GH4 Very Disappointed

visceralpsyche said:
Yep, 8 bit V-Log is a mess with ugly banding and chroma blocking artifacts everywhere. In 10 bit it's fine.
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Good to know. There is definitely a dynamic range advantage to V-Log. But for me, that benefit is outweighed by the occasional nastiness of internal recording. I'd rather have the occasional blown out highlights.
 
Jim Simon said:
I will be doing exactly that sometime this week (once the local weather clears up a bit).
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I'm glad to hear that. I'm really looking forward to seeing your GH2 footage.

Will you compare GH4 UHD footage downscaled to 1080 against the GH2 1080 footage?
 
Well i have been a bit critical of my GH4 but a lot is the fact its a camera and cameras are harder to record video than camcorders plus the Pana lenses i have are not great Imo.BUT i once owned a GH2 and my GH4 gives several leagues better quality video than my GH2 did.
 
Yeah the lag is a bit of a bummer. That and the disabled manual white balance when using 10bit output. So close but not 100% there yet.
 
Long time no see Jim. I seem to recall the last time we interacted online, I was convincing you of the merit of the AC130 over the HMC150 (CMOS vs. CCD). So that was a few minutes ago.

I've been through a few different cameras past few years, and have settled on the GH4 as my main camera. I have used it with on-board recording as well as external (Shogun and BM Video Assist). I record internal 90% of the time, at 4k 24p.

I've never seen anything near as ugly as those couple of clips you first posted, which is not a slight against your handiwork so much as to reaffirm your concerns that "something ain't right."

I don't have any raw clips to upload from Shogun/BM/internal right now, but this is a segment that was practically thrown together with very little prep, 3 distinct lighting setups and plenty of potential noise-inducers in the dark spots and natural settings (trees, leaves, water, etc).

https://vimeo.com/163840101

I did only light color correction (it was fast turnaround freebie work). Shot with the Lumix 30-100mm m43 lens, so nothing special on the glass. CineD factory preset on those clips. ISO set at 400 (where I park it most of the time). Also, all crops, zooms, pans on those interview clips were in-edit on the 4k footage. Camera was locked down for all the interviews. Again....single run-n-gunner with nearly zero time and budget to get it done.

At any rate, you don't have to pixel peep to know what I know - that this is solid output for what went into it and considering the cost of equipment involved. But it makes obvious contrast against the outdoor shot you posted.

So I'm pretty stunned with the image you got and can only figure you got a messed up unit or have some unusual settings going in there. One of my units was a refurb so I actually factory reset it when I got it to fix some weird stuff I was getting. Might be worth trying a reset for yours (I realize the potentially condescending interpretation of me telling you to do that, which you may have already considered).

We shoot with BMCC and A7s as well, and while each camera has it's own unique benefits and shortcomings, we always tend to look first to using the GH4 rigs because it's just such an easy grab-and-go setup with superb lens options.

My 2 cents. I'd generally recommend finding a way to make the GH4 work.
 
Thomas Smet said:
Yeah the lag is a bit of a bummer. That and the disabled manual white balance when using 10bit output. So close but not 100% there yet.
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The lag sucks, but it didn't bother me in regular use as much as I thought it would. I was able to hit my marks, and got some noise isolating headphones which reduced the echo effect. The lag is worse at 24hz system frequency. At 59hz it's barely noticeable.
 
scapsinger said:
My 2 cents. I'd generally recommend finding a way to make the GH4 work.
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I think I may have.

I shot some more test footage yesterday using Paul's recommended settings, at both 4K and 1080, using both Cine D and V-Log, both properly exposed and 1 stop over. I also shot some clips on the GH2 using Moon Trial 7.

After a bit of pixel peeping, here's what I'm seeing.

For starters, both in V-Log and in Cine D, ETTR provides little advantage, and frequently made things even worse. While there was occasionally less noise in the shadows of the V-Log material, the skies and other bright objects (think wedding dress here) were even uglier when overexposed in V-Log. And of course, overexposing in Cine D only blew out my highlights.

Following that evaluation, all the below comments are made looking at the properly exposed image.

4K cine D is a very nice image, the best I've seen so far on the GH4, and I dare say even better than Moon Trial 7. This is the image I was looking for, and it looks even better with a touch of Kodak processing from FilmConvert. Perhaps the best image I've ever produced.

4K V-Log does provide additional dynamic range. Details lost in the highlights of Cine D were clearly visible in the V-Log shot. However, V-Log has extra noise and some blocking artifacts when spread out to the Rec 709 color space. Despite the added dynamic range, it's not as good as Cine D overall, even when using the excellent Leeming LUT.

1080 Cine D definitely shows more noise than I would expect, and while it may hold up a touch better than 4K V-Log, it doesn't come anywhere near Moon T7 despite having a higher bitrate. (This is what I've been shooting at and complaining about.)

1080 V-Log is the ugliest mush I've seen from any camera I've ever owned. Reminds me of Uma (not Thurman).

So there it is. Properly exposed 4K Cine D is the very clear winner for image quality on the GH4, according to my tests.

Thanks everyone for the conversation. Much appreciated.
 
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I'm late to this thread, but after owning and using both for a while now, it really surprises me how anyone could prefer the GH2 image. It's still very good for what it is and how old it is, but to me the GH4 is better in every way.

The color science of the GH2 always bothered me. GH4 is much better in this regard. A bit better in low light, 4K makes for great 1080p, color doesn't go all wonky past ISO 800.

I tend to use Natural with the GH4 though. Cine-D never looked good to me. Skintones in particularly. Vlog seems like more trouble than it's worth for a bit more dynamic range. Natural might not be super flat, but to me it's a solid, reliable image.
 
Jim Simon said:
So there it is. Properly exposed 4K Cine D is the very clear winner for image quality on the GH4, according to my tests.
.
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Try Natural profile 4k. Outdoors use iso200, reduce contrast, reduce NR (I use always -5) and use iDynamic low.
 
DBP said:
Vlog seems like more trouble than it's worth for a bit more dynamic range.
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That was my conclusion as well, for 8 bit video.

Here's hoping the GH5 will do 10 bit 4:2:2 internally. (And pleeeeeease Panasonic, give us a 400 Mb/s All-I 4K option to go with that.)
 
Jim Simon said:
Here's hoping the GH5 will do 10 bit 4:2:2 internally. (And pleeeeeease Panasonic, give us a 400 Mb/s All-I 4K option to go with that.)
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LOL, no wonder you're disappointed in the GH4. For Panasonic, the All-I encoder was nothing more than a marketing bullet point, a tight-lipped kiss goodbye to the GH2. I think you'd find BMD a more satisfying company to bet on.
 
Jim - As you say in your above post.....you've found out what makes the image look great: 4K ....And when you NAIL exposure for any profile it REALLY helps. Also turning of all those gimicky "I" settings.....they don't do anything good. I shot this video very soon after the camera came out. The only thing that looks bad is the slo-mo 96 fps stuff shot in 1080P (you know the deal there.....its effectively 3mbps pixel-binned soft image in that setting) other than that....when you shoot with the GH4 correctly, even in 8-bit, it looks great! I would challenge anyone in the 99th percentile of humanity to tell you the difference between RED footage and a GH4 in 24p.

 
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