Camera review
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Panasonic GH4 Panasonic has gone all out when it comes to video on its new flagship CSC, but what about if you just want to take pictures? ON TEST
For an even more detailed report on the Panasonic GH4, see issue 46 of Advanced Photographer , on sale 3 July.
SPECS
ABOVE The layout may have come across as untidy, but it soon became second nature, allowing quick control. BELOW Focus peaking in manual focus was a great help when shooting at an air show.
of 12 frames-per-second, or 7.5 with continuous focusing. Shooting Raw and JPEG with a 16GB PNY Performance UHS-I SDHC card, these top speeds were maintained for bursts of 35-40 before slowing, and with just JPEGs, this increased to over 130. This is all with the physical shutter though, and burst speeds can be higher with an all-electronic shutter – up to 40 frames-per-second. This is fantastic for capturing a precise moment, but there’s a heavy penalty in resolution since images are just four megapixels. The alternative for achieving the equivalent of such high frame rates is to pull stills from 4K video clips, since these are 8.8 megapixels, enough for prints slightly bigger than A4 at 300ppi. Focusing in the GH4 is based on contrast detection, but incorporates Depth from Defocus (DFD) technology. According to Panasonic, this compares two images with different sharpness to calculate the distance to the subject, and in practice it works well. In 1-Area AF, the lens snaps into position almost the instant you press the shutter button – it’s at least on a par with Olympus’s Fast AF, and very close to DSLR performance. Low light slows it down, but that’s to be expected. There are plenty more focusing options too. Custom Multi mode allows you to tailor the active focusing areas to the shape of a subject, or to have two separated areas active. Pinpoint AF is a neat option – on half pressing the shutter release, the AF area is magnified so you can see precisely where the central cross falls. It’s slower than 1-Area AF, so not an option all the time, but great when accuracy is paramount such as when working close up. Continuous AF combined with burst shooting coped well with moving traffic, and only the odd shot was completely out of focus, with recovery within a couple of frames. A sterner test with Second World War and modern fighter planes at an air show was generally more than it could cope with, but on switching to manual focus for this, the excellent focus peaking function was invaluable. This highlights sharp edges with fluorescent blue, green or yellow, and it’s very accurate, even when using a shallow depth-of-field – you don’t get
Words by Ian Fyfe
PRICE £1299 body only CONTACT www.panasonic.co.uk SENSOR 16.05 megapixels with Venus Engine VIII IMAGE DIMENSIONS 4608x3456 pixels ISORANGE 100-25,600 (expanded) AUTOFOCUSMODES 1-Area, pinpoint, custom multi, 49-area, tracking, face detection EXPOSURE COMPENSATION +/- 5 EV in 1/3 EV steps SHUTTER 60secs-1/8000sec METERING PATTERNS 1728-zone multi, centre- weighted, spot SHOOTING SPEEDS Single, continuous 12fps, self-timer LCD SCREEN 3in articulated touch
As headline camera features go, the Panasonic GH4 goes against the grain. Where most would be shouting about megapixels, sensor size, shooting speed or ISO sensitivity, with the GH4, it’s video. This is fair enough, since it’s the first compact system camera (CSC) to feature 4K video recording, which is four times better than Full HD and the latest standard for cinema. At this price, it’s a huge attraction to amateur and professional videographers, but for us stills photographers without Hollywood tendencies, the 4K appeal is limited. That’s not to say that the GH4 has nothing to offer us though. Technological benefit While 4K ismainly about video, the technology that’s included in the GH4 to support it brings benefits for photographers. They start with the newly developed 16.05-megapixel sensor – this gives no increase in resolution over the GH3, and is the same as most current Micro Four Thirds cameras, but the dynamic range has been expanded. This combines with the excellent 1728-zone metering system (the GH3 used just 144 zones) to produce well-exposed images with plenty of detail in the highlights and shadows. In fact, I struggled to find conditions in which the iDynamic and HDR features were necessary to deal with high contrast, and in well over 1000 frames, I never touched the exposure compensation button. Data comes thick and fast with 4K recording, so the new sensor has a 50% higher speed signal read-out, and there’s a brand new Venus Engine quad-core image processor. For stills photography, this translates into an impressive top shooting rate
screen, 1036k dots STORAGEMEDIA SD, SDHC, SDXC DIMENSIONS (WXHXD) 132.9x93.4x83.9mm WEIGHT 480g (body only)
widespread highlighting of edges across the frame as with some systems. It does need quite high- contrast edges to be useful though – the edges of a flower petal were highlighted easily, but the less distinct edges of water drops on the same petals didn’t register. Professional body With the professional-level video capabilities comes a professional-level body – it has a magnesium alloy frame, and the texturing, grip and weight feel good in the hand. It’s big though, not far off the size of a DSLR like the Nikon D5300, which
Inwell over 1000 frames, I never touched the exposure compensation button
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