Michael Ma

I hear the GH3 hot shoe is very fragile. If you're planning to put a gopro or a rode videomic on it, make sure you don't grab the attachment as a ways of grabbing for your camera. It sounds like you're getting a lot of new gear before your trip. Try to familiarize yourself with your equipment as much as possible before getting there. Make a test documentary of your back yard to test the audio to see if the audio quality is satisfactory, that there is no buzzing or static that can't be removed, and that wind won't be an issue. Any shots where you're walking and recording will probably have to be done via GoPro only if you're only using the 25mm lens.

No need to apologize but I don't think you have the technical understanding to know what you're talking about. Please stop making yourself look foolish. Your argument is that (quoting you verbatim) "it it were an F/5.6, images would be extremely dark indoors." And you're here calling people *asinine*? Your understanding of how light passes through the lens and how the data is written to your memory card, and everything in between is probably beginner level at best. Just because you are being loud, obnoxious and trying to demonstrate the little knowledge that you have about technology doesn't make you correct. If you had watched the video and read what people are actually saying in the comments, (which you obviously didn't do) is that these small lenses and sensors are delivering *the equivalent of* lenses of higher F-stop numbers when it comes to DOF and noise, and by not making it obvious to everyday consumers, they are getting away with charging premium prices. But you probably just glanced over it and didn't even catch the *when it comes to DOF and noise* part, and you're just trying to prove everyone wrong without listening to what was said first.

I agree with him with the point that they should list the 35mm aperture equivalent when it comes to DOF as a separate spec, and they should also list the ISO 35mm equivalent for the camera specs in terms of noise as a spec of the camera. It wouldn't be good marketing, but as he states, Panasonic is able to charge higher prices because of not stating his information. If they sold a 24-70mm f/5.6 full frame for $1100, would you ever buy it for your full frame? Probably no. Never in a million years. That's what Panasonic is doing by cranking up the sensitivity of their sensors 4x. This lens would probably be worth $400 tops if it was incredibly sharp. Yet, that's what's Panasonic charges for the same kind of image you'd get for a f/5.6. I never thought of Panasonic lenses to be incredibly expensive, but now that you mention it, he has a point. All the more reason to get the A7S in the future!

Color work is great. The shadows look great considering it was a sunny day and the equipment used. For any type of shots that require walking, you will probably need a stabilization rig. Warp stabilizer can't be relied on for walking shots. Maybe instead plan for shots without needing to walk with the camera. I noticed a lot of your shots were out of focus...maybe Panasonic lens would be worth the investment in the long run.

I had this same budget a year ago. For some reasons, laptops were cheaper a back then. I bought a i7 Toshiba laptop, then upgraded to 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD for a grand total of $920. Then I got the GH3 with the kit lens (14-42). Kit lens is amazingly sharp at F/8 at full wide, and average at just about anything outside of that. The zoom action isn't smooth. But you can do a lot with it. I'm using a Class 10 microSDXC with zero problems with the GH3, so I was able to save money that way.

Wow....I was asking because I thought a stabilizer must have been used for most of your shots, but watching it again it looks like you just have really steady hands and good technique. I'm even more impressed. Thanks for showing how much you can do hand held. I would definitely prefer to work without one.

In premiere pro, since CS3 I believe, you will not compromise in quality if you work with the files directly from the camera. However, there are some advantages to working with an intermediate format like ProRes, such as rendering times. It is faster for your computer to compute a 8GB 1080p ProRes file rather than a 1.3GB heavily compressed 4K file out of the camera. Keep in mind the large intermediate files are only for you to work with in your NLE, not something you'll be delivering as your final product. So 8GB intermediate is really not big of a deal since you got a computer with good specs. Intermediate formats will always be bigger than files out of the camera because of their light compression. If you don't want to use an intermediate format like ProRes or DNxHD, you can work with the file directly, but the rendering will be really slow. It sounds like you're looking for a workflow that's going to be lossless or near-lossless, keep the file sizes small, and be able to render quickly. Unfortunately you cannot have all 3. Either work with the files directly in Premiere Pro and let it render slowly, or use an intermediate format, which will also help save time when getting previews while making color grading choices in the NLE.

Here's my experience with at least working with a PC with 4K footage in Premiere Pro CC. I have a similar machine. Maybe about half the specs. i7 3630QM, 16GB RAM, Samsung 840 Pro SSD, Integrated Graphics, and Premiere Pro CC, on a Windows 7 machine. On a PC, you will have to find 3rd party software to convert your 4K to ProRes 4444 (4:4:4 10-bit). The only one that seems to do it reliably is Bigasoft Prores Converter. It's a little slow to convert...it takes about 5 minutes to convert a 30 second 4K clip and only uses about 30% of my CPU while doing it, but it seems to be the only one that I've tried that works reliably. I've put 4K clips and converted it to 1080p ProRes 4444. When doing heavy rendering in Premiere Pro, a 1080p ProRes 4444 seems to render about 3 to 4 times faster than working with the 4K file directly in Premiere Pro CC. You can go the DNxHD route, I think DNx 350X 444 RGB as your intermediate codec, but unlike the name suggests, it's not 4:4:4, but 4:2:2. So, say that you have a 30 second clip. It takes 5 minutes to convert to ProRes 4444 at 50% scale (1080p). Then it takes 8 minutes to do some heavy grading in Premiere Pro CC with Red Giant Colorista II. Compare that to working with 4K in Premiere Pro, and just scaling that down to 50% in the sequence, it takes about 28 minutes to render with the same settings with Colorista II. For the 30 second sequence, I saved about 15 minutes of rendering time.

Yikes. I don't agree with this price by Sony. Where ample or harsh lighting is not a problem, such as in a studio, GH4 is a much better choice for $800 less. But at $2499, it is a much harder sell for a great but purposely handicapped 50mbit XAVC, and a compromised tool for photography at 12MP, with a lens system that will be new to you. Even the 5D Mark III are starting to be offered for a little over $2500 which is already a recognized tool for professional videography. In my opinion, it should have been $1699-$1999.

jcs, try putting a shoot through scrim on on the key light. For every other lighting equipment, try to bounce it so they don't leave highlights or shadows. The highlights on the seasonings and black ingredient cups are all going to try to steal your attention. Also, the camera angle of your subject and the camera angle of the backdrop are very different.

This is a must watch if own a GH3 and have any interest on the GH4. He makes many great points. He also shows off the shadow and highlight curve manipulation feature, and a pedestal setting.

It looks like IPB is a clear winner for this test. I'm definitely an IPB convert on my GH3. I was shooting ALL-I for a few months, but aside from the better quality image on IPB, the processing benefit of ALL-I on a descent computer is negligible. In Premiere Pro it converts to 32bit 4:4:4 on the fly in the NLE* or while encoding, before doing any post processing. This on the fly conversion is really not what's causing the slowdown in the encoding. It's the post processing you apply on it. On a modern computer i7 with at least 8GB of ram, you would only save a few seconds encoding a 5 minute video shot with ALL-I instead of IPB. *Source: http://tv.adobe.com/watch/premiere-pro-cs5-feature-tour/staying-native-or-going-intermediate-transcoding-and-premiere-pro-cs5-/ Jump to 5:50 mark. In short, very little reason to use ALL-I on the GH3. It looks like GH4 is going to be the same from these preliminary reports.

Well, at least we know it's not a hardware limitation. What kind of footage are you shooting to test this by the way? Try to max out the dynamic range going from full black to full white with a steady distribution of luminescence, with as much color variance as possible, and with a sharp lens at F8-F10, with a descent amount of camera shake. I see that you did a static noise test, but maybe most of the data got compressed into full black or full white.

Amazing how similar it is. A light edge to the 5D3 with a massive sensor size advantage. With a minor grade, you can cut between the two and no one would be the wiser.

Fascinating. Have you tried the 200mbps ALL-I? If it is somehow managing to do 80mbps 4K and produce quality of the samples floating on the net that is pretty amazing. Still, higher would be better.

No attention to lighting. No color grading. No effort done to get the most dynamic range by using different color profiles in harsh lighting. Too much camera shake. Maybe some attempt to show you improvements with moire. I don't think these guys don't know how to make their *movie* look less like something shot with a p&s. I think they were trying to give everyone some real-life expectations out of the box, but instead, they made themselves look like amateurs. It's made by Driftwood...the guy who creates hacks for the GH2. I'm sure he knows his stuff.

It's not an issue with my GH3. There's no awkward tilt to it when the camera is facing you. You'd probably not even notice the right part of the screen is slightly pushed back after you use it once or twice.

Extra detail is good, however detail in the background can be distracting. You will have to step up your game in composing shots in a major way

Only thing missing from the GH4 is Log mode. I thought I initially read that there were controls to curve the highlights and shadows, or did I read that wrong?

Need A windows method. More importantly, need a GH4. ;)

The dynamic range on the video looks incredible...thinking a bit more about it, I'd rather have S-Log2 than 10-bit

Thanks for the recommendation on the Arri's FilmConvert profile. The colors on most film settings seem to look great on just about any file with any profile I've taken with the GH3. You definitely can't say the same thing with the GH3 FilmConvert profile.

GH4 color and detail looks the best with least amount of noise. Superb!

Very nice. GH4 vs GH3 should be very interesting.

Cinematic-ness probably can be broken down to this: Color balancing with priority given to skin tones Lighting and adjustments to shadows and highlights to mimic the dynamic range of the human eye. Motion blur you get with 24p, People say it's because we got used to 24p in the theaters. I think it's more than that. Motion of 30p and above and can steal your focus/attention from the subject. Cross processing for complementary colors.(usually in the bounds of natural looking skin) The wide aspect ratio. And maybe reduction of chroma noise to make it look more like film grain, but that's only when noise/grain is desirable in the shot. All these are adjustments to make the image look natural and pleasing to the human eye, because images straight out of the camera look entirely different. If you miss one of these points, it starts looking to what some people may call un-cinematic. And sure, you can deviate from this if you know your limits or if you are doing something abstract. So far, it seems Panasonic is more willing to deliver better out of the box results. Canon is always trying to decide which feature to leave out so they can sell their more expensive variation.