Was referring to GH4's RAW capture

And what is this? Fantasy thing?

We're boxing with jello lol! It's easy to make statements about equipment on the internet. It may be cliche, but buy the best fit for your needs and go use it. I come to these forums to get help on equipment and maybe some proactive user reviews based on experience (vs. "it sucks"). It's pretty much guaranteed if you come on here and say "it sucks" or other blanket statements you will get called out on it.

When the 5D MKII came out, the debates raged all over the internet about its merit as a "filmic" camera. Nonetheless it was adopted by many professionals and amateurs alike (myself included). Look what it spawned. It never ceases to amaze me how many people complain about equipment instead of realizing how many incredible options are available to professionals and amateurs today. Even "amateur" equipment can produce professional results in the hands of a creative, skilled user. It happens everyday. I know my clients are thrilled with the 1080p (downsized from 4K) footage from my GH4. Is it for everybody? No. Is it an incredible value at $1698 with tons of room to modify the appearance of footage. I think so and so do my demanding clients.

@mo7ies, I don't know where you're "reading" your information from but you just need to stop talking because you're making a fool of yourself with your lack of information.

Well all I can say is my GH4 produces an image that is a heck of a lot better than my HPX170. I can live with that.

HillTop1 - I agree. Now we have other comments about the BMPCC vs the GH4 and 1080p stated as fact. They are two different cameras with two different target markets. But for versatility and flexibility the GH4 is an easy decision for many IMHO.

Given his lack of knowledge about the GH4 despite claiming to own one, I would suspect trolling...

4K GH4 downscaled to 1080p vs BMPCC RAW 1080p: did A/B test, BMPCC wins. (Still bought GH4 because it has more merits than issues, for me.) If you'd like to see for yourself, do your own A/B tests that I'm sure you will believe better.

GH4 video RAW - I was assuming wrongly. Stood corrected. Not sure what else do you want - seems like trolling on your end now.

HDMI being only 8bit in 10-bit wrapper, and also downscaling to HD as soon as you start recording in-camera: I read it on Andrew Reid's site. Are you saying he is wrong? See #1 Q/A: http://www.eoshd.com/content/12070/panasonic-gh4-professional-setting-faq

@mo7ies: Apparently that article on EOSHD has not been corrected. From another EOSHD article

Panasonic have confirmed that the GH4 (quite amazingly) outputs 10bit 4K 4:2:2 from the onboard micro HDMI port without the YAGH external HD-SDI unit.

@mo7ies As long as you say things like "video-ish" and "non-cinematic" you're going to generate more heat than light and Vitaliy may bounce you out of here.

You may have a valid point but you must back it up with something more concrete - many have suggested footage you consider "cinematic" and a bit about what you challenge the gh4 to meet.

@caveport I respect your 30 years of experience. But one sentence of yours gave me considerable pause:

The colour from the GH4 looks much closer to reality than all the film emulation plugs & things.

The LAST thing I want out of narrative footage is for it to look as close as possible to reality. If that's what we were after then modern grading wouldn't exist - it'd all be just color correction. And why would anyone bother with black and white if reality were what we were going for?

Nope - we're going for storytelling. And story is a heightened environment. I'm sure you know this but I think it bears repeating - to help us all keep our eye on the ball.

We want beauty and an abstraction from reality. 24p doesn't look more real than 30p - but it does look more otherworldly. And it's a metaphor that many (most?) of us have grown up on so it's part of the film language that we subconsciously understand. Realism just feels like "video" because it's closer to mundane.

Sure you can take 30p super-sharp deep-focus video and add lighting, set design, constrained color palette, etc to get away from reality. But why not use the tools of film-like color rendition and gamma as well? They already tap in to our story-hungry brains.

Yes the day will come when these elements will no longer be recognized by our brains as story cues. But (I think) that day isn't here yet. And, by the look of today's grades, color fidelity with the "real world" isn't in the cards anytime soon - if ever. So I say bring on the film LUTs. I've edited six features, four of which were shot on film, and I far prefer that color and look - from an editor/director's point of view - as a starting point.

@joesh - interesting link, so then YAGH box makes much less sense - unless you want to genlock a couple of GH4s, I suppose. Frankly, in any case, I was not advocating recording GH4's signal externally. Its internal recording is "good enough" IMHO, and unless there was a RAW output (which I now see is not forthcoming), no significant practical improvement will be made.

Also let me point out that I did not "challenge" GH4 to meet anything. I own and like it for what it is. I do however support AndyS' point that its video is starkly non-cinematic. AndyS got trampled over for it, and I see myself getting flamed for supporting the guy. Be it as it may, the point is very valid IMHO. This is subjective and if some people don't see it from the get-go, no amount of proving will do.

BTW I myself was very surprised GH4's 4K downscaled to HD was a bit worse than BMPCC's RAW HD resolution. From just viewing the footage, GH4 appears sharper. A/B comparison however shows a different story (then again, RAW has so much more data it is probably a predictable outcome.)

Another thing I'm surprised with is how trigger-happy some of the folks here seems to be. Seriously, you disagree with my point, and you call on the moderator to do terrible things to me? How juvenile.

Someone posted a "cinematic" Gh4 clip above. Not bad - but not truly "filmic". A lot of grading clearly went into it, and still it does not look truly 'organic'. Maybe the Hobbit movie was trying to tell us all something we did not want to hear. -That 4k is mostly "over-sharp", over-real like video. Maybe that's the way it is.

I am an indie feature filmmaker. The last thing I want is a "video" look.

I wanted to buy the GH4 to replace my hacked GH2. But at this rate I will be hanging onto the GH2.

Even most documentaries want to look more organic - like "film" - not like video.

Surely you can see this?

@mo7ies - I'm trying to give you - and @AndyS - the benefit of the doubt rather than just assuming you're trolling. When you say

unless there was a RAW output ... no significant practical improvement will be made.

and

I do however support AdamS' point that its video is starkly non-cinematic.

...

the point is very valid IMHO. This is subjective and if some people don't see it from the get-go, no amount of proving will do.

You do little to help your case. As you know, people originally said the same of the 5D. The devil is mostly in how you shoot it. So a more interesting question - to me at least - is given a particular cinematic look, what hoops do you have to jump through and how close can you come to that look (or even one you prefer).

So if you're sincere then do the work to paint your case with SPECIFIC clips that YOU post of shots you consider cinematic that it'd just be way to hard to do with the GH4 but are well within the scope of the GH2 and/or 5D. And then let the folks here try and equal them if they can and will.

We can all learn a bit about how much effort it takes to get to a particular target. It's not a be-all-end-all but it is a useful exercise.

Sincerely

Joe Shapiro http://imdb.me/joeshapiro

FYI @AndyS Mr. Indie feature maker, if you're talking about the filmic/cinematic video posted by AdamT "Eleven days with the GH4 4K Super 8 anamorphic" It's straight from the GH4 camera, no grading done to it. Lens and lighting is a key sir. Get your DP right!