GH4 Emulating a Canon 'C' experience?

P

pmcdonald

Active member
Hi everyone,

The facility I currently work at uses C100 and C200 cameras paired with the Sigma 18-35 and Canon 100-400 lenses. It's a beautiful kit - ergonomically great to work with and very capable of capturing clean, sharp, shallow shots with minimum fuss.

I'm moving into the freelance sphere and can rent the gear from the company for a competitive rate but the rental will chew massively into my day shoot rates. Leaving that issue aside for the moment I've been looking at the feasibility buying my own kit. I don't intent to replace the whole kit but if I can purchase the camera and lenses at least that'll take the sting out of the rental cost. The GH4 is tempting spec- and cost-wise while I find my feet but I have zero experience with the camera or the look.

If I wanted to capture similar results to our Canon kit are there lenses people would advise? GH4 is 2x crop right, so I'd be looking at a 14 - 28, portrait prime and a 35 - 100. Is a similar look doable? And by similar I mean that shallow, sharp, wide look the Sigma pulls off so easily.

Cheers
 
I can't answer your question, since I've never used a C100 or C200, but you'll probably want to look at a Metabones speedbooster. A lot of GH4 owners use a speedbooster with the Sigma 18-35, and it gives very nice images.
 
m4/3 has a 2x crop when compared to 135 sized sensors found in cameras such as Canon’s 5D, & Nikon’s 800, whereas Canon’s C100/200 has (roughly) a 1.5x crop campared to the 5D, & D800.

AbelCine has a useful page for comparing FOV. On the left side select “Canon C100/300/500”, & on the right select “AF100”.

https://www.abelcine.com/fov/

Optically a SpeedBooster is just a Focal Reducer. Adding one to any lens shortens the focal length, & focuses the light into a smaller circle. If you were to add a 0.71x SpeedBooster Ultra to a GH, as suggested by iain.bason, the FOV will be (nearly) identical to a C100/200’s. And because the SpeedBooster increases the amount of light by 1-Stop, you’ll be able to film with a EI/ISO that’s (roughly) 1-Stop lower. Lastly, the resulting shorter focal lengths have the equivalent DOF as the un-boosted lens when used one shop wider open.

These factors allow a GH with SpeedBooster to use a EI/ISO that’s (roughly) 1-Stop lower, & a aperture 1-Stop wider, than the C100/200 while retaining (roughly) the same FOV, & DOF.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the replies. Did I read the metabones carries the autofocus through from EF lenses? That'd be nice if so. What's the autofocus like on the GH4? It's not a feature I've relied on much up to this point but I've been using the tap focus a bit on the C200 for faster paced doco work.

Any elegant solutions for the lack of internal ND filters on a GH4? Or just carry a couple of options with stepup rings to fit all the lenses?
 
The GH’s AF with native lens works well for stills but poorly for video. Haven’t tried AF with Canon lenses & SpeedBooster, in awhile but last time it was meh. Supposedly it’s been improved, but I doubt you’d be impressed.

I use solid NDs on the GH, & shy away from Variable NDs which can suffer from reflections, & ghosting, due to having two stacked polarizers filters, but plenty of others are happy enough with Vari-NDs. To allow swapping filters quickly I use Xume magnetic filter adapters.

Suggest renting a GH, & SpeedBooster Ultra, before purchasing.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top