Slo-Mo dissapointment

[Rohan Dadswell]

With much anticipation I loaded the V3 firmware but the sensor is cropped to 46% and 25p is limited to 100fps - not what I was hoping for.

[Noa Put]

Ah, so thats why they added 46%, how is the detail, is that holding up?

[Rohan Dadswell]

Have only done a couple of very quick tests - still a lot more to do.
The detail seems about the same as normal speed with the sensor set to 46% - if you set the sensor to 86% and zoom the lens in to match the framing there is a very noticeable difference in sharpness.

Feeling a bit underwhelmed by this new feature - will probably stick to using the GH4 for slo-mo at the moment.

[Andy Urtusuastegui]

I have rented a HM200 this weekend for testing.
I agree. The slow mo feature on the HM200 works the same way. It is a little soft and crops the image.

[Scott Berrington]

Also, the slo-mo recording is limited to the 4:2:0 colour space codec. Better than nothing I guess...

[Rohan Dadswell]

A couple of other observations,
When you set the camera to Hi-Speed the shutter defaults to 360 degrees - not an ideal setting when trying to capture fast moving subjects. I assume they're trying to compensate for the loss of light that is inherent with hi speed shooting.

Even with the shutter set to 180 I'm finding the softness/lack of detail annoying.

Pre-record function is not available in conjunction with Hi-Speed - a shame as it can cut out a lot of useless footage.

I do like the ability to assign variable gain to the iris wheel - something I hadn't really thought about but I can now see myself using quite a bit for fine tuning. Have set assign switch 9 to toggle between iris & gain, I use to have it set as a record button.

[Noa Put]

I do like the ability to assign variable gain to the iris wheel

I think I was the only one requesting for that option and I couldn't understand why it was not more requested because how else do you finetune your exposure when you want to shoot at a particular f-stop? The slo-mo addition however was one of my lowest priorities, while I can understand there is some use for it I cannot think of any scenario that would require me shooting at those framerates for the kind of work I do. The only time I use slo-mo is for my trailers or for some of my steadicam work and then slowing down 50p footage 50% is plenty slow enough.

[Lee Powell]

Originally Posted by Rohan Dadswell

When you set the camera to Hi-Speed the shutter defaults to 360 degrees - not an ideal setting when trying to capture fast moving subjects.

At 120fps, a 360-degree shutter is 1/120 sec, exactly what I'd use for footage I intended to use for slow motion. What's visible in terms of motion blur is not the recorded shutter speed, it's the effective shutter speed at playback.

[Rohan Dadswell]

Originally Posted by Lee Powell

What's visible in terms of motion blur is not the recorded shutter speed, it's the effective shutter speed at playback.

Interesting - more testing needed.
I've always tried to shoot Hi-speed with 180 or less if light & camera allowed.