GH2 Is there a way to shoot 4:3 video with GH2 or GH4

Elmer_Lang

Elmer_Lang

Well-known member
Hi
Is there a way to shoot 4:3 video with GH2 or GH4? I've looked and can't find it if it is there.
best
elmer
 
4K Photo modes are like 4K videos with I codec and some limitations (see Vesku recent posts). 4K Photo can be done with any of 1:1, 3:2, 4:3, 16:9
 
aljudy said:
4K Photo modes are like 4K videos with I codec and some limitations (see Vesku recent posts). 4K Photo can be done with any of 1:1, 3:2, 4:3, 16:9
Click to expand...

4k photo uses the same ipb 100Mbs codec than normal video mode.
 
@Ted Ramasola – Dude, just curiously, what help would the anamorphic option be since it's not 4:3?

But I did find a 4:3.
 
elmerlang said:
@Ted Ramasola – Dude, just curiously, what help would the anamorphic option be since it's not 4:3?

But I did find a 4:3.
Click to expand...

What do you mean the anamorphic 4:3 in the menu is not actually 4:3 ratio? what is it then? :)
It's supposed to give you more pixels on the vertical side of the sensor when used for instance with the slr magic 2.0x anamorphot adapter made for 4:3 sensors.
 
Last edited:
elmerlang said:
The option's grayed out, I assume you need an anamorphic lens, which would make it 16:9
Click to expand...

when used with an appropriate adapter like the one I mentioned it would give you 2.35:1 hence the name, anamorphic 4:3 mode.

I just checked again now, its not grayed out in movie M mode. In photo mode it is grayed out.
 
I don't have much experience with the GH4, but the anamorphic recording mode should be 4:3.

Full-academy aperture film is a 4:3 format. Film (and TV shot on film) was 4:3 for the first several decades, up until TV came out. So film was designed to be 4:3. In fact, TV was designed to be 4:3 because all the films were 4:3...

After TV came out, movies needed to find a way to differentiate themselves to justify why someone would still go to the theater; they tried many things, and one thing that stuck was to display in widescreen.

As such, cinema anamorphic lenses were designed to squeeze the image optically by a 2:1 ratio, so you get an 8:3 image squeezed onto a 4:3 frame.

The point of this is -- the GH4's anamorphic mode, as far as I know, opens up the height of the sensor to record 4:3 video, so that anamorphic images are properly captured. But if you didn't use an anamorphic lens and instead used a regular "spherical" lens, the result should be you capturing 4:3 video, just like a film camera would.
 
Hi Barry,

Thanks for the reply. Maybe that's possible, but you can skip that and just shoot 4:3 by, as I found, choosing Rec Format>MP4, then Rec Quality>VGA, 4M, 30P for a 640x480 picture. Voila! There's also a 25P version.

@Ted – In all modes Anamorphic(4:3) is grayed out on my GH4. One would think if possible it would in work in VGA, 640x480, but no.
 
4:3 mode was added to accommodate 2x anamorphic lenses/adapters. For 1.33x lenses, recording should be done in the 16:9 aspect ration.
 
stoneinapond said:
4:3 mode was added to accommodate 2x anamorphic lenses/adapters. For 1.33x lenses, recording should be done in the 16:9 aspect ration.
Click to expand...

Yes, but if you shoot without an anamorphic adapter, you just get a regular 4:3 image, which is what the OP wanted. Yeah, you could shoot 640x480 for a 4:3 image, but that's crap resolution wise. The 4:3 mode resolution is 3328 x 2496 which is leagues better.
 
elmerlang said:
The option's grayed out...
Click to expand...

Set your resolution to 4K, & you should be able to select "Anamorphic(4:3).

Works on my GH4s whether their "System Frequency" is set to "59.94 Hz(NTSC)", or "24.00 Hz(Cinema)". In NTSC it records either 23.98p, or 29.97p, but in "Cinema" it's restricted to 24p (e.g. 24 fps)
 
elmerlang said:
Hi
Is there a way to shoot 4:3 video with GH2 or GH4? I've looked and can't find it if it is there.
best
elmer
Click to expand...

How do you shot 4:3 video on a GH2 ? I've searched a bit about it but still not sure how to set it up in the menu. I'm curious because I can't do it. I'm not intending to shoot anamorphic.
 
Whoa, Bern, you're right. Looks good. However...
Yo, Batutta, you're absolutely right about quality, but I wanted to find a 4:3 on the GH4 to shoot some footage that would hopefully be a near match and usable with an old film of mine that was in 4:3.
Hey, Ned, I looked and couldn't find a 4:3 format on the GH2 either. I think we're screwed in that regard.

Thanks again to all who posted!!
 
Thomas Smet said:
You can always crop in post to 1440x1080 for the GH2 to have the same 4x3 albeit a lower resolution than the GH4.
Click to expand...

Yeah that's true. But I was always curious how people shot video in 4:3 on the GH2. When the GH3 came out a lot of people wished it had multi aspect ratio like the GH2 to shot anamorphic, but I've never been able to find it in the menu. I certainly don't need it, but I always wondered how they achieved it.
Cheers.
 
Ned Kelly said:
When the GH3 came out a lot of people wished it had multi aspect ratio like the GH2 to shot anamorphic, but I've never been able to find it in the menu. I certainly don't need it, but I always wondered how they achieved it.
Click to expand...

The multi aspect part of the GH1 and GH2 sensors was actually that they were wider than normal m4/3 sensors, which meant less of a crop factor when shooting 16:9 video (I think the sensor was actually about 18.8mm wide instead of the usual 17.3mm or so, that's why people wished the 3 and 4 were 'multi-aspect' too. The GH2 never shot good 4:3 video, there was a hack to boost the dimensions/bitrate of the 4:3 SD MPEG mode, but it looked pretty bad and was 30p only.

The GH4 is the only camera that has a high quality 4:3 mode, but even that actually has less FOV then a GH1 or GH2 shooting in 16:9 (since the 4k modes are pixel for pixel crops).

This is all to the best of my knowledge, would be happy to be proven wrong.

Also, fingers crossed that the GH5 will use the whole sensor area for any 4K 4:3 mode it may have.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top