GH4 Not Too Happy With The GH4 So Far...

Mark Williams said:
I think you need a lot more practice. Both myself and others are getting great images from the GH4. I am in the minority because I don't like to screw around with the camera settings. I like the "baked in" look using standard and cine V which requires very little tweaking in post for outdoor work if you nail exposure and white balance . My indoor experience is limited.
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Mark, this is amazing. Those macro shots are beautiful! Did you get that close using the Olympus 60mm macro, or did you have something else available?
 
Did it with the stock Olympus 60mm 2.8 macro. It gets really close and is a very high quality lens at a decent price. Also is a nice portrait lens as it is equivalent to about 120mm on the GH4.
 
Kit said:
is Premiere Pro CC a good option for colour grading or is it best to use third party software like Film Convert etc for best results?
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If you have PP, I would hope you have the full suite. In that case, SpeedGrade is the professional grading tool in the Adobe lineup.
 
Erik Naso said:
I would download Colorista Free from Red Giant and learn how to balance a shot before creating a look. Understanding the simple principles of correcting an image is very important. Fimconvert is a great tool but I feel it's more of a "look" tool. Learning the basic in collor correction is a must first.

Speedgrade is very powerful and is much more user friendly but it's also a bit intimidating and needs some time just to learn how to use it.
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Thanks for the Advice Erik will take a look at Colorista.
 
I don't understand why people are messing with the pedestal. This is almost always going to be a bad idea unless you are trying to match disparate cameras or meet some oddball production requirement. Otherwise, all you are doing is lowering the amount of real dynamic range you can record.
 
Batutta said:
Yes. Use the white balance tool. All you need is a white card, or white sheet of paper. Select WB, then one of the numbered settings, up arrow, put the white card in the square that pops up and click the shutter. Do this in the light you are shooting in.
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GH4 AWB bad? Only reason I ask is when I used to set custom white balance with my GH3 and Whibal 18% grey card, the image would always been a lot warmer.
 
SuperSet said:
GH4 AWB bad? Only reason I ask is when I used to set custom white balance with my GH3 and Whibal 18% grey card, the image would always been a lot warmer.
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This is puzzling me also i have the GH4 Guide by Andrew Reid in it he says AWB should be left on ???
 
Kit said:
This is puzzling me also i have the GH4 Guide by Andrew Reid in it he says AWB should be left on ???
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I would only use AWB if I was shooting something and knew I was running from outside to inside or inside to outside.
Otherwise, using AWB can really make color grading a nightmare. If you cannot custom white balance then
you should at least stick to one white balance setting for every set-up. You could then white balance
one clip in post and then use the same setting for every clip in a given scene.
Go try this yourself…..
Shoot a scene with AWB and then shoot the same scene with one set white balance.
You will see what I mean.
With AWB, the white balance can change with angle, zoom and lens changes.
 
I would say if there is one absolute rule of using a GH4 to get good skin tones its NEVER USE AUTO WHITE BALANCE. Seriously, just dial in the kelvins (outside I always just go to 5600k) or use a Custom White Balance off a grey card.

If you use AUTO WB it makes everything WAY too orangey / pinky. No idea why. It was a similar story with the GH3. Strangely the GH2's AUTO WB was always very usable.
 
I would never ever use AWB but I do sometimes use the indoor or outdoor WB presets a lot. They may not be as 100% accurate as a manual WB but they are at least consistent in each shot. This way I know when I color correct the color in each shot will be the same throughout the shot. Most of what I shoot uses lights that are 3200k or 5600k anyway so doing a manual white balance isn't going to shift the values much at all. This is for the more run and gun type of stuff at work. The more scripted work I always use manual white balance. I'm not really sure why anybody would ever want to do otherwise. Its about the easiest thing you can do and should become just as much of a habit as hitting the record button.

AWB on the other hand will constantly look at the colors in the image and shift itself to try to match white. This means even people moving in a locked down shot could cause the camera to think it needs to shift the color.
 
IndyFilmPhreak2013 said:
Why am I not surprised?

I really don't know why anybody follows that guy, he has no qualifications in the field whatsoever.
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I agree with you, and don't understand it either... Dave Dugdale springs to mind too...

I do think however even Andrew Reid wouldn't suggest using auto-white balance... perhaps a typo or he meant letting the camera white balance from a white / grey card? AWB is virtually always a bad idea.
 
In my experience, AWB is very good on the GH4 when running and gunning. The place where it doesn't work at all is doing time lapses. It can wander all over the place. It can tend to be very warm under fluorescent lighting, but that seems more realistic to me when filming indoors. It makes your scene seem like it was lit with incandescent lighting quite nicely.

For outdoor daylight scenes, AWB is almost perfect every time.

Cheers,
Pete
 
I tested AWB in a controlled situation in a studio and watched the camera shifting color. I was surprised it was constantly adjusting for no reason. It's a bad idea for video. For stills it could work. I dont get why anyone would risk this. Just set it and shoot. It's really basic. Do it right and dont fix it in post.
 
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