The EOSHD Panasonic GH4 Shooter's Guide - Now Available

[Andrew Reid]

 

Just $19.99 - Buy It Now

http://www.eoshd.com/eoshd-panasonic-gh4-shooters-guide

 

Written by Andrew Reid

 

The new EOSHD Panasonic GH4 Shooter's Guide is for filmmakers, photographers and all users interested in mastering video on the GH4!

The guide covers the features of the camera concisely telling you only what you need to know and nothing that you don't.

There's a chapter on tuning colour and image response in-camera, for an appealing image straight out the camera which doesn't need to be graded and one that responds better to grading. Three profiles are offered in the book - Cinema, Graded and Flat. By applying the settings in the book, you can be sure the camera is correctly set for filmmaking.

This book has been written from scratch and is not simply an updated GH3 guide.

 

Key Features

• How to shoot optimal 4K video, 128 pages of information
• Image settings for filmic quality carefully formulated by filmmaker Andrew Reid
• Concise explanations of all major camera features
• Tips and unknown features revealed
• Recommended lenses and adapters
• Practical cinematography advice
• Recommended settings
• Beginners guide to using the camera and more...

 

Read the full article here

[Julian]

Wow, that's quick! Much appreciated.

[tungah]

Andrew, how to buy the guide?

I just make a payment with paypal and then you send me the link to download the book? How do you know what email to send the link to? How does it work?

Thank you very much for taking the time to making such comprehensive material. You contribute a lot to the community.

Cheers!

[JFK]

Thanks for this guide and great work !

Does it include workflow process for 10bits 444 like recovery oversampling 1080p from 4K  ?

[EvilMonkey]

@tungah

 

After you've payed, you'll immediately get an Email with a download link to the Email-Adress you use for Paypal Login. Your Copy will be individually marked to you.

 

@Andrew

Great guide, I spend the last couple hours working through it.

2 Questions:

 

1) Why didn't you dive deeper into grading the footage? You teased so much about FilmConvert, Alexa Profiles and said things like: "I can make GH4 Material look like BMPCC 10 bit material. It just needs the right workflow". I missed this a bit. More specific things about the Workflow for Grading, Scaling and 4K. The only real post-production thing I found were your curves for Premiere.

 

2) The stock ISO-Steps on the GH4 are very wide, but you can enable smaller steps. (e.g. ISO 640 between 400 and 800). Did you do any tests of these regarding noise performance? Is 640 pulled up 400 or pushed down 800?

[Andrew Reid]

My perfected workflow is in the book. The 10bit doesn't need special software, the NLE does the oversampling of 1080p from 4K automatically. Most of the workflow is about the in-camera settings. That's where the secret sauce is. FilmConvert is so simple it doesn't need instructions. It is mentioned in the book and you get 10% off with the link in the book. Also the reason I kept my preferred workflow simple is that otherwise I'd have to accompany the book with a Resolve book and a Premiere book and a Final Cut Pro book as well. We'd be here forever!

 

ISO 1/3 step doesn't have a material effect on the image that's noticeable enough for me to mention it in the book... I prefer to spend my time on the stuff that really makes a difference to the image and your filmmaking in it. Cheers!

[tungah]

@tungah

After you've payed, you'll immediately get an Email with a download link to the Email-Adress you use for Paypal Login. Your Copy will be individually marked to you.

Thank you EvilMonkey!

[robtilbury]

Nice one,

 

Andrew does this book discuss export setup from CS6?

[EvilMonkey]

Thanks Andrew, that sounds reasonable!

 

It was clear to me, why the 1/3 step thing is not in the book. You're absolutely right, that drifts away to pixel peeping.

I was just asking for some "bonus content" because I assumed that you did more things exploring the GH4 than ended in the final book. 

[Andrew Reid]

I did but only the good stuff is in the guide. Some of the explorations didn't shake my world enough to include. I also wanted to make it concise this time. The GH3 one was 250+ pages and some found it too long. I am really happy with the form this one took, it's really neat and to the point! Thanks for buying :)

[EvilMonkey]

Don't get me wrong, it is great! I got my GH4 yesterday for a shoot next week and this guide is essential to unterstand everything important about the Cam without many hours of testing. I have never seen a cam with this many options (expecially with picture profiles). i.Resolution blew my mind and I am really happy that I discovered it before the first shooting day. In Comparison to the BMPCC and a Magic Lantern DSLR, you need to be a bomb technician to operate the GH4 perfectly.

 

Do you have an Opinion on the cheaper Panasonic Primes? Namely the 14mm 2.5 and the 20mm 1.7? I have the 14mm and can't decide if I should keep it or sell it because it doesn't suit 4k well.

[pietz]

Do you have an Opinion on the cheaper Panasonic Primes? Namely the 14mm 2.5 and the 20mm 1.7? I have the 14mm and can't decide if I should keep it or sell it because it doesn't suit 4k well.

 

why doesnt it? i dont understand why some people think they have to invent new lenses to go with 4k. its nothing but a 8MP moving image. any m43 lens should handle it just fine. but i personally like 20mm on m43. its a good focal length to have with you if you dont want more than one prime. the fact that its one stop faster makes it easily win the race. isnt the AF like worlds better as well?

[Andrew Reid]

A moving image is more demanding than an 8MP still due to spatial resolution. When you have that 4K in your face at 24fps you will notice if the lens is off!

[filipfunk]

Andrew,

 

Great guide! Lots of good information and things for me to test out on my GH4.

There's a section however that mentions a chapter on post-production, which I did not find in the book. 

 

"...by using the RGB Curves effect in Adobe Premiere. For more on this see Chapter 7 on Post Production." 

 

Is this a chapter that will be updated or added later?

[pietz]

Andrew,

 

Great guide! Lots of good information and things for me to test out on my GH4.

There's a section however that mentions a chapter on post-production, which I did not find in the book. 

 

"...by using the RGB Curves effect in Adobe Premiere. For more on this see Chapter 7 on Post Production." 

 

Is this a chapter that will be updated or added later?

 

same here. really missed the post part.

[Andrew Reid]

Well spotted, thank you. That is a typo. I've fixed it in the one place it occurs and a typo that refers to the lenses chapter by the wrong number.

 

I did begin writing the Post Production chapter then thought 'nah'... The image in-camera with the EOSHD Cinema and Graded settings is amazing, all you really need if you want to grade further is adjust the curves and colour balance with RGB curves in any NLE, and the guide shows you my curves to copy. Other post stuff like Film Convert, Twixtor and reframing 4K I do too and it is straight forward... For reframing you just drop the 4K footage onto a 1080p or 2K timeline sequence and move it around to get the desired framing. If there is demand for a general Post Production manual I may consider writing one but not within the scope of a GH book. The thing with Post is that not everyone has the same software so it gets complicated in a GH4 book very quickly, with instructions for 5 different editing apps and 10 different plugins, you will end up with a very bloated guide that loses a lot of brevity.

[EvilMonkey]

Well, maybe this is better suited for a blog post, anyway. I like your brevity-concept. The GH4 is such a feature-loaded camera, even going through 50% of the Menu Options would end up in a mess.

 

You could just give some examples of GH4 images you shot and graded differently. Maybe something from "the Machine" and something from your first film with the GH4. Grading very good H.264 is very interesting and I have the feeling, that you just scratched the surface.

I would also be really interested in your Ideas on how to make most of the 96FPS Image, thats not so obvious, at least for me.

[tungah]

Andrew, I'd like to thank you for the great work on the guide.

It's very comprehensive and straightforward.

However, I too think it lacked a bit on the grading side of things. Although I do understand and agree with your reasoning for not delving too deep in the issue on the guide, my feeling is, since you praised the gradability for the camera so much on your preliminary reviews and the main one, it'd be very nice to have more in depth notion on how to deal with the h.264 coming out of this camera specifically. Your experience both in grading and in dealing with this camera would be very welcome, and something not very easy to find elsewhere.

I like EvilMonkey's idea of a blog post (or a series of posts) breaking out various situations and workflows. I'm sure you already have enough material to show us. Let alone the new stuff you'll be learning in the coming months.

Again, thank you, and keep up the great work!

Cheers!

[pietz]

well i think its fair to say that because its a guide about the camera, that the post process isnt absolutely needed. that in mind i kinda miss that chapter as well. your nifty curves trick is good, but that cant be the only mention. in my opinion.

 

-i would have loved a few links to free LUTs or more tricks like the curve presets.

 

-how to work with 0-255 in premiere and if theres a way to set ip up so it always includes all luma values. because by default it chops them of.

 

-some words on the GH444 tool and if there is still problems with gamma shift in MOV files.

 

 

stuff like that.

[tungah]

well i think its fair to say that because its a guide about the camera, that the post process isnt absolutely needed. that in mind i kinda miss that chapter as well. your nifty curves trick is good, but that cant be the only mention. in my opinion.

 

-i would have loved a few links to free LUTs or more tricks like the curve presets.

 

-how to work with 0-255 in premiere and if theres a way to set ip up so it always includes all luma values. because by default it chops them of.

 

-some words on the GH444 tool and if there is still problems with gamma shift in MOV files.

 

 

stuff like that.

 

Great points.

I have those questions as well.

Also, any word on the 444 tool for windows? Is it possible to do the 4k 8bit 420 to 1080 10bit 444 thing on Premiere, Media Encoder or Davinci Resolve?