Panasonic DMC-GH4EB-K Compact System Camera (Body Only)

Product Information

So from these tests I’d say Panasonic’s technology certainly seems to let the GH4 focus a little faster and more confidently than the EM1 when fitted with Panasonic lenses, but again the difference was subtle and there was no benefit when using Olympus lenses. But what the GH4 does have in common with the EM1 along with every single other Micro Four Thirds camera on the market right now is the same 16 Megapixel resolution. In this respect it looks like Micro Four Thirds has stalled at this resolution. Sure the latest image processors are gradually refining the output, but I’m not seeing any significant jumps in image quality from the format.

In the center, the GH4 has a standard hot shoe for mounting various accessories like the Panasonic DMW-MS2 Stereo/Shotgun mic, which thanks to the new processor and software in the GH4 is now able to zoom and adjust the balance between stereo and shotgun recording angles. The hot shoe is also compatible is flash units such as the new Panasonic Wireless Flash DMW-FL580L. Flanked on either side of the hot shoe sit left and right mics for stereo audio recording. IPB) (LPCM)/[4K] 3840x2160:23.98p, 100Mbps (IPB) (LPCM)/[Full HD] 1920x1080:59.94p, 200Mbps (ALL-Intra) (LPCM) / 100Mbps (IPB) (LPCM) / 50Mbps (IPB) (LPCM)/[Full HD] 1920x1080:29.97p, 200Mbps (ALL-Intra) (LPCM) / 100Mbps (IPB) (LPCM) / 50Mbps (IPB) (LPCM)/[Full HD] 1920x1080:23.98p, 200Mbps (ALL-Intra) (LPCM) / 100Mbps (IPB) (LPCM) / 50Mbps (IPB) (LPCM) The sensitivity ranges from 200 to 25600 ISO with an extended 100 ISO option and from the Photo Styles menu you can adjust the noise reduction, along with contrast, sharpness and saturation on a scale of +/-5 steps. Like many previous Lumix G models I’ve found the default style can benefit from a little more sharpening and a little less noise reduction, but you’re welcome to tweak away. Note an Auto ISO option is available, but not in the Manual exposure mode.

Since this review was published, the Lumix GH4 has been superseded by the brilliant Lumix GH5. The newer model offers 4K video shooting at up to 60fps and 1080p at an impressive 180fps. You can read our review of the GH5 here. Apart from the lighting changing slightly on this windy day, I’d say the detail in the crops above is identical. Obviously the 4k modes are making a wide-shaped crop from the sensor so you lose a lot of vertical picture height compared to the native 4:3 stills, and the video crop also loses a little from the sides too, but it certainly opens up a lot of potential for people who want to grab decent quality stills from video. And remember action shooters, you’re recording these 8 Megapixel 16:9 shaped images up to 30 times a second, so capturing the decisive moment should be a breeze. It’s also a surprisingly effective way to take portraits, as a person’s expression – especially for kids – can change significantly in split seconds. The GH4 offers an Extended Teleconverter option for 1080p footage. This takes a 1:1 1920×1080 crop from the middle of the sensor, which results in a 2.4x reduction in the field of view – handy for getting closer to your subject. It also has the additional benefit of being an unscaled crop, so the per-pixel detail is sharper than the full-width 1080p footage. Indeed quality fanatics may prefer to shoot 1080p in the Extended Teleconverter mode as it avoids scaling artefacts and only uses the best quality area of your lenses. The downsides are of course the significant field reduction which would make it impractical for wide views, and of course the absence of pixel-combining means the footage could be noisy in low light, but if the conditions are good, it provides an interesting alternative. A 4:3 viewfinder panel with 2359k dots equates to a resolution of 1024×768 pixels, which matches the best of the electronic viewfinders employed by the Olympus OMD EM1 and Fujifilm XT1. Interestingly though, the GH4’s magnification is lower, at 0.67x compared to 0.74x for the OMD EM1 and 0.77x for the Fujifilm XT1. This means the panel is magnified more on the Olympus and especially the Fujifilm, resulting in a larger apparent image size, albeit with no greater detail. It’s also important to consider how each camera formats the panels. In use the XT1’s wider 3:2 native image shape means its images don’t fill the vertical height of the panel, which reduces its size advantage a little. But as both the GH4 and EM1 have a 4:3 native image shape which matches their panels, the Olympus enjoys a noticeably larger image when both are used side-by-side. I should also note in very low light, the GH4’s viewfinder became noisier than the EM1, and with a lower refresh rate too when panning, but the EM1’s viewfinder image was noticeably darker, so there is a case of swings and roundabouts. Panasonic has however enhanced its contrast based AF system by profiling the out-of-focus characteristics of its own lenses. By knowing how they look when out-of-focus, the GH4 can actually have a good stab at knowing which direction to focus in. Panasonic says it’s profiled all its existing Micro Four Thirds lenses, and that any new ones will contain the profiles and transfer them to the GH4, but sadly the Olympus catalogue is not supported, at least not yet.

The 1:1 pixel mapping for 4K capture means the crop is a little tighter than it is for photos and 1080p video, but the slight loss to wide-angle shooting is a gain for telephoto. COLOUR, NOISE AND COMPRESSION Level Gauge, Real-time Histogram, Guide Lines (3 patterns), Center Marker, Highlight display (Still image / motion picture), Zebra pattern (Still image / motion picture) The Lumix GH4 becomes Panasonic’s latest camera to offer Wifi with Near Field Communications, or NFC for short. Now every model in the Lumix G range apart from the tiny GM1 (which omitted it on the grounds of sheer space) feature both Wifi and NFC, and Panasonic’s implementation is one of the best around. Use a card with SD Speed Class with "UHS-I Speed Class 3 (U3)" when recording motion pictures in [4K/100Mbps] [C4K/100Mbps] [FHD/100Mbps] or [FHD/200Mbps]. Despite 4K video recording as the hallmark feature of the new Panasonic GH4, Panasonic's new flagship mirrorless camera is still a top-notch camera for still photography. I had a couple of weeks to spend some quality time shooting with the GH4 -- out on the streets of New Orleans and along South Carolina's coast -- and right off the bat, I was very impressed with both the image quality and performance of this new mirrorless camera.

SILKYPIX® Developer Studio 4.1 SE (Windows XP / Vista / 7 / 8, Mac OS X v10.5 / v10.6 / v10.7 / v10.8) With this in mind, you’d expect the 1080p modes to share the same crop as the UHD modes and simply scale them down by a nice even factor of two, again to avoid artefacts from non-integer scaling factors. But interestingly Panasonic has chosen to capture the full sensor width of 4608 pixels and scale it down to 1920 pixels with a non-integer 2.4x reduction. The benefit is that 1080p footage shares the same horizontal field of view as shooting stills, but the downside is again the potential for artefacts from the non-integer scaling factor. With this in mind, those wanting the best 1080p output may prefer to shoot in UHD and scale it down by two times. The remote control feature is really neat, showing a live image on your phone or tablet’s screen and allowing you to take a photo or start or stop a video. You can tap anywhere on the live image to set the focus to that area or directly take the shot. If the camera’s mode dial is set to Aperture or Shutter Priority, you can remotely adjust the aperture or shutter speed respectively, and in Manual you can change both. The GH4 also includes a pop-up flash unit, that's activated by a soft button along the left side of the EVF.

Auto / Daylight / Cloudy / Shade / incandescent / Flash / White Set 1, 2, 3, 4 / Color temperature settingx 2160 (24p), 3840 x 2160 (24p, 25p, 30p), 1920 x 1080 (24p, 25p, 30p, 50p, 60p), 1280 x 720 (24p, 25p, 30p), 640 x 480 (25p, 30p) The Panasonic GH4's still image quality is also improved, especially the high ISO performance. Images shot at ISO 100-1600 are clean, with a little noise appearing at 3200 and more at the still very usable setting of 6400. ISO 12800 is best reserved for resizing and smaller prints, while the top speed of 25600 is only for emergency use, but overall the GH4 offers excellent still image quality. The GH4 with DMW-YAGH Interface Unit. (Note: Camera images shown here without the GH4 logo are of a pre-production model we handled that was not cosmetically final.)