MOONGOAT

White balance is very important. Often essential to get right in-camera.

You get a feel for what the colour temperature should be so you can set your cameras white balance accordingly. Eg: You're indoors using Blondie 2K's and Redheads, you set to 3200k. You're using HMI's exclusively, 5600k. You're outdoors using only natural light with no cloud coverage during the middle of the day, 5600k, etc. Of course there's also a creative choice in what you set your camera to. You don't have to be locked in to the 'correct' setting, although it's a good place to start.

Also depending on your cameras codec and colour bit depth you have more flexibility in post for correcting white and black levels. If you're shooting 8bit H.264 you better make sure you get your white balance mostly correct in-camera, but if you're shooting RAW you can almost afford to white balance entirely in post (not good practice though).

Also 18% grey cards are mostly for exposure, not white balance. Use a piece of pure white card for a reference point in post. You can get greycards that have pure white, pure black and 18% grey on them. That's a good choice.

I still use my GH2. You don't need a great camera to make great images. >Upstream Color

Words of [some] Wisdom

-Pulling Focus is difficult. That's why specialists called Focus Pullers exist, and get paid money.

-If you're a one man band, learn your limitations, know them well and practice them.

-If it's outside your limitations, consider changing the shot to suit. (ie: shoot with more DoF, move the camera rather than focus, or split it into multiple shots)

The key I've learnt with wedding films is to have robust, reliable gear. I'd take a sturdy 5D over a hacked GH2 any day. That said, I've shot weddings with a hacked GH2. It works, with a few hiccups.

At the end of the day your clients wont give a shit about IQ or moire or aliasing or any of that. It's quite similar to being a news cameraman (or so I hear). Just deliver the pictures.

If you have the money to buy brand name stuff, that is good for you

 

But if you aren't well financed then there is cheaper option, and you can use that extra money to buy other gear instead or just save up for home loans and stuff.

In my experience you usually save money by going for the legit 'more expensive' option. And not just in cameras. Often the knockoffs will break or be too unreliable to use.

That's not to say all these Chinese manufacturers are bad. Some of them are great.

Cool. Rad. Awesome. Super. Where's my EF version?

Harsh sunlight + event can be a pain. You don't get the luxury of setting up silk frames. The best you can really do is ND or stop down and have a camera with a lot of latitude, then drop the contrast in post.

If you have control over your subjects ask them to move into the shade.

That Australian sun is brutal on contrast ratios.

Doing a project soon on a GH3. Could anyone give me the low down on the best profile settings for versatility in post?

Sorry didn't want to start a new thread. Thought this was as good a place as any.

Reduce contrast and saturation. And then I ask; why do you want to emulate the style so many are trying to avoid?

News at 10: Youtube can't get their shit together.

Both would serve you well. I think the GH2 is significantly better and most people here would tell you that, but it's not the camera that makes you good. Skills are learnt with lesser tools. If you can only afford a GH1 go for it, but my advice is keep looking around. Or, if you don't need it right away, wait a little longer. Something else is bound to present itself.

lol @ all these people thinking RAW is the be all-end all. Of course it's nice but 1) it's not going to make you any better and 2) it's not going to help you do your job. Actually it's going to make your job harder.

But he's right. Get out of weddings before you even begin.

Yeah, I've got some money put aside specifically for the EF -> MFT Speedbooster. Why don't they want my money?

It wont affect battery life but most hacks will use more card space. I would hugely recommend you bring a laptop to offload footage.

It'd also be a good idea to test different hacks. In my experience some hacks are not so reliable with certain cards.

You can soften sharp in post, you can't easily sharpen soft.

I gotta say I disagree with a lot of posts in this thread. It says in the title 'total beginner'. I don't think recommending $1000+ glass is necessarily a good idea. As great as some of these recommendations are, dropping a large amount of money on a new hobby is never a good idea.

Do a lens cap test and find out yourself. Doesn't take too long.

Record 10 seconds of footage with the same settings at each ISO with the lens cap on. The results might surprise you. I've found with my GH2 ISO 1250 is cleaner than 250.

That's more than enough to get started. Don't fall into the trap of spending money unnecessarily. Also there's nothing wrong with MFT lenses, but it might be wise to invest in something like Canon or Nikon glass with a good adapter rather than MFT. I don't think MFT is going anywhere any time soon, but there is almost no downside to investing in something like fully manual Canon lenses.

Dark with bright text so it doesn't hurt my eyes at 6am ;-;

Or better yet just give us an option of both?

Dammit! $99 packages all gone. I was looking for something exactly like this recently. Well, not exactly like this, but for an elegant base plate solution.

My only concern with this design is putting too much weight on rod plugs. I guess it would be difficult to clamp down 15mm sockets through the center of the plate though.

Very safe. Never heard of anyone having any issues hacking a GH2. It works exactly the same as updating official firmware.

I'd have to know the details of the project, but my first thought is just going handheld with a wide, optically stabilized lens.

Here's a thread on Creativecow you might find useful.

http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/142/871512

Probably not. One of the biggest lessons I've learnt when buying gear is not going cheap. You'll more than likely end up $200 poorer with a crappy shoulder rig that sits in a box collecting dust. Also ask yourself why you really need a shoulder rig if you're just starting out.

"25p is only available at 20Mbit in MP4 mode on the PAL camera, whilst 1080/60/50p is available in AVCHD 2.0 and MP4 at 28Mbit."

Strange...