GH4 Noise Test GH4 Cine D vs. Cine V vs. C100

A

AndrewTaran

Active member
I got GH4 couple weeks ago and so far I'm very pleased with the image I could get from it. I've read a lot of negative comments regarding noise on GH4 and decided to do my own small absolutely non-scientific test.

I used Sigma 50mm f/1.4(old version, Canon mount) and Metabones Speedbooster Canon EF to m43. I don't have any m43 lenses, and I'm not planning to get any soon. Nailed exposure just right using Sekonic Light Meter. I doubled shutter speed for each shot while doubling ISO. Constant aperture at f/2.8.

Profiles used : Cinelike D -5, -5, -5, -5, 0 ; Cinelike V -5, -5, -5, -5, 0.
i.Dynamic & i.Resolution OFF, Master Pedestal at 0, Luminance 0-255, no Highlight/Shadow tweaking. All shot at 4K Cinema with manual white balance at 5200. After a ton of research, I found those to be the most clean settings with some room for color correction and grading.


[UPDATE] Because of bad YouTube compression I've uploaded both pics and video here : https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B4aB6wybnhB2cWZmcTRlTFlJUFk

Well, test surprised me. I was expecting horrible unusable footage, but it turned out GH4 is a clean camera with right profile settings. Noise is controllable, film-like grain, color purple noise starts to show up only at 6400 ISO. It absolutely usable up to 3200 ISO at Cine V for my taste. Some folks definitely will find it noisy, but I find this noise quite pleasing. A little bit of Neat Video + some film grain on top and you're golden. Then I decided to compare it with "low light king" aka Canon C100. While I used exactly the same WB setting, C100 definitely messed it up. It happens ALL THE TIME! No ND, the exact same lens and it's definitely warmer. Anyway, as you might notice, it has a very different noise pattern. Even though it's hard to see on compressed footage, I started seeing purple color noise at ISO 1600. I confomed GH4 footage to 100%(full HD) and compared it to C100 200%(to match). Yes, GH4 is more noisy, but it's not color noise that is present at C100 as well as artifact. I didn't include it into test, but I attached side by side comparison at ISO 800 and 1600. I just filmed 40-minute long documentary with C100 and I find it to be quite noisy at 1600 ISO. Don't worry, I did ABB! Yes, C100 clearly wins, but I find GH4 noise quite "filmic" - no color noise up to 6400, barley noticeable artifacts at 3200. I don't like C100's(and frankly any other Canon DSLRL fixed color noise pattern. Yes, GH4 is not night-vision camera like A7S, but I folks, night should look like night sometimes :) Another observation that I didn't include in the test - it's better to have proper exposure at higher ISO, than underexpose! This is critical, as well as proper WB.
 

Attachments

  • gh4 vs c100 800.jpg
    gh4 vs c100 800.jpg
    40.8 KB · Views: 0
  • gh4 vs c100 1600.jpg
    gh4 vs c100 1600.jpg
    42.8 KB · Views: 0
Last edited:
Thanks for sharing this. I trust your perspectives on the original files, but the online compression does melt everything together.
 
Good work!

I totally agree on that the noise produced by the gh4 has a nice texture to it. I showed some raw gh4 footage to a few professional post production people who watch Alexa+Master Prime footage all day and they thought the gh4 looked really good. They liked the noise/grain structure and that from what they saw it looked better than a lot of Canon cameras.
 
wwjd said:
Thanks for sharing this. I trust your perspectives on the original files, but the online compression does melt everything together.
Click to expand...
I'll upload all the files to my Dropbox tomorrow and they will be available for download. Even attached jpgs look pretty washed out...
 
I totally believe you. Had a canon before this and it was ugly mush most of the time. Thier idea of 1080, is more like 600.
 
"it's better to have proper exposure at higher ISO, than underexpose! This is critical, as well as proper WB."

You can get away with a lot when you follow this rule.
 
This is helpful and really interesting. I've been getting my head around the GH4 the past few months. I've been getting frustrated trying to work my first documentary project with it. I'm actively considering selling it to pick up one of the many c100's now becoming available. In terms of even lighting and evaluating noise structure, this is helpful to see. I agree the noise pattern is much more pleasing on the GH4. Glad to see this as I don't have direct experience with the c100.

Would you be willing to shoot a couple scenes as various ISOs in which even lighting is not the case?

My basic question is how these cameras compare in wide dynamic range conditions (which I regularly encounter with my project and do not have the liberty to light to help things out.) I've been surprised how much noise arrives in the shadows at base iso when there is a fairly wide range of exposure and I primarily expose to protect the highlights. I feel this is pretty important as the GH4 can't resist clipping pretty hard. I'd be very, very interested to see how the c100 rolls toward clipping in comparison. Would greatly appreciate the insight.
 
Hi I have had the GH4 for several months now...first of all...just like the OP I was really worrying about noise before I got it, but after I got it I was surprised to see that in most conditions it was very clean.
The whole noise rant about the GH4 is largely overblown, its almost like people want something to gripe about...and they will find something, obviously some have genuine problems but its largely overblown.
As Erik mentioned ...only when you are severely underexposed, then the noise comes in, other than that ..you wont have much problem, even at higher ISO's.

In relation to the point Walter height made, I have done many shots here in Australia, where the sky is bright and the shadows are dark under trees and stuff...so there is a wide contrast range.
I dont know wether this is exactly what you mean, but you dont get a lot brighter than a clear blue sky in Australia with a bright sun in Queensland.
First thing is I have read over and over, dont use iDynamic, dont use the shadow highlight curves...well I can tell you (for me) iDynamic works amazingly in high contrast situations, you can see detail in shadows...no real noise,
sky is blue and all the extremes are held together...experiment with it...dont believe what you read, same with the curves...a reverse S works really well if its not pushed too hard -2 +2 is about right.
However in low light and underexposed shots iDynamic does introduce more noise...but not in good light where you are trying to balance the extremes...it works a treat.
I dont touch the master pedestal tho, best to leave it alone.
Cheers
 
Cosimo Bullo said:
I find the Master Ped useful for adding contrast on grey days.
Click to expand...
From what I heard in the interview with Panasonic rep Master Pedestal is ONLY to be used when you're matching black point of multiple cameras and not to be used to "flatten" the image. Yeah, it works well for Philip Bloom and James Miller - those guys love to crushlift their blacks and make them look more "hipster", "trendy" and "vintage". I'm not a fan of that type of look. I can see using it ONLY in negative values. It's really interesting that people complain how noisy blacks are while they're raising Master Pedestal to extreme and then crushing blacks down in post.
 
Thanks for your thoughts, Astroman. I'll reinvestigate iDynamic for sure.

Otherwise, I feel I distracted us from the OP intention for the thread. I want to honor that intention too. Thanks for the revealing test, Andrew.
 
+1

AndrewTaran said:
From what I heard in the interview with Panasonic rep Master Pedestal is ONLY to be used when you're matching black point of multiple cameras and not to be used to "flatten" the image. Yeah, it works well for Philip Bloom and James Miller - those guys love to crushlift their blacks and make them look more "hipster", "trendy" and "vintage". I'm not a fan of that type of look. I can see using it ONLY in negative values. It's really interesting that people complain how noisy blacks are while they're raising Master Pedestal to extreme and then crushing blacks down in post.
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top