First get a small Cage from Wooden Camera. It is the most adaptable and won't add much bulk to your system, though allows you to add a few things when needed, especially a top handle for dutch angles.
Second buy good nd faders to use as your f stop. Tiffen test out well.
If your using the 2.8 zooms remember in reality at wide open your at 5.6, so for subject isolation try to step back when you can and add a few more feet in focal length (but that's an artistic decision).
For sound the GH4 has lousy shielding and pre amps, so you can live with it, or buy a tascam that you run from mic to tascam to camera. That will help dramatically and the tascams are cheap.
For mics I've got em all and the radio Senihauser Lavs I find are the best, also their microphones. They make a small mic that is fairly fragile but mounts on camera and is good for foley.
For one person interviews use a radio lav and get some pads that go between the body and the mic. This cuts down on rubbing and clothes crunching noises (you can find them on google).
For multi person interviews either add another lav, or if the subject(s) are stationary and you don't have a boom operator mount an adjustable directional mic (with windscreen) on a stand and point it out of camera frame to the subjects. It works very well.
I have Rode, don't like most of their mics and most people go with Seinhauser. That's your call.
I would get battery powered rather than phantom powered mics, if you can.
Remember you can fix an image (sometimes) but rarely ever fix bad sound.
For WB never set it on auto when filming as it will change as conditions change. You will need to do some testing for coloration and tone out of camera as the gh4 does not have an S-log or a technicolor log.
Try to get somewhat flat and hold the highlights as much as possible, manually adjust the color temp. Keep reference files so you footage will match as close as possible.
Adjust your screen (at least the brightness to more match your computer so your not surprised when you shoot).
You can move the color settings around in the menu and you'll probably won't to remove as much yellow and red as possible as panasonic sets their file to that bias.
Unless your working to a separate hdmi recorder, the file is 8 bit so it's somewhat fragile (though the best of the h264 cameras I've used). Do some tests where you set your file to the camera's lcd or viewfinder then put it in the computer and see how it holds the highlights. Usually whatever you set in camera, you then stop down 1/3, but that's very user dependent. If you stop down too far your going to get a lot of noise.
You'll probably work 4k because most people believe bigger is better, (sometimes it is), but the bps on 2k is heafty and I'd shoot 2k, only go to 4k if their is the possibllity of alaising or moire.
But that's a judgement call.
BC
J,
I saw your reply just now. All of this is good solid advice. Such good advice in fact that I already found my way to some of it, and am now reading your post very carefully to do the rest.
In the mean time got a Sennheiser G3 lav wireless system, everyone over here is now using these. I have just about figured out how it can be used; we did some tests with a sound engineer friend running it both to camera and to my small old Nagra voice recorder -the equivalent of a Tascam I guess. The camera sounds a bit noisy with the Senn, but strangely I find it good for ambient with its own mics. I think mine is a "factory fixed" GH4, and the fix may partly consist of some white noise injection ...One interesting thing we figured out about the Sennheiser wireless is that if you use it with a line-level recorder, you mostly take the recorder preamp out of the picture, as the Senn transmitter module's pre is doing the hard work - so there is no reason to run a Senn wireless output to a super-expensive recorder
In January we will do some mixing and sound cleaning tests.
As you state sound is clearly something that needs careful handling, one cannot afford to botch it. I think I'll continue to get some pro advice in to help setup and postprocess the sound - I've been told that it's standard to run an adaptative noise reduction algorithm on the voice recording, and I think one also "compresses" the audio to make it sound more punchy before release.
As you also suggested I got a variable ND throttle. But daylight here is so bad these days I haven't yet used it a single time
I agree that FHD is probably what you want at the end - but my impression after some tests is that on the GH4 daylight outdoor B-roll should be filmed in 4K, stabilized and downscaled; the 4K coming out of the GH4 is super-sharp and super-detailed, I'm amazed. I would agree that for indoors stuff and people HD is as you indicate is more than sufficient. Maybe you could detail some more of your own experiences.
My next purchase if I continue doing this will probably be a cage and external recorder, probably Odyssey 7Q+; the monitor, "histograms", better output quality and recording duration, but above all the fact of being able to see what I'm filming and focusing on seem essential. The finder is the weak spot of the GH4.
I really don't know about *video* color
if I could do real Raw I would be happy, but failing that -GH4 not Red or Blackmagic- I'm aiming now for "out-of-camera" run and gun documentary-quality color and using Panasonic's Cinemalike V. If I ever get up to speed on grading my opinions may change
My impression is the GH4 video holds the highlights better than my usual still-camera work, but the shadows go muddy a bit faster. I'm not complaining.
Overall, so far, I'm quite happy with the GH4 and I would recommend it to other people, although a cheap GH3 might be a better deal as "Cooter" pointed out.
My GH4 resource page is online, it may help other beginners get up to speed.
And finally,
here is where I'll put my better tests.
Thank you for all the excellent advice - keep it coming!
Edmund
