GH4 Best Day Light Settings With Gh4

J

Jason Rae

Well-known member
So a ton of times we are out in the middle of the day shooting video in harsh conditions. We are a total run and gun situation here so its expected. Does anyone have some input on the best settings for daylight shooting. Cine V or Cine D etc. Also if you shoot with one of those what are the settings for the profile. Do you use the idynamic? or not. etc. Anything that can help us get a better handle on this. I have read a few articles and oh man they are all over the place on the settings for this camera. I am always shooting in 4k so not sure if that helps or changes any of the settings someone would recommend. I shoot with a c100 most of the time and its so simple... put on wdr profile and expose right...lol. So just trying to figure which is best.

Thanks for the input.
 
Hi...I have done a lot of videos in these conditions.
I dont shoot videos for a living, like a lot of people here, I am a 3d artist and composer, my shoots have been practice runs for upcoming music videos.
But I have been using the GH series Cameras for years now, so I know them pretty well.
I live in Australia on the Gold Coast and the sun is often very bright, a lot of light and the contrast is often extreme.
You can use fast shutter speeds to act like an ND filter, and that works really really well...I was actually surprised that it did not look too strobey when there is motion.. , but I guess if you are running and gunning and moving a lot you may be best to use an ND filter.
The 12-35 lens OIS stabilization works well for me in 4K, I have a fair few other lenses, but that particular lens is smoother if you are going to be panning and moving a lot.

A lot of people say iDynamic adds noise, I have done a lot of tests on this, and I find thats only true when the light is low and the shot is underexposed, I have found using iDynamic in bright conditions works really well.
It brings up the shadows and tames the light a little...so does a subtle reverse S in the shadows and highlights...usually no more than +2 -2 or thereabouts.
You can actually use both together...say like standard iDynamic and reverse S ..cut highlights -2 or so and boost shadows +2 or thereabouts andf that can work well provided you dont wind the crap out of the profiles...you need to do some experiments
you will be amazed what a difference some of these settings can make.
So experiment with the picture profiles a little...I (personally) am not a fan of the -5 -5 -5 etc...settings in Cine-D, to me it winds the guts out of everything and makes post work somewhat harder and adds more stress on the codec.
But others may disagree, I personally find it better to be more restrained with the settings...sort of like -2 -2 etc...maybe -2 or -3 with the noise play with them see what you like.

Cine-D is good, but so is Natural...you may have to run some tests in your particular situation to see what you prefer.

But definitely try iDynamic...I have had great results with it in these types of conditions...dont believe all the stuff that people say...never use iDynamic etc...you have to try it for yourself.
I generally agree tho with leaving the master pedestal alone...it can cause problems.
I hope this helps
Cheers
 
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I live in So Cal and also shot a lot of run & gun in bright full sun and do pretty much the same thing. I almost always shoot with the 12-25 Panny lens IOS in Natural. most setting I leave at 0... although I turn sharpness down to -3. Noise reduction 0. Contrast maybe -1 or -2. I also use a reverse S of -2 highlights and +2 shadows - NO MORE. I have stayed away from iDynamic but based on the fact that astromann and I are so close I might give it a try... prob start at iDynamic LOW.

ND filter is a must. I have a variable and shoot at 5.6 and up. I do sometimes change shutter angle one click. Having a bounce to help light up the talent is nice if you have an extra pair of hands.

I agree with the baked in look being kinder to the footage than the heavy grading... but I also usually have 24HR or less turnaround so there really is not time for it anyway. People literally picking up cards at lunch and taking them to hotel to capture and edit while I'm shooting the rest of the day.
 
You will never find two people that agree on the same settings with this camera. I started with Cine D -5 -3 -5 0 0 and everything else off (dynamic, iresolution, pedestal 0) and settled on that for a while, but after some unpredictable results I started messing around with Natural and found I could pretty much get the same image I was getting from Cine D without so much post, and with more predictable results. The loss in dynamic range, if there is one, is negligible. It also makes life much easier with regard to focus peaking, as with the low contrast Cine D settings it often barely registers. Right now I'm using Natural -5 -2 -5 2 0, everything else off and I'm happy with the baked in look, and it grades well too. My saturation is high so you might want to adjust to your taste. I like punchy colours and they are easy to dial down if need be without any artifacting. It's much harder to push the colour up a lot in Cine D without artifacts I've found. Left luminance as 0-255. Oh, and always white balance if you can. Don't rely on the presets.
 
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Batutta said:
You will never find two people that agree on the same settings with this camera.
Click to expand...

I am going to agree on this point as I ask this questions i get alot of answers which means I am going to have to and test these things out..lol Was hoping for a complete consensus on the settings. I normally shoot with the C100 and everyone is somewhat on the same page on with the gh4 its really all over the place. I am going to try theses settings you guys mentioned see what happpens.
 
wow thats a great post about the settings. Looks like I have my work cut out to find the right picture profile for this camera and what we use it for. I have to be honest its alot to take in and it makes me want to just grab my c100 and shoot in wdr and call it day. But I really want to learn this camera so I will give the ol college try. :)
 
Best profile depends on scene. If there is a cloudy day and low contrast light the standard with contrast 0 may be a good choise. If there is very hard light iDynamic and natural -5 contrast is OK. I have found that cineD makes skintones unnatural but is very good in rendering nature greens and landscapes. Sometimes scenery is handy in nature because it increases green and blue. GH4 NR makes details little muddy so I adjust it -5 with iso 200.
 
If you want simple with the GH4 simply shoot standard with all zero's and 16-235 luminance. Basically no editing and super clean 4k straight from cam.

I like to shoot cineV so I can add a simple s-shaped curves preset to taste. This expands the range from 16-235 a bit without the super contrasty image you often get when shooting 0-255 in cineV.

Here's my sample of under and radically overexposed images with my nothing cineV preset in 4K UHD - https://vimeo.com/97088526

All these plus that, minus that settings are a smoke screen. My suggestion is to KISS and use what this thing does best without trying to over think it.

Cheers,
Pete
 
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For those of you that turn the sharpness down do you find that you add that back in post a little bit, or does it just tone down the sharpness of the camera?
 
c3hammer said:
If you want simple with the GH4 simply shoot standard with all zero's and 16-235 luminance. Basically no editing and upper clean 4k straight from cam.

I like to shoot cineV so I can add a simple s-shaped curves preset to taste. This expands the range from 16-235 a bit without the super contrasty image you often get when shooting 0-255 in cineV.

Here's my sample of under and radically overexposed images with my nothing cineV preset in 4K UHD - https://vimeo.com/97088526

All these plus that, minus that settings are a smoke screen. My suggestion is to KISS and use what this thing does best without trying to over think it.

Cheers,
Pete
Click to expand...

Yep I tend to agree about the minus settings, I dont even like lowering sharpness, because I always seem to want to back in post if I have lowered it too much.
I also agree that 16-235 seems to map the dynamics and contrast better, shadows are lighter and no real noise.
I was doing a bunch of tests today looking at the scopes of exactly the same footage in 0-255 and 16-235 and even with changing the Luminance output with the Fast color corrector,
it really only maps it back to 16-235, it seems a little bit of an unnecesary step.
I am gonna do more tests tho...but right now I agree with this approach
 
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A frame grab from something I shot today with my Natural settings (-5 -2 -5 2 1), all other settings zero, luma 0-255. Straight from the camera. No grading. Shot with a Nikon 50mm f1.8 with a Chinese speed booster at 800 ASA. 1/50 shutter. I also put a homemade anamorphic bokeh shaper between the lens and the speed booster which works pretty well. This shot isn't the best for displaying the effect, although you can see the background has a bit of a vertical blur indicative of that anamorphic look. An advantage of sticking it on the speed booster instead of the front of the lens is that I can use it on really wide lenses without vignetting. It does knock down the f-stop though which is why I had to shoot at 800 ASA.

gh4nat.jpg
 
astromann said:
...I also agree that 16-235 seems to map the dynamics and contrast better, shadows are lighter and no real noise...
Click to expand...
That put's words to what I've been thinking and seeing for a long time. I haven't been able to put my finger on why I like 16-235 and that is part of it.

Secondly, I think the 4K codec in the GH4 is much more efficient at 16-235. It is not wasting bandwidth on the shadows and highlights we will throw out anyway. It seems to keep the middle more fully loaded in 16-235. I can't show it in screen captures, but when viewing clips at full spectrum (something AP and FCP don't allow you to see) it is pretty apparent. I believe we lose a lot of color fidelity in the middle when shooting 0-255 with this cam. It's a similar effect to what we were getting when shooting Cinestyle with the Canon's though not as apparent.

In the end of the day all this is nitpicking and either way the GH4 is producing spectacular images when you get it right.

Cheers,
Pete
 
c3hammer said:
Secondly, I think the 4K codec in the GH4 is much more efficient at 16-235. It is not wasting bandwidth on the shadows and highlights we will throw out anyway. It seems to keep the middle more fully loaded in 16-235. I can't show it in screen captures, but when viewing clips at full spectrum (something AP and FCP don't allow you to see) it is pretty apparent. I believe we lose a lot of color fidelity in the middle when shooting 0-255 with this cam. It's a similar effect to what we were getting when shooting Cinestyle with the Canon's though not as apparent.
Click to expand...

Is there a way to measure or quantify if this is happening?

Maybe Panasonic can weigh in, if someone has a contact, so this can be settled.
 
c3hammer said:
That put's words to what I've been thinking and seeing for a long time. I haven't been able to put my finger on why I like 16-235 and that is part of it.

Secondly, I think the 4K codec in the GH4 is much more efficient at 16-235. It is not wasting bandwidth on the shadows and highlights we will throw out anyway. It seems to keep the middle more fully loaded in 16-235. I can't show it in screen captures, but when viewing clips at full spectrum (something AP and FCP don't allow you to see) it is pretty apparent. I believe we lose a lot of color fidelity in the middle when shooting 0-255 with this cam. It's a similar effect to what we were getting when shooting Cinestyle with the Canon's though not as apparent.

In the end of the day all this is nitpicking and either way the GH4 is producing spectacular images when you get it right.

Cheers,
Pete
Click to expand...
I definitely see it, I look at scopes and can see whats happening there,if you use 0-255 in the cam and then map the output of the fast color correcter to bring it back to 16-235 then you can clearly see it squashes it more.
In other words the spread of luminance in 0-255 in cam...and 16-235 is roughly the same when you look at the scopes in Premiere, but the clips look different...especially Cine-V.
You are 100% right the extreme contrast of Cine-V is lessened in 16-235 in cam, but the color richness remains.

I shot a bunch of outside footage just before, and it was overcast but bright and lots of dense shadows (hard for the Gh4)...I used the Zero settings of Cine-V and reverse S -2 +2 and I also cranked the iDynamic to standard, WB Manually set.
Actually the shadows look badly underexposed on the LCD but in the sky there was no blowout, so I slightly underexposed...no zebras in the sky and light areas.
But I was amazed (and I have had the Gh4 for quite some time) at how it looked on my computer...Amazing!! Shadows had detail, sky was great, trees had nice organic color...the shadows were not noisy either despite using iDynamic at standard as well as the reverse S...it all looked really well balanced.

I have shot a lot of footage in Cine-D with plenty of -5 this and -5 that, and although I have had some really nice grades using LUTS and so on...I always felt there was something slightly inspid about the look and grading never quite brings it back.
But this setting appeals to me anyway, more organic, more balanced...not saying I would use it all the time, but out of 100s of outdoor shots...I really like this setting and the look it delivers.
So thanks for your tip, I agree its a great look, its like a different camera...
 
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I am using GH4 video 0-255 luminance levels.


It is quite confusing because some players shows only normal 16-235 levels and some editors does not use 0-255 properly. Some say 16-235 is better for codec (less information to process- more bitrate to details) etc etc. Graphic cards has full range/limited range (16-235) settings...


If I watch my GH4 0-255 videos with Potplayer I must set level settings: input 0-255, output 16-235 to see all details in highs and lows with GH4 0-255 file.


Why must I use output 16-235 while my monitor is still 0-255 RGB monitor? The logical way should be input 0-255 and output 0-255.


Is the video signal always finally 16-235? Is there any benefits of using 0-255 in camera?


The odd thing is that the graphic card or tv seems to use always 16-235 video and then convert it to monitor. It seems odd that I must send limited range video to video pipeline even if I have already full range video in a file. Is it true or is there a way to watch full range video without first compressing it to limited range and then again recompressing it to monitor range (RGB 0-255). Does the graphics card recognize when it is showing video and changes color processing accordingly? Can I ever have my 255 levels of luma in monitor?


If the luminance (Y) is 0-255, what range are colors. I think that colors are in YUV format two coordinates (U,V) of color space but are these numbers 0-255 or 16-235?

If I make adjustments in player i.e gamma or saturation does it benefit of 256 levels luma. I think the adjustment is done to YUV before final video output. Same for editing, like "RAW" video.


How can I watch my videos so that all the color data is transferred to my monitor or tv without needless conversions. Is there a way to see "GH4 RAW 0-255" video in monitor? Is there some "mode" or trick to send "RAW" video data directly to monitor via 3d features or via other methods? Potplayer has many options to show and send video data.


Quite confusing.
 
I have Quicktime, Splash Lite, Windows Media Player, VLC and Media Player Classic on my PC. Quicktime and Splash Lite won't play 4K UHD MP4 at all and give an error message. WMP and VLC show 4K UHD in what ever luminance range I recorded at but rather poorly on my i7 920 machine. MPC shows what ever luminance range I shoot in and plays 4K UHD quite nicely.

Down load it here - http://mpc-hc.org/

If you want to see scopes of your different tests, simply download the Sony Vegas Pro trial. It's free for 30 days and will allow you to see exactly what a scene is doing with the two different luminance levels. Vegas is a unique beast in that it will playback, encode and display what ever range your clips are in. It never expands or compresses the luminance range so there's no mistaking what you have in front of you.

You can download it here - http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/download/trials/vegaspro

If you are on a poison seed... my condolences :)

Cheers,
Pete
 
For Nvidia cards, you can open Nvidia Control Panel and under Video | Adjust Video color settings, you can toggle between 'With video player settings' or 'With the Nvidia settings'. When you choose the latter, you can select the Dynamic Range value to be either Limited 16-235 or Full 0-255. Previously, I'd gone with the default but now choose the 'With Nvidia settings' and Full 0-255.
 
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