GH4 g7 vs gh4

Ted Ramasola said:
G7 might be a good B cam to the gh4 but if you plan to use this as an a cam, consider these;

It will record continuously beyond the 4gig limit by creating spanned files like the gh4 BUT it stops at 29.xx minutes. The GH4 does not.

If you plan to use external recorders or a mic, theres no way to monitor this since there is NO headphone jack.

Replacing sd cards during a shoot is slightly cumbersome since its located underneath with the battery.
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Thanks.
For my needs and available money, G7 looks like a better option for A cam.
Does it output 10 bit over HDMI?
 
John Godden said:
From this Camera Labs Review (in progress): http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Panasonic_Lumix_G7/

".......... and the HDMI output is 8-bit only"
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Oh dear... that review has just revealed something new about the G7 that I haven't seen picked up anywhere else....

"So far so similar to the GH4, but the G7 handles 4k differently. On the GH4, the 4k modes simply took 3840x2160 or 4096x2160 crops direct from the middle of the sensor and recorded them without scaling. Since they were crops, there was a reduction in the field of view, but since there was also no scaling, there was no moire to worry about.

The G7 however takes the different approach implemented on the FZ1000 and LX100: the camera takes a milder crop of the sensor than the GH4 before then scaling it down to a 3840x2160 UHD 4k frame."

How frustrating. Panasonic could only have done this to purposefully hobble the G7 slightly compared to the GH4 - this decision makes no sense otherwise.

Don't know what to do now. Won't buy the G7 till i see some tests to assess the moire effect at any rate. Arghhhhh!
 
Based on all the other Panasonic mirrorless cams I've owned moire really hasn't been an issue. I doubt their going to release a cam with 4k that has bad moire issues.
My question, is HDMI live? on the g6, it is not. You have to use their wifi app for monitoring off cam. It's a good app, but still no where near as good as a real ext monitor. Is there Zebras? How about cinelike D?
 
The GH2 scales from an over-HD resolution and it has almost no moire to speak of, so just because the G7 is scaling doesn't necessarily mean there'll be moire.
 
The NX1 scales it's 28MP sensor down, and I've seen no appreciable 4K moire in spite of it's increased resolution vs. GH4, as shown in DPR's review. But it's lack of histogram and dig. level in video mode is baffling.

Peter
 
Quick review of G7

I went ahead and bought a G7 this week, and used it as an A-Cam for my wedding shoot this weekend. I had previously been using a hacked GH2 and felt the G7 upgrade was a good step I needed to take. I am extremely impressed with this camera. Functionally I used mostly 1080p at 24fps and 60fps in AVDHD. I did shoot a few clips in 4K just to try it out, but not very many. After reviewing some of the footage I'm very impressed by the clarity of the image and the dynamic range. I shot some of the reception (specifically when I shot 60fps) at 3200 and 6400 ISO. The images appear to still be very clean. I did have a weird experience where the camera refused to turn off and I had to eject the battery to restart it. Hoping that was a fluke thing and not something to watch out for. I'll try to post a little video later this week and maybe a few screen shots, but so far I'm more than impressed with this camera.
 
I have a G6 (love it) and recently used it for a wedding shoot (mostly stills)
The few videos I shot were AVCHD 50P, footage is Ok but I really miss a headphone socket.
This is the only real omission regarding the G series IMO.
Basically if I was going to shoot all video, I'm gunna run a video camera or use a still/video camera with a headphone socket.

Al
 
Brandon Rice said:
Quick review of G7

I went ahead and bought a G7 this week, and used it as an A-Cam for my wedding shoot this weekend. I had previously been using a hacked GH2 and felt the G7 upgrade was a good step I needed to take. I am extremely impressed with this camera. Functionally I used mostly 1080p at 24fps and 60fps in AVDHD. I did shoot a few clips in 4K just to try it out, but not very many. After reviewing some of the footage I'm very impressed by the clarity of the image and the dynamic range. I shot some of the reception (specifically when I shot 60fps) at 3200 and 6400 ISO. The images appear to still be very clean. I did have a weird experience where the camera refused to turn off and I had to eject the battery to restart it. Hoping that was a fluke thing and not something to watch out for. I'll try to post a little video later this week and maybe a few screen shots, but so far I'm more than impressed with this camera.
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Why use 1080? The 4k on a 1080 timeline would look better almost certainly... if i do get the camera that's all i will be using. Except for the 60fps bits for slo mo of course.

Keen to see any vids you do. Try and force the moire issue for us so we can check! I just cant understand why panasonic didn't just crop the sensor readout like in the GH4... the tiny reduction in field of view would not be a reason to do otherwise!
 
TheDingo said:
...Just out of curiousity, what lenses did you shoot with ?
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I shot with Rokinon EF prime lenses. 10mm and 35mm.

Alchroma said:
I have a G6 (love it) and recently used it for a wedding shoot (mostly stills)
The few videos I shot were AVCHD 50P, footage is Ok but I really miss a headphone socket.
This is the only real omission regarding the G series IMO.
Basically if I was going to shoot all video, I'm gunna run a video camera or use a still/video camera with a headphone socket.

Al
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Why would you need a headphone jack? I record all my audio externally and sync later. For some other "live audio" it doesn't need to be any specific level, so again what is the big deal with a headphone jack?

the doc said:
Why use 1080? The 4k on a 1080 timeline would look better almost certainly... if i do get the camera that's all i will be using. Except for the 60fps bits for slo mo of course.

Keen to see any vids you do. Try and force the moire issue for us so we can check! I just cant understand why panasonic didn't just crop the sensor readout like in the GH4... the tiny reduction in field of view would not be a reason to do otherwise!
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No reason to take up the extra space or processing power for 4k at the moment. The 1080 is gorgeous anyway, and no one is asking for 4k deliverables.
 
Brandon Rice said:
…
No reason to take up the extra space or processing power for 4k at the moment. The 1080 is gorgeous anyway, and no one is asking for 4k deliverables.
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True. Yet, shooting 4K has the advantage of doing some cropping, when necessary, and/or maintaining the full intended frame when doing warp stabilization.
 
the doc said:
... How frustrating. Panasonic could only have done this to purposefully hobble the G7 slightly compared to the GH4 - this decision makes no sense otherwise.

Don't know what to do now. Won't buy the G7 till i see some tests to assess the moire effect at any rate. Arghhhhh!
Click to expand...
Mild oversampling isn't crippling. (the lack of headphone jack is) The new Sony A7R MK II gets its 4K (8.3 MPX) downsampled from ~ 15 and there's no moire or rolling shutter effect due to the speed of the sensor readout. In fact, I would assume that the next GH4/5 will have something similar - more pixels (20-24 MPX) for an improved photo resolution and an oversampled 4K.
 
the doc said:
Oh dear... that review has just revealed something new about the G7 that I haven't seen picked up anywhere else....
The G7 however takes the different approach implemented on the FZ1000 and LX100: the camera takes a milder crop of the sensor than the GH4 before then scaling it down to a 3840x2160 UHD 4k frame."

How frustrating. Panasonic could only have done this to purposefully hobble the G7 slightly compared to the GH4 - this decision makes no sense otherwise.

Don't know what to do now. Won't buy the G7 till i see some tests to assess the moire effect at any rate. Arghhhhh!
Click to expand...

There are lots of reasons to downsample, and assuming that it's purposeful crippling is just silly in my estimation. I really wish that the GH4 had both options. A 1:1 crop and a full sensor readout downscaled to C4K or UHD. The GH2 had phenomenal downscaling with hardly a moire pattern to be found. GH3 and GH4 1080p modes have a bit more (but not unacceptable to me) but this is probably because they wanted to achieve faster sensor readout, so had to use a simpler scaler. As was stated in your link, this is how they did things on their two more recent compacts, and it is probably the reason why this camera has better low light performance. Plus you don't have to go with wider lenses.

I'm definitely looking at a G7 to go along with my GH4, especially if all this low light performance boost is real.
 
Why would you need a headphone jack?
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To monitor live recording in camera.

External audio is one method and hopefully you do not have sync issues particularly with longer recordings.

How do you setup your gear and what settings (bit rate/depth) are used?

Al
 
Alchroma said:
To monitor live recording in camera.

External audio is one method and hopefully you do not have sync issues particularly with longer recordings.

How do you setup your gear and what settings (bit rate/depth) are used?

Al
Click to expand...

Yeah I always sync later and never plug-in direct. I have never run into any issues even with long recordings. Settings for audio vary, but I always do 320KBPS MP3, or 48,000HZ 16-bit WAV.

I would never really need a headphone jack on a camera like this.
 
As an "everything else failed" backup, compressed camera audio is nice to have. Also lets you get straight to a rough cut or at least review the cuts with real audio. Not as important as a real slate, but still nice to have for any workflow. But it shouldn't be a deal breaker from some people. When used as last resort, headphones from the video recorder may not be that important, just set the levels a little low to make sure you don't clip and monitor the main audio to make sure it sounds OK.
 
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