Few questions about GH1

ajamils

ajamils

Well-known member
I was going through the instruction manual of GH1 yesterday (waiting for my GH1 to arrive on 21st) and was surprised to see that it does not come with a remote control. Is that the norm in DSLR world ? Coming from a camcorder, I'm very used to using remote for playback. Is there even an option to buy a remote separately ?

- Since GH1 can take pics on different aspect ratios, which one is the recommended one ?

- What's the recommended software (newbie friendly) for editing GH1 videos ?
 
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DSLR's use a different remote. It is called a remote shutter release. They are primarily used to get long exposures free from camera shake or time lapse images. DSLR is usually primarily a still camera. These are the first gen cams taken seriously as video cams. In the future I can see them coming with video functioning remotes and being the new style of video. I'm not sure of the uses for a remote myself unless you had the camera in a location hard to reach. You would have to just start rolling and edit in post.

Recommended aspect ratios? I think that is all a matter of taste or client preferences. 3:2 is your 35mm equivalent and is what I usually leave it on when I am taking photos. Just depends on my use.

I've heard Sony Vegas is easy to use. I've been an FCP/Premier pro user since film school myself. The software is called NLE's (non-linear editing suites).
 
I'm not totally sure what the benefit of a remote would be, I've never used the ones that came with my other systems. But as with above, you can't think of these as just the next version of your favorite camcorder. It's a new things.
 
Cassius said:
I'm not totally sure what the benefit of a remote would be, I've never used the ones that came with my other systems. But as with above, you can't think of these as just the next version of your favorite camcorder. It's a new things.
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It's a new thing and it is exactly what I've been looking for because after carrying HD camcorder and camera on couple of trips, I was looking for one device that I can use for both. Before I found GH1 all the camcorders/cams that I tested either had good video and crappy stills or great stills but very bad video.
 
Lowish cost software that I've found will read the GH1 AVCHD files includes Pinnacle Studio 12, Nero 9, and PowerDirector 8. The last one handles it with the least stress especially if you have a GPU that can share some of the processing (eg Cuda-capable Nvidia card). The most 'pro' of the low cost programs might be regarded as Adobe Premiere Elements, but I've not had success with it using 720 files.

Personally I tend to mix and match all of these according to the requirements of the moment. The PowerDirector program came with a free conversion program (MediaShow Espresso) which again can use the GPU to do rapid conversion of AVCHD to Mpeg2, which can then be used in Premiere Elements 7. But Elements 7 doesn't create AVCHD DVDs, so I take an AVCHD render from that into Nero which adds menus and burns and AVCHD DVD without re-rendering the output.

When last I tried the Sony software I just didn't get on with it, but many people recommend it. I strongly suggest buying nothing that you haven't tested for some days on your own system with your own footage. There is no absolute best, just what's best for you - and you, like me, might find that there's no single package with everything and you have to mix and match.
 
Update - I tried Vegas Movie Studio Platinum again today but while there's plenty to like (perhaps more fully featured than anything else in the price bracket - I mean useful features not rubbish ones) it can't get to the end of a simple render on my quad core system without hanging and/or crashing, and I haven't got the patience to try to find out why. If it works on your system, very well worth trying, but it doesn't work on mine.
 
Ozpeter said:
Lowish cost software that I've found will read the GH1 AVCHD files includes Pinnacle Studio 12, Nero 9, and PowerDirector 8. The last one handles it with the least stress especially if you have a GPU that can share some of the processing (eg Cuda-capable Nvidia card). The most 'pro' of the low cost programs might be regarded as Adobe Premiere Elements, but I've not had success with it using 720 files.

Personally I tend to mix and match all of these according to the requirements of the moment. The PowerDirector program came with a free conversion program (MediaShow Espresso) which again can use the GPU to do rapid conversion of AVCHD to Mpeg2, which can then be used in Premiere Elements 7. But Elements 7 doesn't create AVCHD DVDs, so I take an AVCHD render from that into Nero which adds menus and burns and AVCHD DVD without re-rendering the output.

When last I tried the Sony software I just didn't get on with it, but many people recommend it. I strongly suggest buying nothing that you haven't tested for some days on your own system with your own footage. There is no absolute best, just what's best for you - and you, like me, might find that there's no single package with everything and you have to mix and match.
Click to expand...


Can Power Director handle 50P footage and do slow motion?
 
Most programs will do slow motion in some shape or form, without needing faster frame rate footage to work with. It's a matter of the quality of the end result, and frankly I wouldn't claim to be able to judge what's good. Maybe a bit later I'll do a quick test on PD's slow motion using 50p original footage to see whether it seems at least to be reasonable, but if possible I'd suggest downloading the trial and seeing whether it's up to your requirements.

Meanwhile, I see that I'm not alone in having problems with Vegas Movie Studio and AVCHD renders - http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=12&MessageID=661302 is a longish thread with a number of people complaining. However, conceptually there should be no difference in rendering edited AVCHD to MPEG2 blu ray format, then converting that back to AVCHD DVD in another app, as compared with converting AVCHD to MPEG2 before editing, editing the MPEG2, and rendering that to AVCHD DVD (which I've done with other software). I'm trying that workflow now. Would be nice if it worked AVCHD > AVCHD but maybe they will get it right in Movie Studio 10.
 
I'll throw this in here though it's getting a bit away from the GH1 (and should probably be in the workflow subforum anyway) - I came across a fix for Vegas AVCHD render crashes which seems, on my first short test, to work. It's a hack posted on the Vegas forum, not an official Sony thing, and is at your own risk...

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=650217

If anyone else here has had this problem, this may work for you.
 
Ozpeter,

You are right, this thread is going more towards workflow then I had originally intended it to be but since we are on that subject, I would like to know how do you get the depth of field effect if GH1 (if that's what it is called) where the subject becomes blurry and background get focus or vice versa. I'm sorry if its a stupid question but I'm a complete newbie when it comes to this stuff.
 
That has to do with what kind of lens you're using, etc. Generally the answer is to use lenses that are faster (lower f-stop number) wide-open (set for lowest number) which lets in the most light (you might need to buy ND...like sunglasses...filters or increase shutter speed) and also gives the shallowest depth of field. Also lenses with a longer focal length tend to have shallower depth of field (for example the GH1 kit lens @ 140mm has very shallow depth of field, despite the fact that it's f5.8 open aperture does not let in that much light) but you need to back up very far from your subject to get them in frame, and it doesn't work very well in the dark.
 
Ben,

Thanks for the reply. See this video (at 00:18) for the effect that I'm referring to. Since it was shot with kit lens, I guessing it is achieved by changing the aperture setting ?
 
This says it was shot with an f1.4 Canon 50mm...probably pretty open. Fast 50mm primes (which work with the GH1 with an adapter) are very popular lenses and do a really good job with shallow DOF...they're also pretty cheap for old manual ones (and you have to use them manual anyway so no reason not to get that.)
 
Here's some stuff I took with the GH1.

First photo, taken with stock lens, at around 140mm, probably open. As you can see the DOF is very shallow. I am taking a picture of a pretty small subject and if I was further away and showing a bigger subject it would probably not look this shallow.

p1010910u.jpg


Second photo, taken with Nikon 50mm f/1.4....probably set to f/2.0 (as evidenced by the fact that the bokeh, the out of focus areas of light that take on the shape of the aperture, are not round, but are still rounded...if the aperture was open they would be round, at near closed, very angular.) As you can see the DOF is very shallow, not even the whole face is in focus. This lens is known, for better or for worse, to have very soft focus. If I was further from the subject the whole face would probably appear in focus, with the background still pretty blurry, thanks to the softness...but the look is not always desirable.

p1000458h.jpg
 
I'm guessing that these setting can be changed on stock kit on the fly to achieve the DOF effect in video recording as well ?
 
Yes it is possible to achieve the same DOF while shooting video. No reason to change settings on the fly though (changing focal length means zooming in/out and changing aperture would make the video get darker/lighter so most people don't change whilst filming.)

I wouldn't call it the DOF effect, the correct terminology would be "shallow depth of field" (or shallow DOF.) Depth of Field refers to how much is in focus (think of it like a band of in-focus space, with varying degrees of sharpness depending on the lens, as you zoom in or open your aperture it gets narrower, as you zoom out or close your aperture it gets wider, and when you turn the focus ring it moves forward and backward in space, going from whatever your lens' minimum focus distance is...on my Nikon it's 2ft, on a macro I have it's 18cm, to infinity.)

So basically you can have shallow depth of field, or deep depth of field. These shots are examples of shallow depth of field which is generally a desirable look for many shots in a film (especially one-shots of people, etc.) The GH1 is capable of getting shallow depth of field because of it's large sensor and ability to use fast prime lenses (with an adapter.) The kit lens also does pretty well.
 
Thanks for the detailed reply. I guess, I'll have to start reading to figure out what all that means and how I can make the most out of $1600 that I spent :)
 
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