from a 6D to a GH4

[WhiteOpus]

Hello all, I wanted to get some advice on a gear purchase. I recently bought a canon 6D, even though some on the forum here advised against it. I'll admit it, you were right. I really don't see much of a difference in image quality between my 550D and my 6D, which is really the main reason I upgraded in the first place (and frankly, the low-light performance isn't as spectacular as I'd expected, based on reviews of the 6D). I am now thinking I want to sell it and buy a GH4 with the metabones speedbooster (ef to mft). I understand that the major benefit of the GH4 is the higher quality image (4k out of the box), but are there any other major benefits to upgrading? Conversely, are there any negative aspects I should be aware of (difficult to use interface, weird video codec, etc)? Anyone with a GH4 w/ the EF - MFT speedbooster, your comments would be extremely helpful. Below are the specific products I'm looking at.
gh4
metabones ef to mft speedbooster

 

[A.D.]

Sadly, there's no such thing. It's apples and oranges all the way.

Read up all you like, then get one in yer hand and go from there.

 

[WhiteOpus]

Yeah, I'm thinking I'll just rent one w/ a MFT lens for a week and see how I feel

 

[jax_rox]

Am I missing something

Yes. I believe we may have discussed this video here in the past, but to my eye it looks like the Epic is focussed on the tree in the foreground, leaving the house to go out of focus. Of course there's all the other things like the fact that the GH4 needed to be at a wider focal length to achieve the same field of view there, so it would have had more DOF, and therefore more things in focus, as well as the fact that the GH4 looks like it's had in-camera sharpening on...
And the fact that we have no idea what the post workflow was for the Epic footage.

In terms of your 6D vs GH4 question - my suggestion would simply be to temper your expectations. When you go from DSLR to DSLR, the improvements you get in one or the other tend to be marginal, and there always tends to be some limitation. I guess it's the economy of choosing cameras that sit in a certain price range. So definitely rent and test before you make your purchase decision.

Supposedly, the Panasonic LX100 has almost identical image quality OOB to the GH4 OOB, and is ~$900 if you can deal with a fixed lens.

 

[WhiteOpus]

Supposedly, the Panasonic LX100 has almost identical image quality OOB to the GH4 OOB, and is ~$900 if you can deal with a fixed lens.

Honestly, I already shoot everything on my 40mm pancake (It's the only lens I own - don't crucify me!) so the one lens (not fixed though, it's 28-75mm optical zoom, yes?) thing isn't much of an issue to me. What a great suggestion! I may just sell the 550D w/ extras and put down the other 400 to grab the LX100. Anybody got one? Also now looking at the Fuji X30, but I can't find anywhere saying it does 4k (downscaled to 1080) or not.

 

[jax_rox]

I may just sell the 550D w/ extras and put down the other 400 to grab the LX100. Anybody got one? Also now looking at the Fuji X30, but I can't find anywhere saying it does 4k (downscaled to 1080) or not.

Good article on EOSHD:
http://www.eoshd.com/2014/11/shooting-4k-pocket-camera-exceptional-panasonic-lx100/

The Fuji X30 has a 2/3" sensor, so not quite a large sensor camera - not sure if this makes a difference to what you're doing, but certainly something to think about.

Shoots 1080p so no 4k recording - I would assume it's not downscaled unless they make a big deal out of it (why would you not make it a selling point?).

 

[georgiahoosier]

I love the GH4 for the image quality, not so impressed with the cheapo HDMI port.
I bought mine in July and just discovered that the HDMI is not working, won't feed a monitor or the YAGH attachment. Why they didn't go with the more (barely more) robust mini connector rather than the micro just amazes me.
Now it's got to go to the shop and as Panasonic said "will be replaced with a refurbished unit".
Woohoo.

Anyway, I mainly use Canon and Tokina FD lenses on the GH4 and even though they shoot a lot more narrow an image I can always back up a bit.
I'm not parting with my T2i cameras, I still like the way they look for closeup video work and at 1080 the video integrates just fine with the GH4.

Despite the fragile nature of the camera, I still think the $1700 price is well worth it.

 

[stef]

Hey sorry to bump this thread up with an old article, but this shootout between the GH4, Red Epic and 5DMKIII makes it look like the GH4 is is clearly the winner. Am I missing something or is the GH4 completely blowing the Red Epic out of the water?

http://www.slrlounge.com/camera-shootout-gh4-test-demolishes-red-epic-5d3-raw/

This is one of the reasons I think 4k will be adopted slowly in movies, but quickly adopted for sports. You don't generally want to see the actor's skin pores when you're trying to tell a story since that merely distracts, but you certainly want to see the placement of the fingers as the pitcher holds a ball.

A few movies will benefit from more detail, and certainly the downsizing looks better, too. I've stared at the sony a7s for a while now, too, along with a few other cameras. But since I don't have anything lined up directly to shoot, I can use my 7D and 5D3 and forget about upgrading for the moment. While there's more detail in the 4k downres, there was probably no sharpening applied to the other images. That means it's not really a good test. Both the red and 5d3 would look a little better.

That said, the gh4 does some marvelous in-camera sharpening, and that can speed up the workflow of most people. Generally, I don't think studios want it pre-sharpened though.

Additionally, by downscaling from 4k you retain significantly more actual detail in the color channels - it's possible to create a true 4:4:4 1080 file from the onboard 4:2:0 4k on the GH4 if desired. Both cameras will still only do 8bit color, which is probably the biggest limitation color-wise of any of the DSLRs currently available.

IIRC, if you get the dock for the gh4, it will output 10 bits of color data over hdmi. It's only the internal recording that's limited to 8 bits.

I never thought about downressing for the missing color. My color detection isn't that great so I generally won't notice differences between adjacent pixels, but that's still cool.

 

[brunerww]

Honestly, I already shoot everything on my 40mm pancake (It's the only lens I own - don't crucify me!) so the one lens (not fixed though, it's 28-75mm optical zoom, yes?) thing isn't much of an issue to me. What a great suggestion! I may just sell the 550D w/ extras and put down the other 400 to grab the LX100.

A couple of cautions - In addition to the fixed lens, the LX100 also loses the GH4's mic & headphone jacks and hours of continuous recording. If you don't think you'll ever need an external mic, don't mind the inability to monitor your sound and never plan to record a long speech, play or other event, save yourself the extra $800 (plus lenses) and get the $898 LX100.

Also now looking at the Fuji X30, but I can't find anywhere saying it does 4k (downscaled to 1080) or not.

Not.