Day 1 with GH2

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ElectricMayhem

Active member
So my GH2 showed up today. Absolutely love it. I didn't really have the chance to do much with it but I took it with to a quick gig. I was to film the Kingston Trio during their sound check. So while they recorded I popped it out and rolled off on a few songs. I brought it back and dropped it in Premiere to see how good the files looked. I love how it turned out. It is not color graded or really edited... purely for a "outta the box" look at the footage.

Password is: GH2

Shot in 1920 / 24p.. all handheld (thus the shaking) and with only a 45mm Minolta lens. I used the ETC on a few clips. All at 320 ISO and f2 or f2.8. With the stage lighting. Standard/Contrast-2/Sharpness -2/Saturation 0/NR -2
 
Pretty cool, I really like the idea of being able to get some different coverage with a single lens in a live setting. Great way to make the best of your primes rather than drop down to a slower zoom in a setting where you really need the extra couple stops usually.
 
maranfilms said:
did you notice the severe blue banding in the blacks? towards the end it's the worst. (around 1:40)
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I see artifacting noise in the black BG. This isn't the raw out of the camera footage though. Its a compressed MP4. So I can try to upload the individual MTS clips and see if they're present. Not to mention, I don't have the best set of lenses yet. Older Minoltas so could be partially their fault.
 
I think it's the sensor creating the horizontal blue bands, i may be wrong. I thought the footage looked great, then I happened to look at the black areas, that was when I noticed the blus lines. Take a look at 1 min 40rty seconds in, and the upper right portion of the screen. see it's it's on the original as well. im curious. thanks
 
Yeah, I went back and looked at it and its on the MTS files. So I started to dig around and see solutions for it. I read a lot of people talking about keeping your shutter speed to 1/60 or 1/50th to eliminate it in most instances. I know since I was on stage, I was trying to keep the ISO low / shallow depth so I cranked the shutter to atleast 1/100th if not higher. So I agree that it was the sensor but I wonder if I could have eliminated it by stopping down my iris instead and kept the shutter at 1/50th. Shooting with a DSLR is very new for me coming off the HVX and HPX with a fixed ISO.
 
I hear that, I only been shooting with them for just under a year, and still keep finding ways to improve footage and ways to shoot. There are lots of sacrifices though. Thats why im excited about the new sony. Price is a bit to high though, may wait for the 5dm3.

Im not sure stopping the lens down would help any, it's worth a try though. There was a new thread about reducing noise by going to the next higher iso then dropping it back to the iso you plan to use, (more details in the thread) But still not sure if it would help with banding. I guess I would just keep on trying different settings to try and find one that reduces or eliminates it all together. Great musicians by the way, that banjo player was great!
 
ElectricMayhem said:
Yeah, I went back and looked at it and its on the MTS files. So I started to dig around and see solutions for it. I read a lot of people talking about keeping your shutter speed to 1/60 or 1/50th to eliminate it in most instances. I know since I was on stage, I was trying to keep the ISO low / shallow depth so I cranked the shutter to atleast 1/100th if not higher. So I agree that it was the sensor but I wonder if I could have eliminated it by stopping down my iris instead and kept the shutter at 1/50th. Shooting with a DSLR is very new for me coming off the HVX and HPX with a fixed ISO.
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Well, apparently someone finally got off the MTA... I was not able to see the artifact that has been mentioned... I've also noticed that my Mac (unrecently calibrated...) seems to display clips much darker than I'd expect for a number of
people's clips. In your clip the Trio was well lit, and the background essentially 'black'... looked good to me.

I have a 'new'... well, the Wife's handmedown cinema display... that I'm going to setup up and calibrate shortly... but for the moment, I really don't see the problem.

But if the 'noise' is due to low exposure, then 'stopping' down won't correct that... It would make the images of the trio sharper of course, and I would probably go that way rather than the shallow DoF.

If you were doing this for a pro gig, and had control, then the shallow DoF would be good on the fingers as they pick the banjo, or fingers on the frets, etc. But for a 'wild' shoot, I think deeper would have been better.
 
j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
Well, apparently someone finally got off the MTA... I was not able to see the artifact that has been mentioned... I've also noticed that my Mac (unrecently calibrated...) seems to display clips much darker than I'd expect for a number of
people's clips. In your clip the Trio was well lit, and the background essentially 'black'... looked good to me.

I have a 'new'... well, the Wife's handmedown cinema display... that I'm going to setup up and calibrate shortly... but for the moment, I really don't see the problem.

But if the 'noise' is due to low exposure, then 'stopping' down won't correct that... It would make the images of the trio sharper of course, and I would probably go that way rather than the shallow DoF.

If you were doing this for a pro gig, and had control, then the shallow DoF would be good on the fingers as they pick the banjo, or fingers on the frets, etc. But for a 'wild' shoot, I think deeper would have been better.
Click to expand...

The music isn't my cup of tea, but I tell you what... that song was pretty damn catchy and they did a good job with it. As far as the artifacting that I saw, I've determined it was compression. I went back to the MTS files and they aren't present though the blue banding is. If you look at a sharp angle on your monitor you should be able to see it in the blacks on the last close up. From more and more reading, I'm seeing that the banding seems to be very prevalent using the ETC with a low exposed shot. So in this instance, it's doing it off the black background. But yeah, once your monitor is calibrated, I think you'll see some of the banding we're talking about. Of course, on my broadcast NTSC monitor it loos amazing because it looks solid black as well.

I only mentioned stopping down because of the threads I'm seeing on DVX and other forums that the banding can occur for a few different reasons... one of which is higher shutter speeds (higher than 1/60). And I know for a fact that I stayed wide open on the lens but cranked the shutter up to at least 1/100 if not more to adjust my exposure. So I was suggesting that in hindsight, I should have sacrificed some of the shallow depth of field to keep my shutter in the appropriate spot.

Obviously since I just picked up the cam, I don't have a variable ND filters but believe me... that and a few step down rings are on the list. As well as either a shoulder mount or stablizer.. follow focus... 20mm pancake... etc etc etc. But again, despite the imperfections of this run-n-gun shoot right out of the box... I'm still thrilled with the possibilities that lie ahead.
 
There's a great dslr stabalizer called the "wondlan Ares" can be found on ebay for under three hundred beans. It's quick and easy to setup, and build quality is fantastic. It's similar to the merlin, But I like this one more, and it's half the price.
 
Appreciated! Looks awesome. Had to laugh at the eBay shipping info... 3days to 4 weeks. Haha. Maybe I'll luck out and someone in the Marketplace will be selling theirs.
 
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