@AdamT, fair enough :)

I know that this thing isn't a 1DC or A7s, but for an equal depth of field and field of view, it actually performs extremely well. I just know that it out performs a 5D3 with an f/4 zoom in low light by a considerable margin when shooting at f/1.4 on the GH4. Most folks consider the crop factor of this cam a handicap, but for low light shooting wide open it actually opens a lot of doors to stellar images that are nearly impossible with the full frame cams wide open due to their extremely narrow depth of field.

I think this line of reasoning and technique was what Mistas was referring to.

I shot recently in parking garage CineV -3,-5,-5,-2,0 , -2 highlights, 0 shadows, ISO 1600 with Speed Booster + 28mm at f4, exposed to the right. Noise was present. But the noise cleaned up so extremely well by denoising and the image looked overall better than at f2.8 and ISO 800. Using ISO 1600 gave me a better DOF for the shot. and sharper due to the f stop. Noise depends on the exposure. As long as there is light and you can ETTR, this cam performs very nice.

@c3hammer You can disagree but that´s the truth about it. At 1600 the image is not clean UNLESS you have enough light. If you still have stops left on the aperture why would you use higher ISO? Only if you don´t want shallow depth of field or if you need a fixed aperture at f4 or 5.6 or whatever. I use the Voigtlanders at f0.95 and at 1600 it is still noisy on the shadows (not to mention the useless DOF at 0.95) . Shoot at 1600 on a 1DC and you will see the difference. As you might have read by now I have GH´s since GH1, 2,3 and now 4 and there isn´t anyone who backs up this camera more than I do. However I refuse to be on the "fanboy" side which obviously I am not. If a camera has qualities I mention them.If it has flaws I am the first one to admit. Only with this atitude and our feedback the manufacturer will be able to improve. It is not that you can´t find a way to solve it "your way" in post or something like that to clean the image but to the user (all of us) we are talking about ISO vs f Stop vs Noise. And GH4 is a noisy camera at 1600. 800 is the highest ISO I shoot with it for professional jobs. I can´t risk it.

When shooting CineD profile (or any profile that is not linear) I shoot a test chart first. I use a standard grey 'stairstep' chart & a linear 'ramp' chart which is smoothly graduated from black to white. I use a bracketed exposure to get -1,0,+1 stop exposures. I import into DaVinci Resolve and use the curves tool to bring the non linear image back to linear, using the scopes to ensure a perfect linear ramp from black to white. I find this removes any guesswork and allows me to create custom LUT's for correct exposure and also under/over exposure. Using this method I have settled on CineD with all settings at 0. I will use the highlight/shadow curve in camera to adjust for individual shot setup and lighting conditions. For me the standard CineD setting is flat enough. I just wish camera manufacturers would publish details of their in-camera curves so we can correct more accurately in grading software.

I did some ISO test with different profile settings. Checking for noise in the sensor.... You can find my blog results here....

http://bkmeditor.wordpress.com/2014/07/16/panasonic-gh4-iso-noise-tests/

Thanks for your post BKMeditor, very useful.

By the way, i have seen a lot of people on Vimeo using the following setting :

Cine V

Pedastal +10

Shadows -2 / Highlights +2

iResolution Standard

iDynamic Off

Luminance 0-255

An user told me he took this profil in a book on GH4. Im trying this profile but i find dynamic range a bit low.

What do you think of this setting, everyone ?

@rNeil, I'm with you on that. It would seem that any boosting of shadows is like increasing ISO at a specified luma target range, so higher overall ISO can bring out noise more easily.

As for my settings, I initially had the shadows/ highlights +2/-2 like many others, but have since stopped any shadow boosting. CineD in theory should be doing enough to the curve that anything extra in the shadows may just add unwanted noise. Reducing highlights has the added benefit of more easily being able to ETTR, which I think would do more to improve shadows than an artificial boost.

Reducing contrast may result in a similar addition of noise.

Hi guys, just wanted to share my experience of shooting a music video with the GH4.

Note : we shot ISO 200-400, daylight, MOV 1080p IPB 100mbits 50p. (we needed slow motion)

I can only confirm that raising the master pedestal (+12 in my case) or boosting the shadows/highlights (+2/-2) AND adding to that CineD, will only lead to a MASSIVE weird noise mud, that will never leave (I tried anything and everything with Neat Video - without any kind of acceptable result).

Anyone who is serious about shooting (pro/semi pro/ultra geeky enthusiast) should have fun tweaking all these settings, but going back to a very neutral CineD when shooting important stuff.

Even the textures that aren't under exposed are noisy. I really think that we shouldn't treat our GH4s like RAW or try to achieve super flat image. I am not sure at all that it is cut out for that (or maybe with ext rec + 4k). Or at least not flatter than CineD with maybe a tiny less contrast and sharpening (I'm still not convinced about turning down the NR and/or saturation).

Well that was just my thought, enjoy your GH4 everyone, it might not be a RED nor have the dynamic of the A7s, but it is a great camera anyway !

Thanks for posting my video Chef. I wish I could of explained more detail but their is just to much technical stuff to remember.

Hey Chef, they both will be the same as far as lighting is concerned just choose 0-255 if you are on pc monitors, internet and 16-235 for TV. But 0-255 gives you a little more leadeway to play with.

It's been interesting to see how some people are trying to make a RAW or LOG camera out of the GH4, so that in use it would be the same as the big commercial guns. It doesn't seem to be a best application of the GH4. This camera (similar to the GH3) seems best used at slightly minused settings for contrast & saturation and well-minused for sharpness. Not quite a "flat" setting but in between that and "neutral" as far as the camera is set. Too "flat" in-cam and brought back in post does get a bit more noise & artifacting than sorta-minused & then graded in post.

Bear in mind, I'm an avid study-er of the GH4 as I'm still using the ol' GH3 and it will be another month or two before I add the new body. I have been reading every reliable comment on the cam I can find.

So I'd guess you can't make a complete "match" of that C100's profile for straight out-of-cam. From what I've seen of people "blending" a GH4 into a multi-cam setup using other cameras, getting the best info out of the GH4 is the first step, then setting a "Look" (Speedgrade nomenclature) or LUT or other preset in your NLE/grading software to match the basic out-of-cam/prepped of the GH4 to the prepped footage of your other cameras. This way you can simply load your GH4 footage into the software, do a click or two of preset/Look/LUT application and be pretty matched.

And I've seen finals of matched GH4 with GoPro, virtually all of the BlackMagic, and several Canon &/or Nikon cams such that on my 1920x1080 monitor one couldn't see the difference. I've also read that one can probably note the differences on say a 16 foot screen with good projection, but probably not so much on simply watching a web program.