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Author Topic: Panasonic's GH4 Has Nothing to Fear  (Read 44747 times)

BJL

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Re: Panasonic's GH4 Has Nothing to Fear
« Reply #40 on: April 09, 2014, 05:54:14 pm »

It's not that we didn't reserve judgement because we can't; it's that we have so much more fun, piling-on with instant opinion and speculation than we would if we waited until there was a camera in our hands :-)
Some judgments require reviews or hands-on experience, but some limitations can be judged from specs alone. In the A7s vs GH4 comparison, some people can decide already how important it is to them
- to be able to record 4K video with just the camera and a lens (no add-on recorder), or
- to get the shallow DOF that large aperture 35mm format lens offer while Four Thirds lenses cannot, or
- to get the IQ advantage of a data rate of 100Mb/s or 200MB/s vs 50MB/s, or
- to be able to use 35mm still camera lenses without a heavy FOV crop, or
- to be able to use cine-camera lenses in formats like Super 35mm or smaller,
and so on.
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KevinA

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Re: Panasonic's GH4 Has Nothing to Fear
« Reply #41 on: April 09, 2014, 06:15:31 pm »

I have a feeling the Sony will turn out to be very good, especially if the DR is as good as Sony hint at. One thing is for certain Canon might need to rethink the 1D C.
The solution for the 4K application Sony are promoting, is a screen and recorder mounted on the camera, expensive but looks a good idea and probably necessary for serious users. If you need 4k you probably are serious, so rigged up I believe it could be a little bit good. The low light on the promo video looks very good and will probably be the usp of this camera.
We can't write it off yet, it appeals to me more than the GH4, I don't know why but it does. It's also a camera that integrates into a range of cameras, if you have a A7r for stills the 7s makes sense.
I wonder what video camera Sony have in mind for the sensor, that could be the real choice for the videographer.
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Kevin.

KevinA

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Re: Panasonic's GH4 Has Nothing to Fear
« Reply #42 on: April 09, 2014, 06:49:55 pm »

One other point. I've only got youtube to judge by on a Retina display, but I've liked the look of the Sony more than the GH4 so far.
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: Panasonic's GH4 Has Nothing to Fear
« Reply #43 on: April 09, 2014, 08:11:35 pm »

>now the A7s, apparently 3 years in the making, same sensor as the D4s, with 8 micron sensels and see-in-the-dark capability

What makes you think the a7s uses the sensor of the D4s?
- they have different resolutions,
- the sensor of the D4s is not a Sony design.

Cheers,
Bernard

Isaac

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Re: Panasonic's GH4 Has Nothing to Fear
« Reply #44 on: April 09, 2014, 08:56:34 pm »

Let me speculate too!

The work on a "video-oriented SLR with A-mount" that was mentioned last October was re-directed into Alpha 7s because E-mount is selling so much better than A-mount:

Quote
"At the press screening told Yoshiyuki Nogama to a video-oriented SLR with A-mount is going on. It will compete with the Canon Eos 5D Mark III and will have Ultra HD (4K). We guess that it is a further development of the Sony A99."

And 4k is external because they'd have an overheating problem in the small A7s body that they wouldn't have in the larger A-mount camera bodies.

That was fun!
« Last Edit: April 10, 2014, 12:13:42 pm by Isaac »
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hjulenissen

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Re: Panasonic's GH4 Has Nothing to Fear
« Reply #45 on: April 10, 2014, 05:03:54 am »

- to get the IQ advantage of a data rate of 100Mb/s or 200MB/s vs 50MB/s, or
Except IQ does not equal data rate, so a theoretical comparision of two cameras based on bitrate is extremely difficult.

A common measure of encoder "goodness" is that it will provide reasonable quality/bandwidth trade-offs. A less good encoder may have higher bandwidth but lower quality. An encoder might relax optimization on quality/bandwidth in order to increase battery life (don't use expensive options), to increase compability (use legacy codecs), to make the files easier to edit (e.g. intra-only) etc.

-h
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MatthewCromer

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Re: Panasonic's GH4 Has Nothing to Fear
« Reply #46 on: April 10, 2014, 09:39:48 am »

Quote
- to get the IQ advantage of a data rate of 100Mb/s or 200MB/s vs 50MB/s, or

A JPEG from a Nikon D800 is going to be better IQ than a RAW image from a Canon G16.
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BJL

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On a 50Mb/s vs 200Mb/s limit: of course I was not suggesting that the bit rate alone measures image quality (any more than does MP alone, or the file size in MB sometimes used by stock agencies to very crudely set minimum quality standards), just that some people are likely to know that for some of their needs, 50Mb/s is an unacceptable limitation, leading to the need for some combination of excessive compression, reduced bit depth, lower frame rates, or whatever.  Like other single number measures, a sufficient bit rate can be in practice a necessary condition for adequate IQ in some use cases, but not a sufficient condition.

In the analogous case of pixel count: even though I have retired from the megapixel race at my current 16MP, I know that 8MP is not enough for some of my cropping needs, no matter how good the individual pixel quality is.
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BJL

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Is 12MP?
I am not sure, since as with many things, there is an ambiguous zone between "clearly not enough" and clearly enough" where no unequivocal yes/no answer is possible.  Anyway, an answer would not relevant to the point I was making, which is that there is some threshold below which the results cannot meet a particular standard of quality, so some people could have eel established needs for more than 50Mb/s: particularly since the compression options and encodings available are also known.

Since the original numbers were a factor of four apart, 50Mb/s vs 200Mb/s, let me revise my analogy to say that I know I will sometimes benefit substantially from having more than 4MP, and so I have a distinct reason for preferring a higher resolution like 16MP.
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MatthewCromer

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Re: Panasonic's GH4 Has Nothing to Fear
« Reply #49 on: April 10, 2014, 02:11:44 pm »

Quote
Since the original numbers were a factor of four apart, 50Mb/s vs 200Mb/s, let me revise my analogy to say that I know I will sometimes benefit substantially from having more than 4MP, and so I have a distinct reason for preferring a higher resolution like 16MP.

You need less bandwidth when your source image / video has less noise in it.

It seems likely that the A7s will have far less noise than the GH4.
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BJL

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You need less bandwidth when your source image / video has less noise in it.

It seems likely that the A7s will have far less noise than the GH4.
As I have already said: only when you can use the A7s with apertures so large that the DOF is shallower than can be attained with the GH4; as soon as you use a DOF within reach if the GH4 and its lenses, the A7s require about twice the f-stop and so four times the ISO speed to get equal shutter speed, neutralizing any "big sensor low noise" advantage.
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Vladimirovich

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As I have already said: only when you can use the A7s with apertures so large that the DOF is shallower than can be attained with the GH4; as soon as you use a DOF within reach if the GH4 and its lenses, the A7s require about twice the f-stop and so four times the ISO speed to get equal shutter speed, neutralizing any "big sensor low noise" advantage.
specifically if you use manual focus then GH4 can be used with wide converter and "2 stops" will go to just "1 stop"
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Manoli

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Re: Panasonic's GH4 Has Nothing to Fear
« Reply #52 on: April 11, 2014, 12:24:09 pm »

Sony A7s: Low Light Demonstration (ISO 1600 to 409600)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XgbUgNiHfXM

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Michael Erlewine

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Re: Panasonic's GH4 Has Nothing to Fear
« Reply #53 on: April 11, 2014, 12:42:06 pm »

That video showing the low-light capabilities of the A7s is amazing.
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Morgan_Moore

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Re: Panasonic's GH4 Has Nothing to Fear
« Reply #54 on: April 12, 2014, 04:23:29 am »

Rolling Shitter not looking too good on the Sony.

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Sam Morgan Moore Bristol UK

bcooter

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Re: Panasonic's GH4 Has Nothing to Fear
« Reply #55 on: April 14, 2014, 09:44:05 pm »

These cameras are prosumer video and there is always going to be a glitch.  Either overheating, or lack lower iso, or heavy compression.

But the issue with the Sony is the UK prices equates to $4,100 U.S., probably another 2 to 3 for the 4k recorder so its a 7 grand camera, not that the gh4 is cheap by the time you get to 4k.

I haven't shot either the gh4 or the Sony, though I've had such great use and quality out of the gh3, the gh4 will be one of the few cameras I'l buy as soon as it hits the shelf.

The Sony,I'll give it a few more versions before I open my wallet and by then, there should be some more interesting equipment.

IMO

BC
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KevinA

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Re: Panasonic's GH4 Has Nothing to Fear
« Reply #56 on: April 29, 2014, 09:26:49 am »

These cameras are prosumer video and there is always going to be a glitch.  Either overheating, or lack lower iso, or heavy compression.

But the issue with the Sony is the UK prices equates to $4,100 U.S., probably another 2 to 3 for the 4k recorder so its a 7 grand camera, not that the gh4 is cheap by the time you get to 4k.

I haven't shot either the gh4 or the Sony, though I've had such great use and quality out of the gh3, the gh4 will be one of the few cameras I'l buy as soon as it hits the shelf.

The Sony,I'll give it a few more versions before I open my wallet and by then, there should be some more interesting equipment.

IMO

BC
Is that price official? I've not found a price quote anywhere yet.
Still only the youtube stuff to go on, but so far I think the Sony looks a lot better than the Gh4, especially the low light looks wonderful. I might get one for low light stills.
I might take the plunge and dump my Canon gear for the 7r and 7s, then I remind myself what a total waste it is buying cameras these days, so I might not.
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Kevin.

Hywel

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Re: Panasonic's GH4 Has Nothing to Fear
« Reply #57 on: April 29, 2014, 04:33:16 pm »

Because?

Because the tech is changing so quickly that it is hard to recoup the investment before the camera is completely overtaken, maybe?

I look at the footage from my AF100 and 7D and compare it with the footage from more recent cameras and they really don't hold up very well. Hell, the 2.7K from my GoPro looks as good as the AF100 in bright light, and it cost less than 10% of what the AF100 cost me just three years ago. An iPhone shoots comparable footage in decent light. I know, ergonomics, ND, XLR, blah blah but eventually the numbers game becomes overwhelming. (Who is still buying SD equipment?)

We're in the "explosion" phase of video camera development that we went through a decade or so ago with stills, where camera generations came by every 18 months and demolished the generation before: 3.1 megapixels became 6 became 12 became 22 in a few years. We're out of the mad phase for stills cameras now, but just getting into the steepest part of the curve for video.

New video cameras are pushing to 4K and beyond. I'm a great believer in oversampling for image quality, so I definitely like shooting 4K to deliver in 1080p.

A few have in-camera RAW, or separate channel compressed RGB (eg RED, GoPro) or really good latitude (eg Arri, BlackMagic, REd Dragon) or stunning low light performance (Canon C300).

A few have XLRs and ND filters.

NOTHING has good ergonomics yet, apart from maybe Arris which lag behind on resolution. I know resolution isn't everything, but in a few years' time, those 1080p Arris are going to be as redundant as an SD camcorder, because everyone is going to be used to shooting 4K+ oversampling (even for HD delivery - same way no-one shoots with a 3.1 megapixel sensor stills camera any more, even for the web).

So... is it actually worth buying a video camera at the moment?

Obviously, if you don't have one and you need one, yes.

But I'm not sure it is worth paying big bucks for anything right now. I'd spend on glass and grip and buy a cheap-ass camera, same as I told people to do in the mad phase of stills camera tech explosion.

About the only thing that's got some future proofing is RED, and that's only because they were a bit ahead of the tech curve so it'll be a bit longer until my Scarlet is totally left behind and outshot by a sub-£1000 camera. Arri do too because they did a really sweet job on a HD camera which was point and shoot for film guys, and that'll keep their cameras in service for a long while. Who doesn't love the Alexa look, after all? But Arri will have 4K cameras soon and the original Alexas are going to look old.

If you really have a need for top-flight tech, I'd consider hiring unless you shoot several days a week and you're sure you can pay off tens of thousands of pounds investment in a couple of years, because that kit's going to be obsolete as hell by the end of 2015.

  Cheers, Hywel


« Last Edit: April 29, 2014, 04:50:29 pm by Hywel »
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billy

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Re: Panasonic's GH4 Has Nothing to Fear
« Reply #58 on: May 16, 2014, 03:45:39 pm »

Price look around $2500. I'm getting one.
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EgillBjarki

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Re: Panasonic's GH4 Has Nothing to Fear
« Reply #59 on: May 20, 2014, 03:17:18 pm »

I just ordered A7S, very excited about it. The Slog2 feature is a huge deal for me along with the ability of 120fps in special cases. ISO is a good plus, but that dynamic range is really what did it for me.

Not sure why so many people are so unhappy with Sony... Their 55mm lens is STUNNING, I really like my A7R so far, but it will not replace my Canon kit.
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