Simon Shasha

Hey guys, With regret, I have to sell my 3-week old GH4. I won’t waste anyone’s time with a sob-story, it’s just a serious and unfortunate financial problem that has come up which I must take care of as soon as possible. I am selling the Panasonic GH4 and Panasonic 12-35mm F2.8 lens (that came packaged with it) for $2600AUD (Australian Dollars). I have the original invoice/receipt (date of purchase 21/05/2014), and after talking to both the store I bought it from and Panasonic, the 12-month Panasonic Australia warranty for both the GH4 and 12-35mm F2.8 lens is transferable to whomever buys it off me. If you can find it in stock at this price or cheaper, I highly suggest you buy it. I called around 10 stores the other day – most said it is back-ordered until August (September for those that are yet to order). How accurate that is, I don’t know, but supposedly the GH4 is sold-out and back-ordered Australia wide. I didn’t really get to use the camera other than filming a little bit in my backyard with it – however, from what I did film, it really does produce a highly-detailed and beautiful image. Anyway, I hope to re-purchase it at a later date when I overcome my current financial situation :) For those interested, please either send me a private-message, or email me at: simonshasha@hotmail.com I will provide my mobile number to discuss via phone if requested :) Thanks.

Rolling-shutter/jitters seem well controlled in this GH4 1080P test - mind the odd intro:

Ahhh, I see! I've got my heart set on the Shogun anyways :) I only suggested the Odyssey because the Shogun isn't out yet :)

Also, I noticed the Atomos Shogun can do 10-bit ProRes/DNxHD up to 120FPS in 1080P - I wonder if it can some how tap into the GH4's 96FPS before it encodes it to a 24P wrapper? Would be amazing if it could!

Andrew, there are some really nice shots in you 96fps test! You're right too - it works well on faces, moving objects, shallow DoF stuff. I wonder if its possible for Panasonic to make it resolve a better image via firmware? Regardless, what I found funny was the 96fps out of the GH4 is still sharper than the video my Canon DSLR 60D and 7D produce, ha! Also, is there any way you can get your hands on a Odyssey7Q? I'd really love to see 10-bit out of the GH4 - I'm hoping to use the GH4's 1080P 10-bit @ 60FPS to inter-cut with my Blackmagic Pocket. Really loved the 96fps test, Andrew, keep up the good work! And thanks again for all your hard work!

APS-C is plenty capable of shallow DoF. What I was saying was how a lot of things filmed on full-frame often abuse shallow DoF to the point where it's disorientating. Regardless, go to any film set that is shooting on an APS-C sized sensor and ask the focus-puller or cinematographer what aperture they're at for most of the film - any money says they'll tell you between F5.6 to F8. I've worked with C300. Not a fan to be honest. Found the skin-tones very "crayon" like. If that makes sense? The 1DC even more so. The FS100 I rented every week for the good half of a year - too electronic for my liking. Something I put down to the 8-bit and highlight roll-off. Not to mention the motion cadence. Anyway, it's all trivial :) Like I said - to each their own :)

Believe me, A7s isn't "everything we ever asked for". If it was, it'd have 10-bit at the least. Have you ever worked with a true 10-bit video image as opposed to 8-bit? It's a world of difference. Anyone that tells you otherwise simply doesn't understand colour-science, colour-precision, dynamic-range preservation, nor colour-grading. Further, every one that goes on and on about "the benefits of full-frame" either doesn't realise that full-frame is very hard for precise focus-pulling, nor do they understand that, when shooting 4K, your focusing better be on point. Full-frame is actually very unfriendly for filmmakers - especially "one-man-army" type filmmakers. In indie filmmaking, a small sensor is actually your friend. F4 is very shallow on full-frame - usually one has to stop down to F5.6 to even make the focusing manageable (and by doing so, you'll be pumping up the ISO to compensate for closing your aperture down), let alone viewable. For some strange reason, shallow depth-of-field has become synonymous with "cinematic". For me, when I see ultra shallow depth-of-field, especially the overuse and abuse of it, it simply screams "amateur", "novice". Especially when it is accompanied by God-awful jitters and micro-shakes. People need to concentrate on composition more than shallow DoF - and in my humble opinion, light and shadow gives a sense of depth far more than shallow DoF, or the Z-Axis benefit that comes with full-frame sensors (which is a concept I've never really agreed with). Light and shadow is far more important when creating the illusion of three-dimensions through a two-dimensional medium such as film. But to each there own. For me, tha A7s will be something I buy more for my street photography than video. I'll throw my old Canon FD and Nikon-F glass on there. I don't need auto-focus. In fact, I detest the hell out of auto-focus. For those that go A7s, be sensible in your composition. The last thing anyone wants to see is 95% bokeh like we did during the 5DMKII days. In my opinion, A7s is probably the more "fun" camera. I think it benefits still photography more than it does video. The GH4 is by far the more sensible video/film camera - 4K 10-bit at up to 30FPS, 1080P 10-bit at up to 60FPS, a sensor-size with manageable DoF - especially for "one-many-army" type filmmakers. But like I said, to each their own.

Haha! I'm the exact same!

Damn, GH4 skin-tones look nice:

Is the GH4 HDMI 1.4 or HDMI 2.0?

Andrew, when filming in 1080P on the GH4, did you find the image looked better at 200Mbit ALL-I or 100Mbit IPB? Would love to know! :)

According to Den Lenie, it does do 10-bit 4K: "The sensor reads out fully at 4k and via micro HDMI you can record 10 bit uncompressed to a 4k recorder. We used the Blackmagic Design Ultra studio Pro that records Ultra HD." http://www.fstopacademy.com/blog/sony-alpha-7s-first-hands-on-shooting-review/

I can say that banding is very rare when grading 10-bit ProRes from my BMPCC, and I have so push it very, very far to bring out any sort of banding.

I'm a bit worried sharing these, mainly because I'm paranoid I did something wrong on my end, regardless, I think it's good to share. First, I think the shot I used is a "worst case scenario" type of shot - because the shot itself is of a bland, bright sky that contains strong highlights and deep shadows (a real killer for 8-bit codecs as many of you know). Second, I think it reminds us that there is nothing like a true 10-bit codec, as opposed to 8-bit 4K being down-sampled to 10-bit 1080P (which in theory, works, but I think in reality it seems to fall apart somewhat - again, this may be a fault on my end). All in all, I think people shouldn't even begin to pass judgement on the GH4 until we see how it record in true 10-bit. I really hope that someone can show us true 10-bit out of the GH4 soon! I'd love to use the 10-bit 1080P at 60FPS that the GH4 is capable of to complement my Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera for slow-motion shots :) Anyway, here are the shots I spoke about above. I simply imported Andrew's 4K ProRes file into Premiere Pro CS6, and did a light "Shadow/Highlight" recovery to see what kind of data I could get out of such an extreme shot - and guys, please remember that it is an extreme shot as it contains both strong highlights and deep shadows - I think any camera would struggle in this situation to be honest. However, the increase in colours that 10-bit brings would have definitely helped in the gradation I think. Also, I should point out - these are 8-bit JPEGS, however, I did render the shots as "Uncompressed 10-bit YUV" (by way of Blackmagic's Premiere Pro rendering preset for Premiere CS6), and the results (in regards to the gradation) were the same. Anyway, enough of my ranting and raving, here are the shots: ORIGINAL ATTEMPTED SHADOW/HIGHLIGHT RECOVERY

"I have just done a low-light test vs the GH3 and 5D Mark III (raw) at ISO 800 to 6400 which I’ll publish later on in the diary. It’s quite an eye-opener." This has got me nervous! Hope the GH4 really did well here! Also, Andrew, did you get a chance to test the 1080P in 10bit? And did you manage to achieve a flat/log profile by means of one of the cine-like gamma options? Would love to know!

I just want to confirm something; in order to get 1080P 10bit 4:2:2 up to 60FPS, the DMW-YAGH is not needed - only a Convergent Design Odyssey 7 + Convergent Design SSD? Is that correct?

You're probably right! I guess it's gonna be 10bit @ 60FPS...

Andrew First, thanks for taking the time to write this article! Much appreciated! I've been thinking, is it possible to get those 96FPS in 10bit? In your article, you pointed out that the 96FPS is conformed to either 24P, 25P, or 29.97P. Now, a lot of external recorders, when recording 10bit ProRes of DNxHD, max-out at 24, 25, 29.97, 30FPS - the Odyssey 7/7Q can go up to 60FPS when recording 10bit 1080P. I was thinking, since the GH4 conforms the 96FPS to either 24P, 25P, or 29.97P, shouldn't it, theoretically, be possible to get those 96FPS in 10bit to an external recorder - since those 96FPS are conformed to a lower frame-rate that the external recorders can actually handle? What do you think?

  Thanks. So does that mean my SLR Magic 12mm T1.6 HyperPrime takes on, roughly, a 35mm FoV after crop (12 x 2.88 = 34.56)?

Can someone please confirm the crop-factor of the BMPC S16? Is it 2.88x?

Needs to be 10-bit!