A robust codec?

Barry_Green said:
Depends on what you mean by "better". Better codec, yes. Better images, no.


It will likely have a more robust codec, but all the canons have their own set of problems. Canons can't record for more than 10 minutes, they overheat, and they have purple/orange rainbow moire contaminating the image.


NONE of the DSLRs are "professional cameras that can be used professionally" -- at least, as per video. For stills, sure, but as video cameras? No. Now, you will undoubtedly find people who are plenty happy to go use them professionally. I am most definitely not among them. You're talking about an $1189 still camera, and wanting to use it as a professional video camera. No possible way. These things don't even have headphone jacks. They are not made for professional use, they were never designed for professional use.
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I honestly do not know what to think about this post. If I want to use this camera for making music videos, weddings, photography, or just family gatherings and find a way to get amazing footage I honestly see no reason why I could not make money from it.

Maybe "professional" was the wrong term I used, as you were thinking Blockbuster Movie films, then yes I agree and have no problem with that. When I see a movie like "nightlight" http://vimeo.com/9029956 shot with a GH1 I am more than happy with that kind of footage.

I'm not asking to be the next Steven Spielberg , but make a descent living shooting shorts and music videos for local or know artist for a fraction of the cost then I'm happy. If I can average 35-55K a year shooting video with the Gh1 then to me that is "professional"
 
If I can average 35-55K a year shooting video with the Gh1 then to me that is "professional"
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If you have the talent (or, at the very least, the sales skills) you can make money from anything. If you have the skills, yes you could probably pull in that kind of wages on a GH1.

Of course, you can also unscrew screws by using a butterknife. The question is whether it's appropriate and suitable for the job. Was it designed to do the job you want? Or is it something that was designed for some other purpose, and you're trying to shoehorn it into a situation it wasn't designed for?

If you're doing professional video, there are cameras designed for that job. Each of the "big four" manufacturers offers a specific professional camcorder division, where they make and market models that have been designed for professional use and include the kind of features a professional would want and expect. You don't HAVE to use a professional camcorder, of course -- I'm just saying that there are very good reasons why such products are offered.

The DSLRs are not, in any way, shape, or form, designed for or intended for professional videography. The GH1 is designed as a still camera with a lightweight video camera aspect added on. The Canons are designed as still cameras that can also be used for photojournalist video work for posting to the web. They are not designed for professional video work. Yes you can get beautiful results out of them (and you can do so with consumer camcorders too). That's not the question; the question is whether they're appropriate for basing a business off of. And that's only a question you can answer for yourself.

Go ahead and get and work with whatever you feel comfortable with. There are a wide range of people doing a wide range of work with a wide range of products. I'm sure there are people out there using windows movie maker to do commercials, and there are folks out there who insist on using an Avid to do commercials, and then there are folks who will only use Autodesk products to do commercials. The final result is not necessarily all that really matters. But there are many reasons why professionals insist on, buy, and use professional products. Those don't have to be your reasons, of course; I'm just saying that they exist, and should be considered.

It's not just about the end product, using professional equipment is more about the process you have to go through to get that end product. For those who are willing to work around all the shortcomings of a DSLR or whatever, and who don't want to (or can't) spend the money for a properly-engineered professional product, go right ahead, just recognize that you're asking a product to step outside the range it was designed for, so you may have to work harder to get the desired end result. Like I said, we got a short film into one of the biggest festivals in the world, having shot on a GH1. The last two DVXFest festival winners were GH1 films (and both times, they beat out films that were shot on the Red One). But if someone were to try to extrapolate forward that somehow a GH1 is in any possible way "better" than a Red One, that would be grossly inaccurate!

If the job that needs to be done is to get a screw unscrewed, it really doesn't matter that much whether you unscrew that screw with a screwdriver or a butterknife, does it?

But if you make a living unscrewing screws for people, I strongly suspect you'll get pretty tired of using the butterknife and you'll want to get a real screwdriver. And you will indeed find that a screwdriver is faster, easier, better, more efficient, and more comfortable to use than the butterknife was.
 
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Barry_Green said:
If you have the talent (or, at the very least, the sales skills) you can make money from anything. If you have the skills, yes you could probably pull in that kind of wages on a GH1.
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Absolutely and to the previous posters comment - it's really not the video quality that puts the GH1 into the category of "non-professional" - it's everything else - the GH1 is really just a box to capture good looking video, it can't do a whole lot else, and that's fine by me - but it's also in a consumer form-factor and has a codec that you've really got to work around - the build quality isn't pro, nor does it have features that pros would typically want for a video camera, but if you've got the talent the GH1 can deliver.

I think for most folks who are looking to make a living off of videography, the GH1 might be the first step down that path, but it's not the end-all, be-all either - it can get the job done if you are willing to work around it. I don't know if it would be my choice for general videography - I'd probably go with a more typical pro video camera for that.

For creative stuff like shorts/features, that's another story - the only real reason you'd use a GH1 in this scenario is due to budget - but that's okay, that's reality, and we're lucky to have such a great camera available for low budget projects. If you can't shoot on film or a Red One and you're doing narrative work, I'd probably choose a DSLR because the images are so film-like. Further, there is just something about the GH1 over the 5D/7D that seems to appeal to those who do seem to have more in the way of talent...I don't know why that is but it does seem like we are seeing better projects (i.e. DVXfest winners, and hearing more and more about shorts and features getting into good festivals being shot on GH1s competing with folks shooting on much more expensive cams) coming out of GH1s more often than 5D/7D stuff.

I think there's just some element of "Freedom" that the GH1 embodies that the other DSLRs do not, and that freedom (maybe represented by the fact that it can take any lens under the sun, is small/light, and has a good LCD that can be manipulated, has no recording limits and can record an awful lot of video on a relatively small capacity card) seems to trump its lesser codec, which again, works fine if you know how to work around it - I've just always felt that the GH1 offers more in the way of freedom than other DLSRs which can allow true talent more opportunity to realize its creative vision, even though the other DSLRs may have more robust tech specs on paper, and in the case of the 5D/7D, more pro-like build quality.

Bottom line - use what camera works best for you, and I agree with Barry - if there were a pro video camera that had a similar sensor and interchangeable lens configuration along with the GH1s low light performance in the $3-5K range, then that would probably reduce the number of us using DSLRs to accomplish this sort of thing.

I very much prefer the GH1 over more expensive video cameras because its strengths are exactly what I want out of a camera and I'm willing to work around its limitations, it's just not built like an HVX or a Canon EOS-1 which feel like pro video/still cameras respectively, and that build quality/reliability is really important if you were to build a business off of one doing videography.

For its price the GH1 doesn't *need* to be able to do everything, just a few things very well, which it does. I think ultimately the GH1 is a good enough camera that the camera itself, used properly, is no longer an issue or a barrier to telling a great story on screen that looks like a real film - I don't know that you could ask much more from it than that. The fact that folks are winning contests with it over guys using Red Ones where the rental cost of a Red One + lenses + support for 1 day is about the cost of buying a GH1 outright really says something. It's a good enough camera so that it's just no longer about the camera.
 
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Barry_Green said:
If you have the talent (or, at the very least, the sales skills) you can make money from anything. If you have the skills, yes you could probably pull in that kind of wages on a GH1.

Of course, you can also unscrew screws by using a butterknife. The question is whether it's appropriate and suitable for the job. Was it designed to do the job you want? Or is it something that was designed for some other purpose, and you're trying to shoehorn it into a situation it wasn't designed for?

If you're doing professional video, there are cameras designed for that job. Each of the "big four" manufacturers offers a specific professional camcorder division, where they make and market models that have been designed for professional use and include the kind of features a professional would want and expect. You don't HAVE to use a professional camcorder, of course -- I'm just saying that there are very good reasons why such products are offered.

The DSLRs are not, in any way, shape, or form, designed for or intended for professional videography. The GH1 is designed as a still camera with a lightweight video camera aspect added on. The Canons are designed as still cameras that can also be used for photojournalist video work for posting to the web. They are not designed for professional video work. Yes you can get beautiful results out of them (and you can do so with consumer camcorders too). That's not the question; the question is whether they're appropriate for basing a business off of. And that's only a question you can answer for yourself.

Go ahead and get and work with whatever you feel comfortable with. There are a wide range of people doing a wide range of work with a wide range of products. I'm sure there are people out there using windows movie maker to do commercials, and there are folks out there who insist on using an Avid to do commercials, and then there are folks who will only use Autodesk products to do commercials. The final result is not necessarily all that really matters. But there are many reasons why professionals insist on, buy, and use professional products. Those don't have to be your reasons, of course; I'm just saying that they exist, and should be considered.

It's not just about the end product, using professional equipment is more about the process you have to go through to get that end product. For those who are willing to work around all the shortcomings of a DSLR or whatever, and who don't want to (or can't) spend the money for a properly-engineered professional product, go right ahead, just recognize that you're asking a product to step outside the range it was designed for, so you may have to work harder to get the desired end result. Like I said, we got a short film into one of the biggest festivals in the world, having shot on a GH1. The last two DVXFest festival winners were GH1 films (and both times, they beat out films that were shot on the Red One). But if someone were to try to extrapolate forward that somehow a GH1 is in any possible way "better" than a Red One, that would be grossly inaccurate!

If the job that needs to be done is to get a screw unscrewed, it really doesn't matter that much whether you unscrew that screw with a screwdriver or a butterknife, does it?

But if you make a living unscrewing screws for people, I strongly suspect you'll get pretty tired of using the butterknife and you'll want to get a real screwdriver. And you will indeed find that a screwdriver is faster, easier, better, more efficient, and more comfortable to use than the butterknife was.
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With all due respect I must say that overall I do not agree with you...... Times are changing and your analogy of a "butter knife" as a screw driver is so far fetched it almost seems comical.

At the end of the day the only thing that matters is the "final product". Whether I have a $1000 or 100K camera, it's always about the content being shot. Sure you can use nice rigs that cost thousands of dollars to get that perfect stable shot, or own that nice Hpx-170 to do things that would be very difficult with a GH1, but at the end of the day it doesn't matter to me.


I know the Gh1 shoots HD, I also have seen amazing footage, that's all I need to know for now. Filming a Musician, Artist , etc it's more about the talent on screen. I respect Barry as I am only a beginner and I'm sure you have several years of experience.


Truth is I am starting clean, with a fresh mind, no rules and the world in front of me. I might not know the specs yet or how things work, but I know the vision I have in my mind can be brought to life. Think of a 1 man band with no money and a Gh1 and how he needs to make it work so he can survive.

No disrespect to the pros on here but I will learn the in and outs from more experienced users and then provide my art so the public can feel and love

peace
 
The GH1 is as good as the operator. You can actually shoot as professional a video as any camera out there. The limitation is the creativity of the user.
 
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tears2040 said:
With all due respect I must say that overall I do not agree with you...... Times are changing and your analogy of a "butter knife" as a screw driver is so far fetched it almost seems comical.
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You said later on that you're a beginner. Spend a few years in the trenches and let's then revisit this.

I was speaking from the perspective of "is it a professional tool" -- and in that perspective, it is not. It can be used by professionals, yes -- but it's not designed for them and it lacks *many* features that a professional would consider mandatory.

Consider that when Philip Bloom, perhaps the most-talked-about DSLR shooter, shot that short film on his 7D that he blogged about, he used about $5,000 of accessory gear to get it where he was happy using it.

At the end of the day the only thing that matters is the "final product".
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Speaking from a business perspective, that is simply not true. What matters is a "happy client". What also matters is how much effort, stress, hassle, hoop-jumping, and all that other rigamarole that you have to go through, to create that final product.

Truth is I am starting clean, with a fresh mind, no rules and the world in front of me. I might not know the specs yet or how things work, but I know the vision I have in my mind can be brought to life. Think of a 1 man band with no money and a Gh1 and how he needs to make it work so he can survive.
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Sure, that's fine, and a GH1 is excellent for that.

But it still doesn't change the fundamental notion that it's not designed for professional videography. Whether you choose to use it for that purpose, hey, that's up to you.
 
John Caballero said:
The GH1 is as good as the operator. You can actually shoot as professional a video as any camera out there. The limitation is the creativity of the user.
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Only to a certain degree. It is indeed "only as good as the operator", yes, but there are many operators who are way better than the GH1.

And while you can shoot a video that looks as professional as any camera out there, you can not shoot every video that the professional cameras can. Sheesh, just do a wide detailed wide-angle deep-focus shot, and see the aliasing and the loss of detail and the mush, and then compare it to the pro cameras and you'll see a big difference.

The GH1 is capable of beautiful work. But it's not an all-around product, it's more of a niche product (just like all the other DSLRs out there, including the 1D Mark IV).
 
:thumbsup:

Thank you for your wisdom Barry.



10 years ago there were not many cameras that could shoot better footage than a Panasonic Gh1. In this day and age you learn while you work, and many people learn faster than others.

While I am a beginner in filming I'm an "Old Dog" with these two eyes of mine and I know when something looks good. There is no debate here I am simply telling you by the test footage I have shot and what I have seen it looks amazing.

Stop mentioning Phil Bloom and his $5K worth of equipment when he has beautiful videos himself using the stock lens

http://vimeo.com/4441911


With that said, I'm done here as I've posted everything I have too regarding this topic. Yes there are better cameras, codecs for compression, lenses, etc..... But all the examples that have been shown I know that amazing footage gets recorded from this camera.

That's all that matters......

peace
 
tears2040 said:
But all the examples that have been shown I know that amazing footage gets recorded from this camera.
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Has that ever been in dispute? I myself have a film playing in South By Southwest, one of the top 10 film festivals in the world, that was shot on a GH1. And the last two DVXFest-winning films were shot on GH1s, even beating films that were shot on Red Ones.

That's all that matters......
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If that's all that matters, then you should be quite happy with your GH1.
 
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