Panasonic GH4 firmware update brings 24p Anamorphic, V-LOG coming in later update / watch footage

[Daven]

I don't want to come across as being self-serving with this, but I work at one of the retailers that received pre-release firmware to test on the GH4. There are "reasons" V-LOG-L is not part of the v2.2 update, but I can assure you, Panasonic would not have let us release the footage we shot with it if they weren't planning on actually bringing it to the GH4. We tested it in some fairly low-light conditions and, yes, it is noisy, but the footage was still a dream to work with in post compared to CineD.

Here is a link to a basic before/after color grade test I did (sorry if the colors are "dodgy" ;-) ): https://youtu.be/AhPK56Ii5sw

And our full presentation: https://youtu.be/_aEMUDQlRFE

Lens used was a Cooke 40mm t/2.3 2x anamorphic.

Again, really not trying to come across as self-serving or spammy here, just wanting to contribute to the conversation.

[Daven]

 

 The processor may not have ProRes codec because it was never intended to it.

​I believe Apple also charges a licensing fee for ProRes.

[Julian]

I don't want to come across as being self-serving with this, but I work at one of the retailers that received pre-release firmware to test on the GH4. There are "reasons" V-LOG-L is not part of the v2.2 update, but I can assure you, Panasonic would not have let us release the footage we shot with it if they weren't planning on actually bringing it to the GH4. We tested it in some fairly low-light conditions and, yes, it is noisy, but the footage was still a dream to work with in post compared to CineD.

Here is a link to a basic before/after color grade test I did (sorry if the colors are "dodgy" ;-) ): https://youtu.be/AhPK56Ii5sw

And our full presentation: https://youtu.be/_aEMUDQlRFE

Lens used was a Cooke 40mm t/2.3 2x anamorphic.

Again, really not trying to come across as self-serving or spammy here, just wanting to contribute to the conversation.

​Welcome Daven, very much appreciated!

Did you by any chance make some comparisons with CineD vs V-LOG?

[Daven]

​Welcome Daven, very much appreciated!

Did you by any chance make some comparisons with CineD vs V-LOG?

​Unfortunately, not directly. I had very limited time with the gear, so things were quite rushed. We shoot most of our stuff for the store on the GH4, though, so I had plenty of experience with CineD. I know The Camera Store TV did a direct comparison, and now I'm wishing I had thought to do that, too! D'oh! ;-) 

One observation I did make, though, was that LOG was not available as a profile in stills mode, which sort of messed me up for shooting time-lapse sequences as I prefer to shoot those in JPEG to save space compared to raw. But oh well.

I should also note, we were recording externally to an Atomos Shogun at 10bit 4:2:2—I have no experience working with LOG footage recorded internally at 8bit on the GH4.

[JazzBox]

​There was an article right here talking about the difficulties and the trade offs to be able to bring things like RAW - and even if there wasn't one, things are not really that simple, right? It's far from being as easy as you put, that's my point. You either have knowledge to talk with property about things like that or you don't, but I hardly think that the way to go is to bluntly make statements like that. Everyone can be wrong, but at least bring some arguments that tries to back it up.

The comparison with BlackMagic doesn't make much sense, they are very different cameras and they were launched with different feats. It's like saying, the GH4 has great battery life, why can't the BMPC have it too? The GH4 has 96fps slow motion, why can't the BMPC have it too? It's too simplistic to put that way.

For instance, the GH4 may be able to record RAW, but it would be capped by some things and they wouldn't be able to provide a full support since there are HDMI limitation, heat issues, datarate, firmware can become unstable, etc. They were testing but if I remember correctly, they would have to give up some type of monitor capabilities, as tre original pipeline that starts in the sensor didn't had RAW recording as part of it. The processor may not have ProRes codec because it was never intended to it.

It's far from being "BlackMagic did that, so Panasonic can do it too", even more when a camera was launched without those things in mind, so it's not just software firmware, it's also about hardware limitation, plus the market and other models.

I'm not a technician and far from it. Hoping, wanting, requesting, that's one thing but I'll never put out there bold statements saying that I'm SURE about something I barely know how it really works.

​BOLD STATEMENTS? Come on... I'm more then enthusiast about GH4!
But I understand if they don't want to include RAW in the firmware update for some issue about noise in the shadows etc... (but at that point also MP+15 causes problems).

Magic Lantern made the 5D MkIII an unbelievable RAW cinema camera, why Panasonic should have less knowledges? Of course they could prefer to give V-Log (or RAW or ProRes or a magic potion) with GH5: I can understand that! And probably I'll buy it, but I'm HOPING... since they made the mistake to show us V-Log too early! Just that!

And we all have eyes to see that this NAB is not the best one for Panasonic: they made something in the Canon' style... a sub-5000 camera (DVX200) with fixed lens, when BlackMagic made a Super 35 one for less then 3000... or you are SURE that "the comparison does not make sense because they are very different cameras"? 

A camera is an instrument: BlackMagic Cinema and Pocket, Panasonic GH4, G6, GH2, Canon DSLR are all (in my opinion) for the same enthusiast (or on a budget) people.
If I was Martin Scorsese or Quentin Tarantino I probably would just ask for an Alexa and don't care about V-Log, RAW or ProRes.

[JazzBox]

I don't want to come across as being self-serving with this, but I work at one of the retailers that received pre-release firmware to test on the GH4. There are "reasons" V-LOG-L is not part of the v2.2 update, but I can assure you, Panasonic would not have let us release the footage we shot with it if they weren't planning on actually bringing it to the GH4. We tested it in some fairly low-light conditions and, yes, it is noisy, but the footage was still a dream to work with in post compared to CineD.

Here is a link to a basic before/after color grade test I did (sorry if the colors are "dodgy" ;-) ): https://youtu.be/AhPK56Ii5sw

And our full presentation: https://youtu.be/_aEMUDQlRFE

Lens used was a Cooke 40mm t/2.3 2x anamorphic.

Again, really not trying to come across as self-serving or spammy here, just wanting to contribute to the conversation.

​Great! Thank you Daven!

[j.f.r.]

I don't want to come across as being self-serving with this, but I work at one of the retailers that received pre-release firmware to test on the GH4. There are "reasons" V-LOG-L is not part of the v2.2 update, but I can assure you, Panasonic would not have let us release the footage we shot with it if they weren't planning on actually bringing it to the GH4. We tested it in some fairly low-light conditions and, yes, it is noisy, but the footage was still a dream to work with in post compared to CineD.

Here is a link to a basic before/after color grade test I did (sorry if the colors are "dodgy" ;-) ): https://youtu.be/AhPK56Ii5sw

And our full presentation: https://youtu.be/_aEMUDQlRFE

Lens used was a Cooke 40mm t/2.3 2x anamorphic.

Again, really not trying to come across as self-serving or spammy here, just wanting to contribute to the conversation.

​

 

I need to see some skin tones, medium and close up shots + dof. GH4 has always looked pretty good in wide/extreme wide shots, problem for me at least has always been in seeing very nice natural saturated skin tones......

[Andrew Reid]

I don't want to come across as being self-serving with this, but I work at one of the retailers that received pre-release firmware to test on the GH4. There are "reasons" V-LOG-L is not part of the v2.2 update, but I can assure you, Panasonic would not have let us release the footage we shot with it if they weren't planning on actually bringing it to the GH4. We tested it in some fairly low-light conditions and, yes, it is noisy, but the footage was still a dream to work with in post compared to CineD.

Here is a link to a basic before/after color grade test I did (sorry if the colors are "dodgy" ;-) ): https://youtu.be/AhPK56Ii5sw

And our full presentation: https://youtu.be/_aEMUDQlRFE

Lens used was a Cooke 40mm t/2.3 2x anamorphic.

Again, really not trying to come across as self-serving or spammy here, just wanting to contribute to the conversation.

​Thanks for posting Daven!

I am hearing it will be weeks not months before the firmware comes out for V-LOG.

[Daven]

​Thanks for posting Daven!

I am hearing it will be weeks not months before the firmware comes out for V-LOG.

I would bet this is true. Panasonic has been great to work with, and if I had to guess, part of the reason for the delay may be to ensure that LOG is a valuable addition to the camera, not just something that feels tacked on (as it did in the firmware I tested). From a technical standpoint, I think everything is probably pretty locked in at this point.

[Daven]

​

 

I need to see some skin tones, medium and close up shots + dof. GH4 has always looked pretty good in wide/extreme wide shots, problem for me at least has always been in seeing very nice natural saturated skin tones......

​There are plenty of skin tones in the second video I posted (which I tried my best to keep natural after grading; professional colorist I am not). But yes, it's certainly an improvement over CineD. I think the best praise I can give is that it looks exactly like you'd expect a log profile to look.

[Astro]

​There are plenty of skin tones in the second video I posted (which I tried my best to keep natural after grading; professional colorist I am not). But yes, it's certainly an improvement over CineD. I think the best praise I can give is that it looks exactly like you'd expect a log profile to look.

​Yep...I found Cine-D to be not much good for skintones, it has an orange crayfish type of look, but even without LOG the Gh4 is capable of nice skintones...with a modified Portrait or Natural setting, skin actually looks nice and realistic.

Noise? I have had the camera for ages...and yeah in real low light, with something like iDynamic pushed it can produce some grunge, but other than extreme situations I havent had a problem with noise, and I have shot a lot of footage at night, most of it really clean...and this is at 800 to1600 ISO with a 1.7 AP...no problems at all.

So with an even faster lens or speedbooster...the GH4 should be able to shoot great footage in 95% of situations, its one of those things thats become a little bit of a beatup.

Other than that I hope they do a good job on the LOG profile...its a competitive market, and Panansonic has been in there with the GH1-GH2 etc...they dont want to drop the ball now.

[j.f.r.]

​There are plenty of skin tones in the second video I posted (which I tried my best to keep natural after grading; professional colorist I am not). But yes, it's certainly an improvement over CineD. I think the best praise I can give is that it looks exactly like you'd expect a log profile to look.

​

 

Really hard to judge with such flat neutral settings.......  Here's a video of 5D Mark III Raw which is something I haven't really seen any GH4 footage come close too....... FF look Canon Colors are really imo what make the image so amazing. 90+ % of everything I've seen shot on a GH4 looks lifeless and plastic skin tones.........

 

MARK III RAW footage

 

[Astro]

Hmm depends what you like I guess, I personally did not like that 5D footage at all...oversaturated totally and looks like a video cartoon TBH.

The screen display of the Vid alone looks really 2D... from front to back there is absolutely no dimension at all...no Z depth, I have been a 3d artist that builds 3d worlds for the last 15 years..I have to deal with color matching , building environments that look super real etc...so I know a bit about this stuff.

Some may like it tho...but thats art for ya..some like certain things...others dont, a bit like food really.

But  I can guarantee using vivid on the GH4 and perhaps a LUT as well as pushing the colors in post I could get the GH4 to look pretty much exactly like this...but I wouldnt want to fro what I like.

But here is a real quick example with a cap of footage I previously shot ages ago and a 5 second job in post...of course you wont like them because its not a Canon with ("Canon Colors") and it also does not have great dimension either...but hey horses for courses...ground is brown cause of lack of rain at that time, if it was normal green I could easily get it to match the green in that footage...however its not the type of color I generally like...so I wouldn't bother.

[Jule]

Hi there. Keep in mind that the 5D video has been shot in raw. But with a GH4 you can have awesome shots too.

 

 

It's Gh4 and GoPro too, but an exemple that you can have beautiful result with the good skills.

To go back to the GH4 and the NAB. Finaly nothing really big here. I can already shoot anamorphic 2x with the Photo 4K, it's nice though for peole who need it to be able to change the frame rate. What's is a good thing too is that we can shoot with a proper codec too now, the one with Photo 4K mode wasn't the best.

But what I really miss for this special anamorphic update is the de-squeeze mode. Sorry but this is a fail, or maybe an agreement with Zacuto, etc.

[johnnymossville]

Daven, Those were great videos.  Thanks for posting here so I could find them!    I am super pumped we'll be getting V-LOG, now I have to find an anamorphic lens.  

[Andrew Reid]

5D Mark III colour is amazing.

But it's raw.

What do you expect?

[TheRenaissanceMan]

​

 

Really hard to judge with such flat neutral settings.......  Here's a video of 5D Mark III Raw which is something I haven't really seen any GH4 footage come close too....... FF look Canon Colors are really imo what make the image so amazing. 90+ % of everything I've seen shot on a GH4 looks lifeless and plastic skin tones.........

 

MARK III RAW footage

 

​I'ma be honest. That looks completely Crayola to me...just saccharine and pukey, especially at the beginning. There's a nice degree of variation in the colors, but they're not particularly pleasing or accurate. Nice compositions, though, and a fabulous location.

 

[johnnymossville]

​I'ma be honest. That looks completely Crayola to me...just saccharine and pukey, especially at the beginning. There's a nice degree of variation in the colors, but they're not particularly pleasing or accurate. Nice compositions, though, and a fabulous location.

 

​Looks a bit like technicolor, but not in a romantic retro Hepburn kind of way.   But it's definitely saturated. 

[Zak Forsman]

"GH4 will get V-LogL but it could be a paid update. Price not set yet. Estimated release June. Check out the settings for V-LogL. I watched some graded footage and it looked good." 

 

[Andrew Reid]

That shot is spellbinding. It has a 1940's technicolor look to it. Almost unreal.

If you are going to push colour this much in post then it just has to be raw.

Full frame helps a lot here too, with the separation of the foreground subjects even though there's a lot packed into the shot, it's quite wide.

I think it's time for me to dust off my 5D Mark II again for raw (5D 3 is going to be sold soon so can't use it) and see if the 1D C's log can do the same fascinating 'extreme' colour grades, without falling apart.

If this shot looks rubbish to you, it's time to get a proper monitor that can do colour right.