GH1 B/W night footage with stock lens

[hurdy-gurdy-man]

Got my GH1 on thursday. Went out at night in Munich to do some low-light footage just using the stock lens.

Shot in 720p, B/W mode. All handheld. Graded with Magic Bullet Looks.

http://www.vimeo.com/5067969

[farfromsubtle]

I think the subject matter and how you shot it is solid. Many of those shot looked gorgeous.

I wonder though, if anyone else is seeing stuttering in the pan at the end? It looks similar to the stuffed animal pans we saw from SonicStates.

[Justyn]

That's some really nice stylized work. I think some of it was a wee bit too dark, but I understand if it was just run and gun. I think having this camera and a small mobile light kit would be ideal. Get some great rim lighting and really make it pop.


I love the shot of the globe that you use as the item key frame.. simply great. The guy with the crates was good too. Overall this is some killer stuff.


Can you report on some of your findings.. the things you are using to edit, the workflow, the pros and cons... what to watch out for, etc.. I want one of these cameras soon.


cheers


Justyn

[dadoboy]

Nice stuff, nice music. GH1 in black and white always looks more filmic on vimeo than the 5D - don't know why, maybe cuz it's just softer.

You should do more of this stuff for sure you have a good eye, but get yourself a 50mm F1.4 lens (requires adapter), and you will buy yourself at least 3.5 stops (more than 8x times the amount of light).

[Abstract Photog]

very nice, and it was beautiful in black and white.
footage had a very rich feel to it. that kit lens is impressive

[Ooze3d]

Did you shot it at 1/30? Because it looks like it when the guy's moving fast. You have to be careful with this because more motion blur usually means more video look.

If you did it to get more light since you were using the stock lens, I'd recommend using a higher ISO, not setting a slower shutter. It'll always give you an image closer to film.

Anyway it's always more difficult to get a nice film look at night and this test looked pretty good!

[hurdy-gurdy-man]

Yes, it was shot at 1/30. Mostly at ISO 400 and very few in 800 (e.g. the painted guy on the wall). Also tried a higher ISO but it produced some awful noise. Overall I'm pretty impressed by the low-light performance. Makes me want to buy either a 50/1.4 or 55/1.2 lens asap!

It was really run and gun, about an hour walking down the street trying to capture everything with at least a little bit of light. It took some experimenting though to find the best settings. In low-light, you get good results if there are some bright spots in an overall very dark area. I like the deep blacks in B/W mode. In colour, the footage would have looked much worse.

Edited with Premiere Pro. Grading worked fine. Basically I gave it a little sepia tone, increased contrast and balanced with gamma. But it's still quite close to the original footage.

I'll post some completely different GH1 footage soon: fast action test in a car at maximum shutter speed with extreme panning and zooming to get the camera to its limits.

[editman]

Does the mpeg4 coding algorithm mask noise in dark areas? If you film the same with a D90 and the M-JPEG coding you will get a lot of noise in the dark areas but GH1 footage seams to lack much of that dark noise?

[Spartacus]

Waaaay to dark for my taste. I guess that part of Munich is just a little too dark?
What about some neonlights? Maybe a gasstation or a diner?
It´s one thing to push the limits, but sometimes you just have to accept that a shot can not be pulled off...
But it was a test, so keep it comming!

[mkeep]

What's up with the heavy aliasing?

[tackleqb]

ABSOLUTLEY GREAT FOOTAGE!!! I love how the GH-1 produces very little noise compared to other cameras, even high end cameras like the HVX200 and it's big brother. The footage I have seen from the GH-1 produces almost no noticeable noise, even in dark situation like this. Can anyone tell me why there is way more noise in HVX200 footage as compared to the GH-1? Is it because the bigger sensor?

[filmmaker's gang]

What's up with the heavy aliasing?it is dark.. glasses do not work

[mkeep]

it is dark.. glasses do not work

?

[Voytech]

Is it just me or there is crazy vertical banding in the picture???

[mkeep]

The banding is pretty bad but I still can't get past the horrible aliasing. I hope that's something done wrong in post.