Panasonic GH4 first look (1 of 6)

The fast shipping ebay seller ended up getting the GH4 body to me faster than B&H and as of this morning (writing this at 4 a.m.) prices have started to drift up to around $2000 if you want a GH4 before the end of next month. My B&H order did finally ship so maybe that’ll show up by Saturday if i’m lucky.

Having the Panasonic GH4 in my hands this week works out well. It means I’ll be able to take it with me to France and Iceland next week, so I should have some pretty decent 4k review footage for you guys when I make it back to the states on the 12th.

Panasonic GH4 first look (2 of 6)

Taking a look at the Accessories list on the box, I was surprised to find the Panasonic DMW-YAGH missing from the list. I wonder why that’s not listed, maybe panasonic doesn’t expect it to be a big seller. I was however, happy to see support for the Panasonic GH3’s battery grip. I prefer the extended battery life that a battery grip offers and use them on most of my cameras.

It looks like pretty much all of the accessories are compatible with both the GH3 and GH4 bodies which makes the GH4 an attractive upgrade path for GH3 owners. Having a battery grip, battery, or lens adapter that works with multiple cameras always makes traveling easier.

Panasonic GH4 first look (4 of 6)

I’m new to the m4/3 format so I haven’t spent a lot of time with previous versions of Panasonic’s cameras. It was somewhat surprising to me that the Panasonic GH4 body felt so good in my hand the first time I picked it up. Sure it’s tiny compared to my 5d mark III and 6d bodies, but it still feels nice and substantial. Honestly I was expecting it to be more plasticy for the price.

Panasonic GH4 first look (3 of 6)

The Panasonic GH4 really does a good job of including buttons for almost everything function. On top of that, Panasonic gives you the option to program a number of buttons for your most commonly used features. The one thing I will miss though is the LCD display on the right hand side of the camera. Canon uses this to display all of the most commonly used settings which is a very handy feature to have photography. Still, I see myself using the Panasonic GH4 more as a video camera and only occasionally as a stills camera so the missing LCD probably isn’t the end of the world.

Panasonic GH4 first look (5 of 6)

The flip out screen on the Panasonic GH4 for me, is one of those feature I thought I’d never really need. After all I have a number of very good field monitors that I use regularly basis. However, once I got used to using it I fell in love. I’d almost forgotten how nice it is to use a flip out screen for handheld shots and how handy it can be to flip the screen around if you’re shooting someone talking into the camera to give them an idea of framing. The flipout screen will probably end up being one of the biggest changes for me in terms of they way I work.

One other thing, I was pretty close on my memory card estimates. A blank 32GB Sandisk Extreme Pro card gives me an approximate record time in camera of 48 minutes and I estimated around 40 minutes so it’s pretty close. Also the Extreme Pro cards I’ve been using don’t seem to have any trouble with 4k recording at a 100mbps data rate.

I’ll keep playing around with the Panasonic GH4 over the weekend and try and get a few more things posted before I leave the country. Once the battery is charged back up i’m going to sit down and go through the menus and settings on this thing. It usually takes me a few hours to get a new camera setup to my liking and I’d like to test out a few of the included picture styles.

Tags: , , ,