Panasonic LX100 4K footage

During the recent Wetpixel Tiger Sharks expedition, I was able to use the Panasonic LX100 to shoot some video.

I am really impressed with the clean output.

As I was using a Nauticam housing, they have used the footage in their press release about the housing (hence the branding and the editing). Some of the footage was also shot by Ryan Canon.

Please click the 4K option to view this as it "should" be seen!

I will be reviewing both camera and housing performance very soon....

Adam

Nice work Adam. Just curious, what ISO did you shot the video at? I'm seeing quite a bit of noise/artifact at the blue water area, not sure if it's because Youtube compression or the bitrate you output the video at. I'm watching from a 4K monitor and the sharpness is there.

I do not see the noise.

The shallow depth should have meant ISO 200 with all the sand on the bottom at 1/50 o 1/60 this may have generated small apertures where the lens is not performing at best

Panasonic is making a lot of progress and I am sure the short port with the Inon lens on the LX100 performs better than the cropped 7-14 on the GH4 for a fraction of cost

However if I compare to similar footage at 1080p on youtube it does not look like the resolution is doubled is like 1.5x sort of saying

Panasonic is making a lot of progress with the way the footage is captured from the sensor from the simple GH4 crop 1:1 pixel to a more interesting pixel binning that I believe goes on with the LX100

When they also manage to use H265 then this is going to be perfect. Probably it will take another year and we need to see when the successor of the GX7 comes out if 4K is there

Hmm..... this is what I'm seeing (click to see full size 4K screen capture):

This is what I expected, and this is from EunJae's GH4:

So far I output any 4K footage from Premiere at 80Mbps, then upload to Youtube and let Youtube deal with it. I wonder what bitrate is Adam using, and is it a Youtube issue or something else.

I'm not impressed with the above sample footage - but I think its down to youtube compression ruining it all.

Not saying what Adam or Ryan shot was bad! Not at all!!

Just its miles away from GH4 footage you can find on youtube, be it noise, compression, artefacts etc

I am sure the short port with the Inon lens on the LX100 performs better than the cropped 7-14 on the GH4 for a fraction of cost

I would be surprised if this was true. (apart from the cost!)

Trickster can you Point me to some impressive gh4 footage on you tube as the clips I played on my 55" tv look bland except macro shots

This is the best 4K footage you will ever see:

It's not from GH4, but it shows that Youtube is capable of deliver high quality 4K video, as long as a proper clip is uploaded to Youtube.

That lead me to the question of the bitrate selected during output when processing the LX100 video. I still don't get the concept of two pass rendering etc. Hopefully someone here have pointer about hot to properly render 4K video. When is Vimeo going to have 4K streaming?

If you use extended ISO, the LX100 is capable of go down to ISO 100, lower than GH4, which in turn if diving at shallow, ISO100 at F5.6 will make the LX100 produce perfect quality that the camera can deliver.

Am talking underwater footage not land shots

Vimeo now supports 4k - IF you upload a 4k file. The 'HD' switch on Vimeo gives you 4k if the upload is 4k. Check out this one here - http://vimeo.com/115632433

No idea if it's a certain codec / bit rate it requires. But it's working. (Perhaps they are soft launching it...)

As to bland GH4 footage - the backscatter video (the most watched GH4 UW video on YT) looks great to me, there are plenty of scenes in that with blue water backgrounds showing much better noise, compression and less artefacting.

Here is another blue water GH4 video but on Vimeo - http://vimeo.com/96777048

Yeah the Vimeo GH4 video is slightly better. Don't know how the 4K feature in Vimeo work. So if they rely on the "HD" button to toggle 4K, that means they would force 4K down to people who view from 1080p display?

Anyway, I'm curious to see if there is any Sony AX100 underwater footage for comparison. I doubt there is a housing for Samsung NX1, curious to see if H.265 is much better.

Regardless, for the price of the LX100, it's a good entry into 4K, we just need to figure out how to bring its quality to the GH4 level, or better (with that bright lens). So far I read that people use "Natural" profile on the GH4, dial down the contrast and NR instead of using CinelikeD. Couldn't find such information about those setting for LX100.

Backscatter video shot with orca light 22000 lumens and the cat island that I like is surface work. Probably an example that is meaningful is scubabob his clips are representative of real shots you would take not 2' demo reel in 10" of water. The lx100 codec implementation is the same of the gh4 so artifacts may depend on the editing. And with 100 Mbps over 8 megapixels I would try to get it right in camera and not bother with grading at all

I'm not sure of the editing process (as Chris Parsons did it for Nauticam), but would be interested in discussing options for 4K editing in general....Anyone fancy writing an article?

Let's keep the discussion real here though. I don't think anyone is surprised that GH4 footage is superior. The point of these demos is to show that a compact at around $900 can produce very credible 4k footage.!

I'm not sure of the editing process (as Chris Parsons did it for Nauticam), but would be interested in discussing options for 4K editing in general....Anyone fancy writing an article?

 

Let's keep the discussion real here though. I don't think anyone is surprised that GH4 footage is superior. The point of these demos is to show that a compact at around $900 can produce very credible 4k footage.!

I agree with the article on backscatter

http://www.backscatter.com/learn/article/article.php?ID=201

In essence editing 100 Mbps at 4K is pretty much the same as editing AVCHD 24 Mbps. I would need to look at the GOP structure and encoding to see if they are exactly the same (am pretty confident) I think I have a sample somewhere I can check more in detail later

In short if you don't have an external recorder that can push 200+ Mbps there is no room for grading and you need to get it right in camera. With h264 even 200 Mbps is not a lot is like Xavc or mov at 50 Mbps

That is the reason am waiting you need the higher encoding efficiency of h265 to work with 100-200 Mbps or a breakthrough in memory card speed to write at 500+ Mbps

I expect 2016 to bring h265 in camera meanwhile 4K will be limited by hardware and software constraints at semi pro level. At consumer level though this is already great

I wish sony comes back with a 4K RX100 with the old lens 28-100 but I know am asking for too much

When I look at the LX100 the key limitations is the port system:

Fixed port with inon lens at ~17mm great wide view but really only good for situations like this baited sive

Dome port- zoom limited 26-40mm I think a diopter can help here to get the zoom range back I would try a +2 so that pincushion distortion is limited. If this works this is the go to port for video if not is not worth it. Who has the camera please test

Flat port: with a 75mm Max tele lens the LX100 is not going to cut it for your trips to lembeh although you will reach 1:1 nearly touching the subject. Image quality between 24-35mm Will be affected by pincushion distortion nauticam should have developed an air done in old fantasea style for this port and spent no time on the dome but they haven't??

For still images the lack of a semi fisheye option is probably the most serious issues of the LX100 and image quality of sony and canon 1" cameras is very much the same so I don't see a lot of sales

Still a promising pre cursor camera I have looked long and hard before deciding to pass after I got information on the new port system and the limitations

It will be interesting to see what is the response in terms of sales meanwhile am stressing the 4:3 port system with the GX7 so when panasonic will have developed 32 megapixel sensors and h265 I know which lenses to choose [emoji1]

I agree Adam,

4k from a compact is impressive - even if the quality isn't up there.

YouTube is using the VP9 codec for 4K (might even for 1080p - not sure!)

So the key is to provide a file ready for upload that is optimised for when it converts it to VP9.

Perhaps we need a new Topic started on this, as I'm not 100% on it all TBH!

Not strictly related to this, but given that the thread seems to be moving towards a pro vs cons type discussion!

There is (rectilinear) wide-angle conversion lens that will be available for this camera shortly.....

Optically it is very good, and will provide corner to corner sharpness.

I think this will deal with any existing port issues-although let's bear in mind we are still talking about a compact camera that sells for $900!

Let's start a discussion on preparing 4K video for YouTube and Vimeo? Not my area of expertise, so I would love to here more.

Adam

Not strictly related to this, but given that the thread seems to be moving towards a pro vs cons type discussion!

 

There is (rectilinear) wide-angle conversion lens that will be available for this camera shortly.....

 

Optically it is very good, and will provide corner to corner sharpness.

 

I think this will deal with any existing port issues-although let's bear in mind we are still talking about a compact camera that sells for $900!

 

Let's start a discussion on preparing 4K video for YouTube and Vimeo? Not my area of expertise, so I would love to here more.

 

Adam

Encoding on youtube is not difficult. In essence you need to upload a file that youtube will not convert

You do this by following the specs 8000 kbps for 1080p or 32-35 mbps for 4K if using H264 or less.

Also you tube does not like more than 2 consecutive B frames and some of the advanced coding options like pyramidal b-frames

The good news is that Panasonic cameras already produce a file with those specs so if you keep them and reduce bitrate nothing is required

I do native editing in H264 no conversion to pro-res or any intermediate codec (total waste of CPU time and disk space for no use on consumer codecs like AVCHD and also the 100 Mbit output form GH4/LX100

To take full control of the output I use an old version of iMovie that allows the X264 plug in to be used so that I can specify all parameters. Usually I create two files one around 14 mbps with super efficient compression and another for youtube at 8000 kbps. I do this using constant quality there is no reason to do two pass or constant bitrate

Results of this workflow can be seen in this video which is still not great but youtube can't do more unfortunately

http://youtu.be/-zhv3XfhE9E?t=22s

When I shoot macro at 50 fps I reduce the framerate before import to avoid the prores aid conversion this is a new trick I have tested recently but not taken underwater yet

I do not do any grading at all (or nearly) neither change contrast or stabilise I just use iMovie for cut and compose

If I had a 50/100 mbit 1080p I would consider more invasive corrections but at 24 mbps for 1080p or 100 mbps at 4K does not pay off

The issue with most clips you see is double conversion h264 - prores - h264 with a lot of manipulation with the final h264 incompatible for youtube that gets converted again

After 3 conversions and data loss the original quality has gone to the trash bin

Looking good Adam.

Is it MBW balanced when you shooting?