Panasonic GH4 4K Production Diary – Day 3 – Shootout!

[Andrew Reid]

Nerd alert!

I'm afraid it's time to put the creative urges to one side and get down to the nitty gritty. Just exactly how does the GH4's image stack up against the competition?

Read the full article here

[dafreaking]

Sweet!

[AaronChicago]

Do you have any comparisons of Gh4 4K downscaled to 1080?

[maxotics]

The "excuse" that prompted me to get the BMPCC was the post where you showed stills from the Blackmagic.  I even set up a group on Flickr for them, though seems no one is interested, or isn't posting their own images https://www.flickr.com/groups/bmpcc/

 

What I've found in my explorations are:

 

PROs

 

o. When conditions right, the BMPCC shoots beautiful 2 megapixel RAW stills.  

 

CONs

 

o. The BMPCC is susceptible to moire which is difficult to remove in post, even with Photoshop. 

o. I though it would be nice to get 24 fps when shooting portraits, but have discovered that the frames in between expressions are always useless.  So I don't see using the BMPCC for any kind of portrait work. I know, sounds like a bad idea from the start ;)

 

As this relates the GH4.  

 

The stills from you test clip, the car, are stunning.  They are not RAW, but my guess better than a cell phone.  I can definitely see the GH4 shaking up the wedding industry.  It's always been easier for the stills guy to shoot video, vs the video guy shoot stills.  Now the table is turned with the GH4.

 

In your tests, it looks like the GH4 has RAW cameras beat, but only because you're showing sharpness.  I hate to be a nag about this, but I need to point out that one will be stuck with the skin tones the GH4 comes away with.  I believe if you compared the GH4 to any RAW based camera on subjects to which humans are very sensitive to, in color tone, like faces, there would a better balance of strengths and weaknesses for both cameras.

[Andrew Reid]

Do you have any comparisons of Gh4 4K downscaled to 1080?

 

Yes just watch the Vimeo stream at 1080p or watch the 4K file on a 1080p display.

[Guest]

Excellent, I now know that the 4K image from the GH4 is of significantly higher resolution than that of a 1080p camera. Invaluable. Get to the low light tests!!!

[Michael Ma]

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

[AaronChicago]

The "excuse" that prompted me to get the BMPCC was the post where you showed stills from the Blackmagic.  I even set up a group on Flickr for them, though seems no one is interested, or isn't posting their own images https://www.flickr.com/groups/bmpcc/

 

What I've found in my explorations are:

 

PROs

 

o. When conditions right, the BMPCC shoots beautiful 2 megapixel RAW stills.  

 

CONs

 

o. The BMPCC is susceptible to moire which is difficult to remove in post, even with Photoshop. 

o. I though it would be nice to get 24 fps when shooting portraits, but have discovered that the frames in between expressions are always useless.  So I don't see using the BMPCC for any kind of portrait work. I know, sounds like a bad idea from the start ;)

 

As this relates the GH4.  

 

The stills from you test clip, the car, are stunning.  They are not RAW, but my guess better than a cell phone.  I can definitely see the GH4 shaking up the wedding industry.  It's always been easier for the stills guy to shoot video, vs the video guy shoot stills.  Now the table is turned with the GH4.

 

In your tests, it looks like the GH4 has RAW cameras beat, but only because you're showing sharpness.  I hate to be a nag about this, but I need to point out that one will be stuck with the skin tones the GH4 comes away with.  I believe if you compared the GH4 to any RAW based camera on subjects to which humans are very sensitive to, in color tone, like faces, there would a better balance of strengths and weaknesses for both cameras.

 

Skin tones look great in my opinion:

 

[HurtinMinorKey]

Colors on the pocket still looked the best, but that's probably because it had a different white balance. It's amazing how bad the h264 from the 5D3 looks now compared to the other cameras. 

[maxotics]

Skin tones look great in my opinion:

 

>

[jgharding]

Hello all, it's been a while!

 

I was wondering, how good is autofocus on this one?

 

Would it be good for camcorder style jobs as well as beauty manual shots?

 

Apologies if I've missed this bit of info, I haven't had a chance to sit down with the articles fully yet, but I'm still tempted to this camera!

[Natureflixs]

Hello all, it's been a while!

 

I was wondering, how good is autofocus on this one?

 

Would it be good for camcorder style jobs as well as beauty manual shots?

 

Apologies if I've missed this bit of info, I haven't had a chance to sit down with the articles fully yet, but I'm still tempted to this camera!

The test video was shot with a Sigma 18-35mm which does not communicate with the camera and is a manual focus lens. Seems like it works very well with the GH4. 

[Robert]

Skin tones look great in my opinion:

 

>

[Andrew Reid]

Simple answer. I sold my BMCC. I only have the Pocket. Same image for 1080p but prefer the tiny portability and active MFT mount.

 

White balance is not problematic with the 4K files, amazingly. If you miss it you can correct it. I've showed this on the forums previously and other people's grades show this. I'll go further into this on Day 4 most likely.

[johnnymossville]

You can definitely grade/fix white balance on the 4k files. I've done it on a few clips from Andrew and they hold up extremely well. 

[Andrew Reid]

I am surprised as anyone at the gradability of the 4K files. I'm a big fan of raw!!

[Robert]

I am surprised as anyone at the gradability of the 4K files. I'm a big fan of raw!!

 

That's reassuring. However, the advantages of 4k vs. 2.5k seem like a wash, especially when delivering for the web. The flexibility of RAW, including more DR and less banding when pushed, is something that the non-pixel peeper will certainly notice. The ergonomics of the BMCC suck, the battery life is crap, yes -- but the flexibility in post is something I have a death grip on.

 

I certainly want to be convinced otherwise, but I think I have PTSD from years of attempting to grade 550D files.  :)

[johnnymossville]

Crop, zoom, pan, tilt a 4k file with zero loss of quality in your 1080 Edit.     Plenty of reasons 4k is good for a 1080 or Web Edit. 

[Robert]

Crop, zoom, pan, tilt a 4k file with zero loss of quality in your 1080 Edit.     Plenty of reasons 4k is good for a 1080 or Web Edit. 

 

Not disqualifying the importance of resolution, just that it isn't as important as the other things listed. And 2.5k does give you some play. Maybe not to pan much (with I rarely do digitally anyway) but it helps in a pinch when you need to warp stabilize a shot. 

[Germy1979]

I'm stoked to see your lowlight shoot out. One of the big ones for me with Canon is the clean ISO performance i had on the C100. The 1DC is said to be better but I've never had $12,000 to test that... (Who the hell does.). It'd be great (personally) to know the gh4 stood up to the C100 in those terms.