Panasonic GH4 4K Production Diary - Day 2 - Test Footage

[Andrew Reid]

Yes all CineLike-D, but not dialled down completely flat. I left contrast and sharpness in the middle (0) - I'll have a go at -5 for next test shoot.

[johnnymossville]

@jonpais personally, I love panasonic colors. 

[Andrew Reid]

People loved CineLike on the original VariCam.

 

If its a warmer image like Canon you want, just dial it in. Either in post or in-camera.

[zionsiva]

Looks really good! It would be very nice to see something shot on the Voightlander as well, I'm curious to see how a top end native m4/3 works with 4K. Keep up the great work!

[jonpais]

@Andrew Could you shoot some footage with vaseline smeared on the front element of your Cooke and put a cracked filter on the front? :)

[Tim Naylor]

Thanks for the footage. The detail is what really knocks my socks off, especially the line detail against the sky, the kind of place lesser cameras often fail. 

 

At some point, do you plan to do objective tests? Macbeth color chart, exposure step chart, with measure exposures up and down the scale - that sort of thing. I know these kind of tests  can be a bore/pain but are great in seeing how different colors / tones react to different levels as well as DR to ISO ratings. 

 

Best news is the grade ability of the codec, especially in Pro Rez. 

 

Also, how was the Meta Bones mount to M 43? Secure or is there any deflection? 

 

In terms of layout and usability (Menu, monitor, etc) any new notes?

[jonpais]

@Andrew have you tried free lensing with the GH4 yet?

[AaronChicago]

Wow. I'm loving how much room there is to grade. I did a pretty simple warm up to the smoke clip.

 

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[jonpais]

Footage from the GH1 was gradable. It wouldn't be any great surprise if 5 years on, Panasonic had learned a few tricks.

[Tim Naylor]

Thanks for the footage. The detail is what really knocks my socks off, especially the line detail against the sky. Very pleased with the report on the grade ability. 

 

At some point, do you plan to do objective tests? Macbeth color chart, exposure step chart, with measure exposures up and down the scale - that sort of thing. I know these kind of tests  can be a bore/pain but are great in revealing how different colors / tones react to different levels as well as DR to ISO ratings. 

 

Also, what ISO do you reckon is its "acceptable" noise threshold for night work?

 

Also, how was the Meta Bones mount to M 43? Secure or is there any hint of deflection? 

In terms of layout and usability (Menu, monitor, etc) any new notes?

 

In terms of capturing 10 bit 4k, would it be YAGH to Odyssey 7Q or Ki Pro Quad? Or do you have any simpler ideas? 

 

Last, I'd love to see how it performs under fluorescent, sodium vapor and other incomplete spectrum lights. I've had some issues with Alexa grades under flos. Hard to get deep flesh tones out of cool whites. 

[jonpais]

Personally, I'm more interested in how the camera performs in actual use, not test charts. I'd especially like to see some shots with colored gels and perhaps some more intentional flaring (a small Mag Lite pointed directly into the lens would do nicely).

[yoswdub]

Just some little grading done with magic bullet look.

 

[skiphunt]

Nice. Glad I got the D5300 to tide me over while waiting for this one. As soon as this ships and the early adopters shake out any bugs, be grabbing one for sure, but will hang onto the D5300 as a lightweight still camera. Plan falling into place. Just need to find out if I'm going to have to get a new super computer with ultra fast drives to even begin to edit GH4k stuff.

[jonpais]

@skiphunt have you tried downloading Andrew's or anyone else's 4K files yet? that should give you a good indication if your computer is up to snuff. I'm guessing if you don't plan on using Neat Video or Film Convert on a daily basis, you should be alright. And you can always make proxies. Checking out Resolve Lite, which is pretty processor intensive on my Macbook Pro, I found a bunch of ways to reduce the load while editing: changing the timeline resolution, turning off "enable video field...", reducing bit depth to 8, checking "optimized display", and "use bilinear filter" - all in the project settings. You can also turn off the scopes and audio when you aren't using them. It would appear that the highest res Resolve Lite handles is 3840 though, as best as I can tell. Not that it matters: I plan to downscale everything to 1080p anyhow.

[Tim Naylor]

Personally, I'm more interested in how the camera performs in actual use, not test charts. I'd especially like to see some shots with colored gels and perhaps some more intentional flaring (a small Mag Lite pointed directly into the lens would do nicely).

Personally, I like both. I'm a big fan of testing Macbeths. It gives you a clear idea on the chips color accuracy. It answered  few questions a while back why I thought Varicams had more color fidelity than Reds. Especially helpful when you need to work with production designers and you can't test every single paint, wardrobe, color, etc prior the shoot.

[johnnymossville]

off topic a bit, but I was humming the song last night when I went home and my wife started to sing it, in chinese.  She would sing it to her dog as a kid.  I thought that was pretty cool.

[Ben Corwin]

Been waiting for this review ever since the GH4 was announced. Well done! I threw some money your way out of appreciation.

 

One question though...

 

There's been talk about Panasonic adding 200mbps All-I to the 4096 x 2160 Cinema 4K DCI mode. Have you heard anything about this?

[skiphunt]

@skiphunt have you tried downloading Andrew's or anyone else's 4K files yet? that should give you a good indication if your computer is up to snuff. I'm guessing if you don't plan on using Neat Video or Film Convert on a daily basis, you should be alright. And you can always make proxies. Checking out Resolve Lite, which is pretty processor intensive on my Macbook Pro, I found a bunch of ways to reduce the load while editing: changing the timeline resolution, turning off "enable video field...", reducing bit depth to 8, checking "optimized display", and "use bilinear filter" - all in the project settings. You can also turn off the scopes and audio when you aren't using them. It would appear that the highest res Resolve Lite handles is 3840 though, as best as I can tell. Not that it matters: I plan to downscale everything to 1080p anyhow.

Just dove into FCPX in December, so I'm still very much a newb and haven't even done anything with proxies yet. Good point though. Going to download and try. thanks!

[Derek Weston]

Have you played around yet with dropping/pushing shadows/highlights in camera? (there was a setting for that, I remember reading, past the regular profile adjustments)

 

Also. . . have you noticed what the exposure time limit is for electronic shutter exposures is? With the GH3 it was 1 second -- it'd be awesome if we had longer exposures for night timelapses. 

 

Thanks.

[skiphunt]

Ok, so that's strange. I just downloaded all 5 of Andrew's sample 4k clips. Dropped them on a 4k-24p FCPX timeline complete with audio. Dropped in random transitions, applied some style effects to a couple, added an animated title, dropped an adjustment layer and applied a LUT to the whole thing, then output as 4k 24p. 

 

What's strange is, my basic system actually handled it snappier and more responsive than my D5300 1080P source. It even played back the output 4k clip smoother as well. How can that be? Looked great too!

 

I'm only using a Macbook Pro 13in (non-retina) 16GB RAM and Andrew's media was read off a 7200rpm Thunderbolt mobile drive. 

 

Unless I'm missing something... or maybe the proresLT footage was the key and it'd take me loads of time to convert the source? If that's not the case, and this is pretty much how it'd work with minimal conversion time... then I'd say I'm sold.