Here are two 100% crops which have been Saved as Web - Quality 50 in Photoshop. The right-hand image has had some sharpening applied in Photoshop. The out-of-the camera images are soft at the default sharpening setting, and benefit from further sharpening in a program like Adobe Photoshop. You can also change the in-camera sharpening level by tweaking the Film Mode, with five different settings available. Approx. 560g / 19.75 oz (SD card, Battery, Body)/Approx. 480g / 16.93 oz (Body only)/Approx. 865g / 30.51 oz (SD card, Battery, H-HS12035 lens included)/Approx. 825g / 29.10 oz (SD card, Battery, H-FS14140 lens included) 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. The red Motion Picture button on the rear, as you'd expect, allows you to start recording a movie with a single push of a button and then stop recording by pressing the same button, regardless of which shooting mode is currently selected. This is a lot more intuitive than having to select the movie mode then press the shutter button, as on some cameras, although you can still start/stop movie recording via the GH4's shutter button if you wish. Large capacity SDHC/SDXC memory card. If you're recording 4K or high bitrate Full HD video, a UHS Speed Class 3 (U3) card is required.

Just briefly mentioning the quality options, the Lumix GH4 lets you record at three different image sizes with the choice of two JPEG compression levels or RAW files recorded with or without a Large Fine JPEG. You can also switch the aspect ratio between 1:1, 4:3, 3:2 and 16:9, although all involve cropping the native 4:3 shape with a reduction in resolution and field of view. In my tests, Large Fine JPEGs typically measured around 6-9MB each, while RAW files weighed-in at 19.8MB.

Review Roundup

Mechanical shutter: H: 12 frames/sec (with AFS), 7 frames/sec (with AFC), M: 7 frames/sec (with Live View), L: 2 frames/sec (with Live View) The design of the Panasonic GH4 is strikingly similar to the GH3, so much so, that if there wasn't a "GH4" logo stamped on the front you probably would have trouble telling the two apart unless you knew what subtle changes to look for. One of the challenges for compact system camera manufacturers has been to improve the speed of their autofocusing, because they use the traditionally slower contrast detection system. Panasonic has introduced a new approach for the GH4, which uses its novel DFD (Depth from Defocus) Technology. 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. Once your phone or tablet becomes connected to the GH4, you can remote control it, browse the images direct from the memory card, copy them onto the handset and if desired send them onto various storage or sharing services. You can also set the app to make a GPS log for subsequent syncing and tagging, which I’ll cover in a separate GPS section below.

IPB) (LPCM) / 100Mbps (IPB) (AAC)/[Full HD] 1920x1080:50.00p, 200Mbps (ALL-Intra) (LPCM) / 100Mbps (IPB) (LPCM) / 50Mbps (IPB) (LPCM)/[Full HD] 1920x1080:25.00p, 200Mbps (ALL-Intra) (LPCM) / 100Mbps (IPB) (LPCM) / 50Mbps (IPB) (LPCM)/[Full HD] 1920x1080:50.00p, 28Mbps (IPB) (AAC)/[Full HD] 1920x1080:25.00p, 20Mbps (IPB) (AAC)/[HD] 1280x720:25.00p, 10Mbps (IPB) (AAC)/[VGA] 640x480:25.00p, 4Mbps (IPB) (AAC)In single-AF mode the GH4 can shoot continuously at up to 12 fps (frames per second) with a UHS-III SD format card installed. This rate drops to 7.5fps in continuous autofocus mode. Panasonic will introduce a UHS-III card when the GH4 comes to market. Count Up: Rec Run/Free Run selectable, Time Code Mode: Drop frame/Non-drop frame selectable (When system frequency [59.94Hz] is selected.) As it sits at the top of Panasonic's camera line-up, the GH4 is aimed at experienced photographers and, naturally, it has the usual program, aperture priority, shutter priority and manual exposure modes. However, there's also Panasonic's Intelligent Auto (iA) mode to help less experienced photographers and the Creative Control options that apply digital filter effects (Rough Monochrome and so on) to JPEG images. 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]. The Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH4 produced images of outstanding quality during the review period. It produces noise-free images at ISO 100 to 1600, with limited noise starting to appear at ISO 3200. ISO 6400 and 12800 exhibit quite visible noise and loss of fine detail, while the fastest setting of 25600 looks much better on paper than in reality.

Just like its predecessor, the GH4 wraps its sealed magnesium alloy body around a 16MP Four Thirds sensor. But that shouldn't be taken to mean that the GH4 is a minor update. The most striking difference is that the GH4 can capture 4K footage (both in the DCI 4K and UHD 4K resolutions), but the extent to which the GH4 supports a professional workflow is arguably just as significant. The pop-up flash worked well indoors, with no red-eye and good overall exposure. The night photograph was excellent, with the maximum shutter speed of 60 seconds allowing you to capture plenty of light. C4K] 4096x2160:24.00p, 100Mbps (IPB) (LPCM)/[4K] 3840x2160:24.00p, 100Mbps (IPB) (LPCM)/[Full HD] 1920x1080:24.00p, 200Mbps (ALL-Intra) (LPCM) / 100Mbps (IPB) (LPCM) / 50Mbps (IPB) (LPCM)

In your hands the GH4 feels very solid, with its large chunky grip giving your fingers plenty to hold onto, while an indented inner area acts as a hook for your fingertips. The grip feels quite different to the OMD EM1, which has a noticeably thinner shape to wrap your fingers around. Both bodies are weather-sealed and exude confidence in use. 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.

Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Shade, Incandescent, Flash, White Set 1/2/3/4, Color Temperature Setting (2,500-10,000K in 100K steps) The Lumix GH4 employs 100% electronic live-view composition and is equipped with a large viewfinder and a 3in screen which is fully-articulated. The GH4’s electronic viewfinder employs an OLED panel sporting 2359k dots, a 4:3 shape and a magnification of 0.67x in 35mm equivalence terms. The GH4’s viewfinder panel is higher resolution than the 1700k dot of the earlier GH3, but that model’s viewfinder was 16:9 in shape, so didn’t involve any cropping to display HD video. Still image: Max. 2x (Aspect ratio sets at 4:3. Not effective with L size recording. Magnification ratio depends on the recording pixels and aspect ratio.)/Motion picture: 2.4x (FHD), 3.6x (HD), 4.8x (VGA) IPB) (LPCM) / 100Mbps (IPB) (AAC)/[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)/[Full HD] 1920x1080:59.94p, 28Mbps (IPB) (AAC)/[Full HD] 1920x1080:29.97p, 20Mbps (IPB) (AAC)/[HD] 1280x720:29.97p, 10Mbps (IPB) (AAC)/[VGA] 640x480:29.97p, 4Mbps (IPB) (AAC)

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.