GH1 First impressions and footage

Dowloaded the Vimeo file, put it on a DVD and my TV. Just fantastic. All the lenses were spot on. The kit lens is excellent. Panasonic wants to sell lenses as well, so they are going to make sure they work. Slow? What the heck is that? Up the ISO, add more light. The shallow DOF is going to be there no matter what. At F/4 is there. I have no idea why people would think otherwise. There are a few samples out there showing it. The kit kens is perfect as it is, especially with the automatic functions tied to the camera.
 
artifacts

artifacts

In the sonicstates and in the lemon soju footage there are compression artifacts in fast pans but in the phillip bloom footage (re frame) there are pans but there are no artifacts. I was thinking why the philip bloom footage (re frame) is clean of artifacts.
 
Apefos Adapter said:
In the sonicstates and in the lemon soju footage there are compression artifacts in fast pans but in the phillip bloom footage (re frame) there are pans but there are no artifacts. I was thinking why the philip bloom footage (re frame) is clean of artifacts.
Click to expand...
Do you think that it has to do with PAL vs NTSC?
Maybe the pulldown introduces the artifacts? Just guessing....
 
Definitely artifacts in the footage. No one should buy this camera when it comes out in a few weeks. In fact, everyone should just wait, wait for me to do my tests... :)
 
pal vs ntsc

pal vs ntsc

stav1606 said:
Do you think that it has to do with PAL vs NTSC?
Maybe the pulldown introduces the artifacts? Just guessing....
Click to expand...

This is a good teory, but I think to know this for shure a test must be done. Put a pal and a ntsc side by side in the same tripod and do some pans to compare both footage.
 
Sorry but the same artifacts exist in his video as it was pointed out before (you really have to look closely though). Run it through your viewer again (Quicktime) and do a step by step analysis you'll see them. The thing about that video was it was graded with blacks crushed a little. No matter what cam you use that has visible noise...crushing the blacks would hide a lot of that stuff (IMO). But anyways...look again.
 
John Caballero said:
The kit lens is excellent. Panasonic wants to sell lenses as well, so they are going to make sure they work. Slow? What the heck is that? Up the ISO, add more light. The shallow DOF is going to be there no matter what. At F/4 is there. I have no idea why people would think otherwise. There are a few samples out there showing it. The kit kens is perfect as it is, especially with the automatic functions tied to the camera.
Click to expand...

Right. I knew that most professional movies are shot at f/4. But I got drunk in DOF by watching adapter and MKII footage. The last days I've been watching very consciously Movies on TV and you know what: Most of them have a VERY similar DOF to the one of GH1 footage. Only in low light scenes, when they have to stop down, the DOF is very shallow. Wonder if they would have done so with a camera as fast as the GH1...
 
stav1606 said:
Can you specify where you see artifacts?
I am not even sure I understand what are these artifacts...
Click to expand...
Whether 24p or 25p we've only been seeing these anomalies during pans etc. Phil Bloom did not do lots of pans in his video (which is mostly his style I guess) but when you do see a pan in this particular video there is the same breakdown of the footage. You can see them at:

1:12 - 1:14
1:38 - 1:39
2:17 - 2:19

I'm talking about the video picture turning from super sharp into mud. They were not that bad...but then again they were not as fast a pan as we've seen in the other folks footage.
 
Ian-T said:
Whether 24p or 25p we've only been seeing these anomalies during pans etc. Phil Bloom did not do lots of pans in his video (which is mostly his style I guess) but when you do see a pan in this particular video there is the same breakdown of the footage. You can see them at:

1:12 - 1:14
1:38 - 1:39
2:17 - 2:19

I'm talking about the video picture turning from super sharp into mud. They were not that bad...but then again they were not as fast a pan as we've seen in the other folks footage.
Click to expand...


I'm still wondering if this is a result of the decoding method.

Even watching raws, if the files are not decoded correctly it's like putting a puzzle together not properly. That would make it a mosaic blurry mess. That's why there is such a variable quality difference between players you view the raw material with.

Now the blame goes squarely in the hands of Panasonic. It's a lame choice to use the codec that is so not easily played back on MAC or PC. Doing so has made it very frustrating because some people see it one way; others see it different depending on the technology they are using to view.. Some can't even view raws on a MAC if they don't have FCP or a certain setup. That's lame..

Panasonic does not do the GH1 the justice it deserves by throwing out in the crowd and not giving everyone a proper primer to decode the clips. They should have used h.264 as Canon did. Or Mjpeg at a higher bit rate. Then this issue would be a dead one....





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Ian-T said:
I'm talking about the video picture turning from super sharp into mud.
Click to expand...

I really dont see these artifacts but that is beside the point.
What I want to say is that these vimeo downloaded clips are still compressed. Have you seen such artifacts in original clips from the camera?

I think we need to see original files from PAL models to be sure of what this camera is capable of.
Do you know of any such files?
 
Just like the 24p files you need to step through the 25p files. In most cases you don't see it while in motion. But I'm suprised you say that you say you can't see the examples I'm referring to.

Phil Bloom is the only one I know of with a PAL camera. He should be able to assist you with that.

I understand what you are saying about needing the native files but it seems to be exhibiting the same type of behavior to me.
 
Ian-T said:
In most cases you don't see it while in motion. But I'm suprised you say that you say you can't see the examples I'm referring to.
Click to expand...

I am just not sure I can really differentiate between artifacts and normal bluring because of the motion. I mean obviously when panning, the image will not be as sharp as when standing still. Isn't that true?
A movie file is supposed to be watched as such and not as stills frame by frame.
So there is my question. Are there artifacts that are really compression issue or is there a bluring that you see because of over-examination of the samples and it would be there even if shot with other cameras?
 
You can't take the frames out of context. They are a sequence and they have to be watch as such. The general public is not watching a frame at a time. BTW, watch a series done originally on film for television and broadcast on the internet and start counting the artifacts flying around. Another point is that you have to pan slowly for the audience to follow the action unless the script asks for fast panning for a purpose. Finally, again, you can't make ANY final judgement on ANYTHING related to the GH1 UNTIL you have one on your very own hands to test and unless you are a knowledgeable cinematographer you won't get much from it either.
 
I have recently learnt that the 29.59 minute max recording time on the Panasonic Lumix GH1 is not due to hardware limitations, it's purely down to European Union tax law. In 2007 a ruling was announced that any digital camera that records 30 minutes or more of video is classified by the EU as a camcorder and is therefore subject to 4.9% import duty (assuming the camera was made outside of the EU which they generally are!)

So that is the reason why the EU version of the GH1 has the 29.59 minutes max per clip and the rest of the world doesn't get this limit.

Would you pay 4.9% more in the EU to get the max recording time and have it classified as a camcorder? I for one would.

Please visit my blog and vote!!

http://philipbloom.co.uk/2009/06/03/the-lumix-30-minutes-eu-recording-issue/
 
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