Homebrewed Music

Talk about an unfair fight, this seems to be just that, based on price alone. The GH3 currently costs around $850 (Ooops, today it’s $1000 – camera prices have become highly variable it seems) for the body only, the original price was about $1300 with a kit zoom lens. The Q4 at $299 is a lot easier to fit into most budgets. And we’re talking about a very specific niche here, the “music camera,” in this category the audio quality is right up there in importance with the video.

Micro 4/3 System for the Win

The Panasonic Lumix G series are a new class of camera in several areas. The sensor size and lens mount together define the Micro-4/3 standard, supported with products from Panasonic, Olympus, and now by a Chinese startup bearing the fine old Kodak name. Along with this new system, Panasonic has embraced the concept of a hybrid stills and video camera, so most of the G series have features that improve the quality of video capture, features like 24 frames-per-second mode, manual control of shutter speed during video, and high quality high bit rate codecs.

Audio is very often a weak spot for consumer level camcorders and for these new hybrid cameras as well. The mics are omni-directional and closely spaced, so stereo imaging is marginal. The audio circuitry is often encumbered with limiting or auto-level processing that raise noise and distortion and lead to artifacts like pumping and sudden volume jumps. Until recently audio inputs were rarely included on systems costing less than $2000 or so. All these limitations meant that most of us shooting these kinds of cameras used parallel recording of audio, capturing sound with a separate recorder then merging the audio and video in post production, using the camera audio only for a guide.

The Panasonic Lumix GH3 changed the situation regarding audio in a hybrid camera, with a stereo mic input, headphone output for monitoring, control over input level, and fairly clean audio circuitry. I did a comparison between the audio capture in the GH3 and the Zoom H6 audio recorder in a recent blog post and I was surprised at how little difference I heard between the two.

Zoom Q4 Brings It

I was initially pleased to hear that Zoom was using a very wide angle lens in the new Zoom Q4, but in a normal room setting the result was some annoying distortion of vertical lines and a cartoony effect of enlarging that part of the subject closest to the camera. One of the strengths of a system camera is the ability to choose the lens to meet the needs of the project, the micro 4/3 system includes a wide variety of high quality lenses from medium long zooms to very fast prime (non-zoom) glass, and it’s generally reasonable in price compared to lenses for traditional DSLRs. Of course, it’s still an extra cost item, so once again the system camera gives the budget a hit.

Three Clips in One

Here’s a three-in-one clip, with a bit of discussion about the two cameras, followed by a brief indoor and outdoor music performances. The indoor shoot matches the two built-in mics, while the outdoor was done with a Zoom H6 serving as a stereo mic source.

The narration in the first section is simply camera audio from the Lumix GX7 that’s shooting the scene. Yes, I have too many Lumix G series cameras, please don’t tell my wife.

The Color’s the Thing

In the second, indoor, scene the directional mics of the Zoom win the day to my ear. In these close quarters we can see the distortion from the wide angle lens, and the color captured by the Q4 is much too “cold” or blue-tinted.

The first firmware update for the H6 added the ability to adjust the line out level, this came in handy for matching the sensitivity of the mic inputs on the two cameras. I reduced the line out level from the H6 by 25 dB and used my Coleman Audio switcher to send the signal to both camera mic inputs. I adjusted the input level on the Q4 to High and on the GH3 to the minimum, 1 out of 19. Since my mouth was rather far from the mic I added 6 dB of level to spoken portions of the outdoor clip. I was very pleasantly surprised by the results in this clip, both cameras did a great job of recording the audio cleanly and accurately, but once again the adjustable white balance on the GH3 made for a much more accurate image.

Just My Opinion

So here’s my take on this comparison. First, if you’re not a camera nut with a very understanding spouse, the Q4 is much easier to sneak into the budget. Second, for audio captured by the camera mics, the directional mics of the Q4 give a much better result. The early reflections captured by the GH3 omni-directional mic color the sound very aggressively and not in a positive way, and that color is nearly impossible to remove during editing. But third, if image quality is a big part of you goal, the GH3 really brings home the goods. As an aside, I haven’t tried the Panasonic G6, but this less expensive Lumix G camera has a great reputation for video quality and includes most of the features of the GH3, including the articulated view screen, adjustable mic input, and extensive manual control. It will still cost considerably more than the Zoom Q4, but much less than the GH3.

Shootout in Full Sun

Doing these shootouts at our Hawai`i vacation rental makes me appreciate the little collection of lighting tools I have in the studio at home. Here I’m at the mercy of the weather which can be rather variable this time of year. The comparison in the video above doesn’t have any brightly lit scene, which puts the Q4 at a real disadvantage, so I’ve uploaded another clip, this one has some issues but at least it shows the Q4 operating in full bright sun.

My evaluation of this clip is that the GH3, even with my poor exposure setting, shows a more accurate color palette and better resolution. In this clip the Q4 is operating in narrow angle of view so that may have caused a bit of softness in the Zoom image. But realistically for three or four times the cost the GH3 should be the winner, and the Q4 in good light captures a pretty nice image.