7d or GH1

There are reasons I have both. In fact, I've written up an article on 7D vs. GH1, and it's about 7 pages long in Word, and that's without pictures or anything! It'll probably go live over the next couple of days or so...

As always, the question comes down to -- what do you intend to use it for?
 
When they say that the GH-1 can take any lens, do they mean without any drawbacks like losing infinity focus and autofocus on any lens and such? Because I always thought there was an adapter for just about any camera mount to any other lens mount.
 
AFAIK, only Panasonic Micro Four-Thirds lenses will function "automatically" in any way on a GH1. Using any kind of adapter with non-MFT lenses means the lenses operate only in fully manual mode, with no control of aperture or focus whatsoever. Infinity focus will, I believe depend largely on the quality of the adapter.
 
Well, no -- certain camera lenses can't be adapted to other cameras at all, because of the size of the mount. For example, you can put Nikon mount lenses on a Canon body, by using a simple mechanical adapter. You can't go the other way, because the Canon flange distance is shorter than the Nikon distance, so putting a Canon lens on a Nikon body would mean having to actually physically mount the lens *inside* the Nikon.

Only way around that is with an optical element, which reduces quality.

The GH1 has a tiny flange focal distance; the "micro" 4/3 lens mount uses the shortest ffd of any common mount. Because of that, any lens mount (or, pretty much any) can be adapted easily using simple mechanical adapters, and maintaining infinity focus. Even c-mount lenses can work. And, because the GH1 doesn't have a mirror in the body, you can use deep-fitting lenses (such as professional PL-mount lenses) with no worries. Can't do that on a Canon body because the lens sticks so deep into the body that it hits the mirror in the camera.
 
stephenmick said:
AFAIK, only Panasonic Micro Four-Thirds lenses will function "automatically" in any way on a GH1. Using any kind of adapter with non-MFT lenses means the lenses operate only in fully manual mode, with no control of aperture or focus whatsoever. Infinity focus will, I believe depend largely on the quality of the adapter.
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Y'know, I'm almost *certain* that I found a lens adapter company that offered electronic adapters with chips in them, that translated the electrical signals so that you could use automatic features on the source lens. But I've googled and can't find it!

All the adapters I've found are mechanical ones. But I'm certain I found an electronic/automatic adapter manufacturer for 4/3 or u4/3, at one point... anyone have any idea what I'm talking about?
 
Lake Films said:
Can the GH1 use lens' from my Nikon D40?
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If the lens are like my D40 it doesn't have a aperture ring and thus you need a adapter with a mechanical control of the aperture. Novoflex and ciecio7 are two makers with such ones. Check the GH1 hardware forum for details.
 
Martti Ekstrand said:
Panasonic's and Olympus's 4/3 to m4/3 adapters have electronics :)
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Indeed... but do any 4/3 adapters have electronics? Maybe going two-stage would get you full control?

Dang, I just wasted 20 minutes googling and I just cannot find that page that I saw, with the electronics-enabled adapter...
 
New here as a registered member, but old as a regular reader.
My reason for going GH1 had to do with the 12 minute limit with the 7D, everything seemed ok until just as i was about to put an order, i saw somewhere that the 12 minute limit had something to do with the camera overheating and that was it.
The question asked was how long does one have to wait between the 12 minutes in order not to roast the sensor???
Can several continous off-ons of 12minutes reach that threshold of roasting the sensor?
Any test yet???
BTW got an old DVX100A and a new GH1 at a price of a new 7D
learning curve awaits me, confusion!!!
 
You read some bad information. It doesn't overheat after 12 minutes. That 12 limit is there because it uses FAT32 for storage. After 12 minutes you just simply press start again to continue recording your footage. People have recorded several hours without a hitch. And from what I've read from others, if it does overheat, they cool it down for like 20 seconds...and then continue.
 
Ian-T said:
You read some bad information. It doesn't overheat after 12 minutes. That 12 limit is there because it uses FAT32 for storage. After 12 minutes you just simply press start again to continue recording your footage. People have recorded several hours without a hitch. And from what I've read from others, if it does overheat, they cool it down for like 20 seconds...and then continue.
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so what you are saying is that if you record at a lower resolution you get 13, 14, 15...minutes?
 
BTW just the word "overheating" kills my morale, huge problem somewhere down the line i pressume.
 
If you recorded in standard-definition 640x480, you would get 29:59 of recording time. It will stop before it reaches 30 minutes.
 
I just finished a two day shoot of SD presentations and my new 7D overheated numerous times in a standard business office environment. I had hoped that since I was recording SD, the overheating wouldn't be a major problem but as the day wore on, I would get about 20mins recorded, it would overheat, I would let it cool for 5mins, it would go another 10mins then overheat again. It's a major PIA and I have got to find another solution. I'm frankly scared of the camera at this point.

The footage looks gr8 BTW...I've never seen SD 640x480 look so good. OMT: I never have recorded the full 29:59 in SD. I get 24-26 and it kicks out. If I'm not watching the LCD closely, I don't notice when it kicks out and since I'm monitoring audio on another device that doesn't heat up or have recording time limits, I don't hear when the 7D stops. The only visual is that the little red circle in the LCD disappears. Another gotcha with the camera.
 
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Each time I read these posts, I am reminded of my initial thought of these cameras.

There are NOT video cameras. They are film cameras that shoot to a digital medium. Shoot them like a film camera and you'll have no problems. Shoot them like a video camera and you'll be constantly disappointed.

The more I read the more true I think that axiom is.
 
There are NOT video cameras
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Agreed with PerroneFord. Especially with the Canons, which do a great job as a micro-budget digi-cine camera, but aren't well suited as a video camera.

mhood, I think you were operating under a misunderstanding, by thinking the SD mode would be less prone to overheating. It seems like it should be, I can see why you thought that, but in fact it's not; it's more prone to overheating than the 1080p mode! The frame rate is what's making it more prone to overheat, not the frame size. So 720/60 would overheat just as much as 480/60. The 1080/24 will actually be less likely to overheat because the sensor's only read out 40% as often.
 
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