The Atomos Shogun is real: Panasonic shows GH4 rig with external 4K recorder at Photokina
posted Thursday, September 25, 2014 at 10:18 AM EST
When Panasonic first introduced its 4K shooting mirrorless camera, the GH4, they also announced that the camera would be compatible with external 4K and HD recorders via the internal HDMI output and the SDI outputs of the YAGH add-on interface unit. At the time, however, suitably portable (and affordable) 4K recorders were hard to find.
In the meantime, Atomos announced (and presented at NAB) its Shogun 4K recorder, which promised to be a portable solution designed for the latest prosumer 4K cameras such as the Panasonic GH4 or the Sony A7S. Since then, we heard and saw little of the Shogun, until we happened on a GH4 + Shogun rig at this year's Photokina in Cologne, Germany.
The Shogun is indeed real, and -- while it isn't exactly handheld -- it's quite a bit smaller than such solutions as BlackMagic's Hyperdeck studio recorder. Oh, and it includes a screen. The Shogun was attached to the hot shoe of a GH4 unit, equipped with a 35-100mm Lumix G HD lens, recording 4K ProRes video at 23.98 fps. A second setup consisted of a full-fledged cinema rig using an Odyssey 7Q recorder and a Zeiss cine lens, but it was only recording Full HD in 4:2:2 ProRes.
If you're interested in the Atomos Shogun recorder for your own GH4 or A7S, it should be available by October and retails for just shy of $2,000. More information on the Shogun 4K recorder is available here.