Results of my first commercial shoot with GH4

Here is an example of a GH4 video that I've just finished editing: http://www.peterwalker.com/komodo.html

It demonstrates the camera's capabilities both WA (7-14mm lens with Zen 170mm dome), Macro (14-45mm PZ plus flip Subsee +5 dioptre) and above water (12-35mm plus polarising filter). I did all the editing in 4K and then compressed to 1080P just before uploading to Vimeo.

It was a pleasure to shoot and edit!

Regards

Peter

Thanks to David Cheung of ScubaCam for helping put the equipment together for me.

Nice Peter!

That 14-42mm looks like a winner, I have to say the closer shots (I presume with that lens) really show the quality of the GH4 (colours/clarity etc) - and fair play for getting steady video that close in! I have difficultly getting photos in focus, that close

You've made me bite the bullet and order the 14-42mm PZ and the port for it.

Rich

 

Please Peter, could you tell me a couple of things I'd like to know?

Do you use any kind of filter?. What circumstances? depth?. Mounted where and how?

Do you white balance?, does it work fine at any depth?.

What housing are you using?, How is the buoyancy?

Thanks

 

 

 

I don't use any filter on the lens or port.

If I am trying to balance the ambient light with the video lights, I use a blue, green or blue-green filter on the video lights.

I have preset 4 colour balance settings into the GH4 by doing a MWB in sunlight from 4 A4-size pieces of coloured paper which I printed from PhotoShop.

1. light blue for shallow tropical water

2. darker blue for deeper tropical water

3. light blue-green for shallow greenish water

4. darker blue-green for deeper, greener greenish water

Then I step between AWB, these 4 settings and a kelvin setting of 6500K (for shallow sunlight water).

Nauticam NA-GH4 housing. Slightly negative buoyancy. When shooting WA with the dome port I use a Styx float collar around the port to help balance. When shooting Macro, I use a Gorillapod Focus tripod.

Regards

Peter

Nice Peter!

 

That 14-42mm looks like a winner, I have to say the closer shots (I presume with that lens) really show the quality of the GH4 (colours/clarity etc) - and fair play for getting steady video that close in! I have difficultly getting photos in focus, that close

You've made me bite the bullet and order the 14-42mm PZ and the port for it.

 

Rich

A Gorillapod Focus tripod helped with stability for macro shots.

The "pinpoint" focus option on the GH4 works well with macro. It zooms up the centre area then you can put the cross-hairs on the critical part of the subject. With AFL you can then recompose and shoot.

Rgds

Peter