Any ex-canon users disappointed with GH2?

I find that the 7D blows highlights. I have 5DII and 7D (and a GH2) and I don't use the 7D for critical imagery where I need to get all I can from an image, the 7D just can't hold what the 5DII does, and this is in regards to RAW stills. I don't use the GH2 for stills at all currently, may at some point, but I bought it simply for the video quality which I find is far better than the Canons. Where I notice the GH2 footage does so much better is really in being able to have heavier color adjustments, such as filters though MB Looks. The Canons seem to fall apart color wise faster than the GH2.

I do see stair stepping in the GH2 footage but thankfully it is sharper to start with that the Canons and so I let that aspect slide.
 
JamesBenet said:
I think the excitement here is starting to affect objective judgment.

I have to work with very high quality files day in and day out and the 7D delivers much better performance in detail, noise and Dynamic range than the best GH2 Raw files I have been able to extract. There is so much detail loss after noise removal in the GH2 that it turns the images to watercolor very quickly. Leaving a little more noise in they are acceptable but cant compete with the 7D IQ still. The DR as dpreview shows is much less and that is probably my main gripe with the GH2 images, I just can't get the performance in or out of studio that the 7D delivers. If I blow the highlights just a bit then I'm screwed so I have to play it safe and underexpose. The detail is there on the GH2 images just that the noise is too heavy for my taste.

I own both cameras "I wanted to sell the 7D right after getting the GH2" and I am using the GH2 about 90% of the time for video now. In some scenes 24H delivers in spades but high detail high motion the codec turns to mush an have to down res to 720p in order to deliver the finished material. The GH2 is capable of so much more detail and I might have to get a Ninja to dump the HDMI feed and avoid the AVCHD. There is no question that the GH2 delivers easily twice as much detail in video but the codec compression is full of swarm artifacts in fine detail and shadow chroma artifacts when you see it up close.

Just for kicks I tested the 7D in the exact same scenes and the 7D codec didn't break up, it did show less detail and moire and all that but the codec was stronger. The 40+mbits do actually hold their own there. If Vitally gets to hack the codec to 30mbits or more then the GH2 will be a perfect 1080 camera no doubt about it.

When no motion is involved the GH2 wins even on high detail scenes but when foliage starts to move its game over, you can see cube and stair artifacts around the detail. Not complete mud but hardly ideal. AVCHD is just an awful format, can't wait for this puppy to be hacked with increased bitrates.
Click to expand...

James, do you shoot Jpegs or RAW, and on which application do you view them?
 
Thanks for all the replies to my original thread guys, it's really quite reassuring that no ex-canon users are missing very much on their GH2s. Despite all the reassurances though, which are I suppose not totally unbiased on a GH2 forum, I still cannot totally shift my worries- I'm sure the video on GH2 has much better resolution, this is provable- it's way better for shots with lots of detail and nature/landscape videos etc but from what I've seen I definitely prefer the Canon 'look' of the short 'dramas' I've seen, time after time they look great. Going down the m4/3 route is something I'm resisting too- of course the Nokton 25mm is amazing with this camera but expensive and a rare find so I'd have to buy one of those plasticy pancake 20mms with no filter thread cos they're affordable and as much as I tell myself that the sensor crops are similar, I really don't want to go any further than 1:6 on the Canons. Also, as much as I try to convince myself that build quality doesn't matter I think it really does- photography has always been synonymous with precision engineering and great workmanship (or completely the opposite, I use a Holga now and again) but I'm not sure I would be that impressed with the plastic of a GH2 after shooting recently on a 7D and 5D which both felt so pro. But I have to listen to my head which says that so many things are better on the GH2 and apparently so bad on the Canons even though everyone around me seem to shoot very successfully on Canons, I hate you head!
 
just to let you know i'm not a GH2 fanboy:

i find quite a lot of color banding (similar to the sky color gradient banding, i mean), in various shots. and it's quite annoying.
for example, shooting a white electrical kettle showed banding in the different shades of white on the kettle.
other situations can also cause this "hard to know in advance" results.
i have no choice but to deal with it - i won't start changing and testing every shot in the middle of a feature.
sky is one thing, but problems on white surfaces?
hope i could solve some of it in post somehow.
 
Flamenco boy, these are all the same worries I had before I switched from the 7D to the GH2.

flamenco boy said:
Going down the m4/3 route is something I'm resisting too- of course the Nokton 25mm is amazing with this camera but expensive and a rare find so I'd have to buy one of those plasticy pancake 20mms with no filter thread cos they're affordable and as much as I tell myself that the sensor crops are similar, I really don't want to go any further than 1:6 on the Canons.
Click to expand...

What many people are doing with great success is using old Canon FD's or Nikkors or other manufacturer lenses they had from their old photography days or bought on eBay for cheap. Lots of people are doing this on the Canon's as well. You get GREAT glass for very, very reduced prices. The only compromise is that the lenses are fully manual - which may not even matter since we shoot movies on full manual anyway, even if we have automatic lenses.

flamenco boy said:
Also, as much as I try to convince myself that build quality doesn't matter I think it really does- photography has always been synonymous with precision engineering and great workmanship (or completely the opposite, I use a Holga now and again) but I'm not sure I would be that impressed with the plastic of a GH2 after shooting recently on a 7D and 5D which both felt so pro.
Click to expand...

Unless you're shooting in the artic or other extreme situations I can't imagine the build quality of the GH2 even being an issue. It's very good, just not as good as the pro DSLRs. You might have to get over your need for "pro feeling" equipment if you want the most pro shooting equipment :happy:

flamenco boy said:
But I have to listen to my head which says that so many things are better on the GH2 and apparently so bad on the Canons even though everyone around me seem to shoot very successfully on Canons, I hate you head!
Click to expand...

The GH1 wasn't all that great, and the GH2 has only been out for a month or two (and hard to find at that) so the Canon's are much, much, much more entrenched in the annals of low-budget filmmaking. It's not surprising that so many people use them instead of the GH2 just for that. The Canon's have been out for years, the GH2 for a few months. In a year I bet the situation might be completely reversed... We'll see!
 
Jester2138 said:
Unless you're shooting in the artic or other extreme situations I can't imagine the build quality of the GH2 even being an issue. It's very good, just not as good as the pro DSLRs.
Click to expand...

I love my GH2, it gives me a great image, but let's not lie to people. The arctic!? I just shoot for a college newspaper and I wouldn't trust the GH2 to stand up to my workload. It's ridiculously flimsy compared to even a D7000, which is ridiculously flimsy compared to a D700, which is the one that's "very good, just not as good as the pro DSLRs."
 
Going down the m4/3 route is something I'm resisting too- of course the Nokton 25mm is amazing with this camera but expensive and a rare find so I'd have to buy one of those plasticy pancake 20mms with no filter thread cos they're affordable and as much as I tell myself that the sensor crops are similar, I really don't want to go any further than 1:6 on the Canons.
Click to expand...

I wouldnt worry about the crop personally, due to it being multiaspect, the image gets wider in movie mode (apparently with the horizontal FOV of a 1.85 crop, although i'm not entirely sure about that) whereas the Canons just slice the top and bottom off, cropping the image to roughly 1.7, which realistically is a tiny gap between the two, marginally bigger than the gap between nikons aps-c and canons i.e negligible. I have a GH2 myself and personally can accept that minor difference in exchange for all it's positives. I'm not going to big up my camera just because it's the one I have, but for now, it's definitely the best Stills camera for video. Only thing that bothers me, is if i plan to move to a larger sensor format, m4/3 lenses wont work due to imaging circle and the flange distance, again though, use old Nikon F-mounts and you'll be fine as they've been around for ages. I've got the 20mm and it's awesome, Focus by wire is annoying for video, but usable-ish. Wish there was a 17mm f1.4 or something along those lines, but overall it's a great little lens
 
Lee Saxon said:
I love my GH2, it gives me a great image, but let's not lie to people. The arctic!? I just shoot for a college newspaper and I wouldn't trust the GH2 to stand up to my workload. It's ridiculously flimsy compared to even a D7000
Click to expand...

I don't want to argue as I don't think any of us know enough to really grade its durability, but unless you treat your equipment pretty poorly I don't see how any domestic newspaper job would put your equipment in danger. I would compare it's build quality to that of my Droid X, which is also made out of similar plastic and appears less durable than, say, a Sonim XP1300 Core phone, nevertheless I've dropped it countless times, gotten it wet, dragged keys across all its faces, and generally tossed it around and you wouldn't know it's more than week old.
 
I have three GH2's now. I looked really hard at the AF100. I shot for years with BetaSP and back then that camera had to perform for years to get ROI.
You had to maintain it and repair as necessary. I have shot for over 4 years with the HVX200 and it paid for itself after a few jobs.
I was never happy with the HVX200 image quality so I would rent a VariCam or RED from time to time.
But day in day out the HVX was reliable enough to do the bulk of my work. The clients were happy because most
of them only saw DVD's or QuickTime compressed .mov's.

The GH2 is not perfect but the image quality is hard to beat. I am finally using it instead of the HVX on the bulk
of my work. The HVX is still a handy audio recorder & B-cam....
 
Lee Saxon said:
I love my GH2, it gives me a great image, but let's not lie to people. The arctic!? I just shoot for a college newspaper and I wouldn't trust the GH2 to stand up to my workload. It's ridiculously flimsy compared to even a D7000, which is ridiculously flimsy compared to a D700, which is the one that's "very good, just not as good as the pro DSLRs."
Click to expand...

I shoot video for the college that I work at and I was just admiring my GH1 today and all that it has survived through. I use it on shoots almost every day and lately I have been using it for photography while travelling. I have dropped it hard about 5 times now. One time the wind threw it down a set of metal bleachers attached to a tripod. Never once has this little camera given me the least bit of trouble. In some ways it almost seems to get better the more that I use it. That being said, yes it feels flimsy compared to my 60d but I can tell you that it truly is a workhorse.
 
Ha ha....it's kinda funny how the argument againts this camera boils down to just "build quality." To me.....that says a lot about it's IQ. Like HVXguy says...."it's hard to beat."

There's absolutely nothing wrong with its build quality. It's solid. And this is coming from a former 7D user. Sure.....it's not a tank like the 7D..... But...you can't call it flimsy at all. (well...sure you can ....but you'll just be lying to yourself).

EDIT: On further thought...I bet the 7D, as mighty as it feels in one's hands, feels flimsy compared to a Red One. Then again....even they have overheating issues whereas these GH series cameras don't.....at all. Maybe we should start looking at it's build as a positive.

I'm just sayin... :)
 
Last edited:
Ian-T said:
Ha ha....it's kinda funny how the argument againts this camera boils down to just "build quality." To me.....that says a lot about it's IQ.
Click to expand...

Oh absolutely, that's why a 2-day rental was enough to convince me to return the 7D and D7000 I was testing, buy a GH2, and just invest in a cage to put around it.

gunstarhero said:
That being said, yes it feels flimsy compared to my 60d but I can tell you that it truly is a workhorse.
Click to expand...

Yeah I guess it's about feel more than any empirical evidence. I've never dropped either my GH2 or D700, but I'm not afraid of dropping the latter.

Ian-T said:
I bet the 7D, as mighty as it feels in one's hands, feels flimsy compared to a Red One.
Click to expand...

Yes it does. Hell, even compared to a 1D/D3. And that is why, the very instant Red starts taking deposits on Epic-S, I am THERE.
 
photonashville said:
I SEE the benefit looking at the footage, the usability just is not quite there, not near as easy in all shooting scenarios as the Canons.
Click to expand...

Nailed. I'd love to pick up GH2 cus it's superb under special circumstances (just like GH13), but it doesn't justify buying it right now. And everyone just scrap this M43 preaching... like you guys are bidding on s16 lenses anyway... oh right, you picked up this old AMAZING fd-lens... :happy:

JamesBenet said:
I think the excitement here is starting to affect objective judgment.
Click to expand...

LOL this is sooo my signature on dvxuser.
 
Last edited:
I am impressed with my set of fast FD primes on m43, so say what you like and be as snooty as you like, but they really are very good if not excellent, and for the price, they're simply incredible. This is entirely due to them once being massive best-sellers on film cameras but only working on very few digital cameras today. It is this line of lenses that made Canon the biggest (and probably best in many ways) stills camera company in the world. Seriously, there's too much FD snobbery going around. I've owned literally hundreds of lenses over the years, including many expensive Zeiss primes, Minolta classics, a couple of nice Leicas, dozens of OMs, and other real classics, and I can report that the best of these FDs are very good indeed, especially on HD video. So...yah boo sucks :2vrolijk_08:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top