13Apr Panasonic GH4 4k High ISO testing
Even though the Sony a7s looks to be an amazing camera, I still have my eye on the Panasonic GH4. Having 4k in such a tiny little package at that price point really makes the GH4 attractive for lightweight travel. The only real concern I had was high ISO shooting. If the GH4 can deliver at 3200 ISO it’ll be good enough for most applications and it looks like the Panasonic GH4 delivers.
The above test was shot in 4k from 1600 ISO to 6400 ISO (the limit of the beta firmware) and to me both 1600 and 3200 ISO look completely usable. Even 6400 ISO could be usable if you are scaling down to 1080p. The Panasonic rep said this might even get a little better when the latest firmware comes out.
As for editing and recording, I used a Sandisk 95mb/s card in the Gh4 without any issue at 4k and I was able to edit at half resolution in Premiere CC on my laptop and full resolution on my desktop. Doesn’t look like the Codec Panasonic is using for 4k will be to much of an issue.
You can download the file here to see it without all the youtube compression. Overall it’s pretty impressive.
April 13th, 2014 at 9:31 pm
That’s awesome to hear about the compression. Even with it, the footage I am seeing is amazing.
Side note: Apparently Google has a download quota? What is that nonsense. I went to download the file and that’s what it said. I mean come on Google….you’re…Google.
April 14th, 2014 at 5:21 am
No comparison to the A7s!! 🙂
April 14th, 2014 at 8:37 am
so do i even need this fast of a card? http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00I3BQJNA/ref=oh_details_o05_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
April 15th, 2014 at 3:20 am
Probably not, the GH4’s internal 4k is supposed to be limited at 100Mbps so any card that can sequentially maintain a 12.5 MB/s write speed should be just fine and most (if not all) UHS-I cards can do that, hell I usually shoot 200Mbps footage on my Canon’s with cheap ($30) PNY UHS-I cards.
BUT, if you want to record the GH4’s internal 1080p in “High Quality mode” then that’s 200Mbps which requires 25Mbps, many existing UHS-I cards can do this but Panasonic recommends you use a UHS-II or UHS-I with a “U3” speed rating to make sure it’s fast enough.
The reason why this may seem convoluted is because many SD card manufacturers aren’t naming their UHS-I cards properly (until now). UHS-I or UHS-II are just the type of connectors on the card, not a speed rating, though they imply a potentially faster speed. Remember “Class 10” and “Class 6” SD cards? Those were speed ratings and meant the card could write at least 10MB/s or 6MB/s. UHS cards have a similar speed rating, they are U1, U2 and U3, “U1” means it can write at least 10-19MB/s (So it’s a class 10-19 technically), “U2” could be anywhere within 20MB/s to 29MB/s and “U3” means it writes at least 30MB/s-39MB/s but most manufacturers still label their cards as “U1” even though they can maintain much faster write speeds. For example the “Sandisk Extreme Pro” is labelled as a U1 but can maintain 72MB/s so it should have been labelled as a “U7”.
I don’t mean to plug my own webpage but I did extensive testing on UHS cards for the Blackmagic pocket here: http://diffractedmedia.blogspot.com/2013/10/blackmagic-pocket-cinema-camera-sd-cards.html and anything in the “For ProRes HQ 27.5MB/s (30 FPS):” section would also apply to the GH4. I recommend the $60 64GB “Sandisk Extreme 45MB/s” card, it should give you about 40 mins or more in the GH4’s 200Mbps setting and 80 mins or more in 4K.
April 15th, 2014 at 9:36 am
I guess I should return my $100 card:)
April 15th, 2014 at 1:53 pm
@Peter Kent: Thanks for this awesome and comprehensive list!