GH13 GH1s or GH2s - being considerate of cost.

T

tfreakburg

New member
Hey all, new to the forum

Here's the skinny. First off, I'm in the U.S.A.

I do weddings and plays mostly, with a few cheap promo videos in between. Nothing spectacular, but I raise the bar for myself each time.

What I currently have:

HMC40 (my go to cam for live events. If I shoot one cam, its this. If I'm shooting multiple by myself, I'm running this.)

Hacked Canon t2i (shot an entire promo on this, love love love the DOF, but can't record long events without missing about 3 seconds even with auto-record in hack)

Some cheap sony 1080p I got on sale at like $150 off of regular in stores price. (I use for widecam/low profile cam for multicam shoots)

I've recently moved, and since my previous clientele always came by word of mouth, (and I do this part time) I have an opportunity to change focus or at least equipment. I would love to get into doing more short film work and promo work. The t2i would be fine for this, but sometimes recording an event is whats needed to make some cash. I like my HMC40 a lot, but the low-light capability is killing me...

I want to sell my gear and start over basically.

First thought was, if I get enough cash from my gear, to get 2 gh2's as they had the DOF and low-light and non-restricted recording times. These are my three main criteria.

On the other hand, its my understanding that earlier manufactured GH1's with patch can also eliminate 30 minute time limit.

If I could mange to determine that I was getting the correct model of GH1, I could get 2 of those and a lot more glass for the same price of a couple GH2's.

I've read that some people aren't gaining much from a hacked GH1 to a GH2 upgrade, even in low light... If that is the case, my money is probably better spent on glass/other equipment. I've also heard that moire and aliasing are reduced in the GH2...

So, I've tried to read around as much as possible, but I could use some direct responses... thanks!


EDIT: Ok, further reading tells me that in the U.S., the GH1 Never had a recording time limit. Correct?
Secondly: Are there still GH1's that cannot be hacked?
 
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NTSC GH1's and GH2's have no recording limit because they use AVCHD, which spans files. PAL versions have a 30 minute limit, but this can be removed via the hacks for both camera models.

All GH2's and GH1's can currently be hacked. There was a time when there were unhackable GH1's, due to Panasonic, but a the hack project overcame that limitation, and now all GH2's and GH1's are hackable.

Some people swear by the low light quality of the GH1. I had a GH1, and got horrible low light FPN at any ISO. If any part of my image was underexposed by 3 stops, at any ISO, I would see banding. I've not had any such problem on my GH2. But, there are some GH1's that apparently have very little FPN... so it seems to be kind of hit or miss.

The moire/aliasing seem to be pretty similar from GH1 to GH2, but that's just my opinion.

I love my GH2's. They give great low light performance, the ECT sensor crop feature is great when you need even more out of your zoom range, and I have yet to see any FPN that plagued my GH1. Plus, the GH2 has native 24p, so I don't have to do any pulldown removal. I know there are hacks that give the GH1 native 24p, but these will occasionally crash the camera, if I'm not mistaken.
 
awelgraven said:
NTSC GH1's and GH2's have no recording limit because they use AVCHD, which spans files. PAL versions have a 30 minute limit, but this can be removed via the hacks for both camera models.

All GH2's and GH1's can currently be hacked. There was a time when there were unhackable GH1's, due to Panasonic, but a the hack project overcame that limitation, and now all GH2's and GH1's are hackable.

Some people swear by the low light quality of the GH1. I had a GH1, and got horrible low light FPN at any ISO. If any part of my image was underexposed by 3 stops, at any ISO, I would see banding. I've not had any such problem on my GH2. But, there are some GH1's that apparently have very little FPN... so it seems to be kind of hit or miss.

The moire/aliasing seem to be pretty similar from GH1 to GH2, but that's just my opinion.

I love my GH2's. They give great low light performance, the ECT sensor crop feature is great when you need even more out of your zoom range, and I have yet to see any FPN that plagued my GH1. Plus, the GH2 has native 24p, so I don't have to do any pulldown removal. I know there are hacks that give the GH1 native 24p, but these will occasionally crash the camera, if I'm not mistaken.
Click to expand...

Hey thanks. Well, for live events, I could shoot 720 60p I guess, and save the 24p stuff for promo and short film work. Its a larger sensor, so I should still get better low light with the GH1 than even the 1/4 3mos of the HMC40, right? I think the only thing Id miss is an iris dial and electronic zooming... but gotta make a sacrifice somewhere.

Looks like cost wise I'll be able to do more with a couple GH1's and some better glass. Thanks!
 
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