kirk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f50dTjpH6QM

This is a short promo video I shot for my brother (he is a magician). My GH2 is running Sedna A, everything was shot in the 720p mode at 50fps to allow us to conform to 24fps for slowmo. Lenses were either Voigtlander 25mm f0.95 or a Tokina 11-16 f2.8.
Colour profile was smooth all dialled down. Dolly shots done with a Kessler PB Dolly + Electra drive.

His website is [url="http://www.darrencampbellmagic.co.uk/"]http://www.darrencampbellmagic.co.uk[/url] if anyone is interested : )

[quote name='kirk' timestamp='1348916703' post='19173']
Good to hear Jon.

You could perhaps try and uninstall the hack and have a look at the quality the camera produces, then compare with the hacked. I began with hacking mine when I got it, tried without for a while, and never hacked again other than freeing the PAL/NTSC, ISO and time restriction. The GH2 is a magnificent tool even unhacked, and the various hacks can change that a fraction, but often at the cost of instability, more noise, time spent and more expensive cards needed.

I'm sure I'll be stoned for this heresy, but just give it a chance and see for yourself ;o) Be sure to use a good screen when comparing though!
[/quote]+++100% There is an enormous amount of Placebo effect with the GH2 hacks.

The cage will probably not work with the shorter M43 turret? Anyhow, I can see the point of having a fixture for rails, for battery, follow focus and a mattebox, but the camera body, being a monobloc aluminum structure, is a cage in itself. There already are three 1/4 inch holes on top of the camera for handle, mic etc, and if you need side handles they can be fixed to the rails. Paying that high a price for something that already is there seems somewhat silly?

Guess I'm keeping my two highly beloved GH2's and stay content :P

Guess I'm keeping my two highly beloved GH2's and stay content :P

This sounds like a monologue, but, I guess, every camera manufacturer is giving us shit cams, under 5k. The GH2 is a miracle compared to the others. The Nikon mirrorless series is a joke. Its worse than bad. Both Canons and Nikon have insane moire and aliasing issues, apart from the very little lines of resolution. their picture profile is nice, but, it feels like those early day Handycams. The Sony NEX 5N and 7, are nowhere close to the GH2, at video. So, we haven't really gotten very far, from the last Photokia.
I did realise, after shooting a lot of videos, on my GH2, that the GH2 has insane FLAT picture profile, under certain ideal conditions. ONLY. These are:
1. Seriously Overcast Sky (though, not at very late, in the evening. Because, low light, ruins it).
2. Slightly Over-exposed (about 2 stops).

I guess, I'll just hold on to the GH2, for now. It has served me well, and it does some phenomenal video. At a fraction of the cost of the Alexas, the REDs and the Canon C series. The BMCC is good, but, its like a series of never ending investments, starting with SSD Drives, new wider lense, and much higher capacity of editing set-up. The GH2, for now, does everything at a fraction of the cost, and headache.

[color=#008000][size=4][font=verdana,geneva,sans-serif][b]My Take on the GH3 so far...[/b][/font][/size][/color]

To sum up my thoughts. I am very unimpressed with the video I have seen thus far. It totally lacks the clarity and unique appeal of the GH2. I was looking forward to this camera for a long time and on paper it looks fantastic! I love the shooting modes, it would be a dream come true for people looking for slow motion shooting. I love the aluminum build and weather sealing. Not having a multi aspect sensor is something I can live with.

I just hope that the problem has more to do with Panasonic's marketing team & lack luster unveil rather than the camera itself. However; I suspect that the new sensor is not capable of providing the wonderful moving images that the GH2 is famous for. As others have said, it looks very similar to what we have come to expect from Canon DSLR's. I hope that firmware patches can solve some of the issues but I am skeptical. I will stick with my GH2 unless I'm proved to be wrong.

Thoughts?

yes...but wait for the one coming out in 18 months! sorry....i can't say anymore....just wait....it will blow the one coming in 9 months completely out of the water......trust me....

[quote name='kirk' timestamp='1346916312' post='17424']
My understanding of the ISO issue was that you'd better avoid the top line??? Or arrive from one step above?
[/quote]

That's what I do: When I wake up my GH2, it starts at ISO 1600. If I want i.e. 320, I go 1600→ 800 → 400 ↓320.

Did you dial down the saturation to -2?

And: I know I'll be getting stoned for that, but most of the colored-noise-issues simply don't show up with standard firmware.

[quote name='vincegortho' timestamp='1345918601' post='16474']
So the GH3 is staying micro 4/3 sensor size then?
I ask because, so many people gave panasonic grief about it's small sensor size.[/quote]

Because extreme shallow dof was fashionable. I hope that MFT will survive, because it is a very smart compromise:

• the sensor size allows for lens resolutions as close as they can get to be covered by actual pixels for HD video without line-skipping. Bigger sensors don't.
• practically all bigger mounts can be adapted, but not vice versa.
• the mechanics of DSLRs with their clumsy, loud shutter mirror, perishing fast, will soon be realized as hoary relic. EVF and LCDs are getting brighter and sharper with every generation, and they show >focus, >exposure [i]and[/i] >color temperature (which mirrors can't). If you replace the shutter, the camera can be much, much smaller and lighter, provided that the lenses as well are small and light.
• the fastest lenses for full frame may be f1.2. If they are good, they are very expensive. The famous Noktons are with f.95 one full stop faster. They compensate fully for the 2:1 crop ratio ...
• ... if [i]extreme[/i] shallow dof is desirable any longer in the first place. You see it everywhere, I feel it starts getting old.
• The BMCC has an even bigger crop. Who knows? Perhaps MFT also will be adapted to the Blackmagic.

and here we go again ...
;)

It doesn't bother me. Nobody with any experience on a Gh2 would cater to its weaknesses in a real world shoot like the Empirical test. I think they just went for the cleanest image with a nice sheen on it, and that's fine. It has kind of an immediately gratifying characteristic... But by no means would i give it the "film look" stamp. Seriously, an old fast takumar for about a hundred bucks and the right grading could've taken this in a totally different direction. You can't stick a razor lens like the Fujinon in front of a Gh2 with a 150mb patch and expect it to not perform surgery. You almost have to throw some dirt on it to give it some soul... But that's cool because it's cheaper. I've seen plenty of footage that looked filmic. Granted, I can't film an indoor scene on a bright sunny day and get all manner of what's going on out the window as well as inside. But i've seen plenty of Films shot on actual FILM that blow out windows also.

Each sensor has its own character. A lot of these cameras throw a "milky" characteristic on skin that drives me nuts... You too $70,000 Alexa...

[quote name='HellKat' timestamp='1345303087' post='15987']
Although I agree with a number of things you mentioned in your critique of part 3 (in particular, where you talk about endless reminders about the importance of creativity which BTW often look like mantras lacking any sunstance), I think the overall tone of your blog post (and your advices) are not appropriate. Part 3 does not confirm your major leitmotif regarding GH2 - not a surprise, you do not like it.

Here is a piece of advice for you - next time you do what Zacuto did with their overall excellent and amazing effort by its scale and contribution to the filmmaking community, and then we'll see if you are up to the challange yourself.

To finish on a positive note - I respect what you do and check your blog almost every day. Equally, I respect your contribution to the community (even if I sometimes disagree with all your biases). But, man, learn your place.
[/quote]

Man...it's like bad mouthing Texas. Get your ass shot off over cameras around here...

Yeah they did put in a lot of effort...but damn... Putting on a test like that would not be what i considered a terrible inconvenience..

Using the best technology on the market, working with and interviewing some of the most respected DP's of our time.... Sounds awful.
Which one of us wouldn't jump at the opportunity to do something like this if we we're Steve Weiss? The whole point of this series was to get us all out of the forums and out there in the field. (I'm guilty as hell here on it myself, so don't crucify me:).

It's fun to talk shop on technology. That's all it is. People on Youtube are telling each other to go f--k themselves by the 9th comment over there because the uploader didn't use "smooth" -2 -2 -2 -2 and thus, the test was void.. It's retarded how personal people get over it.

For every negative comment on a camera, there are probably 2 or 3 positives out there somewhere if someone is researching. I have a T2i and a GH2. I've seen just about every negative comment there is on the T2i... But i absolutely love Cinestyle and Magic Lantern. I love the GH2... It's a detail monster and Flowmotion is the best patch i've ever used... But i prefer Canons look sometimes. No forum told me that...

But if it did, i sure as hell wouldn't post 50 pounds of negative on the commenters face... Pretty condescending.

[quote name='EOSHD' timestamp='1345289787' post='15965']
This gets boring very quickly. 1 - it wasn't just fanboys trumpeting the GH2, it was Francis Ford Coppola. 2. I find the fanboy thing offensive because it implies a lack of technical judgement, clouded by emotion.

[b][i]Go and tell the grading studio Andy Lee knows in the UK who said the GH2 holds up brilliantly in post - and they have been dealing with stuff from Red and Alexa for years.[/i][/b]
[/quote]

Andrew has done a superb job of bring the GH2 to a much wider group of people because of this forum he has set up.
I for one only considered switching to a GH2 from years with Canons because of Andrew's work detailing how to get the best out of this great little camera.
I reciently took a hard disc full of GH2 footage to be graded on a Flame Hi end machine at the Facilitys House I have been using for nearly 20 years now......and they are very used to handling Arri Alexa, Canon C300 and Red Raw Files for feature films they have edited and commercials.
The GH2 footage looked superb on their ref monitors AND had a big lattitue in the grade and held alot of infomation that could be pulled out if needed....
I was runing Driftwood Quantum 9b hack exactly like the Zacuto shoot out.
They said these files are as good as any Red or Arri file was have worked on, the GH2 footage I shot was comparable to those cameras and in that bracket of quality and detail.

We all have the choise to use what ever camera we want ...I think for me the GH2 is a great camera for the money and gives me the quaility that is almost as good as the bigger more expensive cameras like Epic, Arri and Sony F65 if used creatively and with good lighting.

Andrew has shot some superb looking films with his GH2 as have many many other people accross the world and people will continue to do so.

The GH2 is genuinely democratising film making for all of us!

So get shooting and get busy !!

[quote name='jgharding' timestamp='1345202214' post='15880']
Then as far as i can see part 1 and 2 are the useful parts, because the only thing I'll ever actually be doing with each camera is creating subjective interpretation of a scene with a DP (either someone else or myself). If I have a 5D MKii or a bridge camera I'm not going to shoot with it and light for it like it's an Alexa, so all part 3 does is prove that, yes, a $60,000 camera is much more forgiving and a better piece of kit, which we all already know! I know if I had unlimited budget I'd hire an Alexa for every shoot. I learn nothing from that being confirmed.

The only lesson to come from this shootout [i]is [/i]that some very experienced people picked a cheap camera out of the lineup on aesthetic alone. The reason that's a good lesson is because that's your actual audience reaction, and what happens in the real world.

Lighting everything the same -- in effect purposefully mis-using a less-forgiving piece of equipment -- then saying "look, cheap cameras aren't as good" is a bit of pointless academia IMHO. The spec sheet already tells me that information.
[/quote]

That's all true, but if we're talking about real world results....any shoot with the GH2 probably isn't getting that calibre of lens and lighting set up, nor the amount of time to tweak it to mask the camera's short comings. If they did have that, they'd almost certainly be using a higher end camera.

It's kind of a double edged sword. The lower end cameras need more time and equipment to truly compete, yet in scenarios where that budget and equipment is available, those cameras would be passed over for something further up the chain.

So the GH2 scenario is hardly real world either. The positive message here is that cameras are becoming like pizza... even the worst are still really, really damn good, and enough to satisfy most average viewer. I still love my GH2 for what at can do, at the price that my broke self brought it for.

Still a happy GH2 owner. Just shows you have to know and work around the limitations of your camera. Since the set had a greater DR than the camera can handle there had to be adjustments made to the interior lighting to cope... Noone would ever suggest the GH2 camera could fairly compete with a F65... But handled by a creative crew it did very well, as the comments and round one votes also mirror. And as far as economics go, the fictive rental scheme is fairly uninteresting. If you were producing a real movie you'd probably not rent a GH2 or an I-phone... The luxury of the GH2 is that for the first time a poor bastard like me can afford to own an impressively good camera and use it every day without breaking the bank.

Has anyone mentioned what profile was used on the GH2? Didn't look like Nostalgic to me... and was the Mac gamma shift/clipping issue part of the problem for the GH2?

eyes loves girlies but godamit dis girlie is not a pool shark and aint no actris
eye still wants her telefon number but der test is iratatin sexist not sexxy


today in the post modern world we have nasa technology but intellectually,spiritually and aesthetically
we are going back to the stone age.

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OKQdp6iGUk[/media]


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwSQxlwMzr8&feature=endscreen&NR=1

The images of video cameras affordable for the common people have always been improved. S-VHS was better than VHS, Hi8 and DV were better, HDV was better. Many said about the HVX 200 (below 1k resolution with pixel shift), now the era of indie filmmakers was just around the corner. And it was. Timeless principle.

The con- and prosumers are too stupid to realize that they can't win the race if they accept the industry's rules. 4k? Haven't you heard (read andy lees posting above), that these resolution tags are buzzwords to fool the consumers? If your display was 4k and you watched your own 4k stuff on it, you didn't move closer, because the video lacked the true resolution in the second place. And it looked terrible in the first place, because it neither had color resolution nor color depth suitable for a BIG image.

You think all this will change with the BM? It will, but in incremental steps (including the fact that you have to monitor the better quality, did you think about that?). At the time every hobby dad has 4k raw, the aestethic standards of cinema will be higher again.

All this without mentioning makeup, constumes, good acting, good sets, good lighting, good sound design, music ...

Speaking of pixel peeping there really is no light in Vitaliy's dark soul is there? http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/comment/74231#Comment_74231

How can anyone fail to be happy when someone like Francis Ford Coppola appreciates their work?