GH2 GH2 FlowMotion v2.02 vs GH3 vs GH4?

[dylansmith]

Hi guys,

I saw a super-cheap 2nd hand deal on the GH2 and was very tempted to buy it. But given that the camera is almost 6 years old now, is the hacked GH2 still relevant when compared to the GH3 and GH4 in terms of image quality/color/sharpness/grading latitude etc? In particular, I'm looking at either the FlowMotion or Insanity X hack.

What would I be missing by buying the GH2 and not the 3 or 4? (other than obvious stuff like 4k)

Have a hard time finding original A/B comparison samples - would be great if the owners here could give some comments.

Thanks!

 

[fordry]

For me, the thing about the GH2, despite being fantastic quality image, was the lack of focus peaking. That feature was huge in my decision to upgrade to the GH4. The lack of that feature bit me at times with manual lenses where I thought I had focus but once i was looking at it on my monitor, i was obviously not quite there.

 

[Jim Simon]

I think it terms of image quality alone, the GH4 won't offer it's price difference worth of improvement when using the Moon T7 hack on the GH2.

Where the GH4 does offer it's value is features.

 

[DPStewart]

Jim's right.

Forget the GH3.
Your choice is between a GH2 with Moon T7 (which is on a whole 'nuther level) or a GH4.

 

[dylansmith]

For me, the thing about the GH2, despite being fantastic quality image, was the lack of focus peaking. That feature was huge in my decision to upgrade to the GH4. The lack of that feature bit me at times with manual lenses where I thought I had focus but once i was looking at it on my monitor, i was obviously not quite there.

i think the face-detect feature PLUS 5x MF Assist does help quite a bit (of course it doesn't match focus peaking, but it's better than nothing).

Other than pure assist features, would the image quality of the hacked GH2 match the 4k/100mbps look of the GH4?

Side track - is Moon T7 better than FlowMotion in terms of pure quality? From my research, it seems that FM and Insanity are the most popular ones, and Moon doesn't seem as reliable/stable.

 

[Greg_E]

The hacks seem to be highly subject, I have no idea which one is technically best. That said, some of them encode mjpeg better than others, and this can give us short clips at real 2k resolutions. I'd like to see some real technical discussion about why X hack is better than Y hack, Flowmotion seems to have the best technical descriptions where most of the others like Apocalypse have more subjective information.

So why is Moon T7 better than the latest Apocalypse, why Insanity X over Flowmotion? I wish there was more we could do with the 2k mjpeg, but the size limit on the container gets in the way, the newest Apocalypse seems to have the best mjpeg.

Now the ultimate question between GH2 and GH4 comes in, if money is no object, GH4. Since I work with students, and all the students who have enough drive and skill to do their own works are "poor", the GH2 has particular interest for me. At around $200-$250 for the GH2 body, it leaves a lot of extra room for a couple of lenses and an audio recorder and may still come in cheap enough to fit a tripod into the price of a GH4.

All that said, I've come to realize that there is no "one hack to rule them all", I bought a bunch of 1gb cards (no small task in itself) so I can keep several hacks at the ready for different situations, that includes one for a stock or low bitrate hack. You don't need 100+mbps recording for a simple one shot example tossed onto youtube that demonstrates a simple action or device, yet you don't want that same bitrate for a high action scene that you'll be cutting together into a sequence.

 

[Lpowell]

What's unique about the hacked GH2: Custom H.264 quantization tables and GOP lengths. Stock quantization tables shortchange P and B-frame image quality and use long GOPs to achieve decent results at 24 Mbps. FlowMotion v2 uses a 3-frame IBB GOP (no P-frames) in all 1080 video modes. This was selected for optimal motion picture quality at 100 Mbps (upper limit for reliability). All-I-frame hacks which emphasize still-frame image quality need around 150 Mbps to match FM2 I-frame IQ at 24p, but must back off the bitrate at 25p and 30p. FM2 uses custom quantization to make B-frame quality comparable to I-frames. Also uses tweaked deblocking filter to minimize H.264 macroblock artifacts.

What's cool about the GH4: Boosted bitrates vindicate (but do not match) those of hacked GH2. Cine-D and highlight/shadow controls provide much improved gamma curves. Focus peaking and zebras much appreciated. Last but not least: 4K at decent bitrates!

What sucks with Lumix: Funky shadow details, noisy at high ISO, glitchy electronic OIS lenses.

 

[QuickHitRecord]

GH2 footage is sharp, free from moire, and generally looks great, but it exhibits some pretty unfortunate banding.

Also, working around the ISO bug is a hassle.

 

[DPStewart]

GH2 footage is sharp, free from moire, and generally looks great, but it exhibits some pretty unfortunate banding.

Also, working around the ISO bug is a hassle.

No Moire indeed! One can get spoiled by the GH2 in this regard.
I have never had banding. -But then I started almost immediately shooting with the hack Flowmotion V2. Then I added Moon T7. Both of these are much higher bit-rate recording.

ISO bug - yeah, a hassle. A small hassle, but still one more detail to remember.

*ISO Bug = you get really bad noise if you use either of the ISO settings; 160 or 320. But you only get the bug if you step UP to those values from a LOWER value. If you step DOWN to those values from a HIGHER value then there is no problem.
I'm so used to it that I tend to select ISO settings on my other cameras by stepping down from higher values. It's become a habit. But that's no more weird than Nikon lenses focusing the opposite direction of most others.

EDIT: If someone has going to hand me either camera, I'd choose the GH4.
But if I had only $200-$300 to buy a camera, the GH2 hacked is by far the best image and tool out there.

 

[QuickHitRecord]

Like DPStewart says, you do get used to working around the ISO bug.

Without peaking, you really do need an external monitor for focusing. Also keep in mind that you can't used the magnified focus assist when a monitor is plugged into the HDMI port. That was a major pet-peeve of mine when I was using it with a SmallHD DP4.

As I recall, the last hack that I was running before selling the camera was Moon T5. I always thought that the banding was a result of the 8-bit codec, but have since used several other 8-bit cameras for which banding was not an issue. Also, I have seen noticeable banding in 10-bit footage that was worse than a lot of 8-bit cameras I have used. So, the codec on paper only means so much.

I remember discussing the banding with a senior product engineer at Panasonic in 2012 and sending him a still of a blue sky. I just pulled up the email:

One thing that I know will increase the banding is using any flavor of the hacked firmware. I've had conversations with folks in Japan that suggested going beyond 25 mb causes the Venus engine to run hotter, and contributes to what you are seeing.

 

[Lpowell]

One thing that I know will increase the banding is using any flavor of the hacked firmware. I've had conversations with folks in Japan that suggested going beyond 25 mb causes the Venus engine to run hotter, and contributes to what you are seeing.

LOLOL, funniest superstition ever. The GH2 does not overheat.

 

[QuickHitRecord]

LOLOL, funniest superstition ever. The GH2 does not overheat.

I never had any issues with mine. I don't think it ever even got hot to the touch. It was probably just Panasonic's way of discouraging hacking the camera.

 

[Greg_E]

Shouldn't a higher bitrate allow the compression engine to do less work which should keep the temperature down? The I/O chip might be working harder to send it to the card, but the rest should be doing less work.

I thought Apocalypse was everything from Moon plus a few more improvements wrapped up into one hack???

Flowmotion is one of the must have hacks, Apocalypse for the mjpeg work if you want 2k at about 2 minutes per shot (mov size issue). Haven't tried any others yet but started working on my rig again, really need two more FD lenses and two more FD to EF conversions (and two more focus gears).

 

[dylansmith]

What's unique about the hacked GH2: Custom H.264 quantization tables and GOP lengths. Stock quantization tables shortchange P and B-frame image quality and use long GOPs to achieve decent results at 24 Mbps. FlowMotion v2 uses a 3-frame IBB GOP (no P-frames) in all 1080 video modes. This was selected for optimal motion picture quality at 100 Mbps (upper limit for reliability). All-I-frame hacks which emphasize still-frame image quality need around 150 Mbps to match FM2 I-frame IQ at 24p, but must back off the bitrate at 25p and 30p. FM2 uses custom quantization to make B-frame quality comparable to I-frames. Also uses tweaked deblocking filter to minimize H.264 macroblock artifacts.

What's cool about the GH4: Boosted bitrates vindicate (but do not match) those of hacked GH2. Cine-D and highlight/shadow controls provide much improved gamma curves. Focus peaking and zebras much appreciated. Last but not least: 4K at decent bitrates!

What sucks with Lumix: Funky shadow details, noisy at high ISO, glitchy electronic OIS lenses.

Hi Lpowell!

Thanks for the hack! I decided to pick up the used GH2 eventually (at a steal of $100 with kit lens)!

Just curious - were you making a comparison to Moon T7/T8 when talking about the I-Frame hack? Sorry for asking as I'm not a technical guy.

Few questions below after purchasing the GH2:

1. I used the body with my 35-100 f2.8 and realised there's quite a fair bit of micro-jitter compared to using it on my Oly E-PL5 at all focal lengths. It's a fair comparison as I disabled IBIS in my Oly and compared just the lens stabilisation in both bodies - shouldn't Panny lenses work better with Panny bodies? Otherwise, shouldn't they have the same level of OIS regardless of the body they are on?

2. I understand that most people like to do sharpening in post (to minimise aliasing), but is it really better than sharpening in-camera? 1 argument is that I won't be able to reduce the sharpening in post, but my preference is always for sharp footage, so that's not a concern for me.

3. I enabled AF+MF mode, AFS+Face-Detect while recording - is it true that I can't do MF during recording in this case? Am I missing out any setting that prevents me from doing so?

4. Is there any way to reduce the sensitivity of face-detect? Most of the time, I use it to achieve initial focus, and I prefer to do MF thereafter to prevent hunting when the subject moves around.

5. If I want no compromise in IQ (keeping in mind that I'm using a Sandisk 45mbps Extreme card and my shots are typically <1min long per clip) with no regard for efficiency, what would be the best hack to use?

6. What pistol-grip brushless gimbal would you recommend to go along with the GH2 and 12-35 f2.8? Is the Beholder MS1 a good choice?

7. Lastly, does anyone have A/B comparison footage of a hacked GH2 vs GH4? Yup I've already bought the former, but still curious to see how close they are in real life!

Thanks people!

 

[Greg_E]

At $100 I would have bought a second camera, that's a good deal.

 

[Vesku]

GH2 has an old and weak sensor. It has bad dynamic range, greenish weak color, soft shadow detail and very noisy high iso. The GH2 has low profile simple codec and it needs very high bitrate to compare with newer high profile codecs. GH2 has less moire than GH3 but more aliasing. GH3 has better colors and very good 50Mbs codec. GH4 100Mbs (profile 5.1) codec is superior to any GH2 hack and 4k is even better.

The best feature of GH2 is the wider sensor.

 

[brudney]

While it's not the newest camera out there, it's really hard to beat in 1080p24 if you don't exceed ISO 800 - especially for its price.
Also I don't agree with Vesku about colors - I hate GH3s plasticky skintones (GH4 is almost decent). Panasonic sensors of GH1/2 (vs. Sony in GH3/4) may have some slight greenish tint, but once corrected skin looks more pleasing to my eyes (and colours in general).
As far as bitrate in concerned - I'll take moont7/8 all-I 100-150mbs anytime over GH3s 50mbs

 

[dylansmith]

Hi Lpowell!

Thanks for the hack! I decided to pick up the used GH2 eventually (at a steal of $100 with kit lens)!

Just curious - were you making a comparison to Moon T7/T8 when talking about the I-Frame hack? Sorry for asking as I'm not a technical guy.

Few questions below after purchasing the GH2:

1. I used the body with my 35-100 f2.8 and realised there's quite a fair bit of micro-jitter compared to using it on my Oly E-PL5 at all focal lengths. It's a fair comparison as I disabled IBIS in my Oly and compared just the lens stabilisation in both bodies - shouldn't Panny lenses work better with Panny bodies? Otherwise, shouldn't they have the same level of OIS regardless of the body they are on?

2. I understand that most people like to do sharpening in post (to minimise aliasing), but is it really better than sharpening in-camera? 1 argument is that I won't be able to reduce the sharpening in post, but my preference is always for sharp footage, so that's not a concern for me.

3. I enabled AF+MF mode, AFS+Face-Detect while recording - is it true that I can't do MF during recording in this case? Am I missing out any setting that prevents me from doing so?

4. Is there any way to reduce the sensitivity of face-detect? Most of the time, I use it to achieve initial focus, and I prefer to do MF thereafter to prevent hunting when the subject moves around.

5. If I want no compromise in IQ (keeping in mind that I'm using a Sandisk 45mbps Extreme card and my shots are typically <1min long per clip) with no regard for efficiency, what would be the best hack to use?

6. What pistol-grip brushless gimbal would you recommend to go along with the GH2 and 12-35 f2.8? Is the Beholder MS1 a good choice?

7. Lastly, does anyone have A/B comparison footage of a hacked GH2 vs GH4? Yup I've already bought the former, but still curious to see how close they are in real life!

Thanks people!

thanks guys for the feedback so far. can yall advise on the questions above please? In addition, how do I target skin tones only and remove the greenish cast in PP CC?

Thanks!

 

[Greg_E]

Hi Lpowell!

Few questions below after purchasing the GH2:

1. I used the body with my 35-100 f2.8 and realised there's quite a fair bit of micro-jitter compared to using it on my Oly E-PL5 at all focal lengths. It's a fair comparison as I disabled IBIS in my Oly and compared just the lens stabilisation in both bodies - shouldn't Panny lenses work better with Panny bodies? Otherwise, shouldn't they have the same level of OIS regardless of the body they are on?

2. I understand that most people like to do sharpening in post (to minimise aliasing), but is it really better than sharpening in-camera? 1 argument is that I won't be able to reduce the sharpening in post, but my preference is always for sharp footage, so that's not a concern for me.

3. I enabled AF+MF mode, AFS+Face-Detect while recording - is it true that I can't do MF during recording in this case? Am I missing out any setting that prevents me from doing so?

4. Is there any way to reduce the sensitivity of face-detect? Most of the time, I use it to achieve initial focus, and I prefer to do MF thereafter to prevent hunting when the subject moves around.

5. If I want no compromise in IQ (keeping in mind that I'm using a Sandisk 45mbps Extreme card and my shots are typically <1min long per clip) with no regard for efficiency, what would be the best hack to use?

6. What pistol-grip brushless gimbal would you recommend to go along with the GH2 and 12-35 f2.8? Is the Beholder MS1 a good choice?

7. Lastly, does anyone have A/B comparison footage of a hacked GH2 vs GH4? Yup I've already bought the former, but still curious to see how close they are in real life!

Thanks people!

#1, #3, #4 I have no idea, I use manual lenses.

#2 sharpening in camera can accentuate the noise which eats bandwidth during encoding, do it later in post.

#5 I don't think there is a "one hack to rule them all", it's far more complex than that. Flowmotion seems to be one of the best and at the price of your camera, buy a 64GB 95MBps Sandisk Extreme card, they are around $50 (or were when I bought one). While you are shopping, buy a bunch of 1GB cards and configure several hacks that you can load as shots demand something different. That's my plan and I'm sticking to it, many other people did the same when they were using this camera (or continue to this day). The all I frame hacks may not be as efficient in retaining image quality as the IBB Flowmotion hack, or some of the IPB very short GOP hacks. B and P frames are not bad, but it depends on the type of scene and amount of action. A short 3GOP or 6GOP has it's place with a lot of action, all I frame is great, if you have the real overhead to handle it and I'm not convinced this camera can really handle it. If it did, I think Flowmotion might have turned out differently.

#6 no idea, no experience with gimbals. I've read that 32bit encoder boards give smoother action. Sorry, not much help. Size for something that can take a GH4 or Sony A7 body and it should work OK.

#7 can't help, don't own a GH4 or GH3. My out of pocket, "going to learn to work in this fashion" money has gone on to things like lenses, 15mm rig, follow focus, mattebox, audio recorder (a must have with these cameras due to overly compressed AC3 audio), etc. If I were making money or something important, I'd have something newer and very likely a GH4. Suffice it to say that Mr. Powell went from hacked GH2 to a GH4 for his work and kind of expressed why in a post above. If the GH4 didn't do something he needed, he probably wouldn't have spent the money.

Sorry no real cut and dried answers, that's pretty much the way this whole business runs. Things like placing definitive statements like "an Amira is better than a Red camera". The only thing that can be said in a concrete fashion is that for some people there is a preference. Or that under some condition one has better performance than the other. Mostly it is an ephemeral preference from one operator to the next and each job should look at the needs to determine what is best for that job. So it goes with these hacks.

 

[Jim Simon]

would the image quality of the hacked GH2 match the 4k/100mbps look of the GH4?

I've seen a few comparisons that convince me they're on par with each other. The hacked GH2 maybe even had the slight nod.

is Moon T7 better than FlowMotion in terms of pure quality?

I believe so, yes. In my experience, Moon Trial 7 is the absolute very best image my GH2 has ever produced, bar none. You do need a Sandisk Extreme Pro 64 or 128 GB card to run it, though.