GH2 and once more: SMOOTH vs CINEMA ???

yea, there's some setting that you can tweak. page 58 in manual.
i'll be happy if some of the pros here could tell us exactly how to calibrate the lcd/evf to get more precise footage.
 
Thank roei z. It's hard to read the manual without having GH2 in hand. :(

I was wondering about how often Mark Crabtree's calibration is needed. Just one-time calibration? Does difference in lenses, film modes, ISO setting, lighting condition require new calibration each time​
 
sorry, thought you had it :)
i agree this whole calibration thing could get too complicated depending on different conditions..
there's also the issue with the picture changing when recording starts.
it's very confusing to get true picture from the lcd. at least for me. i need simple instructions :)
 
Is this helpful? I was curious about movement in 24P mode, and also went through the modes while I was there. I also shot a series of clips in ECT at 1560mm (equivalent).
These are with the 100-300 (no ECT here) 50th at f11 in all the clips.

 
it's called ultra-contrast,
it comes in various strengths- 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 1 etc...
it suppose to make some kind of effort in lowering the contrast in the frame (taking the available light from the highlights and transferring it to the blacks.. hope i got it right).
i got the lightest one (1/8) and i put it all the time during my feature shooting. i find it delicately nice and it does help a bit.
you can see my tests here .
 
I got some presets for Lightroom and tried out low contrast preset on photo. Very nice tone. Color correction worked very nicely too. I love low contrast!!! Lower contrast didn't make it less sharp.

What are you using? UC12 or UC1?
 
Tried and tried them all but none give the great color my old HV30 gives,i am allready ducking to avoid the mortar shells buts thats my situation and i dont want it to be.
 
Well, I finally got around to installing ImageJ. A 'real' image processing tool... Anyway, I did a quick check on one of the step charts that was presented very early in this thread, and it's obvious that there is a significant difference between the 'smooth' and the 'nostalgia' example... however it looks to be mostly due to difference in exposure.

To review... here's the step wedge image:

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Here' is a graph of the profile of the 'step' area for the 'smooth' steps and the 'nostalgia' steps: (Green line == Nostalgia, Blue Line == Smooth (may look black for some...))

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The Regions Of Interest (ROI) that I took include the 'grey' on both sides of the step wedge areas.

It's pretty obvious that the 'nostalgia' was given more exposure than the 'smooth', or if given the same amount of exposure, 'nostalgia' is more contrasty.

This may explain perhaps why the 'smooth' looks flatter than the 'nostalgia', why 'nostalgia' seems to have better 'shadow detail', but it would also mean that 'nostalgia' blocks up
the highlights 'sooner', than smooth...

Anyway, Barry Green put up a test he did with the various options and a set of finer step wedges... I can't find that post... If someone has a pointer to it I can do the same sort of plot for that test.
 
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I dont know if this has been mentioned, but dpreview seems to say that nostalgic mode may allow you to record the most latitude.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/panasonicDMCGH2/page12.asp

Look at the step chart or the graph, it visibly shows that by their measurements, nostalgic records about 0.5stops more latitude than smooth and about 1stop more than cinema. It seems to have the gentlest curve at the white clip point as well. Of course I think these measurements are based on still images from the camera rather than video, so I wonder how well it translates. Its hard to ignore though.
 
thanks for the tests :)

i think that in the long run, nostalgic also has it's price, more noise, perhaps, and of course the yellowish overall color.
i prefer the stable flat "smooth". i'm sure you could tweak the nostalgic color a bit, but i preferred keeping it simple.
 
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