GH4 Off-the-cuff documentary (Lenses, 4K, etc...)

StevenBills

StevenBills

Active member
Hey everyone,

I got called on Tuesday to make a documentary next week. Kind of last minute, if you ask me, but I jumped at the chance because the subject matter is pretty inspiring (to me, at least). It's about a guy who is running 250 miles in under 72 hours for his grandson who has Fanconi Anemia to raise awareness and funds for research.

Anyway, I'm planning to shoot on my GH4, and I'm kind of worried about my lenses. I have the 14-140mm, and the 20mm f/1.7, but I also have access to the Canon 24-20 and 70-200 L lenses. My thinking though, is that I should use the Canon lenses when I don't need AF (ie: interviews and such), and the Lumix glass for everything else.

Also, I'm hesitant to shoot the running sequences in 4k because the rolling shutter gets pretty nasty in that mode. I'll be shooting from either a tripod or steadicam almost the whole time.

Any tips on cool shots or tips to make an off-the-cuff documentary production go smoothly?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

SB
 
I assume you're not delivering in 4K, so shooting in it really isn't necessary. I'd take the reliability before the pixels. As for lenses, I agree. People don't give the Lumix lenses enough credit in my opinion. They work fine, very stable, and should do everything you need as long as you have enough light (I assume we're talking outdoors during the day). And as much as autofocus is the devil and all that, being able to flick a switch when I'm in a bind and have the computer take care of it is a pretty useful thing to have. Not everyone is shooting on the newest equipment. In news and documentary especially, you still see shots that are way behind in the technicals. But it doesn't matter, because they got the shot. Reliability and getting what you need to tell the story is what matters.

Best advice I know? Bring a good crew/assistant.
 
Copterra said:
I assume you're not delivering in 4K, so shooting in it really isn't necessary. I'd take the reliability before the pixels. As for lenses, I agree. People don't give the Lumix lenses enough credit in my opinion. They work fine, very stable, and should do everything you need as long as you have enough light (I assume we're talking outdoors during the day). And as much as autofocus is the devil and all that, being able to flick a switch when I'm in a bind and have the computer take care of it is a pretty useful thing to have. Not everyone is shooting on the newest equipment. In news and documentary especially, you still see shots that are way behind in the technicals. But it doesn't matter, because they got the shot. Reliability and getting what you need to tell the story is what matters.

Best advice I know? Bring a good crew/assistant.
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Correct, I won't be delivering in 4k, although the reframing for the interviews might be nice to have. And the race will be outdoors during the day and into the night. I'd really like to get some night shots as well, and I don't have any control over the lighting, sadly.

Any thoughts on that?

SB
 
Might be a good idea to get some ND filters for shooting in bright sunlight. I made a thread on ND filters since I'm also trying to decide what to get.
 
scotteh said:
Might be a good idea to get some ND filters for shooting in bright sunlight. I made a thread on ND filters since I'm also trying to decide what to get.
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I actually do have vari-NDs for the Canon glass and for the 20mm Lumix lens. But not the 14-140. :/

SB
 
StevenBills said:
Correct, I won't be delivering in 4k, although the reframing for the interviews might be nice to have. And the race will be outdoors during the day and into the night. I'd really like to get some night shots as well, and I don't have any control over the lighting, sadly.

Any thoughts on that?

SB
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A lot of people talk about re framing as if it doesn't lose any quality but that is not true. Part of what makes DSLR video look the way it does is creating a 1080 frame from a much larger source. Shooting at 4k and re framing in post will give you a look similar to shooting ETC mode on the GH3. More noise and less detail. You do get less aliasing and moire but there is a reason why not very many use ETC mode for critical work. It is a neat feature to have in a pinch but without a doubt it has a different look then just shooting native 1080p or shooting 4k and down converting directly to 1080p. Part of that magic that makes down converted 4k look so good is tossed out the window as soon as you zoom and crop in post. Now maybe that isn't a big deal for everybody but I personally would rather use the right lenses for the shot and keep my look consistent.

Re framing in post is one of those things that sounds cool on paper when thinking of just pixels but in reality takes away some of the quality enhancing capabilities of a DSLR.

I also personally wouldn't be all that concerned about the rolling shutter. If you will be shooting from a tripod and don't plan on going nuts panning the camera around to simulate an earthquake then I doubt you would ever notice it. Such there will be action because the guy is running but he would seriously have to doing an Olympic 100m dash to be faster then the sensor could keep up. It may crop up if you have shots of him running past you and you pan quickly with him as he passes but how many of those shots are you planning on doing really? I would just rethink shots like that and keep the camera movement to normal speeds and you will be fine.
 
Thanks for the advice, everyone. I sat him down and did the first interview with him yesterday, and shot it in 4K (UHD). Ingested into Premiere and it looks great. Super excited about that.

Also, quick question: Has anyone else experienced the camera freezing up on them? I set the camera up yesterday and had it in manual focus mode, and then a few minutes went by before I actually hit the record button, and when I did, nothing happened. The image wasn't frozen on the camera, just none of the buttons worked. So, super embarrassed, I quickly pop the camera off the tripod and and take the battery out and put it back in again, and everything went fine from there. Just a little hiccup, but it could be a concern if it keeps happening. This has actually happened three times to me now, in the space of a short 3 weeks.

Anyone have any ideas as to whats going on?

SB
 
StevenBills said:
Thanks for the advice, everyone. I sat him down and did the first interview with him yesterday, and shot it in 4K (UHD). Ingested into Premiere and it looks great. Super excited about that.

Also, quick question: Has anyone else experienced the camera freezing up on them? I set the camera up yesterday and had it in manual focus mode, and then a few minutes went by before I actually hit the record button, and when I did, nothing happened. The image wasn't frozen on the camera, just none of the buttons worked. So, super embarrassed, I quickly pop the camera off the tripod and and take the battery out and put it back in again, and everything went fine from there. Just a little hiccup, but it could be a concern if it keeps happening. This has actually happened three times to me now, in the space of a short 3 weeks.

Anyone have any ideas as to whats going on?

SB
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Which card are you using? This used to happen to me on my GH1 and GH2 when they were hacked and I used a really high 100mbit bitrate. Could be a card speed issue which is why Panasonic recommends insanely fast cards.
 
Thomas Smet said:
Re framing in post is one of those things that sounds cool on paper when thinking of just pixels but in reality takes away some of the quality enhancing capabilities of a DSLR.
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It does take some quality away, but it also depends on how much you're punching in. I've been regularly been going in about 30-50% and no one but a true pixel peeper could tell the difference on a 1080p youtube video. It makes every 4K shot twice as useful, and when time is money and the client is perfectly thrilled with the result, it's hard to convince me to take twice the time when I could be spending that time shooting something else.


StevenBills said:
Anyone have any ideas as to whats going on?
SB
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I'm guessing you tried this, but did the power switch not respond?
 
We've experienced numerous lock ups & crashes on two different GH4s. Most incidents are brief but had one where the camera would not stop recording & pulling the battery caused the clip to be lost.

We've put a fair number of hours on the cameras so far with comparably few issues, & believe these incident are likely just Firmware 1.0 hiccups.
 
I've been speaking with a Panasonic Tech rep in NJ since I returned my GH4 to the vendor regarding lock ups a few weeks ago - I'm receiving my new one today. I had three lock ups - once in 96FPS with a Kingston UHS 3card, once when playing with the wifi with the Kingston card and once in IA mode shooting stills with a sandisk 95mbs card. The rep at Panny said they've been trying to duplicate the issue and have had no luck. He has asked that I post here that anyone that has had this issue and has any insight to the sequence of events that causes this, to please call 1-800-211-7262 and speak to someone in their tech division.
 
shadowProd said:
....I returned my GH4 to the vendor regarding lock ups a few weeks ago - I'm receiving my new one today. I had three lock ups - once in 96FPS with a Kingston UHS 3card, once when playing with the wifi with the Kingston card and once in IA mode shooting stills with a sandisk 95mbs card.
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Did you use the same pair of cards with each camera?
 
I did try cycling the power and nothing happened, so I had to pop the battery.

So, after filming a documentary with it this past week, I can talk about a few quirks that the camera has, IMO.

First, is that there is no auto focus in the slow motion modes. Not sure why, but even the GH2 had auto focus when shooting 60fps.

Second also concerns an issue when shooting slow motion (this doc will have lots of slow mo :) ), and that is that there's no audio. Again, the GH2 still had audio when shooting 60fps. C'mon Panasonic! Here's hoping these things are addressed in a firmware update or something.

Also, the camera only froze once, and I lost the shot, but I realized what was going on, so I staged the shot again, so it wasn't a big deal. Just glad it didn't happen on a shot that was essential or something.

But those quirks aside, I love this camera. It's a beast. Very pleased with the long battery life, I loved coming home each night and watching the rushes. Great little camera.

SB
 
StevenBills said:
Second also concerns an issue when shooting slow motion (this doc will have lots of slow mo :) ), and that is that there's no audio. Again, the GH2 still had audio when shooting 60fps. C'mon Panasonic! Here's hoping these things are addressed in a firmware update or something.
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If you need audio while filming slomo I believe the GH4 has a setting for 60p, however I prefer the no audio method that plays back in 24p so I can watch for strobing & flicker.
 
StevenBills said:
Also, the camera only froze once, and I lost the shot, but I realized what was going on, so I staged the shot again, so it wasn't a big deal. Just glad it didn't happen on a shot that was essential or something. SB
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What did you realize was going on? .....
 
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