I blame peer-pressure and a good deal for my upgrade to the GH4. My GH3 was perfectly fine when I bought the GH4 - I was happy with the photos it took, happy with the ergonomics of the camera, battery life, pretty much everything. The GH3 had traveled with me to many countries, and had shot thousands of frames at airshows in the South East of England. In fact, the GH3 still holds my personal record for most shots taken with a single camera, the 22,500 shutter actuations dwarfing all others.
The GH4, much like the GH2 was to the GH1, was more of an evolution of the previous camera. The body was more of the same - that same ideal-button-placement, that same weather-sealed magnesium-alloy chunkiness - though, internally, Panasonic had introduced the new-fangled 4K video. And in order to do so, had altered the plumbing considerably.
This made the GH4 a perfect photographer's camera. It had a large buffer that wrote files to the card speedily, new sensor to handle the 4K video but which also had better noise performance, a faster burst speed, better metering, and a faster shutter (both mechanical and electronic).
Panasonic also gave us their new Depth from Defocus auto-focus system. This is where a database is held of all Panasonic lens out-of-focus characteristics so that the camera can better guess where an object is within the focus-range of the lens. It was hoped that this would make the GH4 a much better subject-tracking and auto-focussing camera, but results were mixed.
One thing I did notice was that the focusing capabilities of the camera were much improved over the already brilliant GH3, even more so in low-light.
Due to a change of circumstances, I never got to travel with the GH4 as much as I would have liked to. Similarly, I never took it to an airshow, so never really tested the ability of the camera to grab focus (either through AF-S or AFC) of fast-moving aircraft. Its a shame, because the battery in the GH4 lasts forever - I rarely have to change it despite an all-day shoot.
I consider the GH4 to be an incredible camera, one that can be picked up for a very good price now that the GH5 has been out for a while. I'd recommend it to anyone who is looking to move from a DSLR and still wants that form-factor in mirrorless, but doesn't want to spend a lot of money - they can be had for as little as £600 in the UK (June 2018). And that money buys a lot of camera.
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Panasonic Lumix GH4
March 2016 to Now
14000+ shots
March 2016 to Now
14000+ shots
The GH4, much like the GH2 was to the GH1, was more of an evolution of the previous camera. The body was more of the same - that same ideal-button-placement, that same weather-sealed magnesium-alloy chunkiness - though, internally, Panasonic had introduced the new-fangled 4K video. And in order to do so, had altered the plumbing considerably.
This made the GH4 a perfect photographer's camera. It had a large buffer that wrote files to the card speedily, new sensor to handle the 4K video but which also had better noise performance, a faster burst speed, better metering, and a faster shutter (both mechanical and electronic).
Panasonic also gave us their new Depth from Defocus auto-focus system. This is where a database is held of all Panasonic lens out-of-focus characteristics so that the camera can better guess where an object is within the focus-range of the lens. It was hoped that this would make the GH4 a much better subject-tracking and auto-focussing camera, but results were mixed.
One thing I did notice was that the focusing capabilities of the camera were much improved over the already brilliant GH3, even more so in low-light.
Due to a change of circumstances, I never got to travel with the GH4 as much as I would have liked to. Similarly, I never took it to an airshow, so never really tested the ability of the camera to grab focus (either through AF-S or AFC) of fast-moving aircraft. Its a shame, because the battery in the GH4 lasts forever - I rarely have to change it despite an all-day shoot.
I consider the GH4 to be an incredible camera, one that can be picked up for a very good price now that the GH5 has been out for a while. I'd recommend it to anyone who is looking to move from a DSLR and still wants that form-factor in mirrorless, but doesn't want to spend a lot of money - they can be had for as little as £600 in the UK (June 2018). And that money buys a lot of camera.
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