Read the full article here

The potentially fixes one of the biggest problems with the RX10 (AVCHD codec break-up) and puts it into a tiny form factor. Could be really nice. I was a big fan of the previous RX100s.   The pop-up EVF is cool too.

Looks like they took some bad advice somewhere along the line on price, but I still can't wait to get my hands on a 4K full frame image.

Not a pleasing price but I think it is unique enough for me to still want it, for low light, full frame, to sell my A7R and replace it with this just to get rid of AVCHD is worth the extra! 4K in future to Shogun a pretty big bonus in my view.   GH4 still the one to get overall in the here and now... it is simply better featured for video.

  Nice shots in there and like the concise writing style. I liked it enough to get that generic EF speed booster for my GH4. The results look pretty good judging from Vimeo. £70 can't go wrong! Or can i!? Time to find out.

Happy to have two threads actually...   One for problems.   And one for design aspects.   Slow-mo softness at 96fps and 2.2x crop in 4K is an aspect of the design.   A problem for me would be a bug or usability quirk.   Let's continue on the thread but be clear on what we mean...

Complete an utter madness. The 4K mode does not come at 'too many other costs'. If you're shooting 1080p internally you're completely wasting the talents of the camera. I am shooting 4K on the GH4 for 1080p delivery. You can reframe in post, which is endlessly creative, no matter what you're shooting. The image quality for 1080p looks WAY better downscaled in post from 4K to 1080p than pixel binned on the sensor in 1080p mode.

Pietz I pointed all this out months ago in my articles, I resent being called a fanboy. Change of tone required I think!

The A7S should do 10bit HDMI and 8bit 4K internal. I hope Sony reconsider and put at least the AX100 processor in there for internal 4K recording to XAVC-S. After all it is a more expensive camera than the AX100!   8bit external and 8bit internal... not much logic in that is there?

Don't feed the troll corpse. He's been already been hacked into pieces and fed to a pig :)   That'll teach 'em.

I disagree with the 'this wins over that' mentality though too... All important equally.

The sensor readout is much faster on the GH4, by 50%. But 400% more data coming off the sensor, that isn't enough to compensate. Audio issue is a non-issue as far as I'm concerned. Who shoots video with audio in stills mode? That's what the movie mode is for!   AF is of no interest to me either.   The soft video in VFR mode, well treat it as a creative bonus tool... You could pay $15k for a camera today, and not even get 60p! (C300)

Happily on here I do the banning. Goodbye!!

  Oh dear. Well the whole style is supposed to be a mix of documentary and fiction, which makes it so believable. If you're going to criticise on something small, it at least helps to get it into perspective by mentioning what you DID like, if indeed you did like anything at all, you miserable person.

  Oh, A Drop In The Ocean was great. Was way too involved in the mood, characters, story, to notice stuff like that. You weren't?

Didn't notice the continuity errors. Neat idea, but the execution is a bit clinical. Everything seems staged in the way it is placed on the set. Who places their slippers like that by the bed and everything so perfectly!? The camera work is a bit wooden too. Despite that I connected with the theme and the audio is well done. It's a good effort.

  How about you best do both, because filmmaking is never about a single thing. It is everything that's important right?

The BMPCC will never work on the GH4. The shutter shield and shutter itself is in the way. The best I can do is to screw back the BMPCC Speed Booster glass in the housing so that it doesn't get so close to the sensor, but that means no infinity... best I could do was around 2m.   My advice is get the BMCC version or wait for a possible GH4 version.

Thom's always been a bit slow on the uptake with video, because he's a stills guy. He's clearly never shot with the GH4. Had he done so he'd have seen straight away that the time remaining counter with a 64GB card ticks down from around the 1hr25min mark in Cinema 4K mode!   It's the lightest weight 4K codec on earth unless you count XAVC-S, and I don't because it sucks.   XAVC-S is Sony's marketing way of saying 'here's H.264 again but at 60Mbit instead of 24Mbit' which is WAY too low for the AX100's 4K.   On the Blackmagic Torture Camera, I was getting about 6GB per minute, on the GH4 it is 600MB per minute.   10MB per second vs 100MB per second, one is practical, one isn't.

Did you grade first frame or a middle one? First frame can be blocky with some codecs. I saw this on D5200 and GX7, various others.   Better check that.   I won't be shooting in any of the 1080p modes in-camera on the GH4 because you can easily do 1080p in post with the 4K and get a much better image that way.

  Good point. Can we drop the 'small sensor' accusations at the GH4 yet?   However I still love full frame for certain things. I am trying to match it with the GH4 in 4K and 1.4x crop with BMCC variant Speed Booster. I can get close to a 50mm F1.2L on full frame but still not there. Sigma 18-35mm F1.8 is closest at the 35mm end wide open! Nikon 55mm F1.2 has the most similar look to bokeh and shallow DOF but the framing is tighter, FOV not the same as a 50mm on full frame.   I am still torn on what to use for an upcoming music video shoot. This has a set built in a basement of a tattoo studio and very little room to position the camera and we have a lot we want to obscure with focus tricks. The 5D Mark III in this situation would probably be the better bet. When I go to Taiwan and do more documentary style shooting punched in on people and subjects from a distance, then that is where the GH4 is going to shine over full frame.