550D/GH13 comparision shot

My experience with the HV30 and 7D are just the opposite. The HV30 has MUCH LESS rolling shutter issues than my 7D. Is it the built in stabilization? Maybe. But having used them both so extensively, I can just look at my 7D wrong and it creates jello! :)
 
OK, I have done some more research regarding light sensitivity. I shot night video with GH13 + FD 55mm S.S.C. f1.2 with what I found was reasonable tradeoff between ISO/noise/shutter speed. It was shot in the middle of the night. Shutter was 1/50 (anything lower and I got the 50Hz flicker) and lens wide open (or nearly wide open, like 1.4 or so, don't remember). Codec was AVCHD as I found MJPEG a little noisier, despite 100Mbit/sec bitrate.

Unfortunately, the fastest EF lens I got is f2.8 and (FD glass cannot be used on my 550D EF mount w/o messy adapter). I will try to borrow EF f1.2 glass (85mm is probably the nearest equivalent of 55mm on 4:3rds sensor) and redo the test with 550D. But as far as I can see, GH13 is quite usable in low light as well.


00007MTS_snapshot_0003_20100711_005.jpg
 
As for detail and lenses out of the Canon's:

I dont think it matters on using a kit lens or whatever lens and on the same on the GH1.

Video resolution is low, all of these lenses resolve well above ~2mp over their respective sensor sizes.

Are they all manually focussed?


It must be the nearest neighbour sampling and compression/whatever else happens to the image after the ADC on the Canon, the lens and sensor is much better than that. Both cameras can resolve 100% detail level sharply @ 2mp with practically any lens. So it comes down to the processing done in camera that lets it down.

"Put it in the hands of talented film makers!" "Differences in lenses, exposure, and stuffs!"

It's an illustration of system resolution, which film makers care about.

"There's always something better coming out!" - That's true but we want to be able to fully resolve our frame size, not under-resolve it.



Devoid of chart tests, you can take something easy to see sharpness on, texture of something with a visible DoF perhaps? Take it into photoshop resize it down then back up again, find the maximum point it can be resized down by and then back up to 1080p without losing visible detail.

One of grunf's 550D images appears to have 720p or just under 720p worth of real detail, though looks like it has some kind of diffusion effect upon it.

The image in the opening post is out of focus, and is much lower in detail than the following 550D sample video image grabs from him.

His GH13 samples appear to be near 1080p, about 80%+ resolved linearly I'd wager.
 
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Athiril said:
As for detail and lenses out of the Canon's:

I dont think it matters on using a kit lens or whatever lens and on the same on the GH1.

Video resolution is low, all of these lenses resolve well above ~2mp over their respective sensor sizes.
Click to expand...

I second it. I think that that lens paranoia is more of an urban legend introduced by not very technically educated photographers into the realm of DSLR video. Sounds like an internet myth to me.

Even Canon's kit lens has excellent resolution of around 2200 lw/ph.

http://www.photozone.de/canon-eos/404-canon_1855_3556is_50d?start=1

Which is TWICE better than even the theoretical limit of HD video resolution - 1080 lw/ph.

How in the world can a better than kit lens's resolution be visible in the video mode? The bottleneck here is obviously the resolution of the downscaling algorithm of the video mode of a DSLR camera which yields 600-800 lw/ph as of today. I believe that people who claim that changing the lens affects the perceived resolution in VIDEO mode (not still) on a DSLR are merely hallucinating. I'm yet to see a resolution chart shot with two different lenses to prove that.

As for the Grunf's shots - I still can't believe my eyes. The difference in sharpness is simply outrageous. Why then Barry's test does not show such dramatic difference between 7D and GH1 provided that 7D and 550d have very similar sensors and software?

Grunf, couldn't it be that your 550D has back focusing issues? Does it focus on infinity properly? That can be checked by shooting the same scene in both video and still mode.
 
grimepoch said:
My experience with the HV30 and 7D are just the opposite. The HV30 has MUCH LESS rolling shutter issues than my 7D. Is it the built in stabilization? Maybe. But having used them both so extensively, I can just look at my 7D wrong and it creates jello! :)
Click to expand...

I am gonna guess it has something to do with the sensor size of the 7D...does anyone know if larger sensors take longer for the shutter to roll?
 
Ben_B said:
I am gonna guess it has something to do with the sensor size of the 7D...does anyone know if larger sensors take longer for the shutter to roll?
Click to expand...

Rolling shutter depends a lot on the number of horizontal lines on the sensor being read. However, how long each row takes is really dependent on the characteristics of the sensor as well, meaning it is hard to compare apples to apples because there are so many variables.

Given rows typically read out all pixels in parallel, the question becomes how long does it take to bin values? How slow is the interaction with selecting the row, then feeding that row to the A/D converters. Lots of variables.
 
zigizigi said:
As for the Grunf's shots - I still can't believe my eyes. The difference in sharpness is simply outrageous. Why then Barry's test does not show such dramatic difference between 7D and GH1 provided that 7D and 550d have very similar sensors and software?

Grunf, couldn't it be that your 550D has back focusing issues? Does it focus on infinity properly? That can be checked by shooting the same scene in both video and still mode.
Click to expand...


Disregard the very first picture. It was shot with unknown ISO and it was evening, so camera might have picked very high ISO which might have made results worse. But these two are shot at ISO 100 and properly focused:

http://i1024.photobucket.com/albums/y306/grunf12/gh13s.jpg
http://i1024.photobucket.com/albums/y306/grunf12/550ds.jpg

I never noticed any focusing or resolution issues when shooting stills, so I doubt that 550D is faulty in any way. It's brand new. GH13 just blows it out of the water when it comes to video.

It seems that old ENG lenses can be used on it as well. If that is the case, Canon definitely goes back to "stills duty only"...
 
ok, Grunf, since you have both of these cams, you are the perfect person to answer this question. I have been shooting with a borrowed 550D for the past month and I think, using my fast 30-yr old Pentax primes, the 1.6x crop factor APS-C sensor is perfect for cinematic filming.

The way I have been using the 550D is for all closeup, cinematic selective focus shots while falling back on traditional video footage for wide shots. Even with a 50/1.4, I have no problems pulling focus on the little LCD screen (on the fly) standing as little as 4-5 ft away from the subject.

I'm concerned that the 2x crop factor is going to be too much - my 50 now images like a 100 which means I'll have to back away from the subject in order to get the proper cropping which will adversely affect the extent of selective focus (shallow DOF).

So, what say you?
 
ajcourtney said:
ok, Grunf, since you have both of these cams, you are the perfect person to answer this question. I have been shooting with a borrowed 550D for the past month and I think, using my fast 30-yr old Pentax primes, the 1.6x crop factor APS-C sensor is perfect for cinematic filming.

The way I have been using the 550D is for all closeup, cinematic selective focus shots while falling back on traditional video footage for wide shots. Even with a 50/1.4, I have no problems pulling focus on the little LCD screen (on the fly) standing as little as 4-5 ft away from the subject.

I'm concerned that the 2x crop factor is going to be too much - my 50 now images like a 100 which means I'll have to back away from the subject in order to get the proper cropping which will adversely affect the extent of selective focus (shallow DOF).

So, what say you?
Click to expand...

There is NO 2x Crop Factor on GH1 when it comes to Video.

It's a 1.16

Which means a 20mm on the GH1 is like a 24mm on the 550D.

pretty near to exactly those difference.

Again... there is NO 2X CROP FACTOR.

The Sensor itself is larger than a typical 4/3 Sensor, and the actual recorded image is fairly large.
 
Thanks man for clearing that up for me! I'm sold then. The lousy rez on the 550D/7D has been bugging me. Oh yeah, one more Q: how's the rez on the little lcd screen on the gh1 vs. 550d?
 
No problem. It's a misconception people are pulling from the still side, which makes sense.

Having shot with all of these DSLRs, I can definitely say that the 4mm difference isn't major enough to my own shooting habits (narrative, commercial, etc) to make a difference.

5D is a different story: If treated properly, you can run pretty fast on the wide end. 50/1.4 is like a 35/1.4 in the world I'm used to, and that's pretty good for the price!

7D, GH1, 550D... all in the same realm.

Shoot it up.
 
50/1.4 is like... exactly like a 50. Because thats what it is.

The GH1 is a 2.14x crop factor, if using 35mm lenses on it. As you're cropping the image circle normally used with those lenses.

1.0x factor is 36x24mm, or 8-perf, this is the reference format, 22.3mm width isn't the reference format, the 35mm format is the reference format, no APS-C, or 3-perf and 35mm lenses need to provide a 50.9mm image circle minimum.

50mm isn't wide, it's a normal (on a 36x24mm picture area).

35mm on 35mm format is on the wide of normal.

And it's a 1.29x difference between the GH1 and 550D.
 
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Athiril said:
50/1.4 is like... exactly like a 50. Because thats what it is.

The GH1 is a 2.14x crop factor, if using 35mm lenses on it. As you're cropping the image circle normally used with those lenses.

1.0x factor is 36x24mm, or 8-perf, this is the reference format, 22.3mm width isn't the reference format.

50mm isn't wide, it's a normal (on a 36x24mm picture area).

35mm on 35mm format is on the wide of normal.

And it's a 1.29x difference between the GH1 and 550D.
Click to expand...

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=211714

No, it's not. It's 1.18 when video is concerned.

I wish people would stop confusing others unnecessarily by bringing the Photographic world into this. We shoot moving images, the standard is not Full Frame.
 
The standard in cinema is the 22mm wide frame. And based on that, the GH1 is a 1.18 "Cinema Crop Factor".

For still photography, the standard is the 36mm wide frame, and based on that the GH1 is a 2.0 crop.
 
ok, now i'm confused. my reference is FF, 35mm film which I've shot for 30 years. On a 550D, a 35mm SLR 50 images like an 85mm, not a 50. on the 5D2, I imagine a 50 images exactly like a 50 on a 30yr old manual SLR.

So, on the GH1, a 35mm SLR 50mm lens will produce a crop similar to which lens on a FF 35mm SLR film camera? Sorry Kholi, my standard is FF since I grew up shooting stills, not movies, lol and my brain is calibrated to that scale.

so if i read this right, then my FF 50mm lens is going to become the equivalent to a 100mm lens in the 35mm SLR world, correct? And if this is correct, my above concern seems justifiable. I'm going to have to back up further from my subject in order to properly compose the shot which means it's going to be that much more difficult to obtain the bokeh of FF because now I'm too far away to really blur the background unless i'm wide open at 1.2/1.4, so 2.4/2.8 just isn't going to cut it.

And old manual wide & fast lenses are super expensive if you can even find them anymore (28mm/2, 35mm/1.8!)
 
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If you want to compare it to a still camera, your concerns are accurate. And the exact same concerns would apply if you wanted to shoot on any movie camera or digital cinema camera such as a Red, a Viper, an F35, etc.

In stills, the standard is 36mm wide. In cinema, the standard is 22mm wide.

If you want to shoot video with the same field of view as your ff35 still camera, the only choice is the Canon 5D Mark II.
 
What focal length is closest to the human eye on a cinema camera? I've always heard that the 50mm is the most "normal" lens. Is that for stills or cinema?
 
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