GH2 Do you own both Canon and Panasonic?

I'll see if Thomas can explain the differences between PC and Mac Workflows.

However, what you don't do is apply a "flat grade" to second generation footage. You're not doing anything but messing the footage up. 5DtoRGB applies the gamma in the first generation of conversion to a format specifically for a serious grade or VFX treatment. H264/AVCHD is not that format what-so-ever, no matter what you grade it in, no matter where you take it.

Not sure if I'm not explaining that part in the most basic fashion.... I might not be? My fault.
 
5d doesnt do anything to your footage but put all the 'hidden' info back on the grid... If that makes any sense. Theres a post by thomas about that... Check the af100 hack gh2 thread with my post.

Bottomline, 5dtorgb just makes the gamma to 1.8 so the information on the shadow and highlights is retained and included. E.g the information above 100ire is retained
 
Kholi said:
I'll see if Thomas can explain the differences between PC and Mac Workflows.

However, what you don't do is apply a "flat grade" to second generation footage. You're not doing anything but messing the footage up. 5DtoRGB applies the gamma in the first generation of conversion to a format specifically for a serious grade or VFX treatment. H264/AVCHD is not that format what-so-ever, no matter what you grade it in, no matter where you take it.

Not sure if I'm not explaining that part in the most basic fashion.... I might not be? My fault.
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What I'm trying to say is that unless you are working in FCP, you are not converting footage to begin with! You are working with exactly how it came out of the camera. There is no conversion being done until you render it off your timeline (especially with Adobe dynamic link between grading in AE and editing in Premiere). There is no question of "preserving" detail if nothing is being modified, right?

All modification is being done directly to the footage in 10-bit uncompressed color space- and there's no intermediate format that can compete with that! Whatever 5DtoRGB is doing, Adobe, Vegas, Edius, etc, can likely also "see". And to be honest, if anything, it probably does it better because there is no intermediate format to muck about with at all. Worst case scenario is that it will look exactly the same. Premiere and After Effects also work in RGB, and decode on-the-go using their own high quality internal engine. And since they no longer rely on quicktime's (apparently buggy) decoder to work in their color spaces, there is no benefit to this workflow it would seem. Look at the folks in that thread who have tried it. The FCP users seem to love it, the Windows users either had trouble getting it working (LOL) or said it made no difference in their compositions.

FCP users, on the other hand, appear to have a problem they have been dealing with that loses color definition. This solves a problem. If you are using an editor that relies on quicktime decoding, this will likely be beneficial, but not because of some magic voodoo. Its because Apple won't fix a bug. ;)

dcloud said:
5d doesnt do anything to your footage but put all the 'hidden' info back on the grid... If that makes any sense. Theres a post by thomas about that... Check the af100 hack gh2 thread with my post.

Bottomline, 5dtorgb just makes the gamma to 1.8 so the information on the shadow and highlights is retained and included. E.g the information above 100ire is retained
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That's what I'm trying to say- what "hidden" info is there that 5DtoRGB can "magically see" that other decoders can't? It seems the magic is in the fact that he created his own transcoding engine that doesn't rely on quicktime. According to his literature and testimonials from other users, the need for this app is created by a bug involving gamma shifts when using the quicktime decoder (on any platform). This used to be a more serious issue because until DSLR footage became more popular, NLE's all just used the Quicktime decoder to H.264 and AVC streams. This simply worked around a bug, it appears.
But now, the big names in NLEs all have their own proprietary DSLR footage engine to make a delivery format perform more like an editing one. That means they are all essentially doing exactly what 5DtoRGB does, only in RAM instead of writing out to an intermediate codec.
 
M. Gilden said:
That's what I'm trying to say- what "hidden" info is there that 5DtoRGB can "magically see" that other decoders can't? It seems the magic is in the fact that he created his own transcoding engine that doesn't rely on quicktime. According to his literature and testimonials from other users, the need for this app is created by a bug involving gamma shifts when using the quicktime decoder (on any platform). This used to be a more serious issue because until DSLR footage became more popular, NLE's all just used the Quicktime decoder to H.264 and AVC streams. This simply worked around a bug, it appears.
But now, the big names in NLEs all have their own proprietary DSLR footage engine to make a delivery format perform more like an editing one. That means they are all essentially doing exactly what 5DtoRGB does, only in RAM instead of writing out to an intermediate codec.
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yeah but so far the NLEs from my knowledge doesnt do what 5dtorgb does.
 
dcloud said:
yeah but so far the NLEs from my knowledge doesnt do what 5dtorgb does.
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Which is? convert to RGB and apply a gamma curve?
They sure can.

Unless I'm missing something else here- please, do share. I don't mind being wrong, especially when it comes to improving our craft.
 
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DevonH said:
We have gone over the pros and cons of each cam, and in my opinion, I believe the GH2 is better for video (remember: in my opinion), but when it comes to stills, Canon obviously has the upper hand. However, I think that the 60d could certainly have it's uses for some productions, and that's part of my question set.

1. Do you believe the entire concept is foolish and I should just get a few nice lenses for the GH2 (I doubt my Vintage FDs will perform well for the type of sharp photo look I need).

2. Are there times when you pull out your Canon instead of your GH2?
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Hi Devon,

I have been shooting weddings using the Canon 60D, T2i and GH2 for quite sometime. If I'm not mistaken I shot 15 of them already using DSLR's. I really like the video quality that they produce.

Anyway, I have to say that the Canon 60D is my main camera and the T2i comes next. I always have the GH2 with me during the shoot but it's always my 3rd camera (crane shots mostly) or just for back up. 60D as my main camera because I really like the LCD and in my opinion it's sharper than the GH2's. It's like what you see is what you get especially for weddings which is mostly run and gun shooting. I also like the layout of the buttons on the 60D and T2i better than GH2.

On the other hand, for the GH2, it's my first choice when it comes to short films and music videos because of the video quality especially now that I have it hacked but really not for weddings as a main camera. I find it hard to use. I don't know maybe it's just me.

I think it really depends on what you're shooting overall. Good luck!

Thanks!
 
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M. Gilden said:
It appears that the users who said it made a positive difference were using FCP, which all makes sense.
I suppose if you have a really old computer that isn't capable of decoding DSLR footage fast enough to use in a modern editor, or perhaps have an older NLE that relies on QT, then 5DtoRGB is a necessary part of the workflow.
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A couple reasons why you'd want to use 5DtoRGB, even with modern editors:

1. You want faster realtime performance. CS5.5 renders H.264 in realtime, but it still must rebuild the entire GOP on the fly. This will never be as fast as an I-frame only codec. There was an article written by Phil Rhodes about this a while back on B&H's HDSLR hub, but I can't seem to find it now.

2. You work in a collaborative environment. Not everyone is editing with H.264-native editors, and even the ones who are may not be using CS5.5. FCP X, for example, does nothing to address the chroma upsampling problem present in FCP 7. It persists in X. Even though it will edit H.264 natively, its quality is less than media transcoded with 5DtoRGB.

In addition, 5DtoRGB's post-processing occurs in YCbCr space, meaning 5DtoRGB always processes luma and chroma separately. The benefit is you can operate on the chroma channels without touching luminance and vice versa, and this is impossible if the media has already been converted internally to RGB (like it would be in Adobe After Effects, for example). Sharpening in Premiere CS5.5 is still an RGB operation, so there is no way to isolate the luma channel to only sharpen luma. 5DtoRGB isn't affected by this limitation.
 
Bernie Hipos said:
Hi Devon,

I have been shooting weddings using the Canon 60D, T2i and GH2 for quite sometime. If I'm not mistaken I shot 15 of them already using DSLR's. I really like the video quality that they produce.

Anyway, I have to say that the Canon 60D is my main camera and the T2i comes next. I always have the GH2 with me during the shoot but it's always my 3rd camera (crane shots mostly) or just for back up. 60D as my main camera because I really like the LCD and in my opinion it's sharper than the GH2's. It's like what you see is what you get especially for weddings which is mostly run and gun shooting. I also like the layout of the buttons on the 60D and T2i better than GH2.

On the other hand, for the GH2, it's my first choice when it comes to short films and music videos because of the video quality especially now that I have it hacked but really not for weddings as a main camera. I find it hard to use. I don't know maybe it's just me.

I think it really depends on what you're shooting overall. Good luc




Hard to believe you prefer the T2i to the GH2 i owned a 550D same as the T2i and man i cant put into words the difference in video quality the GH has over the 5550D.
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he said he prefers each for a different task and acknowledges the gh2s better image quality... did you even read his post before you replied to it? theres times where the difference in image quality wont be a factor and you can shoot with what makes life easier.
 
the last time i was lectured to was 45 years ago at school,YES i read the post and having owned a 550D there is no situation i would prefer it over my GH2.
 
flinty said:
the last time i was lectured to was 45 years ago at school,YES i read the post and having owned a 550D there is no situation i would prefer it over my GH2.
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Do you shoot weddings or other events? The GH2 may have sharper video but has the ergonomics of a tiny plastic toy. It's far too easy to hit the wrong button or change shutter speed while changing aperture. I own a 600D, couple of 5DIIs & a GH2 but never shoot weddings with the GH2 any more as my large hands are better suited to the Canons which all have battery grips too. It's OK when you have time & can take a more measured approach to your shots but for run'n'gun the GH2 is no match for the Canon DSLRs. The GH2 image may be more detailed but the Canon DSLR footage looks great too.
 
nigelbb said:
Do you shoot weddings or other events? The GH2 may have sharper video but has the ergonomics of a tiny plastic toy. It's far too easy to hit the wrong button or change shutter speed while changing aperture. I own a 600D, couple of 5DIIs & a GH2 but never shoot weddings with the GH2 any more as my large hands are better suited to the Canons which all have battery grips too. It's OK when you have time & can take a more measured approach to your shots but for run'n'gun the GH2 is no match for the Canon DSLRs. The GH2 image may be more detailed but the Canon DSLR footage looks great too.
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Weddings only a few for friends and family,the GH2 is no plastic toy,manualy changing aperture is no problem for me and i am over 6 ft and small hands by no meens but man if you think canon DSLR footage looks great fine there is no problem.
 
nigelbb said:
Just me a few million others think that Canon DSLR footage looks great. Not perfect but great (at least in our hands).
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This is a bogus claim because number of sales don't mean anything regarding quality. McDonald's sells the most hamburgers yet they are obviously the worst in quality.

Every Tom, Dick, and Harry has heard of Canon while few people have heard of LUMIX.

If not for this forum I would have never known the GH2 existed and I would have bought a Canon too. They are available at Best Buy for criminy.

This thread creates a better comparison because it addresses people who actually know both Canon and LUMIX and can relate actual experiences.
 
Another element to this is that it's probably not to wise for someone newer to video production such as myself to need to learn the ins and outs of 2 completely different camera systems, each with its own unique workarounds and visual feel.
 
DPStewart said:
This is a bogus claim because number of sales don't mean anything regarding quality. McDonald's sells the most hamburgers yet they are obviously the worst in quality.

Every Tom, Dick, and Harry has heard of Canon while few people have heard of LUMIX.

If not for this forum I would have never known the GH2 existed and I would have bought a Canon too. They are available at Best Buy for criminy.

This thread creates a better comparison because it addresses people who actually know both Canon and LUMIX and can relate actual experiences.
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I am one of those who actually know both Canon and LUMIX and can relate actual experiences as I own both a GH2, a 600D(T3i) & a couple of 5DIIs. I really don't care that the GH2 footage is technically better in terms of resolution & lack of moire as with my 3 years experience shooting with the Canons I know that I am more comfortable using them when shooting an event.

On the other hand I really like the GH2 for other work. Here is a real estate video that I shot in the South of France. It's mostly handheld GH2 with the 7-14mm F/4 lens 1280x720 50p @24fps & I am sure that if I had used a Canon DSLR that there would have been shimmering moire patterns all over the wooden decking. The lovely editing was done by my lovely wife Alice http://vimeo.com/31017419
 
nigelbb said:
It's far too easy to hit the wrong button or change shutter speed while changing aperture.
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...I agree with Nigel here. There have been several times where I've accidentally hit one of the GH-2 buttons because I shifted my grip on the camera. I have pretty much solved this issue for me by using effective camera supports, where I rarely hold the camera by itself anymore. ( recently figured out how to use my Mini Halo-Rig with my Manfrotto Video Monopod, which is a hell of a combination to shoot with, smooth motion and lots of room to grip )

Also, I've seen many posts from GH-2 wedding shooters on other websites, who seem to really like the GH-2 for shooting weddings.
 
I spent months agonising over the decision between getting a GH2 or a 600D. It became a battle of head over heart. My head said go for image quality in the GH2, the lack of moire etc... My heart fell in love with the aesthetic beauty of the Canon (subjective of course). My heart (and my wallet) won the argument in the end but I would love one day to own a GH2 for those jobs where quality matters more than aesthetic.
 
When the GH2 went on sale for $699 there was no doubt in my mind which I would be buying.

I do have a liking for some of the canon stuff after shooting on a T2i and 60D, but I really do enjoy everything the GH2 is so much more.

The main deciding point for me though was the ability to use old FD lenses without the extra glass element.
 
> The GH2 ... has the ergonomics of a tiny plastic toy

Yeah, whatever. Personally I really appeciate that is way lighter and more compact - was reminded of that this week when I flew back from Colorado with the GH2, 20mm and 45mm in my carry-on. For me the ergonomics is fine, but if you have big hands YMMV, I suppose ...

And honestly, if you can't get excellent stills as well as vid out of a GH2 then I'd look to the operator rather than the camera.
 
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