GH4 Very Disappointed

Thank you, hgf4. I've been shooting with v-log internally for about 8-9 months now and I don't get all the bad reviews or comments from many people.
 
bumkicho said:
Thank you, hgf4. I've been shooting with v-log internally for about 8-9 months now and I don't get all the bad reviews or comments from many people.
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Shoot a light colored wall that has a gradient of about six stops, with the lower end a stop or two below middle gray. The grade it. You'll start to see banding near the lower ranges, as the 8-bit rears its ugly head. You also have to do this in 4K for the greatest effect, as 1080p line skipping helps mask the issue.
The shots you did have tons of detail and not very large dynamic range variations (except the beach), so you also don't stress the encoder with most of the bits allocated way up top.
 
estarkey7 said:
Shoot a light colored wall that has a gradient of about six stops, with the lower end a stop or two below middle gray. The grade it. You'll start to see banding near the lower ranges, as the 8-bit rears its ugly head. You also have to do this in 4K for the greatest effect, as 1080p line skipping helps mask the issue.
The shots you did have tons of detail and not very large dynamic range variations (except the beach), so you also don't stress the encoder with most of the bits allocated way up top.
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I appreciate people testing cameras with more methodical approach and sharing what they found. However, I prefer testing my cameras in real life situations. In my testing, GH4 internal v-log held up nicely. Of course, 10-bit to external recorder would be better, but shooting v-log internally has been great for me.
Below link has a few shots with more dynamic range like inside and outside of airport, and to my eyes, GH4 internal v-log handled it very well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yXlqMuoa-s
 
bumkicho said:
I appreciate people testing cameras with more methodical approach and sharing what they found. However, I prefer testing my cameras in real life situations. In my testing, GH4 internal v-log held up nicely. Of course, 10-bit to external recorder would be better, but shooting v-log internally has been great for me.
Below link has a few shots with more dynamic range like inside and outside of airport, and to my eyes, GH4 internal v-log handled it very well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yXlqMuoa-s
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People in these examples look dead to my eyes. There is no health or enough tones in skins. Sky has banding.

I wonder why people want to grade videos green and blacks gray, is it cinematic? The cinema projectors makes blacks gray but it is a technical issue. Why grade normal videos foggy. The gray/faint grading also masks v-log issues.
 
Jim Simon is comparing the GH4 to a hacked GH2 for 1080p and he prefers the GH2. Maybe he’s right, I don’t know, but what I think is that GH4 is a jewel of flexibility. You have good 1080p, 4k, slow motion in a light, small weather-sealed body. As a stills camera it’s not bad too. You have a wide selection of native lenses and if you like the S35 look you can add a Speedbooster. In my opinion the GH4 (like the GH2 before) is the best multi-tool camera for the price. I’ve paid my unit (body and the very nice stabilized panasonic 12-35) 2.000 euros two yeas ago. With this camera you can make good stuff, from family vacation movies to documentaries or even narrative pieces, if you are talented enough and more interested in content than picture perfection. If you want the cinema industry kind of images (not always the more interesting in my opinion) I think you have to buy a Red or an Alexa, not to mention the technical skills you need to handle.
Jim, if you prefer your hacked GH2 for 1080p, why don’t you continue to use that camera? I’m shure it gives you wonderful pictures. I have a GH2 (unhacked). It’s not versatile and well built as my GH4 but it’s still a good camera and it’s price today is almost nothing.
 
Vesku said:
People in these examples look dead to my eyes. There is no health or enough tones in skins. Sky has banding.

I wonder why people want to grade videos green and blacks gray, is it cinematic? The cinema projectors makes blacks gray but it is a technical issue. Why grade normal videos foggy. The gray/faint grading also masks v-log issues.
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"I see dead people!!" I know that's not exactly what you said, but still made me chuckle. I just graded them the way I liked. Is it cinematic? Well, I wasn't going for it being anything. I don't even know what's cinematic when it comes to color grading. I grew up watching movies in black and white. Stories, sound, action, and camera motions are what define cinematic to me. Not color grading. Yes, there is banding and I noticed it too, but it didn't bother me much. It's not like v-log would make 8 bit codec to 12 bit. Anyway, what I was trying to say is shooting v-log internally is not as horrible as how some people think, and that's all I wanted to communicate.
 
bumkicho said:
I really don't know why people keep writing how bad internal v-log is
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I've gotten some very nice results myself.

Rather the claim is how bad 8 bit V-Log can be.

It is definitely noisier than CineD in all cases. So there's that. But the larger issue is that in some of my shots from a real project, with a lot of blue sky and fluffy white clouds, man that footage looked like crap when converted back to a watchable Rec. 709. Looked like low bitrate Internet video streamed over a 28 Kb/s modem.

With that kind of possibility looming for V-Log, it becomes a non-option for a lot of folks.
 
bumkicho said:
"I see dead people!!" I know that's not exactly what you said, but still made me chuckle. I just graded them the way I liked. Is it cinematic? Well, I wasn't going for it being anything. I don't even know what's cinematic when it comes to color grading. I grew up watching movies in black and white. Stories, sound, action, and camera motions are what define cinematic to me. Not color grading. Yes, there is banding and I noticed it too, but it didn't bother me much. It's not like v-log would make 8 bit codec to 12 bit. Anyway, what I was trying to say is shooting v-log internally is not as horrible as how some people think, and that's all I wanted to communicate.
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Again, I think it looks terrific bumki. It does kind of look like you went for the teal/orange grading which is so popular in movies. But so what. Looks good to me. Looks good to you. Guarantee it will look good to most people you show it to.
 
Jim Simon said:
I get paid because I'm in that 1%, though. So even pixel peeping, I want my image to be as good as it can be.
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Perhaps if you posted some of your GH2 footage that's better than GH4 footage then we could see if we're in this 1% as well. I'm very curious.
 
I see you shot your videos using 25p HBR. That would explain why it's so soft and has interlace-like edges - basically you used what's the worst GH2 setting for shooting video. It's much softer than 24p, very low bitrate and uses interlaced encoding of progressive frames resulting in a near handycam quality. No wonder you say GH4 is much better...

As for hacking vs non-hacking - I agree with you; not in the case of GH cameras, however. To me personally, not hacking them is like crippling them on purpose.

GH2 vs GH4 - sure, the latter is technically superior, especially if you downconvert from 4K, but nevertheless I prefer the GH2 look more. Skin tones are nicer; they tend to get a greenish tint every now and then, but it's easily corrected. Sony sensors of GH3 and GH4 make skin look waxy, plasticky, not pleasant to look at. Obviously it's a broad generalization, as I've seen a lot of great looking GH4 stuff, but neverthelss I'd like Panasonic to start using their own sensors again.
 
flinty said:
Unhacked yes ,you should not have to Hack to get good performance
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It's not a question of 'should'. The fact remains that Driftwood's hacks did improve the image quality - significantly. And it was that quality that I had become accustomed to, and wasn't seeing from the 200 Mb/s All-I setting on the GH4.

I do find the 4k option to be an improvement, though. Thankfully, so did the client I was shooting for in HD.
 
Jim Simon said:
It's not a question of 'should'. The fact remains that Driftwood's hacks did improve the image quality - significantly. And it was that quality that I had become accustomed to, and wasn't seeing from the 200 Mb/s All-I setting on the GH4.

I do find the 4k option to be an improvement, though. Thankfully, so did the client I was shooting for in HD.
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Do you have any GH2 vimeo films that are downloadable,i would like to see some.
 
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