GH4 GH4 Video in Low Light

Mark Williams

Mark Williams

Veteran
Direct sunlight was very limited and it proved to be very challenging to shoot video. It was probably the darkest area I have ever shot. There was about 1 hour of good lighting and even with that ISO was at 800 and 1600. I definitely need to acquire a low light lens for these situations.

This video was shot with the Panasonic GH4 camera at 1080p, 60fps and 200mbps, standard and Cine-V profile. Lenses used were the Panasonic 14-45mm, 45-175mm and Olympus 60mm macro. On this trip I used my new Ifootage Shark Slider for the first time and found it to be very smooth. Edited with Edius 5.51 and encoded for the web using Windows Media Video 9.

 
Did you grade this? It looks good. Also if you did grade this properly it means I'm never ever going to get used to the HFR look.
 
Mark:

As usual, a very beautiful piece of work! I especially enjoyed the full bodied contrast look you got with the STANDARD and CINELIKE V profiles. You achieved a very stunning look!

Mark Williams said:
Direct sunlight was very limited and it proved to be very challenging to shoot video. It was probably the darkest area I have ever shot. There was about 1 hour of good lighting and even with that ISO was at 800 and 1600. I definitely need to acquire a low light lens for these situations.
Click to expand...

One suggestion I have would be a "normal" (harking back to the "nifty fifty" that used to automatically come with the camera decades ago) lens. I have the Panasonic Leica DG Summilux 25mm f1.4 that fills that bill for me. I also have the Lumix 20mm f1.7 (kind of "wide normal") and the Olympus m.Zuiko 45mm f1.8.

All 3 are very sharp, even wide open. With something like the 25mm you do lose the flexibility of a zoom and have to position yourself where you get the FOV you want. People like me did this when all we had was a 35mm SLR with that "normal" lens that came with it. When I could afford it I got a 28mm lens and a 105mm so with my Nikkormat I walked around with a basic 3 lens kit.

The Olympus 25mm f1.8 is getting excellent reviews and had it existed at the time I would have purchased it rather than the Pan/Leica for the Oly's smaller size. But either that or the Pan/Leica would give you something to switch to when you find yourself in marginal lighting conditions. For a just a tad wider FOV the Lumix 20mm f1.7 could serve you well.

Just some ideas.
 
Yslee, all that was done to the footage was a touch of "white balance" and "levels" on a few clips in post. No fancy in camera profile settings. The GH4 footage requires much less tweaking than my HPX170 required.
 
Nice look. Cine-V & standard are good settings if you are not really into fiddling around in post a lot. "Flat-mania" has it pros but these settings produce a nice image too. Also the noise discussion about the GH4 is a bit over the top - for a 1600 $ camera it's superb. Thanks for sharing.
 
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