A few weeks ago I was asked to shoot a campaign for a local Los Angeles model who needed content for her new website. This is a very small project that I shot/edited without a crew and intends to show it on the blog to discuss slow motion work on the GH4. I rarely show my work on NoamKroll.com because I usually work on projects that can’t be published publicly on the web, but that’s where projects like this come in. They gave me a chance to test out some of my gear while shooting something fun and low-key.
The main thing I wanted to test on this shoot was the ability to cross-edit regular speed 4K/24p footage with slow-motion 1080/60p footage. In other words, I’d like to know if there is a significant drop in quality in real-life shooting situations between 1080/60p and 4k/24p.
It took me about 4 hours to shoot this video, most of which was spent waiting for the sun to change. The actual shooting time during that period was less than an hour, and I probably shot 30 minutes (at most) of footage. I knew I wouldn’t need a lot of footage since the clip was supposed to be about a minute long and there weren’t any storylines that needed more coverage.
I decided to shoot each shot in both 4K/24p and 1080/60p formats so that I could choose to use either format in post-production. Normally I would tend to shoot the entire video in slow motion because it’s good for this part… but I wanted to challenge myself to use some regular speed shots as well, even though I didn’t use that much in the edit.
The only two lenses I use are a Lumix 20mm F1.7 pancake lens and a modified Nikkor 50mm F1.4 manual lens. I don’t have any stabilization gear other than a tripod, so my shooting is somewhat limited to sticks or some very light handheld work. I didn’t even have shoulder gear, so it wasn’t possible to do a lot of tracking shots. As you might imagine, this is a very small micro shot, but that’s part of the fun. I like to shoot in a very simple way from time to time to challenge myself and get the most out of the gear I have. Sometimes it inspires something creative…and sometimes it’s limiting.
In terms of camera settings, I took this photo in Cine D without adjusting other settings in the camera. Occasionally I’ll tweak the picture profile settings a bit, but now I usually avoid messing with the GH4 settings too much.
I edited it together in about an hour using FCP X and scored it in FCP X as well because I didn’t have time to send it to Resolve. I also ran it through Film Convert at the end and added a subtle look to it.
Here is the clip:
All in all, I’m very pleased with what the GH4 has to offer. If I had more time, resources or a team, I would definitely do something different or add something to the shoot. But given the limitations I faced, I was pleased with the quality the GH4 was able to achieve.
When it comes to mixing and matching 4K and HD footage in post: I had no issues at all and will happily insert 1080p footage into many of my 4K GH4 projects in the future. I’m sure if I got hold of the 4K format and showed it on an Ultra HD TV the resolution difference would be more noticeable, but for the purposes of this video (which will be web based) it won’t matter at all. In fact, if I were to do it again, I would shoot it all in 60p, as the slow-motion effect is more important than the added resolution in this case. But of course, that’s the point of this test in the first place…
Why I shoot 60p
I wrote an article a while ago about why I don’t shoot in 96fps mode on my GH4. Essentially, my point is that the data rate spread of 96fps is so narrow that image quality will suffer. I still feel that way. I know many of you have shot some great 96fps footage, but it usually doesn’t work well for my needs. I tend to need to grade my footage past what I consider the GH4’s breaking point at 96fps, so I like to stick to a lower frame rate to be on the safe side. That said, while I prefer to include more information in the file to have maximum color flexibility in post-processing, I sometimes break that rule and sneak in some 96fps footage.
However, 60p is always my go-to setting because it’s so gorgeous. In my opinion, the amount of compression in the camera is significantly reduced, which makes the images stronger and more graduated. I also got some good results at 48fps, but for whatever reason I prefer the look of the 60p footage – especially when shooting in actual 60p mode, rather than shooting 60fps in SuperSpeed variable frame rate mode .
In short
GH4 is a great tool. I knew this when I was shooting – which is of course why I use it. But until this point I had never really had the opportunity to shoot this kind of guerrilla style run and gun footage with the GH4, and it was great to see how it performed under very limited conditions. Testing the camera in these conditions really showcased the GH4’s composition and solidified the quality of the 60p mode for me.
Feel free to leave a message in the comments and let me know how you like GH4, especially the slow motion!
