GH2 Can the GH2 do Night Sky Timelapses like this?

MalfunctioningHuman

MalfunctioningHuman

Active member
Everybody has seen by now the 12800 ISO footage from the hacked GH2. It looks like the sensor is very capable in low light.

That's very impressive, but can the GH2 actually produce good night sky (stars, milky way, planets) photography? Something near the quality that the Canons can produce?

In the legendary words of Cuba Gooding Jr., "Show me the money!"

 
you rock!

Edit: So this isn´t yours and it´s not GH2? Then you only rock for posting this awesome video! :)
 
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one word AMAZING!!! but i don't think gh2 can produce similar image to this. when it comes stills (unfortunately )Canons are way way better than Gh2.
 
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yeah almost fell for it too....those timelapses with the 60D are stunning! I am pretty sure the GH2 can do the same although these are photographs and not movie recording.
 
i think gh2 can do somethign similar. its long exposure anyway its not like theres a huge dynamic range to cover
,here i think if i remember correctly this was shot with gh2...http://vimeo.com/15445316 (i could remember wrong but its tagged under af100 and gh2 )
 
It's completely possible to shoot something like this with a GH2. It's not so much what camera you use but how much planning you do and patience you have. To get a result like this takes a lot of practice. As mentioned by dcloud its done with long exposures which is why it looks so unique. A lot of the time people use ND filters to reduce the light coming in to the lens even more so they can get even longer exposures. You wouldn't use a high ISO setting as it would be counter-productive to this technique.
 
The GH2 should be able to do that since the latest firmware makes it equal to the Canon 7D,60D/T3i in low light stills but the GH2 kills all DSLRs in video mode. TImelapse are a series of still images.

The Pentax K-5 should beat the APS-C sensor Canons in timelapse since it has a better sensor for low light high iso.
 
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The main reason why you don't see GH2's being used for stuff like this, is not the quality of the stills. Realistically, there's only a 10% difference at best btwn the Canon APS-C DSLR's and the GH2. For certain types of shots, I would even use the GH1 or GH2 over my DSLR.

Timelapses are typically shot at ISO 100 or 160, not ISO 12800.

On battery power alone, shooting timelapses is all wrong for any mirrorless camera. The sensor and LCD/EVF needs to stay on _all_the_time_ (you cannot let the camera go into power-save mode while doing timelapses), where as any DSLR only needs to activate the sensor for each still. If you're shooting a 1min exposure every 5min's, the DSLR will consume approx 80% less power than the mirrorless equiv. A Canon DSLR with a battery grip will basically last all night, but the GH2 will likely run out of juice in about 1-2hrs.

My 7D easily will last all day in sub-zero temps shooting about 1000 exposures. I'm lucky if the GH2 goes more than a couple of hrs in the same conditions. The 7D and 60D share the same battery, which has approx double the capacity of the battery in the GH2.

The GH1, by virtue of shipping with an A/C adapter, is great for timelapses when you have plug in power, hence the reason why Philip Bloom used them so much.
 
That looks good JJ.

@malfunctioninghuman: I haven't tried it yet. Just shoot in RAW and get the right intervalometer. The workflow is no different. Import a sequence of images into AE, etc.
But i haven't found too many GH2 TL videos out there.
 
What I have read is that Canon specifically design there gear to be usable and excel in astro-photography. But this is what I have read on some review site somewhere whilst researching something else.
 
Hey malfuntioning human, how are you man, good to see your posting over here. With night photography, it's your shutter thats used more than iso. Even when shooting with super low shutter speeds, you want to try to keep your iso as low as you can for noise reasons. Glass plays a huge role as well. This was a great clip, thanks for posting.
 
Kin Lau said:
The main reason why you don't see GH2's being used for stuff like this, is not the quality of the stills. Realistically, there's only a 10% difference at best btwn the Canon APS-C DSLR's and the GH2. For certain types of shots, I would even use the GH1 or GH2 over my DSLR.

Timelapses are typically shot at ISO 100 or 160, not ISO 12800.

On battery power alone, shooting timelapses is all wrong for any mirrorless camera. The sensor and LCD/EVF needs to stay on _all_the_time_ (you cannot let the camera go into power-save mode while doing timelapses), where as any DSLR only needs to activate the sensor for each still. If you're shooting a 1min exposure every 5min's, the DSLR will consume approx 80% less power than the mirrorless equiv. A Canon DSLR with a battery grip will basically last all night, but the GH2 will likely run out of juice in about 1-2hrs.

My 7D easily will last all day in sub-zero temps shooting about 1000 exposures. I'm lucky if the GH2 goes more than a couple of hrs in the same conditions. The 7D and 60D share the same battery, which has approx double the capacity of the battery in the GH2.

The GH1, by virtue of shipping with an A/C adapter, is great for timelapses when you have plug in power, hence the reason why Philip Bloom used them so much.
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Wow, I can't believe people don't know about the low cost ($26.95 w/free shipping) GH2 AC adapters . I bet most of the people making timelapse with Canons are using external power. BTW Philip Bloom has been using the GH2 for timelapse.
I started taking lots and lots of HDR timelapes with all my cameras. 7 bracket exposure on the GH2 and 3 on the Canons as that is all they can do (you can do more with the T2i Magic Lantern).
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http://philipbloom.net/2011/05/07/24hoursofneon/

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005P6Q6A2/ref=oh_o02_s00_i00_details

250202_RB_02_FB.EPS.jpg
http://forum.timescapes.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=5662
 
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I can turn the display off as well as the evf on the gh2. Usually lasts longer but yeah dslrs with closed sensor would do better
 
Thank you for all the answers. When I saw that video it also blew my mind, and because I see much less starry sky footage from the GH2 than from the Canons, I was just wondering if the camera can actually do that. It turns out that hyphygreek's example looks very promising actually, even if the ground and surrounded environment are not dark enough (probably filmed during a full moon?)

@JackBayer: I'm with you, man. That video is incredible. If you visit the Vimeo page for the author you will find more. There is also one very good one called Canary Sky or something like that (shot in Tenerife, Canary Islands.)

@fargee: I also question the ability of the GH2 to do something like this, but as I said the video hyphygreek posted is very promising.

@eggmedia: Yeah, I know that timelapses are not usually made by shooting video. I am working under the theory that if the sensor has good noise characteristics at high ISO it will also do the same when using longer exposures.

@joe1946: Those videos are pretty cool. The second video is fricking awesome, thanks for sharing!

@Kin Lau: I understand your point. But I am sure there are solutions (even battery solutions) to get around that, aren't there? I personally think that star timelapse photography is a little of a niche which has been controlled for a long time by the Canons (and that's why you see so little of this type of work done by the GH2, and also because the camera is very new relatively speaking.) BTW, there is a website with a huge forum dedicated to night sky photography. Somebody mentioned there that the Nikons are notoriously bad for this because of some despeckling filter Nikons usually employ which mess up with the stars.

@hyphygreek: That's pretty good, I really like it because it shows a lot of potential. I think the main problem with it is that there is too much light from the other elements in the frame which might have interfered with capturing even better sky footage. But it does show a lot of promise! Are you going to continue experimenting with night sky timelapses?

@james thorpe: So you are thinking about buying an intervalometer for this? There is an intervalometer script that other member created (there is a thread in dvxuser somewhere.) It actually uses video footage down to 2fps I think. I figure 1/2 s is not slow enough shutter speed for this type of work.

@Inprogress: That's exactly the same thing I heard, which I was talking about above. But I'd love for the GH2 to show to be just as capable.

@maranfilms: Great to see you around too man! Yeah, I'm sure glass is very important as well, not just that it is fast, but that it is sharp across the frame.

@dcloud: So how many hours can you have the GH2 taking timelapse photography with the stock battery?
 
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This is a cool little vid on night photography, mostly all stills though. Still a great vid, and actually taught me some cool techniques.
 
Thank you for that video. I find the concept of light painting intriguing. I saw this video about this guy doing light painting with the GH1 a long time ago. Some rather interesting images.

 
joe1946 said:
Wow, I can't believe people don't know about the low cost ($26.95 w/free shipping) GH2 AC adapters . I bet most of the people making timelapse with Canons are using external power. BTW Philip Bloom has been using the GH2 for timelapse.
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Yes, I know full well you can get an AC adapter with free or cheap shipping for the GH2 assuming you're in the US of A, and not in other countries like many of us. The point I made about the GH1, was that it actually came _with_ an AC adapter, something I haven't seen in a consumer camera for many years (my 1D(s) series do as well, but they cost many times more).

Many of the people using Canon's are not using external power. Even in sub-zero temps, a battery grip is often enough.

The short battery life in my GH1 and GH2 is easily my biggest pet peeve about them.
 
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