GH4 and the BBC

I have just returned from a very interesting talk by Geoff Bell at a local camera club. Geoff is a well known professional Techo-boffin, who has contributed to many stunning BBC wildlife and other amazing wildlife programs using his expertise and knowledge to produce and 'drive' amazing robot-cams.

In the early days he was the first to fit a movie film camera into a huge model helicopter, then model aircraft, and even a model airship. He was also responsible for Penguin cams, Rock cams, and various other devices and most recently filmed for Blue Planet and various others still to be launched.

I had never heard of him before, but as I got the chance to go and see his talk for a whole £2, I thought it would at least be a cheap night out!

Frankly I was blown away, he invents, builds and operates his wonderful camera setups, some of which can cost many hundreds of thousands of £££'s.

In fact on one rig demonstrated the camera and mount was over £300,000 !!!!

So where does M43 figure in all of this?
Well although much of their filming nowadays is done using a standard DJI Mavic Pro, when they need serious quality from a drone to match the hugely expensive broadcast rigs, they turn to the Panasonic GH4, for which he stated the results are simply mindblowing. ... and this is from a guy who really knows his stuff.

As I left I asked him if I could take a phone-shot of his large quadcopter showing the GH4 just for you guys to see...

Geoff Bell's GH4 drone rig, only used when very high quality footage is needed.

I was rather taken aback at the numbers all night, but realised I have been doing the wrong jobs all my life when he said a typical hours worth of raw useable film costs around £16 million. .... mind you I don't think I would like to be isolated for months on end in the Sahara or the Arctic trying to photograph beasts without getting eaten oneself.

If anyone wants to check out his credentials look at IMDB ...
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1116396/

With regards to video Panasonic delivers absolutely fantastic bang for the buck. Looking at the size of the GH4 { I have one } on their drone that is one serious bit of kit

The behind the scenes guys on the BBC nature documentaries do fabulous work . It has been interesting to see in recent years the end of the show where they have a short "making of " clip the effort and dedication of these guys is awe inspiring. I was at an illustrated lecture from Doug Allan another BBC stalwart  a couple of years back up in Crieff amazing images and a great guy

samtheman2014 wrote:

It has been interesting to see in recent years the end of the show where they have a short "making of " clip the effort and dedication of these guys is awe inspiring.

Those bits are very interesting, but I think they're only filler for us Brits.

You'll note that the actual episode finishes quite a bit earlier - and the cynic in me says that's so that it can be sold for the international market!

Cheers,
Paul

amipal wrote:

samtheman2014 wrote:

It has been interesting to see in recent years the end of the show where they have a short "making of " clip the effort and dedication of these guys is awe inspiring.

Those bits are very interesting, but I think they're only filler for us Brits.

You'll note that the actual episode finishes quite a bit earlier - and the cynic in me says that's so that it can be sold for the international market!

Cheers,
Paul

Having little trust in the BBC that did cross my mind Paul even so it is interesting to see behind the scenes . The one were they filmed for a month underground in a cave with a cockroach covered mountain of guano was gruesome

d3xmeister wrote:

Thanks for sharing. The GH4 was and is used by many professionals, Top Gear still use them today for almost everything except the studio. It was never good enough for forum warriors and bloggers/youtubers though, many of them think it sucked.

That made me laugh, - how true. ...and almost the same could be said of the GX8 which I use regularly in a professional capacity, but it's not good enough for ... as you say 'forum warriors' and 'bloggers'      .

...I shall be giggling all day on that.

d3xmeister wrote:

Thanks for sharing. The GH4 was and is used by many professionals, Top Gear still use them today for almost everything except the studio. It was never good enough for forum warriors and bloggers/youtubers though, many of them think it sucked.

I have the GH4 and had the GH3 and GH2 before it still waiting on the BBC giving me a call though