GH1 DOF Vs HMC-150/HPX170

This is just a ridiculous comparison. You're a) Not comparing the two camera at the same focal length and b) Not comparing them at the same aperture.
 
Wow. I know that one is a still cam and another is a frame grab from a video cam, but... wow. I think that the 150's image can be improved by turning sharpening down, it is way oversharpened, with heavy aliasing and noise. This hi-freq noise in the leaves gives it sharper deeper-DOFy look.
 
That's Barry's point. Obviously at same focal length and aperture the GH1 would destroy the HMC...it did so at a smaller aperture!
 
Cranky said:
Wow. I know that one is a still cam and another is a frame grab from a video cam, but... wow.
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Both were shot in 1080/24p mode, and both are frame grabs from the video stream.

I think that the 150's image can be improved by turning sharpening down, it is way oversharpened, with heavy aliasing and noise. This hi-freq noise in the leaves gives it sharper deeper-DOFy look.
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It was somewhat oversharpened, yes; I didn't bother looking at the settings before shooting, and it turns out that the HMC150 was at +2 detail, +1 v-detail, and coring -2. None of those are outrageous settings for a 150. If it was +7/+7/-7, I would go reshoot it, but +2/+1/-2 is reasonable enough.
 
You cannot agree more than 100% Barry, by definition 100% is as much as you can agree. I say you go shoot a comparision, showing us you agreeing at 100% vs 1,000,000% and I will wager that they will look the same. Technically they are, despite the fact the numbers are different, and I'd imagine that they way they look in real life looks the same as well. I demand pictures to prove this though!
 
Huy Vu said:
This is just a ridiculous comparison. You're a) Not comparing the two camera at the same focal length and b) Not comparing them at the same aperture.
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The comparison was at the same equivelant focal length (taking into acount the crop factors) and the maximum aperture of the cameras concerned. Why is that ridiculous?
 
Because you're handicapping the GH1 into only using its wildly slow stock lens. The GH1 costs $2,000 less than an HMC150. You could spend $2,000 on lenses, have equivalent expense, but have a wide variety of f/1.4 or f/1.8 lenses to choose from.

It's not apples to apples in any way. It's artificially limited.

The only way this would be fair is if the GH1's lens was not exchangeable.

Furthermore, you're limiting the comparison to only the lighting range wherein the 150 can be two or three stops more open than the GH1. In real world circumstances, where you're shooting at a 5.6 on the 150, you'll find the GH1's DOF strikingly shallower.

By the way, I've been making a somewhat similar argument to yours, so I know exactly where you're coming from -- I've been saying that the fixed-lens Scarlet is not going to deliver noticeably shallower DOF than today's crop of 1/3" or 1/2" cams, and for the same reason (because the Scarlet's lens, as of the last specs we knew, only opens to a maximum of f/2.8). However, at equivalent aperture, the Scarlet will be shallower. The argument partly holds only in that even a 2/3" chip doesn't really deliver anything that could be classified as "shallow" DOF unless you're at a very long telephoto setting and with a wide-open lens.

Now with the GH1 that's not the case, so the logic doesn't apply, because the GH1's lens *is* exchangeable. And extremely inexpensively so.
 
I think you totally missunderstood what I was saying. It is great that the gh1 can change lenses and that indeed adds to it's versitility. I was merely meaning that using a prime lens requires a certain type of situation where as a zoom lens allows you to frame a shot in a more flexible way. This was why I compared the hmc to the gh1 with it's zoom lens rather than a 50mm 1.4 etc.

Ben_B said:
Thanks Barry. GH1 wins for sure, and the HMC shot is STILL OVEREXPOSED. Also the expression on the straw man's face is exactly what I imagined your face to look like arguing this point. f/5.6 beating the crap out of f/2...wow.

To address some things mentioned earlier. You can use ND filters on the GH1 if you want.

Claiming that using Prime Lenses on the GH1 gives you less flexibility is totally preposterous: you can't use prime lenses on the HMC-150, you're stuck with the stock lens! I can use just about any lens every made on the GH1 and I can carry them around in a little bag and swap whenever I want, all I need to do is buy a few $100 adapters. People are using everything from C-Mount security camera lenses to PL cinema lenses on the thing and everything in between. If you want to throw a Nikon lens on the HMC-150 that'll set you back about $2,000 for the adapter and the rail system. And with the GH1 you're saving about $4000 ($4900 if you speak Japanese and bought body-only) cash vs HMC + Adapter which you have to spend on all the glass you want to get all the flexibility in the world. On top of that if you don't think I can find a zoom that performs as well as the HMC's stock lens for that amount of coin then I propose you send me the $2000 difference between the two camera's stock configurations (although more fair would be the $2900 between GH1 body only and the HMC) and I'll send you some pictures. Tell me which camera has less flexibility!
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Well, the GH1 is not sold as body-only anywhere in the U.S., I just googled. So the point of using (or not using) the kit lens is moot.

For $700 this should better be a good lens, after all my Nikon 55-200 lens costs only $230, is about as slow as the GH1 kit lens, and has built-in stabilization. The 18-55mm is as slow, and it costs less than $200. Why the GH1's lens is so expensive?
 
I agree with you on most of this. I guess we are coming from different angles though. For example, in my work swapping lenses over would be impractical. So if I had a gh1 I would want to use the stock lens 99% of the time. Also, living in the north of England ensures that I very rarely have to stop down the iris, I probably spend most of my time at wide open +12 gain tbh.

For somebody shooting short films in a nice sunny country like your's though....

Barry_Green said:
Because you're handicapping the GH1 into only using its wildly slow stock lens. The GH1 costs $2,000 less than an HMC150. You could spend $2,000 on lenses, have equivalent expense, but have a wide variety of f/1.4 or f/1.8 lenses to choose from.

It's not apples to apples in any way. It's artificially limited.

The only way this would be fair is if the GH1's lens was not exchangeable.

Furthermore, you're limiting the comparison to only the lighting range wherein the 150 can be two or three stops more open than the GH1. In real world circumstances, where you're shooting at a 5.6 on the 150, you'll find the GH1's DOF strikingly shallower.

By the way, I've been making a somewhat similar argument to yours, so I know exactly where you're coming from -- I've been saying that the fixed-lens Scarlet is not going to deliver noticeably shallower DOF than today's crop of 1/3" or 1/2" cams, and for the same reason (because the Scarlet's lens, as of the last specs we knew, only opens to a maximum of f/2.8). However, at equivalent aperture, the Scarlet will be shallower. The argument partly holds only in that even a 2/3" chip doesn't really deliver anything that could be classified as "shallow" DOF unless you're at a very long telephoto setting and with a wide-open lens.

Now with the GH1 that's not the case, so the logic doesn't apply, because the GH1's lens *is* exchangeable. And extremely inexpensively so.
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studio1972 said:
I I was merely meaning that using a prime lens requires a certain type of situation where as a zoom lens allows you to frame a shot in a more flexible way.
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It doesn't sound like you've ever shot with a prime lens in a video situation before. While what you say sounds fine in theory, in practice this is seldom the case. The vast majority of 35mm adapter and VDSLR user actually uses prime lenses and prefers them to zoom because they're cheaper, faster and lighter. It takes a few seconds to swap lenses on set. A high quality zoom lenses can easily cost you a grand or more where as for the same amount of money you can have a set of fast primes to cover that same range. You'll almost never find yourself in a situation where you say "Hm, I wish I have a 38mm lens instead of that 35mm"; it's easy enough to just move in or out a bit. That's why it doesn't make any sense to artificially limited the GH1 to a slower zoom lens when many GH1 users actually does use primes.

Also, you can adapt any lenses to the micro 4/3 mount, and there are fast zooms out there in the 2.8 range, so why not include those?
 
Cranky said:
For $700 this should better be a good lens, after all my Nikon 55-200 lens costs only $230, is about as slow as the GH1 kit lens, and has built-in stabilization. The 18-55mm is as slow, and it costs less than $200. Why the GH1's lens is so expensive?
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Well, first of all a 55-200 is a 3.5x zoom range. 18-55 is a 3x zoom range. The GH1 is a 10x zoom.

Secondly, it's a very wide lens, at 14mm.

Third, it has silent autofocus for video built in.

Fourth, it has mega optical image stabilization built in, with three modes.

Fifth, it's sharp as hell and has chromatic aberration compensation and rectilinear barrel distortion compensation.

It's a really, really nice lens. It's just slow, is all.
 
studio1972 said:
I think you totally missunderstood what I was saying. It is great that the gh1 can change lenses and that indeed adds to it's versitility. I was merely meaning that using a prime lens requires a certain type of situation where as a zoom lens allows you to frame a shot in a more flexible way. This was why I compared the hmc to the gh1 with it's zoom lens rather than a 50mm 1.4 etc.
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Agree with above poster that you've obviously never used prime lenses on a set before because they're very easily and quickly swappable and you should already have all your shots planned out anyway, and know exactly what lenses you'll be using for each of them. A

As for using them on a documentary or doing ENG or event shooting you don't need the shallowest DOF possible, in fact it would be somewhat of a liability, so there isn't really a need to use fast primes...the GH1 kit lens should do ok for that, but I wouldn't necessarily advocate the GH1 for this type of work anyway.

And what I said still stands, for the $2000 difference between the GH1 and the HMC-150 you bet your ass I can buy a zoom lens that will kick the crap out of the HMC's in terms of versatility, low light performance, and DOF. Oh wait, Barry just proved the Gh1's stock lens beats the HMC-150 in all of those categories but low light performance...but that's with the GH1 at 100 ISO. Whoops. :)
 
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Huy Vu said:
It doesn't sound like you've ever shot with a prime lens in a video situation before. While what you say sounds fine in theory, in practice this is seldom the case. The vast majority of 35mm adapter and VDSLR user actually uses prime lenses and prefers them to zoom because they're cheaper, faster and lighter. It takes a few seconds to swap lenses on set. A high quality zoom lenses can easily cost you a grand or more where as for the same amount of money you can have a set of fast primes to cover that same range. You'll almost never find yourself in a situation where you say "Hm, I wish I have a 38mm lens instead of that 35mm"; it's easy enough to just move in or out a bit. That's why it doesn't make any sense to artificially limited the GH1 to a slower zoom lens when many GH1 users actually does use primes.

Also, you can adapt any lenses to the micro 4/3 mount, and there are fast zooms out there in the 2.8 range, so why not include those?
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Firstly, I used to own a 35mm adapter and I obviously used prime lenses on it exactly for the reason of achieving shallow DOF.

Secondly, as it happens I know of an event videographer who was intending to buy the GH1 and use it with the stock lens to get shallow DOF shots. The thing that surprised me was that when you check it out they won't get much shallower DOF than with their 1/3 camera unless they put prime lenses on the GH1.

Given that Panasonic seems to force you to buy the stock lens with the camera, I would imagine that many users use it without buying other lenses, it's hard to know either way really isn't it.

The lens on the HMC has a 13x zoom range from 28mm to 367mm (you would need a lot of primes to cover that range, and they wouldn't all be cheap), the closest lens to that available on the GH1 (as far as I know) is the stock lens which only has a 10x zoom. These are the lenses that come with each camera so it seems quite fair to compare them, whilst acknowledging that you can attach different lenses to the GH1 if you like.

Of course the GH1 is cheaper, but there are many other features that the HMC has which the GH1 doesn't, such as motorised zoom, better manual controls, ND filters built in, better handling, ability to film 25p beyond the 4GB limit, professional audio connections, PH mode recording, ability to attach an electronic focus puller for smooth focus pulls without having to touch the camera.

That's not to say that the GH1 isn't a great camera, it will suit a lot of people just fine. In a way you get the best of both worlds by having a 10x zoom lens and the availability of primes if you need them.
 
Ben_B said:
And what I said still stands, for the $2000 difference between the GH1 and the HMC-150 you bet your ass I can buy a zoom lens that will kick the crap out of the HMC's in terms of versatility, low light performance, and DOF.
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The HMC lens is a 13x zoom 28 - 367mm f/1.6-3.0. Please back up your statement with a reference to the equivalent lens on the GH1 for less than $2000. If you had the faintest idea about the compromises involved with lens design you would realise it's much easier to make a lens like this for a 1/3 sensor than a 4/3 sensor.
 
studio1972 said:
Of course the GH1 is cheaper, but there are many other features that the HMC has which the GH1 doesn't, such as motorised zoom, better manual controls, ND filters built in, better handling, ability to film 25p beyond the 4GB limit, professional audio connections, PH mode recording, ability to attach an electronic focus puller for smooth focus pulls without having to touch the camera.
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And way better ergonomics, and live monitoring, and manual audio level control, and phantom power for microphones, and zoom mm readouts and focus distance readouts, and on and on and on. And, not the least of which, a fully professional codec that will never mud-out on you. For video purposes the HMC150 is a way better camera. The GH1 can make sharper, smoother, shallower DOF images, but for actually USING the product, the 150 is a "real" video camera.

There's no getting around the notion that the GH1 is a stills camera with a video mode, whereas the HMC150 is a professional video camera sold and supported by the broadcast division of Panasonic.

(one correction; the GH1 isn't limited to 4GB, it can record for the full duration of the SD card. It's the Canons that can't go past 4GB).

That's not to say that the GH1 isn't a great camera, it will suit a lot of people just fine. In a way you get the best of both worlds by having a 10x zoom lens and the availability of primes if you need them.
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Definitely, but there are lots of reasons why I have both!
 
Barry_Green said:
(one correction; the GH1 isn't limited to 4GB, it can record for the full duration of the SD card. It's the Canons that can't go past 4GB).
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I'd heard somewhere that this was a limitation on the UK (25p) version but not the NTSC version, I might be wrong though, and I would imagine if anybody knows, you do.:beer:
 
Doh! You are correct, there is an artificial limit imposed because of the EU. Sorry, should have thought that one through.
 
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