The latest range of Panasonic Lumix cameras all incorporate Panasonic’s 4K Photo Mode as well as 4K video. Models with 4K capability include the CM1 smartphone camera, FZ1000, LX100 and GH4 as well as the brand new Lumix G7 and the Lumix GX8.

What is 4K, anyway?

4K has definitely been the buzzword of the previous 12 months, not only in the photographic and imaging world, but also in the Audio-Visual world with the introduction of 4K TV’s and with BT TV, Sky and Netflix all planning to begin to broadcast 4K / Ultra HD footage.

4K (Confusingly also known as UHD or Ultra High Definition for reasons we won’t bore you with – but for the curious, here is a nice article explaining why) is essentially 4 times the resolution of Full HD (High Definition) at a staggering 3840 x 2160 pixels, or the equivalent of a 8.3MP image per frame. This means that video taken on a 4K device contains 4 times as much information as a normal HD video and therefore 4 times as much detail. If you think that HD movies look impressive compared to their standard definition counterparts, then imagine the detail you’ll see with 4K.

Original image by Matthew Lally, Warrington Store Manager

Above you can see a comparison of resolutions for standard definition, High Definition and 4K. You should be able to see a noticeable difference betweeb standard (on the left) and HD (centre).

From a film or television point of view, you may question whether the difference between HD (centre) and 4K (right) is noticeable enough to get excited about? Whilst is it true that the human eye can only see so much detail, especially depending on how far away you are from the image you are viewing, there is still 4 times as much detail stored within each frame. In photography terms, it is the difference between seeing a 2MP picture versus the same image at 8MP. You should be able to see that the 4K image, on the right above,  has smoother clouds, as there are more pixels making up the image.

This image below clearly shows how the resolutions compare between HD, Full HD and 4K.

What has all this got to do with photography?

Imagine you shot a video and saw the potential for a great still image within it. Pulling a single frame from an HD video gives an approximate image size of 2MP, or a printable size of about A6. Which isn't really worth the time it takes to go through finding that perfect moment, frame by frame.

But, 4K is 4 times the resolution of HD video. Apart from the growing demand for high quality video as a result of more and more people shooting video, when footage is made up of individual 8.3MP frames and up to 30 frames a second, it means that there is potential to pull single frames out of the video with a high quality, printable size of A4. Welcome to 4K Photo.

Up to 30 frames per second for an A4 sized print isn't bad at all, when you consider a fast DSLR will shoot around 7 frames per second. Don't worry... we're not suggesting that wildlife photographers and sports photographers should throw away their DSLR's and start shooting 4K video! There's obviously lots of other factors to take into account, but for the everyday photographer it's certainly a very useful tool.

Panasonic 4K Photo Mode

Panasonic know that not everyone wants, or has the skills or computer power to pull out single frames from a video to find the perfect moment. Besides, at up to 30 frames per second… or 30 photo quality images a second, who has the time? That’s why they invented 4K Photo Mode. 4K Photo Mode makes picking out the perfect moment quick and easy.

4K Photo mode is currently available on Lumix GH4, Lumix GX8, Lumix G7, Lumix FZ1000, Lumix LX100 and the Lumix CM1smartphone camera. If you own a GH4 or FZ1000 and are thinking, "Wait... I don't have 4K Photo..." then that's because it was introduced to those models as a firmware upgrade. You can find the relevant firmware upgrade for the Lumix FZ1000 here, and for the Lumix GH4 here, along with relevant instructions.

Using 4K photo mode also means that you might not miss a crucial moment, like the perfect picture of someone blowing out the candles on a birthday cake, the splash as someone jumps into a pool, or a bird in mid-flight; even the perfect pose on a photo shoot.

With Panasonic’s 4K Photo, you shoot a 30 second 4K video clip and then you can easily pull single frames out either in-camera or in post-production software such as adobe Lightroom, simply by browsing through the frames until you find the perfect moment, or moments. You can then choose to save that as a single jpeg image.

Another reason for 4K Photo having a separate mode is that it offers up different aspect ratios, which aren’t available in the movie recording mode, such as 4:3, 3:2, or 1:1, rather than the native 4K aspect ratio 16:9 (wide screen).

Of course, videographers can still take individual frames from a 4K video shot as a movie, rather than in 4K photo mode, but the choice of aspect ratios and the smaller clip lengths of the dedicated 4K Photo mode are appealing to stills photographers and less experienced users.

Is 4K Photo cheating?

The coming about of 4K Photo has sparked a debate as to whether it’s “cheating.” Obviously, a lot of skill, practice and patience goes into taking a sports, wildlife or moving object picture and we're not debating that. But, is using a 7 fps camera cheating? Or taking 100 images to narrow down to 10? Is autofocus cheating?

4K Photo is simply another evolution in digital photography and a tool that we can choose to use to help us get the most from our photgraphy.  In Damien Demolder’s Lumix G Street Photography Workshops he even talks of the benefits of using 4K Photo mode to  achieve certain shots, that he may otherwise have been unable to obtain.

Whether you use all the tools available to you as a photographer is up to you and it will depend on the type of photography you focus on, but we'll certainly be using 4K Photo!