No doubt about it, shooting video on a digital still camera has become THE hot topic of 2009. People were starting to do so in 2008 too, but I have to admit I never really paid much attention to it; I didn't really understand why someone would want to shoot video on an SLR with no manual controls and a fixed 30p frame rate. But then, at the National Association of Broadcasters show in April of 2009, I saw something that stopped me dead in my tracks -- a demo video from the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH1. A $1500 digital camera with a video mode, but the video was fantastic! Incredible, really, considering it was coming from a $1500 camera. And at that point I came back on the forum and said "okay, I get it now." And after owning a GH1 and a Canon EOS 7D for the last few months, I can now attest that yes, they really are revolutionary.

Now, I'll admit the EOS 5D never appealed to me at all. It just didn't offer crucial things that I think are bare minimum requirements for cinemalike usage – no 24fps, (initially) no manual controls, etc., so while a lot of people were getting amped on the 5D, I ignored it. But when the GH1 and 7D came along, offering 24p and pure manual control (and at a lower price point, too!) that was when I started to pay a lot of attention. And spend some dough, too. I bought both of them, and have been using them on and off for a variety of applications, and tested the living daylights out of them to find out what they do, how they can look so good at such a low price, and – if I was only going to keep one, which one would it be?

And please note – I really don't care all that much about the still photography side of these cameras; there are plenty of sites you can get reviews of that on. This review is solely from the perspective of: how useful would indie filmmakers find these products? And what about video professionals?

The Contenders

Panasonic Lumix GH1
($1500 MSRP)

including a 14-140 lens, using the Micro 4/3 lens mount system. A body-only version is available in Japan for around $800. Shoots 720/60p and 1080/24p in AVCHD recording formats, and also 720/30p in MJPG .AVI mode.

Canon EOS 7D
($1999 MSRP)

including an 18-135 lens, using the standard Canon EOS mount. A body-only version is available for $1699. Shoots 1080p at 24, 25, and 30fps, and 720p at 50 and 60fps, all recorded using h.264 in a Quicktime .MOV file format.

Since each camera offers the "holy grail" combination of 1080/24p and shallow depth of field (allowing them to mimic the look of a film camera) and each can be had with a lens for under $2,000, it's obvious why we're all now paying very close attention, and asking questions like: Are they the real deal? Is one obviously "better" than the other? Can they replace the reigning setup (which would be a 24p video camera with a 35mm lens adapter)? And which one, if any, should you buy?

Read some of the forums, and the fervor and enthusiasm for these products would make it seem like the obvious answer is "yes, buy one, buy both, throw away your video camera, the Eagle has landed, the revolution is here!" But in reality, they're pretty hard questions to answer definitively. Are they the real deal? Meaning, can you actually shoot beautiful film-looking footage on a consumer digital camera that you can buy over-the-counter at Best Buy? Short answer: yes. Long answer: well, the long answer is a really long answer, which is that basically, yes, within limits, you can indeed make stunningly gorgeous footage (that looks like it came from a much more expensive camera) with both of them.

So... er, why would we need a long answer? Because, the short answer can't do full justice to the question! The long answer depends on a lot of other questions. If you're asking "does the SLR shoot video that's just as good as the more-expensive cameras" then the answer is no, it doesn't. The SLR cameras don't have the dynamic range of an EX1 or HPX170 or a Red One. They don't have the sharpness of an EX1 or Red One. And they have certain image artifacts that you definitely won't find in a professional digital cinema or professional video camera. And they don't have the features that you'll find on a professional video camera or digital cinema camera. Nor, frankly, should they – because remember that price tag again. We're talking about products that cost ¼ to 1/10th the cost of an EX1 or Red One or HPX170, so it'd be unreasonable to expect them to do everything the more-expensive cameras do. Make no mistake, if you move from a professional video camera to an HD SLR, you will be giving up a lot of features and a lot of functionality. But the lower price tag, and the shallow depth of field, are compelling reasons to consider doing it anyway.

Before we get into what they do or don't do, let's talk about what it's like to work with an SLR (I'll lump the GH1 in as an "SLR" even though, technically, it isn't, because it doesn't have a "reflex" mirror). These cameras are a hybrid approach between a still camera, and a video camera. The video feature is grafted into a still-camera body, and mostly complies to the still-camera conventions rather than video-camera conventions. For example, in video cameras, we don't normally have a changeable ISO ("film" speed) setting. On a video camera, you usually have one stock "sensitivity", and then an adjustable "gain" dial. In reality, it does the same job as the still camera's adjustable ISO (boosting perceived sensitivity, or lowering it to get cleaner images) but it's just a different way of working. Getting used to an SLR instead of a video camera will mean adapting a few habits. For example, you're not going to zoom in, focus, and zoom back out! Boy, that one'll bite you in the butt if you try it. On a video camera with a (typically) parfocal lens, we zoom in to maximum, open up the iris, focus, and then zoom back out to compose & frame the shot. Still-camera lenses aren't parfocals, they don't hold focus at all. If you tried to use an SLR to zoom in, focus, and zoom back out, you'd find your shot is probably terribly out of focus. So, you just... don't do that. Instead, these cameras have absolutely superb focus assist displays, which extract a tiny portion of the image and display it full-screen, allowing you to get pinpoint focus very easily. Both cameras offer a two-level magnification system and it makes grabbing focus (with a manual lens) very precise and confidence-inspiring.

Things that you may have taken for granted on a video camera may also not be there on the still camera/SLR hybrid (HDSLR, for an acronym). One glaring annoyance is the lack of built-in neutral density filters. A professional video camera will normally have two or three selectable filters built-in, and when the exposure gets too bright, you simply slide a switch to change the ND filter setting, thus dropping the brightness. The HDSLRs don't have that, at all. On the HDSLR, you control exposure through the aperture, and through the ISO. And if you've stopped down the lens and lowered the ISO and still can't rein in a too-bright scene, you might have to resort to changing the shutter speed. Changing the shutter speed is usually a last resort for a video camera shooter, as shorter shutter speeds add an unnatural choppiness to the motion. But on the HDSLRs, you may have to change that shutter speed frequently – unless you've brought along an external ND filter. And frankly, I think an external ND filter is an absolute must with the HDSLR. But, they're inconvenient – unscrewing or screwing in filters is a bit of a pain. If you can afford it, an incredibly convenient ND filter is the Fader ND or Singh-Ray Vari-ND. These are just an absolute blessing when used with an HDSLR. They are variable-strength neutral density filters, which allow you to increase or decrease the ND effect seamlessly. With one of these, you can set your ISO where you want it, set your iris where you want it, fix your shutter at a filmlike 1/50, and then use the variable-ND filter to fine-tune your exposure. Well worth it, a must-have in your toolkit. (but if you're using it with very wide-angle lenses, be prepared for some weird artifacts; you might want a conventional ND filter for when you're using wide-angle lenses).

Autoexposure and autofocus are different with the HDSLRs as well. Autofocus may or may not even be an option; the Canon doesn't offer autofocus when shooting (at least, without disrupting the recording) and the GH1 offers it only on certain lenses (the included kit 14-140 lens being one that does offer it). Autoexposure, on the other hand, can take on a huge variety of options, since you can choose aperture-priority, shutter-priority, fully automatic, or "intelligent/enhanced" autoexposure. And, whether that'll be possible will also be dependent on the lens you have attached; a manual lens may not allow any automatic iris control, for example.

(But let's save some writing – we all know that "real filmers" don't normally use autofocus and auto-exposure, so we'll ignore those for the rest of this article... but if you're one of those who wants to know what your camera is capable of, read the manual on the various exposure modes, they're really quite capable! The GH1 even offers the ability to track focus based on face recognition.)

Image customizability is another area – professional video cameras normally have a wide selection of menu options that let you control the gamma, the knee, the shadow controls, color saturation, sharpening, chroma phase, even individual red/green/blue channel gain. With the HDSLR, um, not so much. There is comparatively very little image painting you can do. You have pretty much a selection of some preprogrammed gamma/scene settings ("Portrait", "Landscape", etc) and some parameters you can adjust in addition (sharpness/edge enhancement, contrast, color saturation, and the 7D also offers a color phase adjustment). That's about it, in-camera. But – seriously, it's enough to get some very different looks, and again, we're talking about products that cost ¼ as much as a professional video camera, so I'm actually pretty happy that they offer as much control as they do.

Both cameras are tapeless, using commodity memory cards (7D using CompactFlash, GH1 using SDHC memory cards). A notable difference here from traditional video cameras is that a tapeless video camera has pretty much unlimited recording capability, while the 7D has a 4GB file-size limit, which results in a practical runtime limit of about 12 minutes. The GH1 can record continuously to the card size limit; I haven't tested the limit on a 32GB card but my guess is over four hours of continuous recording. If you need the ability to record more than 12 minutes in one continuous take, that may be a factor in your decision about the suitability of these cameras for your particular purpose.

LCD/VF - Video cameras typically have a viewfinder that few people use except during bright sunlight, and a flip-out LCD panel. The GH1 mimics this layout, with a flip-out, articulatable LCD. The 7D uses a more still-camera layout, with a non-adjustable LCD and an optical viewfinder. The optical viewfinder is excellent for shooting stills, but is not available when shooting video (because, since the 7D is an actual SLR, it has a mirror and the mirror gets locked in the "up" position during video recording, thus rendering the optical viewfinder unavailable).

Monitoring is a big difference from a traditional video/digicine camera too. The GH1 actually has no ability to feed a monitor while it's recording! A huge oversight, I think, and a major point in the 7D's favor. Both cameras offer HDMI output, but the GH1 only offers it during playback, not during recording or live view. You can get a live monitor feed off the GH1 in live view mode, but it's only standard-def composite, and it takes a button-press trick to enable it. And all monitoring disappears when you start recording; only the on-camera LCD or EVF is available when recording. The 7D, on the other hand, provides monitoring during live view or playback, and even monitoring while recording. However, the on-camera LCD gets disabled when the video cable is plugged in, so you can't have the operator viewing the LCD and simultaneously send a monitor feed out the HDMI; you only get one. Still, allowing monitoring during recording at ALL is a big point in the 7D's favor for on-set monitoring.

Sound is another huge variance between the HDSLR and the traditional video camera. In short, the SLRs don't just fall down when it comes to sound, they fall off a cliff. It's better to think of them as silent cameras – you'll be less frustrated that way. Sound on these cameras consists of a 1/8" minijack recording into an always-AGC in-camera recording format (yes, you read that right, you can't disable the Automatic Gain Control, so you'll get noisy recordings and "pumping" of the background noise). Plus, there's no provision for monitoring the audio, since neither camera offers headphone jacks! Grab your pro video camera again and you'll think you've died and gone to heaven, as compared to the SLR... the video camera's twin XLR ports, line/mic switchable, with phantom power, manual level control, and headphone monitoring are all simply GONE when it comes to these HDSLRs. As such, my recommendation is to always go with double-system sound, and pick up a digital recorder (or use your old video camera as the audio recorder!) when using an SLR in a situation where audio recording is important.

Lenses – this is an area where the HDSLRs differ from the video camera in many significant ways. Already I've mentioned that you don't have parfocal lenses, meaning you can't zoom in, focus, and zoom back out. But after that, it's pretty much all in favor of the HDSLR. Both cameras feature interchangeable lens mounts, and there are hundreds of lenses to choose from, at price points that range from cheap to incredibly cheap. To put it in perspective, I bought the Zeiss ZF lens set for use with my HDSLRs, and while some users might think I spent a comparatively huge fortune in glass, something around $5,000 for five lenses, keep in mind that that amount of money wouldn't buy half of a lousy zoom lens for a 2/3" video camera! And if you're budget-minded, you can pick up old Nikon or Canon or Pentax Takumar or Zeiss Jena glass on ebay for very, very little money overall. In terms of lens availability, the Canon has a wide selection including the EOS lenses, the EF-S lenses, and you can get adapters for using other types of lenses (such as Nikon or M42). But in comparison, the GH1 simply excels at lens availability; its use of the Micro 4/3 lens mount means that it has a very short flange focal distance, which just means that you can adapt pretty much any lens mount ever made to a GH1. Adapters exist for Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Olympus, Minolta, Four Thirds, c-mount, PL mount, whatever – if you can imagine it, there's probably an adapter for it. The 7D can't use PL lenses (other than a very few telephoto lenses) because the SLR mirror gets in the way; the GH1 can use a PL adapter from Hot Rod Cameras and use cinema lenses designed for the Arri Positive Lock (PL) mount. You could use Red's Red Pro Primes on a GH1, or cinema anamorphic lenses, etc., as long as you got the proper adapter. For lens usability, the GH1 is the more flexible camera here, but the 7D is no slouch; being able to use all EOS and EF-S lenses as well as all M42 and Nikon lenses (with adapters) means you've got a very robust selection of available inexpensive and high-quality glass.

In terms of size and weight, the GH1 is much smaller than the 7D. The 7D is not an overly large SLR, and is certainly much more compact than the full-body size of something like the EOS 1D, but in terms of overall bulk, the 7D seems like it's about twice the size of the GH1. This obviously carries benefits and drawbacks – you can probably mount the GH1 in places the 7D wouldn't fit, it's lighter, etc. But the 7D has bigger dials and more room on its body, the lettering on the buttons is bigger and easier to read, and it has a separate LCD readout for white balance, shutter, ISO, battery, etc... they put the bigger size to work. For a travel/family vacation camera, I definitely prefer the GH1's smaller size. For fumbling around in the dark on a set, the 7D's larger size and bigger dials and wheels are appreciated more.

Which one is the "better" camera?
Well, that's the question everyone always wants answered, and unfortunately there's no slam-dunk answer. The answer has to be, as always – what do you want to use it for? Because each is better than the other at specific things. Here are a few comparison points:

1. Cost – the GH1 wins, especially if you can get a body-only; it's half the price of the Canon.
2. Lens availability – the GH1 wins if you factor in lens adapter availability.
3. Monitoring – the 7D wins huge here
4. Footage quality – both can deliver astonishingly good looking images, and both can puke. In terms of overall resolution, color depth, and dynamic range, they're pretty equally matched. If it wasn't for compression in 1080 mode, I'd call this a tie – but the 7D's compression method is just seriously superior to the GH1's, plus the avoidance of pulldown makes it easier to work with in post, so I say the 7D's 1080/24p mode is better. Plus it has 1080/30p, the GH1 doesn't even offer that. However, in 720 mode, the GH1 produces significantly better footage than the 7D does. If you need a camera for the "live" look, or for slow-motion purposes, the GH1 does 720 a lot (a lot!) better than the 7D does. So if your emphasis is on 1080, the 7D does deliver superior results. If you need 720 and slow-mo, the GH1 delivers superior results.
5. Artifacts – both cameras have imaging artifacts that bear mentioning. Both can exhibit vertical banding/streaking in underexposed areas, although the GH1 is definitely more prone to it. Both have extreme aliasing, although the 7D complicates it by adding in color artifacting; the GH1's aliasing is strictly in the luminance channel so, while both may exhibit moire, the 7D's is far more noticeable in the footage because it introduces a rainbow pattern. For more on aliasing (which is, really, the achilles' heel of DSLRs as video cameras) please see my article on Aliasing. As mentioned in #4, the compression artifacts are a factor in GH1 footage; in normal cine-style shooting they rarely present a problem, but in wide landscape shots with deep focus and high detail, the 7D's codec is definitely more robust and is better than the GH1 at resisting the "mud" that can happen to footage in certain circumstances.
6. Ergonomics – no question, the GH1 wins here for its LCD flexibility. For the one-person crew, I think the GH1 is simply an easier, better tool to use. But if you're dealing with a crew and you need a monitor, the GH1's omission of monitoring is a huge drawback and the 7D takes a big lead there.
7. As a still camera, the 7D wins. It has more controls, more settings, a bigger sensor, more megapixels... the GH1 isn't a slouch, it takes lovely stills, but stills photography is what Canon lives, does, eats, sleeps, and breathes... and the 7D does it pretty well. A 5D or 1D user might complain about the 7D, but anyone migrating up from a point-and-shoot is going to think the 7D is a miracle.
8. As a casual-use video camera, travel camera, etc, the GH1 is simply more fun and easier and overall better. The smaller size, lighter weight, and very video-friendly lens with autofocus and a huge 10:1 zoom range make it a much more satisfying replacement for the family videocamera. The 7D's not bad in this respect, but it's night and day different; the GH1 feels like it was engineered to be a video camera replacement, whereas the 7D feels like a still camera that can also shoot video. To not put too fine a point on it, the GH1 feels slick, the 7D feels comparatively clunky.

So now we have to ask: which camera is "better"? And, sorry, there's no such thing as "better", there's only "better for a specific purpose." So let's explore some potential scenarios and see which camera would be "better" for those purposes:

As a personal camera that can also shoot unbelievably good cinema-style footage, the GH1 is, in my opinion, hands down the better choice. The exposure, the focusing, the autofocus, the live histogram, everything just makes the GH1 the better personal camera. No doubt in my mind, as an owner of both, the GH1 does that job better than the 7D, friendlier, easier, and ... better. And it's substantially less expensive, too, which can be a big factor in buying a personal camera.

As a professional video camera to replace an HPX170 or EX1, which one would I use? Neither. No possible way. They aren't ready for that. Way too limiting, and the potential image artifacting that happens because of the extreme aliasing they both use, means that for me, as my own choice, I would not risk my reputation or my paycheck by using one of these instead of a professional video camera.

But now we get to the big one, for DVXUser members – what about as a budget digi-cine camera? Let's forget "video" usage, and "stills" usage, and look at it from the perspective of the typical DVXUser – which one of these is the micro-budget Red? And after owning them both side by side for several weeks, I have to say the 7D wins in a landslide. Why? Because of the monitoring, and because of the better compression, and because of the lack of 24p pulldown. Yeah, the lack of an articulating LCD is sometimes really annoying, but the ability to plug in a monitor makes up for it. Yeah, the 720p mode is awful and can't hold a candle to the GH1's 720p mode, but – for cinema, I want 1080/24p anyway. The 7D's 1080/24p is no sharper than the GH1's, but it doesn't suffer from the compression issues that can sometimes affect the GH1, and that means a lot. The GH1 is quite robust in controlled circumstances, but in digital cinema I don't want to be constrained by any circumstances. If I want to shoot handheld running through a forest, by gum, I want to do it – the GH1's footage would unfortunately get muddy under those circumstances, whereas the 7D would hold up better. And the 7D has a cinema-sized sensor; its sensor matches the size of 35mm movie film. That means that lenses will have the same field of view, depth of field, and perspective characteristics as what I'm used to with 35mm movie film. The GH1 is a little smaller, and that means you usually have to either back up a little further, or use the next lens down in your kit (for example, to match the field of view of a 50mm on the 7D or a movie camera, you'd need to use a 40mm lens on the GH1). Truthfully that's not that big of a deal, the difference in depth of field is only ½ of one f-stop, and if you're not used to working with 35mm cinema frame sizes it may even be a non-issue for you, but for those of us who are used to it, the 7D gets it exactly right. The GH1's sensor isn't small, by any means! It's 4x as large as a 2/3" video camera, and has incredibly shallower depth of field than a 2/3" or 1/2" or 1/3" video camera! But the 7D's is a little bigger, it's just the right size, and so it exhibits the same DOF and FOV as a cinema camera does.

Now, you're still going to be quite limited when working with one of these as a budget digi-cine camera; they don't even have as many features or controls as something like a Canon HV20! No zebras or waveform monitors, and the 7D doesn't even have a histogram you can use in movie mode. The only proper word for what it's like using one of these cameras instead of a regular video or digi-cine camera is "guerilla." No (or limited) monitoring, no focus assist during recording, no audio capability to speak of, no variable frame rates, limited image painting, and on and on. BUT – we're talking about a product you can buy for around $1700, with the ability, under the right circumstances, to shoot footage that looks like you shot it on something far more expensive. And while there are more hassles than when working with a video camera, there's one area where there's incredibly less hassle, and that's when you start talking about a 35mm adapter (Redrock M2, Letus, Cinevate Brevis, etc). You simply don't need one with these HDSLRs, and that means you get the shallow-DOF look with sooo much less hassle.

As far as video performance – I've tested these until I dropped. I've run them through a barrage of charts, real-world applications, filmmaking applications, personal use, stills use, etc. The results of my testing are spread across the forum for all to see, and this article is already huge, so let me sum it up for you without making you stare at all the charts:

In terms of video performance, neither is a match for a professional video or digital cinema camera. But they do pretty well in general, with sharp-looking images (due to aliasing, but still), gorgeous shallow DOF, decent dynamic range (8.3 stops on each of 'em) and low noise for their given sensitivity. Especially at the lower ISOs under 200 ISO, they're basically noiseless. They are pretty much equally sharp, equal resolution in 1080 mode. The GH1 is much better than the 7D in 720p mode, but in the all-important 1080/24p mode, they're basically equal in terms of sharpness and resolution. People get hung up on staring at pixels, or playing "my dad can beat up your dad" in comparisons, so I'd like to just point you to some examples and let them speak for the cinematic qualities you can get. Our DVXFest Monsterfest first-place winner, "Dispatch", was shot on a GH1, and our second-place winner, "Bits and Pieces", was shot on a 7D. Download and watch these films, and you should see that both cameras are absolutely capable of delivering cinematic results when used properly.

So, now, let's answer the biggest question: which should you buy? Again, that's up to your particular needs. I would sum it up like this: the GH1 is primarily a still/video camera hybrid with good stills, a great video mode, excellent 720p, and very good 1080/24p that can occasionally mud up on you. An excellent personal/family camera that can also be used to deliver gorgeous cinematography. Best for smaller projects, ideal for single-person projects. Editing is a bit more of a hassle due to the need to remove 1080/24p pulldown.

The 7D, on the other hand, is primarily a still camera. It's not all that good as a "video" camera. But it's a better digital cinema camera than the GH1. The monitoring, the robustness of the codec, and the frame size make it that much better than the GH1 for that purpose.

If I was to rank them in the following three categories, with the better camera in each category getting a "10", and the other camera scoring as a percentage of how good it is as compared to that camera, I'd say it breaks down like this:

As a Still camera:
GH1: 7
7D: 10
(bigger frame gives you wider angles, bigger sensor gives better images, and the optical EVF is sweet)

As a "video" camera:
GH1: 10
7D: 5
(GH1 just excels here, as a completely satisfactory replacement for something like an HV20, where the 7D is clunkier in that regard and has no autofocus during video and has a 12-minute recording time limit; and the GH1's 720/60p delivers a much better "live video" look than the 7D's 720/60p does)

As a "digital cinema" camera:
GH1: 7
7D: 10
(the robustness of the codec, the easier editability of not having to remove pulldown, the NTSC/PAL frame rates, and most importantly the ability to attach a monitor give the 7D the win)

Of course, some of this was prejudiced by the fact that when I bought them, the prices were quite similar. If the GH1 was readily available as a body-only, at $800 it would be almost a thousand dollars less than the Canon, and I'm sure for some readers that would be a serious point to consider. You could have two cameras for the price of one; at that point you might reconsider whether monitoring is that important, or whether pulldown removal is that much of a hassle. But that isn't the pricing now, at the time of this writing. I spent $1500 for my GH1, and $2000 for my 7D, and based on that pricing, these are my recommendations.

For my own uses – I still have both. I intended to figure out which one was better and sell the other one off, but ... I just can't do it. I can't live without the monitoring for digi-cine, and I can't live without the LCD and autofocus and other niceties of the GH1. So ... I still have both, and probably will ... until the next great HDSLR comes along. Or the Scarlet, or until Panasonic or Canon make a proper video camera that has the big sensor and lens capability of the HDSLR and all the features of the video camera too. When that arrives, I can see selling off the 7D and keeping the GH1 as a family cam (which would also make a heck of a b-camera for the cinema camera). But until then, as the budget digi-cine camera, the 7D is the go-to.

Either way you go, you'll find that these are simply groundbreaking products. They're probably as significant as the original DVX100. While I don't find them adequate for use in professional video purposes, the price tag and the quality you can get (under controlled circumstances) are simply irresistible. Get one. Get both, if you can. They're really, really good.