SKYVANTAGE’S NEW 4K RIG

We have been delighted with our hacked GH2 which has punched well above its weight with its 50+ megabit rate making it passable for broadcast television. However, as any UAV videographer knows, quality of footage is everything but unless you are flying giant octocopters, weight and size are equally important. Therefore, we are extremely excited about the arrival of the new GH4 – sometime soon! Although the fuss about 4k is probably overstated to drone videographers, the 96fps at 1080p is something which we are seriously looking forward to and very large bit rates are going to be invaluable. Having the ability to shoot serious slow motion with aerial flying is extremely important especially when shooting sports action, for example.

The video capabilities of the GH4 are already widely written about on Google, but the main points are in relation to the quality of the footage that it can shoot. Not only is it of a 4k resolution, but video can have a bit-rate of either 100Mbps or 200Mbps, which is far in excess of the 73Mbps maximum bit rate of the GH3. This level of quality is actually in excess of what most television companies are setting as the standard video capture, so we could see footage from the GH4 used by broadcasters and perhaps knocking Canon in the balls too!

We are not sure yet when it is released after speaking to Panasonic today, but watch this space for the results when it does fly with us. We can’t wait!