Just got GH4: Settings, Firmware questions

Elmer_Lang

Elmer_Lang

Well-known member
Hi

Anyone want to state their settings prefs (natural vs cine d vs cine v) and why's or suggest threads discussing settings?

How can I tell what my firmware status is, and isn't 2.2 the latest?

best
elmer
 
Hi,

Congratulations on your new baby. There's a lot of debates going here and else where on what the best settings are for the GH4 and there's no clear winner in my opinion. I tend to use Cine D most of the time with very minimal tweaks to the picture profile. It all depends on your shooting environments. I do a lot of dance performances with lighting that's all over the place so I tend to keep it safe. 2.2 I believe is the current firmware but I haven't upgraded yet.
 
Well that would depend on what you're going to be using it for - narrative work, corporate, whatever, and the look you are after - and crucially how much post do you want to do, there are those who want to shoot as flat as possible and do all the work in post, and there are those who try to get the look in camera as much as possible and everything in between. If you specify your use scenarios more, you'll get a lot of folks chiming in with their favorite settings. Congratulations on your new cam!
 
Thanks for the replies and the congrats. Yes, I'm very happy.

@Salvo— Yes, I've been around and still am checking out articles and forums with pages and pages of great info but always find good advice here too.

@OldCorpse—You're right, I should give a bit more info. I do doc-style mostly, shooting inside and out and would prefer to get the look in camera to a significant degree.

There's so much talk about the cine D and V (I barely avoided the V & D joke setup, shew), but was also curious about opinions on standard and natural if there are any.

And wishing all best of luck on your shooting, too,
elmer
 
Yep, I been going thru that one last night and today. Lots of great stuff. Actually, the guy who started it, maddog15, is quite cool. No wonder so many have chimed in.

All the best,
elmer
 
Under "normal" contrast lighting I shoot with the Natural profile with everything turned down to -5, except Saturation which I keep at -2. You will need to sharpen and grade your footage in post, but it gives you a lot of control. ( at higher ISO settings you will also want to do your own NR in post with something like NeatVideo )

Under "extreme" contrast lighting ( i.e. Sunlight, stage lighting, etc... ) I use the CineD profile, making sure I expose to capture the highlights, and then I adjust the shadows in post. You may need to use NR in post to clean up the shadows which can get a bit grainy with CineD.

Next month we should be getting a V-log firmware update from Panasonic, which might be a paid upgrade. ( I don't mind paying for this if it does what I expect it will do, which is largely to increase the DR by at least 1 stop. )
 
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