First GH1 Test Thing

[Fluke]

Seems to be more of these "first tests" popping up. Good thing, I suppose, as it means more and more people are getting their hands on this nifty little thing.

http://www.vimeo.com/5925064

This is my first test with the Panasonic GH1. Actually, it's my first test with a video camera and video editing, period. I come from a stills background. This is all very new to me.

I can't totally remember the settings. I think it was 720 50p, 1/50 (except for a few shots where I accidentally knocked it to 1/60), 400 ISO. Mixture of manual and auto focus. Shot with the stock lens at the lowest aperture the lens would allow at various focal lengths. All handheld, hence shakiness.

There was no light in the shed. Only the light coming through the windows at about 5 in the afternoon.

It was edited in iMovie09 with some rough contrast/white balance/saturation etc. I have a feeling I completely botched the import/export settings on this. I have very little clue as to what I'm doing. Somehow it ended up at 960x540... I think that happened in the import. Not sure.

I exported it using "Export using QuickTime", H.264, 25fps, key frames every 25 frames, frame reordering, quality nearly at best, best quality (multi pass) encoding, automatic data rate, deinterlace source video. Not sure if they're right... I just guessed.

I also noticed a lot of... colour fuzziness on the shots. Not noise. Something else. I haven't seen this on other GH1 videos so I think it must have happened during import, export or image editing due to my error. Can anyone help here?

Technical quirks and errors aside, though, I'm very happy with how this turned out for my first video, shot composition and editing wise. This camera is a barrel full of fun.

The song is Star Eyes (I Can't Catch It), sung by David Lynch from the Danger Mouse/Sparklehorse album "Dark Night Of The Soul".

I think that's about it... I really have to learn how to use this camera/software better.

If anyone knows what I did wrong and/or can offer some suggestions as to how to do it right, it would be greatly appreciated. In the mean time, I'm going to search the forums for threads that might be of help.

Edit: Link fixed.

[Fluke]

Hmm. Maybe I didn't do as much wrong with the import as I thought... Looking at the files I captured from the camera, they are all 1280x720. They don't have nearly as much "fuzziness" (like... blocks of colour forming a rough gradient where there should be a smooth gradient) but the image was quite noisy. I guess that comes from using a relatively slow lens in a low light situation. But I didn't think 400 ISO would be quite so noisy...

I then had a look at the clips in iMovie and the fuzziness was there in full force as well as some odd pixellalation. I removed my shoddy CC and other adjustments and it decreased a bit but the quality still doesn't match the source... and the source wasn't nearly flawless to begin with. It's especially noticeable on flat surfaces of colour. Like a close up of a hand, or a cupboard door.

Am I editing the footage in the wrong way? Or is it just that iMovie's image adjustment tools are savage and unrefined leading it to seriously degrade the footage? Or did I underexpose all the shots and my adjustments just made matters worse? Or a mixture of everything?

The light in the shed was far from optimal but I've seen better looking footage from lower light situations... though, they were probably shot with prime lenses. Hmm.

[yabyum]

hey that is quite impressive for your first time shooting video!!!

nice work. mmm i wouldn't trust iMovie to render well... it might though. either way i don't think anyone here uses iMovie... upgrade to Final Cut!

for me, I edit in Vegas (better than iMovie but not as good as Final Cut). the rendering in it is not so great so i frameserve the file over to a separate rendering program (meGui). this is all for Windows XP so it doesn't apply to you. pretty sure the Apple workflow is to use NeoScene. (more $$$ though).

[Fluke]

Thanks for checking the video out. Your compliments are much appreciated.

The only other experience I've had with filming is holding a phone camera up at a concert so I can come away from it with a blurry, pixellated video memory that sounds like someone is pushing the phone through an electric blender... Though, I've learned a little bit from my still photography hobby thing in regards to composition and such, but I'm still very, very new to the world of video.

Anyway, yeah, I'm getting the impression that iMovie09, while easy to use and great for free software with a Mac, isn't going to stand up to a proper piece of video editing software like Final Cut. I'll seek to remedy that soon.

Thanks again for your comments!