Erik Naso
Veteran
F2.8 on S35 looks different than it does o MFT. The depth of field is greater with Micro Four Thirds.
GH4 Suggestions for low light companion for GH4
- Thread starter Lintel
- Start date
Lintel
Active member
I have the MFT speed booster already. The BMCC version only adds 1/3 stop more light and actually gives an inferior image (lower contrast and softer) on the GH4 because it is designed for a thinner in-camera glass stack (there's a thread about it on here somewhere I think where Brian Caldwell confirms this.). I will probably just buy the Pocket specific speed booster.
Lintel
Active member
It's funny because from all the footage I've seen, to me - entirely subjectively - colour looks better in night shots at high ISO's! But maybe that's just because the light is usually artificial so more saturated? The base ISO of the A7S is 3200 - so wouldn't that make chroma info better at higher ISO's than most cameras? If not, it may partly explain why so much S-LOG daylight footage looks so bad in terms of colour ...
Batutta
Major Contributor
The OP was shooting with a speed booster, which makes DOF about equal with s35.
Erik Naso
Veteran
The least expensive low light video camera is a used Canon C100 and Sony FS100. They sell for around $3K. You don't like the Sony look so that leaves the C100 on the table. Rent an A7s and see if you can get the look you want in post. Out the camera isn't going to be a good indicator of the camera. You will have to grade it to match the GH4 anyway.
I do think think your approach is wrong. I shoot commercials for a living and lighting is more than 50% of what I do to make the video look good. I believe you want a camera more than change the way you shoot.
LED panels with batteries cant get any easier. I used to have to lug around a Arri kit and pray I don't blow a circuit using them. I have around six different LED panels all on batteries. I can pretty much put light anywhere I want with ease.
Too many people want to shoot with no lights now because the A7s can shoot in pitch dark. I have one and I still use lights at extreme ISO levels. It makes the shot.
As for this situation with the yoga class. Take control of your shoots. This should have been planned out that the situation was not good for shooting. As mentioned before it's not a news story it's a commercial. Edge lighting would still give that dark feel without it looking blown out or not real. Take a smaller section of maybe three or four people and just shot them so you can control it better. It's all planning.
I realize you dont want to hear any of this and you just want an answers of "what camera should I buy that shoots in the dark other than an A7s" but you would be doing yourself a creative disservice if you approach shooting this way.
I do think think your approach is wrong. I shoot commercials for a living and lighting is more than 50% of what I do to make the video look good. I believe you want a camera more than change the way you shoot.
LED panels with batteries cant get any easier. I used to have to lug around a Arri kit and pray I don't blow a circuit using them. I have around six different LED panels all on batteries. I can pretty much put light anywhere I want with ease.
Too many people want to shoot with no lights now because the A7s can shoot in pitch dark. I have one and I still use lights at extreme ISO levels. It makes the shot.
As for this situation with the yoga class. Take control of your shoots. This should have been planned out that the situation was not good for shooting. As mentioned before it's not a news story it's a commercial. Edge lighting would still give that dark feel without it looking blown out or not real. Take a smaller section of maybe three or four people and just shot them so you can control it better. It's all planning.
I realize you dont want to hear any of this and you just want an answers of "what camera should I buy that shoots in the dark other than an A7s" but you would be doing yourself a creative disservice if you approach shooting this way.
Lintel
Active member
You are right that the camera I want is the C100. Ideally the MKII. But they are both out of my budget right now unfortunately.
You're also right that what I should of gone for is edge lighting. I'm hoping I can get something like that in post with the footage I have.
I do have a couple of cheap LED light's, but most of my shooting until very recently has been exclusively natural/available light. I like working like that but for the commercial stuff I'm just starting to do I understand that I need to change that. I also need to do some learning, because I'm pretty clueless when it comes to lighting.
Any suggestions from you guys regarding training (videos/books/websites/online courses) for lighting would be hugely appreciated. I know the basics of 3-point lighting, have good eye and learn quickly so the very fundamental stuff out there may not be necessary, but advanced beginner/intermediate level would be best I think.
Thanks for all your replies so far, Matt.
Thomas Smet
Veteran
Word!
High production value has more to do with lighting than any camera out there. People always want to invest thousands into lenses and upgrading their cameras every year but a good set of lights can last at least a decade and add so much to the look of a shoot. There will never ever be a magic camera/lens combo that will replace good lighting. End of story. When users put together a production kit I would always suggest first buying a really good light kit. Spend a good amount of money on this and you will likely not need to buy more lights for many years.
I definitely agree with having more lights, as well as learning how to light. While photography still makes up a large portion of my business, it's still the same principle. I have more flashes and light modifiers than cameras and lenses and I won't want it any other way.
lightstrum
Well-known member
Don't know about Andrew Reid, but I just returned from a long set of shoots in Europe and South America and used C500, 1DC, and GH4, along with Red Dragons. The only camera of the lot that could have covered everything in the various shoots was the 1DC. Perfect on every level? No, but could do the job. Each of the other cameras did somethings better except the GH4, which the 1DC slaps silly in every way. That being said, when used in a narrow band of expectation the GH4 is well worth its price.
Lintel
Active member
List of GH4 features that "slap the 1DC silly":
1. Costs a fraction of the Canon.
2. Weighs far less (esp. if taking MFT lenses in to consideration).
3. Is much smaller (again esp. with MFT glass).
4. Has much smaller file 4K sizes and cheaper storage media.
5. Has 10-bit 422 out.
6. EVF
7. Tilt LCD
8. Actual video features such as peaking.
9. Frame rates from 1-96fps.
10. It's in my price bracket, which I think I made pretty clear in my original post was nowhere near any of the cameras you're talking about. Including, as I made clear in my previous post, a used 1DC.
ALL of the above features genuinely matter to me. ALL of the above features are absent from the 1DC.
Bern Caughey
Veteran
The 1DC's rolling shutter is on par with the A7s' so also inferior to the GH4's.
@Lintel, I was being tongue in cheek sort of, as your list precluded virtually anything. No DSLR, where all the cost effective larger sensor cams are. No A7s, the lowlight king. No lighting as it's too cumbersome for an one man show, etc....
CineV is a much cleaner profile for low light. All the effects in cam that bring contrast down, destroy the GH4's image IMHO. Shoot a contrasty profile for super low light in the GH4 and you can get some amazing images even at ISO 2000 and 2500.
On a side note, a speed booster does not bring the GH4's 4K UHD 2.49x crop factor back to be equivalent with S35. It's still quite an additional crop compared to S35.
Cheers,
Pete
CineV is a much cleaner profile for low light. All the effects in cam that bring contrast down, destroy the GH4's image IMHO. Shoot a contrasty profile for super low light in the GH4 and you can get some amazing images even at ISO 2000 and 2500.
On a side note, a speed booster does not bring the GH4's 4K UHD 2.49x crop factor back to be equivalent with S35. It's still quite an additional crop compared to S35.
Cheers,
Pete
Some postings in this thread seem to imply that the Blackmagic Pocket Camera-specific Nikon Speedbooster will work on the Panasonic GH4, that means 1) without damaging the shutter mechanism nor the sensor and 2) covering the sensor with minimal vignetting. I am far from certain that this is the case. Has anybody out there tested this combination?
Lintel
Active member
Yeah you're right. I just wasn't 100% sure I wasn't missing a mirrorless camera that is OK in low light. Turns out it's the GH4! I need to experiment with high contrast shooting in low light and try to find an image I like,. My preference has tended to be to go for detail in shadows.
I remember I liked this early GH4 video (though I don't know where the aliasing has come from - it looks 4K to me):
[video]https://vimeo.com/album/2898802/video/96426425[/video]
I think that the GH4 in UHD mode (mode I use most) with the MFT (0.71) speed booster has a very similar crop factor to the Pocket with the BMPCC specific speedster. Both in the region of 1.75 I believe. This would be very handy for my sanity while on a job I think ...
Matt
Lintel
Active member
I don't think anyone has implied that. The Pocket speed booster simply doesn't work on the GH4 (no infinity focus and endangers the mech shutter). The BMCC (not Pocket) speed booster will fit fairly happily on the GH4 but, as I said before, because it's designed for the BM cameras thinner sensor stack the image isn't as good as the MFT specific version.
I used to own a GH4 and I do own a BMPCC and BMCC. I agree that the BMPCC is better in low light than the gh4. The reasons I think it's better are:
1 - The noise is so organic that it doesn't feel like an ugly intrusion in the image like it does on most digital cameras. The Blackmagic cameras dont do any processing to the image as far as NR and my experience has been that you can push it a stop or two in post and apply light NR with no issues.
2 - The lowest recording options are much more gradeable and have more latitude than the GH4. Try pushing underexposed GH4 footage +2 and see what happens. I dare ya!
I own an A7s now, so that's what I use in low light, but I'd reach for a pocket camera before a gh4 if I was worried about exposure.
FYI I know you're against a mirror, but I do think you should reconsider a 6d for inexpensive low light. Check out this comparison for low light between it and the c300:
https://vimeo.com/55633499
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Lintel
Active member
I think this is the crux of it - you can lift the shadows a lot more in post with the BMPCC than you can with the GH4.
Gosh I love that little camera.
Lintel
Active member
I watched the test and I preferred the C100 by a good margin. Dynamic range much better, Detail much better. No moire. Colours much punchier.
I love Canon's C-line. But owning a GH4 and BMPCC it's hard to swallow the lagging spec sheet. I really hoped the C100 MkII would at least have 10-bit out.
That's because you have access to raw data, no?
Lintel
Active member
The thing is that what you're implying is that noise is the only variable when assessing low light performance. It's not. A camera that produces a "good" image in low light has to perform on all levels. Noise is not the only factor. If you have to sacrifice dynamic range to get rid of noise on the GH4 ... then it's a 'poor' low light performer. And if you keep DR it's a poor performer because of noise.
Colour is often a casualty of poor low light cameras too. The BMPCC for example has good DR and "pleasant" noise at high ISO's, but colour is almost always impossible to bring back into the image in poorly lit shots. The Canons are among the few cameras that handle colour well at high ISO's IMO. But by their own admission this is at the expense of some dynamic range (in their DSLRs). This is why I think the C300 wins the shootout above (with the 6D) - because although the 6D shows a little less noise, its DR, colour and resolution are poor (and moire is everywhere).
Any camera that can produce a good image can give a good low light image if you are willing to crush the areas that are noisy. But these are the shadow areas so you are immediately sacrificing information in the scene. The joke that the A7S can shoot "night for day" proves my point. It's no good saying "the GH4 can be a good low light performer if you crush all the noisy bits." That defeats the object of good low light performance.
For me wide dynamic range is usually most important when shooting night scenes - because of the vast EV difference between numerous in-shot light sources and numerous very dark shadow areas (as in the C300 shootout above). Night is the last place I want to sacrifice dynamic range (and again perhaps why I prefer the BMPCC).