GH4 G85: Footage is not sharp. Need help and tips.

S

sigamy

Well-known member
I just did an outdoor shoot on a bright sunny day with Lumix G85 and the 12-60mm lens. I was shooting baseball drills. I shot in 1080 60p in order to match with another camera (Lumix G5, from a few years ago).

First problem is exposure which has a lot of the footage blown out, which is due to my errors.

But I don't understnad why the footage is soft. It's not sharp at all.

Is this due to the 12-60mm kit lens? I've owned a number of M43 lenses over the years, my favorite is the PL 25mm, but that wasn't wide enough for baseball. If I attempt to move into paid gigs do I need to get the 12-35mm f2.8? Or a wide prime? The flexibility of a zoom is nice for sports and events.

Are there settings that effect sharpness? Any tips on how I can get sharper video?

I know this is probably not a gear issue, but I moved from GH3 to G85 and I sort of miss the GH style body and batteries. Would GH4 give sharper video than G85? Or is it really the glass?
 
I used AFS with the 1 area box. Maybe that is the issue? The subject moved out of the focus box once action began?
 
What aperture were you shooting at? I've generally found that anything past f10 or so gets hit pretty hard by diffraction.
 
Provided everything is in focus, I think your main issue is simply the quality of the 60p at 1080. It's atrocious.

I've shot a lot of 60p on this camera because it was the system that was being used on a gimbal for slow-motion, and the HD quality is dated. Pixel-binning, line-skipping, whatever it is...it's just bad.

The best results you will produce with that camera are at 4K. They can be really beautiful and sharp (I like the natural profile), but you're unfortunately limited to 30p.
 
Also: too much ND on lower end NDs can create a softened/hazy look.
Also: viewing 1080p footage on 4K or even 1440p monitor full screen can make it look soft
Also: too low of bitrate for whatever you are shooting. Check to make sure you are at max codec bitrate for 1080p.
 
I think the reason is too small aperture and because Panasonic cameras dont show exposure values in automatic modes it is impossible to figure it out when shooting.
 
sigamy said:
Due to the bright sunny day and no ND filter, I was at f/14 at least.
Click to expand...

Cary Knoop said:
f/14 is way to small for m43.
I would not go smaller than f/8
Click to expand...

Definitely to be avoided but what I see is not too bad, appears reasonably sharp on my monitor. What I do see is a bit of diffraction softness though. The image below is a bit of an extreme example. The night before I had been shooting in low light and had the ISO set to the highest on a Canon Digital Rebel (the original model) which was 1600. With only about 3 hours sleep I had to shoot some "re-enactors" at a Christmas week event at Ft. Concho.

Fuzzy headed I got the exposure system zeroed and shot a few frames before noticing the impossibly small aperture I had to use. On the original 18-55mm "kit" lens I was using, at full telephoto it was an effective f22. Note the softening I got in the magnified portion. This is diffraction at work.

Diffraction_Effect.jpg

This was an accident. My preferred aperture range in these lighting conditions is f5.6 to f11 smallest, I use ND 0.9 and ND 1.2 to get there if needed. I keep this image because it is useful to show diffraction effect when I am teaching.
 
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filmguy123 said:
Also: too much ND on lower end NDs can create a softened/hazy look.
Click to expand...

This is especially pertinent to variable ND filters. Problem is you often cannot see this in the viewfinder when it happens, you find it when working with your stills in Photoshop or working with video in the edit bay. So I have pretty much given up on using variables. I usually carry Tiffen ND 0.9 and ND 1.2 in the bag.

Why Tiffen?

Decent quality for an affordable price (not cheap, tho) and later after purchase I found out Shane Hurlbut recommends them as what he often uses when working as DP ("Act Of Valor", "Terminator: Salvation").
 
Thanks Bruce. I take it you are commenting on the footage I put on dropbox? Learn something new every day. Now have to figure out ND across my lenses for outdoor bright days.



Bruce Foreman said:
Definitely to be avoided but what I see is not too bad, appears reasonably sharp on my monitor. What I do see is a bit of diffraction softness though. The image below is a bit of an extreme example. The night before I had been shooting in low light and had the ISO set to the lowest on a Canon Digital Rebel (the original model) which was 1600. With only about 3 hours sleep I had to shoot some "re-enactors" at a Christmas week event at Ft. Concho.

Fuzzy headed I got the exposure system zeroed and shot a few frames before noticing the impossibly small aperture I had to use. On the original 18-55mm "kit" lens I was using, at full telephoto it was an effective f22. Note the softening I got in the magnified portion. This is diffraction at work.

View attachment 126116

This was an accident. My preferred aperture range in these lighting conditions is f5.6 to f11 smallest, I use ND 0.9 and ND 1.2 to get there if needed. I keep this image because it is useful to show diffraction effect when I am teaching.
Click to expand...
 
sigamy said:
Thanks Bruce. I take it you are commenting on the footage I put on dropbox? Learn something new every day. Now have to figure out ND across my lenses for outdoor bright days.
Click to expand...

That's not too hard. With longer lenses if you get down to f5.6 you can usually begin to achieve a slight shallow DOF effect, this will depend on lens to subject distance and subject to background elements distance. Usually for me out in the open it will take about 4 stops of reduction which is what ND 1.2 does. The situation in shaded areas will sometimes take less and I find for me 3 stops using the ND 0.9 does it.

I'd suggest starting with those two. Now if you find that ND 0.9 (3 stops) is too much, Tiffen markets ND 0.6 (2 stops) and ND 0.3 (1 stop). I have those but rarely use them, most of the time when I need to use ND I need 3 or 4 stops reduction. Many with experience advise buying to fit the largest lens filter thread you have and use stepup rings for any smaller you have. My lenses are pretty much all "native" so I have filter threads from 37mm, 46mm, 52mm, and 58mm. Before I acquired lenses with 58mm thread I tried to standardize on 52mm filters with 37-52mm and 46-52mm stepup rings. I now have the Olympus 75mm f1.8 with 58mm filter threads and two Lumix 12-60mm f3.5 - 5.6 "kit" zooms with 58mm threads so I simply ordered a 58mm ND 1.2. That's my most often used strength.

Hope this info helps.
 
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