The ultimate GH4 video rig! What is it...?

Hello all!

I am a wee lad who is trying to get into underwater documentary. I've worked behind the scenes in the television industry for some time, but now I would like to progress behind the camera!

So I have been recommended to purchase the Panasonic GH4 for it's 4k abilities and the Nauticam NA-GH4 and on that front I am sold.

What I am completely confused by is lenses and ports! It can be a complicated business with lots of opinions around...

So what I am looking for is a top of the line video rig. Mostly for wide and mid shoots (sharks, mantas & landscapes) but I would like macro capabilities as well. Please bare in mid that I would like to create I rig that I can pass the footage off to high quality broadcasters.... so I would like to avoid soft corners or anything that steers away from perfection.

I would love to say money is no object, but of course it is. $3,500 is my rough budget for lenses port and gears.... I understand that might not get me what I am after. My question is, what is the setup I am after!?

I'm sure I need to give you guys more information.... so please ask away.

Thanks in advanced guys!

Matt

I will qualify my advice by stating that I am videoing for pleasure (or self flagellation?) not professionally.

A few questions:

Are you intending to travel by aircraft with your setup?

How willing are you to pay excess baggage charges?

Do you have any paid work lined up and how often?

Not sure that the GH4 qualifies as a" top of the line video rig. In, Australia, at least, the rig of choice for underwater cinematography, seems to be variatiations of red camera/ gates housing combination. At least that's what was used by on the recent BBC David Attenborough production on the great barrier reef.

However you need to selling a lot of your video a lot of the time to come close meeting the cost of a red rig.

I'm using a GH4 and nauticam housing.

Have the panasonic 7-14 lens behind the nauticam 6" dome(#36164), with focus knob. Happy with this combination. The ability to use manual focus is not essential in many cirumstances,provided you use backbutton focus lock, but If the budget will allow it a manual focus option is worth it.

Like many zoom lenses soft corners can be reduced by not shooting at the extremes, i.e. 7mm or 14mm. So include zoom gear.

If the nauticam 180mm optical glass dome(#18809) and port adaptor with focus knob (#36052)had been available I purchased my setup I probably would have got it instead.

I also have the olympus 12-50 behind the 36161 macro port. My thinking was I could shoot macro and mid shoots on the same dive. I practice, for my purposes at least, I should have got the olympus 60mm macro. The 12-50 is a good lens but not as much magnification as the 60mm macro and not wide enough for those close focus wide angle shots.

There are other posts in this forum in praise of the panasonic 12-42 with cmc and wwl-1 wet-lens combinations.

Hi recd,

Thanks for you reply.

Good questions. Yes I fully intend on travelling with the rig and am more than happy to pay excess baggage ect... I will probably end up getting 1/2 Peli cases so they are nice and secure.

I don't have work book in at the moment, and can't imagine I would (for shooting at least) for sometime. I would like to purchase the rig in order to practice and dial everything in but also be prepared and ready for when work does come in. I am also on shoots, just in a different capacity, so hopefully I can slide in that way too!

I would give my arm for a Red/Alexa but it isn't going to happen.

That's great. I have been looking at the Panny 7-14mm f/4.0 behind the 180mm glass dome. My understanding is the bigger dome will bring out the best with this wide lens? So this would obviously give the nice big wides and presumably offer a little in the way of tighter shoots nearer the 14mm end. I guess there isn't a whole lot of room to play with if you need to stay away from the very end of the lens though?

Hi Matt,

If one of your primary goals is for hand off to broadcasters. You will need the Atomos Shogun (or Assassin) also. This will eat $3,500 for the housing alone.

Why do I say you need one? Most of the broadcasters have certain requirements for the quality of their clips (with exclusions for a small % of the final output) which will require unedited 4:2:2 footage at a minimum.

As an example from SKY TV in the UK:

SKY:
"All HD commissioned content delivered to BSkyB should use the AVC Intra 100 codec. The video should be encoded to the standard using Intra frame at 100Mb/s with 4:2:2 luminance/colour difference sampling ratio, level 4.1 with a 10 bit sampling depth. The 100Mb/s codec also stipulates a full horizontal resolution."

BBC:
All material delivered for UK HD TV transmission must be:* 1920 x 1080 pixels in an aspect ratio of 16:9* 25 frames per second (50 fields) interlaced - now known as 1080i/25.* colour sub-sampled at a ratio of 4:2:2

The GH4 only shoots 4:2:0 internally.

The other option(s) would be:
An Atomos Ninja2 (in a NA-NINJA2 housing) but you would be restricted to 1080p, but you get the 4:2:2 @ 220 Intra.

Or get a BlackMagic Pocket camera, but again it's limited to 1080.

Most of the broadcast stuff you see is filmed on FS Sony's, Red etc.

Soft corners, you need to go big on the domes - if going for a wide angle lens like the 7-14mm. However due to the 2.2crop (in 4K mode) you will find that this is minimised quite a lot with the GH4.

However I still found it soft, so went with the WWL wet lens and a standard zoom.



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Hi Trickster,

Thanks for the rundown on broadcaster tech specs. All noted.

Just to clarify, you found the corners soft with the Panny 7-14 w/ 180mm glass dome?

What exactly was your setup with the WWL? Any cons to it?

Hi Matt

I had the lens behind the zen 170mm dome. So very similar to the 180mm.

Using it for recording 4K, you won't find much wrong with the corners. But for 4:3 photos, where it uses more of the FoV, you will see the blurriness.

If I were buying a dome again, I would look at the 180mm at a minimum - or even the 200 or 230mm (via the n85 to n120 adapter) but they travelling with a dome this size becomes an issue.

One of issues with using WWL lens is that you are using a standard zoom in the flat port. The standard zooms are not very fast (f3.5 at the wide end) Would love a constant F2 .8 zoom lens starting and 14 mm!

Sadly even the 14mm primes you can get, appear from the reviews to be worse than the 14mm end of the zooms - which is odd.

Its heavy (but not much more than a large dome mind) and its slightly fisheye'd compared to the wide angles behind a dome - but only very slightly.

Benefits... Sharp corners, more FoV (130 vs 114), OIS and flexibility to boot.

I can't believe how good the combo is. (So sorry if I sound like a broken record praising it )

Matt,

Another source of broadcast info is the EU EBU Cam Test

https://tech.ebu.ch/camtest

Hey Richard,

That's all really helpful mate, thanks.

And that's a great link! I will read through that. There's some great information on there.

BBC:

All material delivered for UK HD TV transmission must be:* 1920 x 1080 pixels in an aspect ratio of 16:9* 25 frames per second (50 fields) interlaced - now known as 1080i/25.* colour sub-sampled at a ratio of 4:2:2

 

The GH4 only shoots 4:2:0 internally.

These requirements is usually for finished programs with ready to air masters.

Acceptable clips included might be shoot on GoPro for that matter.

This all boils down to what the producer of the program is willing to accept for a bare minimum.

At least here in Norway people have been known to shoot on both GH4 and SonyA7/II underwater for some "professional" material which don't require RED in Gates housing.

Not to mention above water. The comedy series "Dag" had the entire first season shoot on Canon EOS in 2010 - 5DII famous for much weaker picture quality than GH4 when we talk about aliasing and bit rate/codec profiles. Back then it was deemed perfect by the DOP for getting the "full frame" DOF look by cheap means. REF: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1711386/?ref_=nv_sr_3

So the situation regarding GH4 material under water is not that black/white. Make a overview of that qulity level the potential the clients wants. Sure, a camera operator with a Gates might be the prefered man to hire for some, but not necessariliy all.

 

These requirements is usually for finished programs with ready to air masters.

 

Acceptable clips included might be shoot on GoPro for that matter.

 

So the situation regarding GH4 material under water is not that black/white. Make a overview of that qulity level the potential the clients wants. Sure, a camera operator with a Gates might be the prefered man to hire for some, but not necessariliy all.

That last program I was involved in, there was a requirement for the underwater source material to be 4:2:2, so Sony's within Gates housings were rented.

GoPro and other types of specialised cameras, were/can be included - but only as a small % of the final program.

Agreed that its not the bee all and end all - As if you are just starting out, the investment in a Gates Housing and camera can be massively off putting! (Hence why i have a GH4 too! I was just trying to warn Matt, if he is aiming for BBC, NatGeo etc (from his original comment) that exceptions can be high.

​Please bare in mid that I would like to create I rig that I can pass the footage off to high quality broadcasters

$3,500 is pretty low at that price you should be looking at a Sony RX100 Mark IV that won't require any ports and will do OK with some wet lenses

Best would be to have an external recorder so that you can use prores at higher bitrate

If you manage to get a GH4 second hand I would recommend the 14-42mm mark II kit lens together with a cheaper Inon UWL-100 old model that can take a filter as the white balance of the GH4 is not great. You can find few second hand of this too the lens is not as good as the WWL but is rectilinear and achromatic once cropped is more than acceptable in the corners.

The WWL on its own costs £800 it is not going to be within your budget

Hi guys,

We seem to be deviating! Ha.

Interceptor, the $3,500 I only for lenses and ports and as I said before I am aware that is probably too low.

If anyone has any views on what lenses/port they would put together to make a good setup, only with the GH4, I would really love to hear about them.

Thanks for all the replies so far guys!

Matt

If camera and housing are not part of the budget $3,500 is plenty. You should look at the Panasonic 14-42mm with 35 port and an Inon UWL-100 old model with an UR/PRO filter. You can then get two Inon UCL-165 for macro that is plenty for all situations. Alternatively you can try the 12-32mm but it is too short for macro on the long end.

The WWL-1 and Nauticam CMC are better optical quality but the first has challenges with filter and the second only works very close as close as you probably won't be with most fish.

I have the 7-14mm and the 8mm fisheye, the 60mm macro and other lenses but for videos they are not great and too rigid as options. The 60mm is potentially interesting on a tripod only but for general use is too long

Sorry to correct you Trickster, but the GH4 is fine for broadcast, they're used extensively in a lot of different guises for top side stuff, the onboard footage is accepted as being HD.

However with that said, they wouldn't be taken too seriously as an option for underwater use. If that's were you're already heading, then for sure get yourself a rig to get some practice time in, but expect to be using something completely different if you do ever end up on an underwater shoot.

On a seperate note, if you're UK based you'd need to get an HSE Scuba certification before you would be allowed to work in the water (that's a legal requirement).

(Just as a note, the specs you posted are for the delivery of edited pieces ready for broadcast, there are completely different specs for acquisition ie how the cameras record)

Thanks for the correction Stuart, I for sure don't know the industry as well as you / others, so happy for my misinformation to be corrected, only used Sony / Gates :-)

So the GH4 is being used / accepted for principal photography? Not just being used where something else cannot be used? (On car, drone, etc) ?

If so, that's impressive then!

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So the GH4 is being used / accepted for principal photography? Not just being used where something else cannot be used? (On car, drone, etc) ?

 

Hmm. That statement doesn't really work for me to be honest.

For an application or filming segment that required a small form factor solution, e.g in car filming, drones, effect shots, GH4s could well be the principal cameras. For filming segments that required on the shoulder camera work, the principal camera would be something else. For underwater, something else again.

Cameras are just tools, what we choose to pack in the box depends on what we're trying to achieve, the limitations we're faced with, chances are we'll turn up on a shoot with a reasonably wide array of different choices to get all the angles covered.

Make sense?

Not sure Stuart! LOL

From my (mis)understanding I thought the BBC et al (via the EBU standards) have certain minimum requirements for source footage depending on the project, and within the finalised project there could be no more than 25% percentage of footage which could be captured with cameras which do not meet the required standards due to the nature of the shot (environmental, drone, on-car etc etc). The final project would then have to be delivered in the required format

http://dpp-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/specs/bbc/TechnicalDeliveryStandardsBBC.pdf

So coming back to my original point, GH4 internally recorded footage doesn't meet their standards, but could be used for broadcast - but only within the 25% percentage of the final project?

Happy to be corrected, as I don't want to be wrong myself nor pass on duff info!

So coming back to my original point, GH4 internally recorded footage doesn't meet their standards, but could be used for broadcast - but only within the 25% percentage of the final project?

 

Happy to be corrected, as I don't want to be wrong myself nor pass on duff info!

So anything shot on a GH4 would be considered as proper, broadcast quality HD, and would not impact on the 25% allowance for other stuff.... which is just as well, cause some of the stuff we've done on GH4s would have blown that allowance in more than a few shows already

Stuart, many thanks for the clarifications. Splendid. Learned something today!