GH1 Low Light Performance

L

LizaWitz

Carbonite Member
Johnny Cola just posted a link to this footage here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrHsNreo6HE&fmt=22

This shows the kit lens at f4.7 and iso 1600 compared to a sumilux at f1.4 and iso 200. Same scene in both shots.

Looking at this, on YouTube of course, I see no real noise in the 1600 iso footage. The main difference between the two is the shallower depth of field you'd get with the faster lens.

Going to full screen mode, I can see some noise in the patio door at 1600. But really, its the kind of noise level that people are only going to notice if the content of your footage is extremely boring, this half asleep dog is exciting enough to distract from it.

So, for web delivery, seems like you can shoot at 1600 with the kit lens and get a fine image.
 
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That's about what I'm getting with the kit lens as well. But actually a little less contrasty and a bit brighter. Gotta be due to the camera settings.

Nice example fo rsure.
 
Very nice - you can download the original file(s) as well. Hope the server stays up long enough to grab it, my first attempt cut off early...
 
Great sample. This gives my confidence that 1600 ISO is actually usable for some situations. I'm still DYING for someone to post original MTS files of shots at different ISOs so I can see noise & sharpness first hand.
 
Okay, so looking at the linked file from that YouTube - it has a .mpg extension, but nothing I've tried has really played it correctly, in OSX or Windows. The closest thing was MPlayer in OSX - I've tried Quicktime, VLC, and a bunch of other oddball players. I even tried the Cineform NeoScene demo, although maybe I'm just not pressing the right buttons there - couldn't load it. Does anyone know how to get this thing into a more manageable format? Would love to remove the pulldown and get it into some easily playable 1080p format (ProRes, Animation, whatever).

Edit: Renamed the extension to .m2ts, Cineform now recognizes it. Converted to ProRes HQ, seems okay at a glance. Now trying to remove pulldown with JES Deinterlacer.

Edit 2: JES seems to have problems with it. About to try Compressor instead.

Edut 3: Nevermind, I see now NeoScene has pulldown removal built in. Works well - output looks really nice. I do wish there was an option to just output ProRes rather than ProRes HQ, which is way overkill. At least in this shot, I don't think the noise at 1600 is bad at all and of course the f1.4 200 ISO looks lovely.
 
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dcloud said:
"kit lens at f4.7 and iso 1600 compared to a sumilux at f1.4 and iso 200."

thats a huge diff
Click to expand...

Yep, and they look almost the same... that's the amazing thing. Though of course the sumilex has shallower DOF, and the iso 1600 has a little noise.
 
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I have to say, that is very impressive, for ISO 1600, totally usable. Even though I just took delivery of the 5D MKII, I can see one of these in my future as well. They have a different look honestly and I think that the 5D MKII looks better but this GH1 would probably be easier to use on client projects.

Thanks for the link Liza, you are on it!

Dan
 
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