GH13 GH1 taking better stills than my GH2?

Other than snaps from location scouting I don't have anything really developed to show, but here is a quick one from yesterday:

blueLightRaw1Small.png


For this image I actually tried to un-develop as much as possible in Silkypix and turned every sharpening switch off (and there are several of those). Link to HD size image (10 Mb): http://www.fourseasonshd.com/blueLightRaw1.png

When the image is loaded in Silkypix the program selects the settings that were used in-camera while snapping the image. I had some rather random WB settings. I scaled down to HD size and saved in 16-bit, so it could be put next to HD footage and see how it fares. This is a very old Minolta 35 mm with lots of filters on top of the lens for testing purposes, so not the sharpest sample. Separation of foreground and background is fine.

I can not produce comparable video with the same lens with GH13. The video looks a bit dull in comparison, like comparing SD to HD. Silkypix can batch process, so if there was a way to produce a bit less dull video images from Lumix cameras, similar work flow to the RAW cine cameras could be developed. Silkypix handles jpeg images as Virtual Raw based on the camera information. According to the Silkypix manual this should be better way to handle compressed images too.
 
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Aki_Hartikainen said:
Other than snaps from location scouting I don't have anything really developed to show, but here is a quick one from yesterday:

blueLightRaw1Small.png


For this image I actually tried to un-develop as much as possible in Silkypix and turned every sharpening switch off (and there are several of those). Link to HD size image (10 Mb): http://www.fourseasonshd.com/blueLightRaw1.png

When the image is loaded in Silkypix the program selects the settings that were used in-camera while snapping the image. I had some rather random WB settings. I scaled down to HD size and saved in 16-bit, so it could be put next to HD footage and see how it fares. This is a very old Minolta 35 mm with lots of filters on top of the lens for testing purposes, so not the sharpest sample. Separation of foreground and background is fine.

I can not produce comparable video with the same lens with GH13. The video looks a bit dull in comparison, like comparing SD to HD. Silkypix can batch process, so if there was a way to produce a bit less dull video images from Lumix cameras, similar work flow to the RAW cine cameras could be developed. Silkypix handles jpeg images as Virtual Raw based on the camera information. According to the Silkypix manual this should be better way to handle compressed images too.
Click to expand...

Interesting. I'm not a fan of bundled software and have been trying to keep my system clean, but perhaps this is worth a look.

Either way, this doesn't really solve the playback-in-camera problem. I totally see what the OP is saying, its very difficult to judge if I hit the shot properly when it softens the image that much.
 
I recommend to test Silkypix and evaluate what it could do. The software and the manual do look a bit obscure at first. I do not even know at this point what kind of LUT's or curves could be imported, if any. Here is another one from GF1 from yesterday originally taken at 4k RAW and through Silkypix:

blueLightRaw2Small.png


Link to HD size version (8-bit): http://www.fourseasonshd.com/blueLightRaw2.png

I am hoping the video could eventually look a bit like that. I just had a look at the Nikon D800 videos and I am hoping that people do not start to think that it's somehow great HD video. Even the HDMI output videos looked simply not great for the most part. And I am trying to be nice here. Somehow I fear this HD video business is taking the wrong turn and something not too great will soon be considered like it's the gift from God.

Perhaps that has happened already and there is no turning back ;-)
 
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I tried using SilkyPix, and to be honest I found the interface clunky and difficult compared to Adobe Camera Raw. I did notice some truer rendition on certain colors (particularly in the reds), but other than that it seemed like a lot of hassle for a negligible amount of improvement. Either way, the post workflow doesn't help with how blurry stills look on the camera. Its nice to know that they look better on the computer afterwards, but this bug is very frustrating indeed! Is there a hack to fix this??
 
Just to address the comments about video mode vs JPEG resolution.

JPEG mode is resolving superior resolution. This is very clearly seen in several tests I recently shot for recent settings at http://www.personal-view.com.

EDIT: Had to re-post because of a problem with the attachments.

For example:

GH2 JPEG
JPEG.jpg


GH2 still extracted as PNG from 24H clip shot with Canis Majoris Night (the strongest performing low-light settings to-date)

CM%20Night.png


Lens: Rokkor 58mm f/1.4


1/50, f/5.6, ISO3200


Smooth -2, -2, -2, -2


5000K WB - illuminated by outdoor sunlight through visible window only.
 
Resolving power seems similar between the two. It's the color noise in the video that makes the difference to me. It seems this is what Aki is trying to defeat.
 
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