Last week I got access for a few hours to a preproduction gh4 so I rang up some musicians and some friends and got all the camera's i could to do a video comparison. We ended up with a gh4 with speed booster, gh3, 5diii, 7d and c100.

I wrote more about it on hillbillygriptruck.com, but the main takeaway was that the preproduction unit underexposed the footage, despite having same settings as the gh3 AND a speed booster which in theory would brighten it up even more.

Anyways, if you are rabid too see gh4 footage, it might be worth a gander. Cheers!

Music Video Camera Shootout GH4, GH3, 5d mark iii, 7D, C100 - YouTube

On the GH4, did the display overlay information turn off after 10 seconds like on the GH3 with no means to force it to stay on?

That's the question of the year, I read so much contradictory information on that part that I finally want to know as well.

There is no such thing as a free lunch, so I am disappointed that a Speedbooster was used on the GH4 for this test.

Les/Noa, I asked the guy who was opping the gh4.

Gary, I assume you mean that the speedbooster degrades the image? To be honest, we haven't found that at all. Every comparison we've done, the speedbooster improved the image. We got into an argument once whether it increased edge CA or not... but then agreed we were just seeing the edges of the FF lens which were more prone to CA anyways.

Maybe not a "free lunch" since FF lenses are rather expensive, but my experience has been that any negative affect to the image is extremely subtle, but the gains in sharpness and brightness have been huge.

Maybe not a "free lunch" since FF lenses are rather expensive, but my experience has been that any negative affect to the image is extremely subtle, but the gains in sharpness and brightness have been huge.

My experience has been the opposite. The bokeh is destroyed and the image less resolute (I don't understand how it could possibly be *any* sharper because there is a secondary glass element between the lens and the sensor.)

This was on an FS700 into a Ninja-2, so perhaps the increase in recording quality made the difference more apparent.

Les/Noa, I asked the guy who was opping the gh4.

I had asked this question to the maker of the paris video which can also be found back on vimeo, he clearly said "You can have the infos as long as you want on GH4"
Bit later I read 2 different comments from separate pre release gh4 users saying the info does disappear? I don't understand how such a simple question can cause so much confusion, they had better send a pre production camera to me. :)

Nice roundup. 4,5,1 were the ones that stuck out to me prior to seeing the reveal. Lovely performers as well!

And it seems pretty definitive that it will have disappearing info again. this was posted over at dpreview:

"Info and level marks become dimmed after 30sec and totally disappear after another 30sec during video recording."

Of course you'll find out if they made any last minute firmware changes to that in about 2 weeks. The AX100 has a similar annoyance, but they did put in at least some control over it.

Of course you'll find out if they made any last minute firmware changes to that in about 2 weeks. The AX100 has a similar annoyance, but they did put in at least some control over it.

Yeah, nothing lost if there's a least a menu option to change how long or even turn it off forever, and then have a warning pop up about supposed issues if you do.

Sorry Guys. None of us can remember what happened to the displays on the gh4. We only had the camera for a few hours and only shot the lock-down shots of the musicians and stepped away from the cameras during the shootout since the floor of the hall was really bouncy. The canon guys didn't have any reason to think of it, but I'm surprised the panasonic shooters didn't think to check. doh.


The speed booster making an image sharper makes sense to me. Even though you are introducing another piece of glass, you are concentrating all the "resolution" of a full frame lens onto the sensor rather than just using the middle, vaguely like scaling a 4k image down to fit a 1080 frame vs just using the center. Simply adding more glass doesn't always = worse, since there are endless examples of lenses with large numbers of elements outperforming ones with less.

That said, if you don't like the way it looks, then it doesn't much matter what it is doing. hehe.

Hey great test Andrew - thanks for taking the time and posting - really interesting. It goes some way to showing how little difference there is, apart from the 7D, once you're looking at an end product that has been exported for online viewing. I guess in a broadcast workflow the differences would be greater. I was surprised at how little difference there was with C100 and the others.
Loved the first comment on the youtube post "do you have this track without all the different cameras" - ha, some people just break me up.
Well done mate

Cheers, Chris!

Hey, the guys just reminded me of something i forgot to mention... The gh4 crops in significantly going to 4k. We shot in the UHD (quad HD) mode because it wasn't supposed to do it, but it absolutely did. If you look at the split screen at 2:53, the ONLY change we made between those two shots was switching the camera from 1080 to 4k. Its already a small sensor, so punching in even more for 4k is a bit of a bummer. We'll see what the release version does.

I had asked this question to the maker of the paris video which can also be found back on vimeo, he clearly said "You can have the infos as long as you want on GH4"
Bit later I read 2 different comments from separate pre release gh4 users saying the info does disappear? I don't understand how such a simple question can cause so much confusion, they had better send a pre production camera to me. :)

I spoke to a Panasonic rep at NAB and he said that because of the switch to OLED screens (since the GH3), the display info has a greater tendency to get "burned" into the screen. Hence the disappearing display info.

SB

Gary -

Please come over for a free lunch when the GH4 starts shipping.

AUSTIN TEXAS!!!

It turns out when i exported the test to prores everything was great, but when i exported to mp4, premier deinterlaced the c100 footage. argh. nothing like a software anomoly to make me look like a dumbass to the whole world.

Anyways, I've now uploaded a version encoded from the prores export that doesn't destroy the c100 footage: NEW ENCODING - Gh4, Gh3, 5d3, C100 Shootout - YouTube

sorry!

In reference to the disappearing display issue--I got a GH4 yesterday and the information stays on for about ten seconds at full brightness and then it dims gradually. After about one minute it disappears completely. According to the manual one must touch the screen, or press the display button to bring it back, but lightly pressing the shutter button will bring it back also. If one is controlling the camera with a wired remote, lightly touching the button on it will bring back the display as well.

a pre-prodcution user that shot some test footage on vimeo lied to me about this display, he said it would stay on forever or maybe his model did not have this limitation? Anyways, finally some confirmation, it still is not what it should be but at least a small improvement over the gh3 as it stays on a bit longer now,

On the GH3, I was not able to get the C1, C2, C3 on the Mode dial to save anything other than the mode. i.e. settings such as aperture, shutter etc were not saved and the camera used whatever had been used in the previous mode. Was that fixed in the GH4? Also, is there a tally light on the body for when you cannot see the EVF or flip out screen?

There is no external tally lamp unless I am missing some setting that enables it.

I can save the mode and a specific shutter speed/f stop combination-for example C1 f8.0 @ 1/60 sec., but if while shooting I boost the f stop to f 11.0 and either go to another mode or turn the camera off and on, when I return to C1 it is f8.0 @ 1/60 and not my last used setting. I am just learning the camera and getting a feel for it so I am not sure yet what all is saved to custom settings. I currently have creative movie mood set up to shoot 4K 3840X2160 30P at 100mbs and have C1 set up with most of the same settings except that it is set for 1080P at 50mbs.

The purpose for this is to have ETC mode instantly available. In all of my reading about this camera I found no mention of ETC mode or digital zoom, but the camera does have them. As one would expect ETC mode does not work in 4K , but it does work in 1080P. As best as I can tell this feature is not assignable to a function key like on the GH3 so one has to go into the menus to enable it and access it, which is why I have saved it to C1 so it is instantly available. It is possible to have it enabled in 4K mode in the menu, but there is no change in image size. Digital zoom does work in 4K, but I have not tested it enough to see if it is a viable option. I always enjoy a new camera a bit more once one gets a good understanding of it and can concentrate on shooting video and I am now in the stage of still trying to figure it out.

What you describe is how I'd expect the Custom Settings positions to work. On my GH3, the aperture, shutter and ISO were not saved when setting those modes using the menu for that. If you change modes or power off, the camera should use only what was last saved when you return, not what was last used at that mode. Sounds like they fixed them. Good.