GH4 Suggestions for low light companion for GH4

[Thomas Smet]

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).

I would like to take this a step further and bring up raw detail and consistent performance across the lens as another factor of low light shooting. Many FF lenses have a performance sweet spot around f5.6. The lenses can open up a lot more but the quality tends to suffer. Contrast, vignetting, overall sharpness and corner sharpness all suffer the more open a FF lens is. Shooting a FF lens at f1.4 or sometimes even f2.0 is killing the overall look of the image in ways just as destructive as noise. Just because one can see something in the dark doesn't always mean it is a good image just like Lintel brought up above.

The interesting thing about many native m43 lenses is they have a sweet spot of f4.0 as opposed to f5.6 of many FF lenses. This is a whole stop faster for an equal level of lens performance. Native m43 lenses also tend to still look incredibly good at f1.4, f1.8 and f2.0. Much more so than FF lenses at those f stops. So in terms of overall lens performance is m43 really all that bad? If f2.8 on a native m43 lens can look optically better than a FF lens at f5.6 there goes the whole 2 stop advantage of FF. Yes if one doesn't care about optical quality FF can open up so much more but if achieving the best optical quality is the aim then the playing field really starts to balance out.

Now if one is using adapted lenses or full manual 3rd party m43 lenses then none of this really matters since the lens with have the same sweet spot no matter what size sensor it is used on.

I bring all of this up as I make more of an attempt to focus on the optical quality of what I shoot. I have taken a great interest is using lenses that perform at a certain level and trying to get a consistent picture across the entire frame. I do happen to use a lot of native Panasonic and Olympus m43 glass so I do enjoy a more consistent optical experience when the lenses are opened up more. My Rokinon lens however really does start to suffer opened up all the way as do all of my adapted Canon and Nikon lenses. Still a great lens but one can tell the native m43 lenses are in a whole other league in terms of working well when fully opened. This really should be factored in a discussion on low light shooting.

 

[Mourougaya]

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.

Let me clarify something:

Brain Caldwell stated in a Bmcuser thread, "The blackmagic cameras both have about 2.4mm of flat glass in front of the sensor compared to about 4.0mm for a standard m4/3 camera. That 1.6mm difference might not seem like much, but its enough to introduce noticeable aberration at f/1.0 and faster."

I'm using a Sigma 18-35 that goes up to f/1.1 speedboosted. I also have a metabones non-speedboosted adapter and I don't see any quality loss wide open between them.

 

[Lintel]

Let me clarify something:

Brain Caldwell stated in a Bmcuser thread, "The blackmagic cameras both have about 2.4mm of flat glass in front of the sensor compared to about 4.0mm for a standard m4/3 camera. That 1.6mm difference might not seem like much, but its enough to introduce noticeable aberration at f/1.0 and faster."

I'm using a Sigma 18-35 that goes up to f/1.1 speedboosted. I also have a metabones non-speedboosted adapter and I don't see any quality loss wide open between them.

Your clarification is unclear. Do you mean you are using the Pocket Speed Booster on the GH4? If so do you have infinity focus?

 

[lightstrum]

Sorry guys, but for me "Slaps silly" means that the 1DC produces images up to 2000 iso that intercut nicely with Red Dragon and C500, which GH4 cannot. It is the context I use it in. Like I said in a narrower range of expectation the GH4 is a fine camera. I will shut up now.

 

[Mourougaya]

I have a BMCC speedbooster. Brain was referring to the BMCC booster. Using the BMPCC booster would cause infinity focus problems on the GH4 like you said; if you are using an f1.4 or faster lens on either of these boosters than you will get aberrations wide open.

 

[Lintel]

Sorry guys, but for me "Slaps silly" means that the 1DC produces images up to 2000 iso that intercut nicely with Red Dragon and C500, which GH4 cannot. It is the context I use it in. Like I said in a narrower range of expectation the GH4 is a fine camera. I will shut up now.

What you said was "slaps silly in every way". That's a pretty unorthodox way to say it has better high iso performance.