GH4 GH4 or RED Epic ?

Very close indeed. Wish he put the GH4 settings in the description. Kind of important to share that when you are showing a comparison.
 
We've run tests comparing the GH3/4 against the ALEXA/AMIRA. While the ARRIs have more dynamic range, & can be pushed around more in post, if the GH3/4 is handled properly it can be easily intercut. And even though some of them owned ARRI, & REDs, several of our Camera Guild DITs went on to purchase GHs.

Subsequently we've shot several sets of national broadcast commercials with top advertising agencies for high-end clients where we mixed the cameras & never received a single complaint.

From a production standpoint there are numerous advantages to shooting ARRIs, REDs, or F5/55, but from a purely visual point of reference the GHs' look can often come very close to the big boys'.
 
eh I own a GH4 and use it for all my work so I'm not biased towards a RED. But even from that interview test (I watched the video with no sound here at work) I could immediately tell which is which. The RED just looks better in the highlights, shadow-offs, and overall aesthetic.

And a basic shot like that isn't where you see the differences in a camera. A more meaningful comparison would be a shoot-out like I've seen in the past, where they run through multiple scenes in various conditions and do everything twice with 2 cameras.

Anyway love my GH4 especially for the price! It is cool that you can get such great IQ for so low. But the difference between them isn't illustrated in a flat basic shot like this. I could put my AF100 and GH4 side by side for that and say "oh look, the GH4 is hardly any better" - and we all know that ain't true.
 
filmguy123 said:
eh I own a GH4 and use it for all my work so I'm not biased towards a RED. But even from that interview test (I watched the video with no sound here at work) I could immediately tell which is which. The RED just looks better in the highlights, shadow-offs, and overall aesthetic.

And a basic shot like that isn't where you see the differences in a camera. A more meaningful comparison would be a shoot-out like I've seen in the past, where they run through multiple scenes in various conditions and do everything twice with 2 cameras.

Anyway love my GH4 especially for the price! It is cool that you can get such great IQ for so low. But the difference between them isn't illustrated in a flat basic shot like this. I could put my AF100 and GH4 side by side for that and say "oh look, the GH4 is hardly any better" - and we all know that ain't true.
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I have to agree with it and I own GH4 as well. Differences seems small but I can almost any time distinguish Red or Alexa when looking at some shorts or longer pieces. They seems to have like another thin layer of illusion on the image that takes you inside the story. But still, GH4 is fantastic camera for it's price.
 
For me, I think the point this video makes is that, yes, the RED footage looks slightly better than the GH4 footage, but only when viewed in a side by side comparison. If somebody had shown me the GH4 footage by itself and said "Check out this awesome RED Epic footage!" I would have said "Wow! I wish my camera could shoot stuff like that!" without knowing that my camera DOES shoot footage that good!

The fact that an entire GH4 + SD cards + some good lenses costs less than the VIEWFINDER for the RED while shooting footage that intercuts easily with RED footage says everything.
 
Shooting a very flat interview between two cameras is not gonna make them easy to tell the difference, as both cameras are well within their useable DR limits. Need to push each camera to make it a night and day difference otherwise both cameras will look good and be able to match each other Easliy when you shoot within both cameras limits. That's just basic mix multicam 101.
 
I agree with the comments and also, I'm a bit uncomfortable about the glass. I've used that Sigma lens and at the DoF he's using, I get a lot of softness. Even my Sigma 35mm Cinelens is way too soft when I drop the DoF all the way and that's a straight out prime! At this DoF, with these lenses, I'm a little uncomfortable with this comparison.

I think it's a good, general indication the GH4 is a good tool but give me an Epic 9 times out of ten.
 
They both look nice. The RED has a little more correct color to my eyes, but this gets down to video-geek levels in some way. I do see banding on the back wall when the GH4 footage appears which is not present in the RED footage. So the GH4 with greater bit depth would be good.
 
I could see a noticeable difference between the two, but as Bassman mentions, it's at the video geek level. We're now at the point where the law of diminishing returns is starting to really come in too play. A GH4 + a 10bit 4:2:2 recorder is going to be 1/10th the price of a comparable Red Epic, and deliver probably 70% of what a Red does. The question is, is the remaining 30% worth the extra $25,000? For some yes, for some, no. This is why it drives me absolutely bonkers whenever people scream for Raw or 4:4:4 in these sub $10k cameras... if you really can't deliver to a client an adequate product at that price point with a GH4, AF100, or Canon's or Sony's offerings, as Mcbob points out, it's not the camera that's the issue.
 
Mike Harvey said:
This is why it drives me absolutely bonkers whenever people scream for Raw or 4:4:4 in these sub $10k cameras... if you really can't deliver to a client an adequate product at that price point with a GH4, AF100, or Canon's or Sony's offerings, as Mcbob points out, it's not the camera that's the issue.
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The way I see it, those folks simply want to deliver that extra 30% without spending that extra $25,000.

They may never get it, or at least not any time soon, but I can certainly understand the want of it.
 
Mike Harvey said:
I could see a noticeable difference between the two, but as Bassman mentions, it's at the video geek level. We're now at the point where the law of diminishing returns is starting to really come in too play. A GH4 + a 10bit 4:2:2 recorder is going to be 1/10th the price of a comparable Red Epic, and deliver probably 70% of what a Red does. The question is, is the remaining 30% worth the extra $25,000? For some yes, for some, no. This is why it drives me absolutely bonkers whenever people scream for Raw or 4:4:4 in these sub $10k cameras... if you really can't deliver to a client an adequate product at that price point with a GH4, AF100, or Canon's or Sony's offerings, as Mcbob points out, it's not the camera that's the issue.
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I agree with everything you wrote, except for the part where the GH4 delivers 70% of what a RED does. In my experience, the GH4 delivers at least 90% of what a RED camera does (at least for my purposes). And, as far as a regular audience is concerned, the GH4 delivers 99.9% of what a RED camera does.
 
Jim Simon said:
The way I see it, those folks simply want to deliver that extra 30% without spending that extra $25,000.

They may never get it, or at least not any time soon, but I can certainly understand the want of it.
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Oh, I understand the desire for it. I want to marry a swimsuit model who has $10 million, an M.Div., and a Ph.D. in astrophysics... but I'm not getting upset every time I meet someone who is none of the above :)
 
These two clips compare well.

That said, IMO it seems like the Red is just a bit softer than the GH4. The GH4 also seems to have a bit more pop to the colors. Slightly different color science going on here.
 
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