Why should I go and get an ATOMOS Shogun?

[TSV]

I am back with questions 

As for today I am shooting on SDXC cards on my GH4, but I see many people using a Shogun alongside their GH4, there must be a reason for it, what are they? How owing one will improve my work?

Cheers

[sqm]

more colour information, more bit depth, less compression, Prores instead of h.264.

The Shogun is only interesting if you shoot much in 4k, if not wait for the Blackmagic Video Assist its 500$ instead of 1.5k.

But if you dont know the benefits from the above list it wont help you improve your work.

 

 

 

[Cinegain]

It's one of the few 4K portable monitor/recorders. The other popular one would be the Convergent Design Odyssey Q7+.

The newest ones are the ones from the Videodevices PIX-E series.

These allow uncompressed signals to be converted in high standard codec format files, rather than in-camera processing to a lesser codec.

Because they are monitors you might find them providing useful tools such as waveforms, vectorscopes, RGB and luminance parade, histogram, zebras, false color, peaking, punch-in zoom, 1:1 magnification, LUTs, aspect ratio/safety guides, audiolevels and all that good stuff.

I agree with sqm, the BMVA looks cool too. Not sure if it does HDMI 4K downscaling though and what the exact monitoring functions are... 'view the current input frame rate, histogram, audio meters, timecode, and more' is not much to go on. If it lacks monitoring functions, I'll probably look into the PIX-E series.

[sqm]

i´ve send a mail to BM and asked whether its only uhd monitoring or 4k downscale recording too, that was the answer:

Hi Christoph,

Thanks for getting in touch.

The information that is available about the video Assist at the moment indicates that it will only offer UHD monitoring, not recording.

this may change between now and when the product gets released, however information is limited about this at the moment.

Many thanks.

Regards,

Paul Wilson

Technical Sales Assistant
Blackmagic Design EMEA

[neosushi]

At this price I would be surprised if it could actually record UHD...

[DBounce]

I would skip on  such a device for the GH4...  The price vs performance is not there.

[TSV]

Thanks everyone.

I am confortable with the notion behind raw and bit depth, but I admit that I am still a bit behind when it comes Zebra and so on... I need to learn.

I am asking these questions simply because I am wondering is I should upgrade or not toward a more powerful system (URSA Mini 4.6). Granted I am a newbie and something like the URSA mini is like to cast pearls before swine (hope this is the correct expression, I also found : to feeding a donkey strawberries), but if you start adding the Atomos, the cage and all the other goodies why not moving to USRA?

I would skip on  such a device for the GH4...  The price vs performance is not there.

Could you please extrapolate further on this?

Always, thank you for your help everyone.

[sqm]

i had a shoot with the original 2.5k bmcc, great cinematic image.. love it... if i had the money i would buy the mini in a second...

But remember the real cost for the ursa mini upgrade:

5k for the body

minimum 1k for fast cf cards if you dont allready own them

100$ V mount plate

500$ Batteries

1.5k shoulderkit

so youre in total around 8k... for a nebie thats an overkill

Do you feel limited with your gh4? and if yes what is the limit.

[IronFilm]

I would skip on  such a device for the GH4...  The price vs performance is not there.

​I agree, for nearly everybody the price vs performance gain you'd get with a GH4 isn't worth it. 
Is easier to argue the case for using it with a Sony A7s, as it is "crippled" without it because it can't do 4K internally. But then you're looking at a very steep total cost... you could buy 3x GH4 for that!

Also, rather than Atomos Shogun I'd be seriously keeping an eye on these instead:
http://www.videodevices.com/products/portable-video-recorders/pix-e

A 10 inch screen on a tiny mirrorless camera is a rather bulky setup, 5 inches strikes me as being much nicer. 

As for getting a URSA Mini 4.6K... why??  You already have a GH4! And as you said, you're a newbie. (remember the URSA Mini 4.6K doesn't cost "just" $5k, once you've got a full kit up and running with it the cost could easily have doubled. That is an insanely large amount of a newbie to spend, when we live in a time of so much cheap gear that does great stuff. Such as a GH4)

Keep the GH4 and instead pick up lenses for it, such as a kit of Rokinon Cine DS (in Nikon F mount) lenses, or a Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 with a RJ Lens Turbo (Nikon F to m4/3). Or any of many other useful additions, such as set of Dedolights, or DJI Ronin-M, or a Konova slider, or Rode NTG3, or.... the list could go on and on!!

I suggest the order of priorities to spend money on should be:
1) don't spend it, keep it in the bank!
2) any of a huge list of items.... which are not a camera body
3) last of all URSA Mini 4.6K

In a year or three this could change however, when the URSA Mini 4.6K has come down hugely in price, or something else new has hit the market, or you're earning money with your GH4, or you're feeling you're starting to grow past the GH4, etc

But for right now, for where you are, that order of priorities for #1 / #2 / #3 sounds about right. 

[DBounce]

Thanks everyone.

I am confortable with the notion behind raw and bit depth, but I admit that I am still a bit behind when it comes Zebra and so on... I need to learn.

I am asking these questions simply because I am wondering is I should upgrade or not toward a more powerful system (URSA Mini 4.6). Granted I am a newbie and something like the URSA mini is like to cast pearls before swine (hope this is the correct expression, I also found : to feeding a donkey strawberries), but if you start adding the Atomos, the cage and all the other goodies why not moving to USRA?

Could you please extrapolate further on this?

Always, thank you for your help everyone.

There have been a lot a test. Judge for yourself.

https://youtu.be/4v0SitJCNLI

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

It doesn't give a noticeable IQ improvement over the internal h.264, meaning it's more of importance on a GH4 if you need the 7" external monitor, want to specificaly hand out ProRes files without transcoding. The shogun is a nice 7" monitor/recorder for the price, but it's much less important on the GH4 than it is on the Sony A7s, as the shogun is the only way to unlock the true capability of the image sensor, but with gh4, you're already getting that with the small internal codec (somehow! yes the internal compressed 100mbps 4:2:0 8bit is visually undistinguishable from the uncompressed 4:2:2 10bit external, somehow, not even a difference in banding, gradeability, colour fidelity, green screen, the internal 4K just does the job fast and deliver 95% of the sensor performane. 

 

If you need a 7" monitor though, it's still a great price and features even if you don't look at it as a recorder at all, but I wouldn't buy it specifically for a GH4 kit, too much money, too big for the camera to balance, too little improvement in IQ.

[TSV]

Thanks everyone. I will follow your guidance here and skeep the Atomos but will head for a good external monitor, any advises?

[Cinegain]

There's some good affordable ones from Aputure, Lilliput, Ikan, MustHD and the likes. The other day I found two more on eBay and AliExpress which looked pretty good value for the money, the Feelworld and Seetec. I guess those are amongst the lines of an Viltrox, which also seems to have two decent models. Kinda depends on what you're looking for. Some are basicly just bigger screens, so you can frame and focus a bit more clearly. Others actually do feature peaking, false color, perhaps some punch-in zoom and markers/guides. Only the more expensive ones also feature the more elaborate features like you'd also find on these monitors that are also recorders. So. Yeah. It all depends.

[TSV]

​I agree, for nearly everybody the price vs performance gain you'd get with a GH4 isn't worth it. Is easier to argue the case for using it with a Sony A7s, as it is "crippled" without it because it can't do 4K internally. But then you're looking at a very steep total cost... you could buy 3x GH4 for that!

Also, rather than Atomos Shogun I'd be seriously keeping an eye on these instead:
http://www.videodevices.com/products/portable-video-recorders/pix-e

A 10 inch screen on a tiny mirrorless camera is a rather bulky setup, 5 inches strikes me as being much nicer. 

As for getting a URSA Mini 4.6K... why??  You already have a GH4! And as you said, you're a newbie. (remember the URSA Mini 4.6K doesn't cost "just" $5k, once you've got a full kit up and running with it the cost could easily have doubled. That is an insanely large amount of a newbie to spend, when we live in a time of so much cheap gear that does great stuff. Such as a GH4)

Keep the GH4 and instead pick up lenses for it, such as a kit of Rokinon Cine DS (in Nikon F mount) lenses, or a Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 with a RJ Lens Turbo (Nikon F to m4/3). Or any of many other useful additions, such as set of Dedolights, or DJI Ronin-M, or a Konova slider, or Rode NTG3, or.... the list could go on and on!!

I suggest the order of priorities to spend money on should be:
1) don't spend it, keep it in the bank!
2) any of a huge list of items.... which are not a camera body
3) last of all URSA Mini 4.6K

In a year or three this could change however, when the URSA Mini 4.6K has come down hugely in price, or something else new has hit the market, or you're earning money with your GH4, or you're feeling you're starting to grow past the GH4, etc

But for right now, for where you are, that order of priorities for #1 / #2 / #3 sounds about right. 

Why I like the 4.6 of the Ursa Mini is the capacity to blow a picture. Sometimes I believe that I am levelled but I am not and when shooting a building for example you can clearly see that I screw-up something. on FCPx I can rotate the picture but I also need to zoom in to avoid some weird pictures. The simple fact of zooming up to 103% reduce the sharpness of the picture. With 4.6 I will be able to rotate and crop the video without loosing the 4K quality.

I like the idea of having a RJ Lens Turbo or Metabones with the Sigma, but loosing the AF scares me a little. Any advise on how to overcome this fear?

 

 

[TSV]

There's some good affordable ones from Aputure, Lilliput, Ikan, MustHD and the likes. The other day I found two more on eBay and AliExpress which looked pretty good value for the money, the Feelworld and Seetec. I guess those are amongst the lines of an Viltrox, which also seems to have two decent models. Kinda depends on what you're looking for. Some are basicly just bigger screens, so you can frame and focus a bit more clearly. Others actually do feature peaking, false color, perhaps some punch-in zoom and markers/guides. Only the more expensive ones also feature the more elaborate features like you'd also find on these monitors that are also recorders. So. Yeah. It all depends.

​Thanks, I will look into this an will let you know guys if I need guidance!

Again, thank you everyone for your kind help.

[TSV]

There's some good affordable ones from Aputure, Lilliput, Ikan, MustHD and the likes. 

​Me, again ;-)... I am thinking of getting this model http://www.musthd.com/products/7-inch-musthd-1280800-video-assist-field-monitor-with-hdmi-input-output-focus-assist-false-color-77.html any thoughts? 

[andrgl]

The other day I found two more on eBay and AliExpress which looked pretty good value for the money, the Feelworld and Seetec. I guess those are amongst the lines of an Viltrox, which also seems to have two decent models. Kinda depends on what you're looking for.

Goes without saying but please be careful. Determining brightness and viewing angles from overseas online markets (alibaba, dhgate, ebay, etc) is hard and if they **** you with the description returning it for a refund is not worth the shipping cost.

[Cinegain]

Goes without saying but please be careful. Determining brightness and viewing angles from overseas online markets (alibaba, dhgate, ebay, etc) is hard and if they **** you with the description returning it for a refund is not worth the shipping cost.

​I order a lot from Chinese webshops, AliExpress/DHGate/Taobao/Tmall, eBay and so on. Never really had any issues. A lot comes down to research of the product and the seller. And of course have realistic expectations about what your money is going to buy you. But yeah, rather be skeptical than naive.

​Me, again ;-)... I am thinking of getting this model http://www.musthd.com/products/7-inch-musthd-1280800-video-assist-field-monitor-with-hdmi-input-output-focus-assist-false-color-77.html any thoughts? 

​Can't speak out of experience, so you should look into it some more, but from what I've gathered that would be a fine one. If you're looking in that range you might also want to check the Lilliput 663/O/P2 (mind you, there are other versions of the 663 as well), it has some additional monitoring features.

[TSV]

​I order a lot from Chinese webshops, AliExpress/DHGate/Taobao/Tmall, eBay and so on. Never really had any issues. A lot comes down to research of the product and the seller. And of course have realistic expectations about what your money is going to buy you. But yeah, rather be skeptical than naive.

​Can't speak out of experience, so you should look into it some more, but from what I've gathered that would be a fine one. If you're looking in that range you might also want to check the Lilliput 663/O/P2 (mind you, there are other versions of the 663 as well), it has some additional monitoring features.

​Thanks! 

However I am a bit confused with their website, they announce 1024x600 on the first page but 1280x800 on the spec page... Your pamphlet also show 1280x800... Will contact them and see. 

[Cinegain]

Think you looked up the wrong thing. It's:

The 663-O/P2 features a native 1280 x 800 panel