xbourque
05-10-2009, 10:19 PM
Hey everybody,
After reading and writing a lot about the GH1 recently, I finally got to hold one in my hands today.
Local photo shop Lozeau held a small tradeshow in Montreal this weekend. I got to play with the GH1 on the floor. Of particular interest, I was able to use the new Panasonic 7-14 wide zoom lens. That lens was light and tiny! However, there are no filter threads in front... so using polarizers or ND filters on that thing will require creative rigging.
The GH1 will be available in Canada "next month" and the MSRP will be 1899$CAD.
The 7-14 should be "around" 1500$CAD (ouch!).
You can find the PRIVATE folder here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=QADQSBNO
Clips 00001 to 00007 are shot with the kit 14-140 lens.
Clips 00008 to 00024 are shot with the new Panny 7-14.
I turned down the sharpness, contrast and noise reduction at the minimum in the "MyFilm" settings... I found most of the stuff online over sharpened and over contrasty, so I wanted to see if you could dial that down.
Most of the shots are 1920x1080@24p, because for some reason when I tried 1280x720@60p, the camera would record for a few seconds, then give me an error about my memory card not being fast enough. (The card was brand new, was rated as a "Class 6" and was rated for "camcorders" according to the packaging).
My general impression of the camera:
- Loved the ergonomics. The scroll wheel in the front is great to dial settings such as aperture and shutter speed.
- Loved the form factor. But to be honest, playing with the D5000 at the Nikon booth, the GH1 didn't feel small enough to warrant the hype about u4/3.
- Menu navigation is okay... didn't feel as refined as Canon or Nikon though.
- All the AF stuff like face recognition and feature tracking is really impressive!
- Having a dedicated movie mode on the program wheel and dedicated record button is very classy. I played with the 5dMkII at the Canon booth and could't even find the damn movie mode.
I talked to the Panny rep at the booth for quite a bit. He looked really familiar... turns out he was Doug Borbath, Senior Product Manager at Panasonic Canada (http://www.butterscotch.com/show/Panasonic-Lumix-GH1-Shoots-Stills-And-HD-Video).
Unsurprisingly though... it was painfully clear that Panasonic aims this camera at average consumers for shooting birthday parties and the family dog... not indy filmmakers.
I did mention the following things to Doug before leaving:
- lack of audio gain control
- lack of audio metering
- lack of live HDMI and/or composite
- lack of higher bit rate
- get rid of the pulldown!
He told me that he wanted live output too... for staff training sessions about the new camera. :-) Engineers told him they couldn't do that cuz the CPU in the camera wasn't fast enough.
Everything else felt like they were very foggy concepts to a stills camera guy. He even argued that 17 mbps was the max they could record to be compatible with BluRay (which isn't true... max for bluray is 48 mbits).
He also argued that pulldown was a byproduct of the sensor running at 60 fps... when it clearly runs at 24fps and then adds pulldown on top.
Anyways... it's cool that they let me play with the camera for so long with my own memory card. It's also cool that they let me play with the 7-14mm lens.
For all the people worried about aliasing: turn sharpness all the way down! It helps.
- Xavier
After reading and writing a lot about the GH1 recently, I finally got to hold one in my hands today.
Local photo shop Lozeau held a small tradeshow in Montreal this weekend. I got to play with the GH1 on the floor. Of particular interest, I was able to use the new Panasonic 7-14 wide zoom lens. That lens was light and tiny! However, there are no filter threads in front... so using polarizers or ND filters on that thing will require creative rigging.
The GH1 will be available in Canada "next month" and the MSRP will be 1899$CAD.
The 7-14 should be "around" 1500$CAD (ouch!).
You can find the PRIVATE folder here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=QADQSBNO
Clips 00001 to 00007 are shot with the kit 14-140 lens.
Clips 00008 to 00024 are shot with the new Panny 7-14.
I turned down the sharpness, contrast and noise reduction at the minimum in the "MyFilm" settings... I found most of the stuff online over sharpened and over contrasty, so I wanted to see if you could dial that down.
Most of the shots are 1920x1080@24p, because for some reason when I tried 1280x720@60p, the camera would record for a few seconds, then give me an error about my memory card not being fast enough. (The card was brand new, was rated as a "Class 6" and was rated for "camcorders" according to the packaging).
My general impression of the camera:
- Loved the ergonomics. The scroll wheel in the front is great to dial settings such as aperture and shutter speed.
- Loved the form factor. But to be honest, playing with the D5000 at the Nikon booth, the GH1 didn't feel small enough to warrant the hype about u4/3.
- Menu navigation is okay... didn't feel as refined as Canon or Nikon though.
- All the AF stuff like face recognition and feature tracking is really impressive!
- Having a dedicated movie mode on the program wheel and dedicated record button is very classy. I played with the 5dMkII at the Canon booth and could't even find the damn movie mode.
I talked to the Panny rep at the booth for quite a bit. He looked really familiar... turns out he was Doug Borbath, Senior Product Manager at Panasonic Canada (http://www.butterscotch.com/show/Panasonic-Lumix-GH1-Shoots-Stills-And-HD-Video).
Unsurprisingly though... it was painfully clear that Panasonic aims this camera at average consumers for shooting birthday parties and the family dog... not indy filmmakers.
I did mention the following things to Doug before leaving:
- lack of audio gain control
- lack of audio metering
- lack of live HDMI and/or composite
- lack of higher bit rate
- get rid of the pulldown!
He told me that he wanted live output too... for staff training sessions about the new camera. :-) Engineers told him they couldn't do that cuz the CPU in the camera wasn't fast enough.
Everything else felt like they were very foggy concepts to a stills camera guy. He even argued that 17 mbps was the max they could record to be compatible with BluRay (which isn't true... max for bluray is 48 mbits).
He also argued that pulldown was a byproduct of the sensor running at 60 fps... when it clearly runs at 24fps and then adds pulldown on top.
Anyways... it's cool that they let me play with the camera for so long with my own memory card. It's also cool that they let me play with the 7-14mm lens.
For all the people worried about aliasing: turn sharpness all the way down! It helps.
- Xavier