02May Panasonic GH4 finally showed up
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
May 2nd, 2014 at 11:45 am
I just shelled out some money for a Canon 6d nos I will not be getting this one. Thanks for the review and hopefully it works out great on your travels.
May 2nd, 2014 at 1:16 pm
The 6d is a good camera, especially in low light.
May 2nd, 2014 at 4:38 pm
I hear that Lumix cameras cut well with the C100. Be interested to hear your thoughts once you start mixing footage. I also heard that the RX10 matches pretty well, too. I always thought a camera like that would be a good locked off b or c cam.
May 2nd, 2014 at 7:50 pm
Just from what I’ve seen, at 3200 iso and lower the GH4 provides a better video image than the c100. I’ll be selling the lemon that is the C100 in the next few weeks.
May 7th, 2014 at 7:40 am
That’s funny I always wanted a C100 and all of the reviewers seemed to love it – that’s until I read your review. Just shot something and a buddy used a ML hacked 2Ti and I was somewhat impressed with the picture but all the cannons seem to be soft, 5dmk3 (unhooked) included and not EVF, and no exoteric lends off K&H camera for $100 …..
For what I shoot a cannon will never work as no EVF and I don’t really want to mess about with external monitors. Now with the GH4 I can use the EVF in the bright sunshine of Colorado and it actually works quite well.
May 7th, 2014 at 11:56 am
GH4 might not be all that you’re looking for after all. Joe Simon over at News Shooter seems to think it maxes out at iso 1600 with macroblocking.
http://www.newsshooter.com/2014/05/07/would-you-recommend-the-panasonic-lumix-gh4-filmmaker-joe-simon-gives-us-the-low-down/
May 10th, 2014 at 2:04 am
I’ve shot at 1600, 3200, and 6400, I’ll check out all of the footage once I get home from Iceland.
May 2nd, 2014 at 7:51 pm
Really looking forward to seeing how you go with the GH4. I’m looking to replace my Nikon D800 with the G4 or the Sony A7s – my main priorities are speed of AF in video mode and low light quality.
May 3rd, 2014 at 1:24 am
AF is good and focus peaking is pretty handy for manual lenses, but the d800 and 5dmk3 win the low light battle.
May 4th, 2014 at 1:36 pm
I was just wondering your opinion between the 5D Mark iii and the GH4 in terms of upgrading cameras? I’ve only been working with T3i for about 3 years now but I want something to up the game sort of speak I don’t care much of 4k but future proofing is a good thing. The price is nice with the GH4 but the full frame is nice for the low light I don’t know what to decide.
May 6th, 2014 at 2:23 pm
Have you confirmed whether the camera actually works with the battery grip? My GH4 powers up, but crashes as soon as you attempt to shoot a photo.
May 7th, 2014 at 7:35 am
I used my $28 cheapy SDXC 64Gb card to record 4k and it seems to work fine. Amazon sourced KomputerBay card. Tried to stress out the codec too. Not recorded for long periods though.
June 15th, 2014 at 11:57 am
Hi Deejay, have you had a chance to test the audio for gh4? since may users experienced the fluttering noise (I did), I was curious on your take on this. Especially when using the Aputure mic. (The one I had it seems to capture more audio clearly from the back than from the front).
June 15th, 2014 at 1:24 pm
I’ve been using it with a beachtek and haven’t run into any problems. Also worked find with the Videomic pro and aputure. Only issue is I have to turn the output of the videomic down to zero or -10 or it blows out the cameras audio inputs.