GH2 For Color Grading: Hacked GH2 or Canon DSLRs...?

GH2user said:
The 5D/7D are great... but they don't even touch on the gradblity of the hacked GH2.

Flat:


Graded:


Grading you would never use, but still holds up:
Click to expand...

Those are good examples, but what's better is not to turn the image purple, that doesn't show the image holding up, cause you've just create soemthing very odd looking lol, but lets say your iamge was VERY VERY BLUE because of white balance, try to get the skin tone back ot natural looking and see what that effects the rest of the iamge.
 
Breezer said:
Whatever color profile you want, I personally use the most popular one I guess, neutral, sharpness -4, contrast -4, sat 0 or -1, color tone 0 ... I never tested the others...

I'd say try Low ISO, well lit scene, just in case the 5D is a better performer in low light... Faces/skin tones would be good to test when color grading but anything will do... Just a nice gradable image ;)
Click to expand...

The ISO thing could get tricky. GH2 I'd be using a 640, 5DMK2? 320 for "cleanliness"? That's a tough one.
 
Kholi said:
The ISO thing could get tricky. GH2 I'd be using a 640, 5DMK2? 320 for "cleanliness"? That's a tough one.
Click to expand...

with my t2i i dont go above 200 for a top quality image(video)... because the next one is 400... I dont know about the 5D... as long as both images are exposed well I guess using the same shutter speed and aperture...
 
Breezer, the ISO of 200 might give you the cleanest image, but if it's anything like the other DSLR's it will silghtly hinder the DR as well as the banding. With low bit video, sometimes noise is your friend.
 
Breezer said:
with my t2i i dont go above 200 for a top quality image(video)... because the next one is 400... I dont know about the 5D... as long as both images are exposed well I guess using the same shutter speed and aperture...
Click to expand...

T2i's other ISOs are locked.

There's a conflict on which range to use, but I've always used 320, 640, etc on Canons. I think most people do as well.
 
GH1 and probably GH2 too have fine and detailed Green channel. Red and Blue channels are noisier and more coarse. One would need a shooting technique or profile that recorded Red and Blue channel hotter than they needed to be to be able to bring down noise while grading. Purple filter while shooting, then reducing purple in post would put the emphasis on the cleaner Green channel.

blogMudRemoval1.png
 
Breezer said:
with my t2i i dont go above 200 for a top quality image(video)... because the next one is 400... I dont know about the 5D... as long as both images are exposed well I guess using the same shutter speed and aperture...
Click to expand...

On the 5D I shoot 640 pretty regularly, and don't fear going to 1250 when needed.
 
Yeah but I think we are referring to the "sweet spot" of these cameras. When I had my 7D its sweet spot was @ 320 ISO. Some people don't have a problem going higher but if we are talking about the "cleanest" ISO then...
 
gonzo_entertainment said:
On the 5D I shoot 640 pretty regularly, and don't fear going to 1250 when needed.
Click to expand...
We routinely shoot events with our 5Ds at 3200 & the images are almost totally noise free but only (& this is the really important bit) if it is correctly exposed. If it's underexposed it will look terribly grainy.
 
Ian-T said:
Yeah but I think we are referring to the "sweet spot" of these cameras. When I had my 7D its sweet spot was @ 320 ISO. Some people don't have a problem going higher but if we are talking about the "cleanest" ISO then...
Click to expand...

If you go purely by the charts I think most people have seen, the "cleanest" ISO on the 5D is 640. Not sure on the APS-C sensors.
I'll try to find them. They are the same tests that concluded we should use the 160 multiples. In those tests 640 was cleaner than 100 on the 5D.
 
640 for both cameras then, and I'll totally flub the white balance, AND use bad/unbalanced lighting.
 
No prob. I'll do it as soon as I can.

And yeah, I'll put it through the DaVinci suite. I'd personally prefer to run the Canon material to DPX first, but since it handles it natively and I want to eliminate any and all possible you-did-it-wrong's, we'll use that.

AVCHD is not supported, it goes through DPX which is perfectly fine by me... wouldn't have it any other way for this kinda format.

Any other variables I need to check?
 
I did a bunch of other tests for noise, and here is an example of the hacked being far superior. This is Quantum v9b vs V1.1 normal and with HBR on. ISO 640. The first blown examples are extreme color correction to show it totally broken down. The canon was just like the unhacked gh2. Macroblocking in the shadows.
This settles the argument for me. These are 100% crops.

Qbv9b
640-Qv9b.png




V1.1
640-V1.1.png





V 1.1 HBR
640-V1.1-HBR.png







Qbv9b Original
640-Qbv9b-orig.png









V1.1 Orig
640-V1.1-orig.png
 
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I'm having trouble understanding the purpose of this debate... it's been going on forever (not just in this thread, but in countless threads across numerous forums). Everyone wants to feel warm and fuzzy inside because they have the "best" camera.

Truth be told, it's just a tool, the result of which can be pushed quite far in post regardless of rather it's a 5D or GH2 hacked. I've CC'd all types of footage (RED, GH2 (hacked), 5D, 7D, film, etc.) and it's really all about your skill as a colorist. I've made piss-poor 5D/7d footage look better than RED simply because I'm a better colorist than the next guy (true story), whereas someone else can make P2 look better than my GH2 because he/she is a better colorist than me (hasn't happened yet, but it could). What I'm trying to say is that it's the skill behind the camera and in the colorist seat that makes a great image, not necessarily the camera.

And just to put it out there, Magic Bullet Looks is a fun tool, but is by no means a color correction suite. Not being condescending, just truthful.
 
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