GH4 How is the GH4 now with the VLog Update?

Brandon Freeman said:
So I can send a down sampled 4K signal out of the camera into a $300 Atomos Ninja Star. Exactly the same results, just before editing, and it secures 10-bit 422 color. No brainer.
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I had the same idea, and found a great deal on a barely used Ninja Star on Craigs List. There are a couple of annoying inconveniences with this gear, though. You cant trigger the ninja star by pressing the GH4 shutter button--you have to press the Record button on the NS (Atomos enables GH4 triggering on their more expensive gear but are dragging their feet on a similar firmware update for the NS). Also, you cant play back footage on the GH4's built in display; you have to hook the NS up to an external monitor. And you cant simultaneously record 4:2:2 10-bit footage to the NS and 8-bit 4k footage to the camera's SD card.

When and if the Black Magic Video Assist monitor/recorder comes out, i may trade up to that, which will solve the first two problems i mentioned (but not the third, because that's a limitation of the GH4).
 
Xrayspecs said:
I had the same idea, and found a great deal on a barely used Ninja Star on Craigs List. There are a couple of annoying inconveniences with this gear, though. You cant trigger the ninja star by pressing the GH4 shutter button--you have to press the Record button on the NS (Atomos enables GH4 triggering on their more expensive gear but are dragging their feet on a similar firmware update for the NS). Also, you cant play back footage on the GH4's built in display; you have to hook the NS up to an external monitor. And you cant simultaneously record 4:2:2 10-bit footage to the NS and 8-bit 4k footage to the camera's SD card.

When and if the Black Magic Video Assist monitor/recorder comes out, i may trade up to that, which will solve the first two problems i mentioned (but not the third, because that's a limitation of the GH4).
Click to expand...

Yeah, I anticipated those difficulties when I ordered. I'll be shooting a bit blind, but for important shoots I'll keep a hard drive and computer nearby to check/dump footage as I go inbetween set-ups. The results should be worth the extra effort. (Speaking of... it just arrived. Time to test.)
 
Argh. Still seeing the banding in the 10-bit recordings. It's not NEARLY as horrible, but even 10-bit is struggling to make this log profile work. I'm not returning the Ninja Star, as the areas that have the discoloration have actual noise in them instead of blocks of splotchy mess - in other words the artifact is much more dithered and muted. Still... disappointing, very disappointing, for a $99 profile to have these issues.
 
I will say I think I just don't like the V709 LUT. Even with 10-bit color... it just kind of sucks. FilmConvert is much much nicer to my footage.
 
I use film convert a lot to Brandon. I've also had decent luck adding cineon convertor in premiere pro (log to linear) You have decent control over blacks and whites, then I drop film convert on top of that. Footage looks decent. I've also mentioned on another thread that Magic Bullet color suite (Looks and Colorista) play nice with gh4 files.I hadn't used either of those for a long time, but thought I would give it a shot and was pleasantly surprised. If you have it, try out some of the Luts in Magic bullet looks.
 
Just received the update. Did some very quick (internal) shooting and post with Panasonic's Varicam LUT. So far I'm encouraged and haven't had so much fun coloring in ages. The flexibility is amazing.

Only downside is the processing brings my 2009 iMac to it's knees. Time for the hopefully rumored, soon to be announced 21" 4K iMac, or the 5K if that doesn't materialize.
 
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