Apefos Adapter
Well-known member
The hacked gh2 720p is almost the same hacked 1080p, are you shure it is not the 1080p?
GH2 Comparison video unhacked vs. hacked GH2, including hacked GH1
- Thread starter GMC
- Start date
Ian-T
Veteran
Nice effort in regards to the OP (but really needs to be in a more controlled environment)...but dang Danielvilliers....what you said was spot on.
I'm currently using the HenryO settings...and man I can not believe how clean dark areas of the image are coming out. I can actually push it up if I wanted (within reason) and it is clean with details. Gone are the smoothing effect of yesteryear. Plus, I'm not sure if folks are noticing....but the image is soooo clean. The normal GH2 would look nice....but still have noise in areas that it shouldn't (I'm talking at low ISOs). That ALWAYS irked me but I learned to live with it. But now...it is clean all the way up to ISO 1600. Beyond ISO 1600 I have to say that the image noise looks fantastic (who'd of thought). The noise characteristic is so different than before. It's tighter, tinier and not smoothed over.
I'm currently using the HenryO settings...and man I can not believe how clean dark areas of the image are coming out. I can actually push it up if I wanted (within reason) and it is clean with details. Gone are the smoothing effect of yesteryear. Plus, I'm not sure if folks are noticing....but the image is soooo clean. The normal GH2 would look nice....but still have noise in areas that it shouldn't (I'm talking at low ISOs). That ALWAYS irked me but I learned to live with it. But now...it is clean all the way up to ISO 1600. Beyond ISO 1600 I have to say that the image noise looks fantastic (who'd of thought). The noise characteristic is so different than before. It's tighter, tinier and not smoothed over.
DPStewart
Veteran
Thank you Danielvilliers for that very complete discussion of exactly what the hack produces.
I do most of my shooting in controlled studio environments or in daylight - so low light issues are not a common problem for me...BUT - the gradient banding issue is HUGE. So for me the hack becomes very desirable if for no other reason than that.
I do most of my shooting in controlled studio environments or in daylight - so low light issues are not a common problem for me...BUT - the gradient banding issue is HUGE. So for me the hack becomes very desirable if for no other reason than that.
Ian-T
Veteran
Below is an example of the detail I can get out of a high contrast shot when using an extremely high data rate. I attached 4 iterations of the same snapshot view from a video I took last night. In this example I'm using Henry Olanga's 110 Mbps PTool settings to film my (7 month pregnant) wife. You can see the original file is high in contrast. I had the camera set to Nostalgic mode 1/50 shutter and 640 ISO (it could have been 800 ISO since I was dancing between the two ...so I'm not quite sure at the moment).
What I did was play with some extreme settings to see what (if any) I could recover in the shadow areas. You can see in the next clip I lowered the contrast a bit. Then in the following clip I lowered the contrast and highlighted the shadow areas. It's a bit extreme....but this was purposely done to see how far I could push the image. Before the hack...most of this would have been a noisy mess (compression artifacts/smeary dark areas/macroblocks etc). What the hack allows is for detail to stay put in the dark areas with a lot less hassle. In the last image I just highlighted the shadows of the original file. That would be the optimal setting I'd apply for an image like this. Others may do differently....but at least we have somewhat of an option now.
For those who claim they don't see any benefit of the hack vs the stock video....I'd say this is good enough evidence "favoring" the hack.
What I did was play with some extreme settings to see what (if any) I could recover in the shadow areas. You can see in the next clip I lowered the contrast a bit. Then in the following clip I lowered the contrast and highlighted the shadow areas. It's a bit extreme....but this was purposely done to see how far I could push the image. Before the hack...most of this would have been a noisy mess (compression artifacts/smeary dark areas/macroblocks etc). What the hack allows is for detail to stay put in the dark areas with a lot less hassle. In the last image I just highlighted the shadows of the original file. That would be the optimal setting I'd apply for an image like this. Others may do differently....but at least we have somewhat of an option now.
For those who claim they don't see any benefit of the hack vs the stock video....I'd say this is good enough evidence "favoring" the hack.
Danielvilliers
Veteran
This is a good example of what details can be recovered from the hack gh2. The only problem is that you don't have a standard version, because if someone does not understand the principal behind recovering detail in shadows so that you can protect the highlight, effectively increasing the dynamic range of the gh2. If you look only at the esthetic of it many will tell you that image one is more saturated and pleasing to the eye and might conclude that the hack does not bring anything. But if for example the light through the door was more powerful and blowing the highlights on the wall then the hack would make a good example where you could expose a little darker and get back the details without loosing the highlight in the door while it would be impossible for the unhacked gh2 (macroblock mess in the shadows). Ian-t I am in no way criticizing your example which shows how you can dig into the shadows, it is just to explain how important something that many could feel mundane is not so. I have seen a lot of dismissal of the hacked gh2 (this threat being one example) by people that did not really understand the real power behind it and as you know with the internet, you just need three persons to say something ten times that it becomes true.
Ian-T
Veteran
I totally understand where you are coming from.
I personally like the first image out of the four. I like contrast
images. But yes Daniel you're correct...that's how I would have normally used the "underexposing" technique....to save the highlights. At the time I didn't have an overly bright source to work with. But that gives me an idea for another test.
I personally like the first image out of the four. I like contrast
images. But yes Daniel you're correct...that's how I would have normally used the "underexposing" technique....to save the highlights. At the time I didn't have an overly bright source to work with. But that gives me an idea for another test.
Stevet
Veteran
Danielvilliers is on the money here.
For those who think there's nothing great to the hack, so be it.
For those who actually own the GH2 and have tried the hack, especially 3.62d with QA4 setting, the shadow detail is incredible. For 24H (1080 24P) 66mb/s with QA4 image is jaw-dropping good.
As mentioned by many here, the noise is no longer smeared by the codec and displays closer to true sensor output. Simply amazing - and I'm not easily swayed.
For those who think there's nothing great to the hack, so be it.
For those who actually own the GH2 and have tried the hack, especially 3.62d with QA4 setting, the shadow detail is incredible. For 24H (1080 24P) 66mb/s with QA4 image is jaw-dropping good.
As mentioned by many here, the noise is no longer smeared by the codec and displays closer to true sensor output. Simply amazing - and I'm not easily swayed.
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