Hey folks,
So I shoot a lot of video every week that is generally done in a studio environment with talent presenting towards the camera. For the past couple years, we've standardized around GH2s shooting various hacks (ultimately I settled on Sanity, for reliability, small file sizes, and the fact that it still looked great and I didn't feel like I was losing anything by not shooting the hardcore intra stuff).
I would shoot 2, sometimes 3 GH2s at once: one for a wide, one for a medium, and one for a close-up, depending on the video. Time is of the essence so getting things in one or two takes is far preferable to all involved than shooting single camera and having to get all that coverage one at a time.
When the GH4 was announced, the thought of being able to shoot perhaps just one wide in 4K and punch in for the rest really appealed to me. Simpler setups, less file management, more flexibility with framing the shots in post, and dead-on eye-lines for the talent versus having the cameras slightly staggered on a tripod with multiple mounts.
However, for the last couple weeks I've been testing this setup and I have to say, so far I am not terribly impressed with the results at 100% on a 1080p timeline. I feel like I'm seeing a lot of compression artifacts in the image and it feels like a lesser image than what I'm accustomed to from the GH2s (of course, when 4K is downscaled at 50% on a 1080p timeline, it looks great). I've experimented with varying levels of sharpening in post, but I can't shake the overall ropey quality the stuff seems to have when viewed up close.
Initially I was shooting more or less with the James Miller settings, but I've reverted back to "Natural" (I think that's what it's called on the GH4 - basically an analog of "Smooth" on the GH2) with sharpening, contrast, saturation dialed back.
Lens-wise, I'm using the Panny 12-35 f2.8, the 20mm f1.7, and the 14-140 f4-5.8. Typically the 12-35 as I feel that's the sharpest one going, but the 14-140 is great too for close-ups and the 20mm for low light (albeit not really a going concern in the studio). Aperture is usually somewhere around f5.6 to f/8, ISO typically 200 or 320. This is done to make sure the talent doesn't drift in and out of focus.
I'm wondering, is anyone else using the GH4 in a similar capacity? Should I boost some of the sharpening within the GH4 to preserve more detail prior to compression? I'm not going for "filmic" or "organic" with these settings - I'm shooting for clarity and sharpness, a clean HD video look.
Edit: Little more detail - I'm shooting in UHD 4K 100M, using .MOV and running the sensor at 24hz. I've tried C4K as well, but the image quality at a glance seemed the same to me, this stuff is intended to be 16x9, and if anything I guess since the bitrate is the same on both, the UHD might come out slightly ahead in that department. Editing in Premiere CC, 1080p timeline.
So I shoot a lot of video every week that is generally done in a studio environment with talent presenting towards the camera. For the past couple years, we've standardized around GH2s shooting various hacks (ultimately I settled on Sanity, for reliability, small file sizes, and the fact that it still looked great and I didn't feel like I was losing anything by not shooting the hardcore intra stuff).
I would shoot 2, sometimes 3 GH2s at once: one for a wide, one for a medium, and one for a close-up, depending on the video. Time is of the essence so getting things in one or two takes is far preferable to all involved than shooting single camera and having to get all that coverage one at a time.
When the GH4 was announced, the thought of being able to shoot perhaps just one wide in 4K and punch in for the rest really appealed to me. Simpler setups, less file management, more flexibility with framing the shots in post, and dead-on eye-lines for the talent versus having the cameras slightly staggered on a tripod with multiple mounts.
However, for the last couple weeks I've been testing this setup and I have to say, so far I am not terribly impressed with the results at 100% on a 1080p timeline. I feel like I'm seeing a lot of compression artifacts in the image and it feels like a lesser image than what I'm accustomed to from the GH2s (of course, when 4K is downscaled at 50% on a 1080p timeline, it looks great). I've experimented with varying levels of sharpening in post, but I can't shake the overall ropey quality the stuff seems to have when viewed up close.
Initially I was shooting more or less with the James Miller settings, but I've reverted back to "Natural" (I think that's what it's called on the GH4 - basically an analog of "Smooth" on the GH2) with sharpening, contrast, saturation dialed back.
Lens-wise, I'm using the Panny 12-35 f2.8, the 20mm f1.7, and the 14-140 f4-5.8. Typically the 12-35 as I feel that's the sharpest one going, but the 14-140 is great too for close-ups and the 20mm for low light (albeit not really a going concern in the studio). Aperture is usually somewhere around f5.6 to f/8, ISO typically 200 or 320. This is done to make sure the talent doesn't drift in and out of focus.
I'm wondering, is anyone else using the GH4 in a similar capacity? Should I boost some of the sharpening within the GH4 to preserve more detail prior to compression? I'm not going for "filmic" or "organic" with these settings - I'm shooting for clarity and sharpness, a clean HD video look.
Edit: Little more detail - I'm shooting in UHD 4K 100M, using .MOV and running the sensor at 24hz. I've tried C4K as well, but the image quality at a glance seemed the same to me, this stuff is intended to be 16x9, and if anything I guess since the bitrate is the same on both, the UHD might come out slightly ahead in that department. Editing in Premiere CC, 1080p timeline.
Last edited:
