GH2 video quality query...

r10k said:
Most of the stuff on Youtube, and a lot of stuff on Vimeo. The colour of the GH2 videos doesn't seem as punchy (possibly the wrong term) as the t2i ones.

Example of the GH2 (http://www.vimeo.com/17245744) versus the t2i (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khrtaGfIdMs). Those are more random picks than anything, (videos in snow seem to make colours look punchy anyway) but they show that the colours in the GH2 videos don't exactly pop, even though there's a lot of colour in it. Pretty much every Canon video I've seen has made me say "Oooo" while the GH2 ones haven't struck me with the wow factor. I think it's a subtle thing of colour saturation and contrast, but I can't exactly put my finger on it.



No argument there... it's just to my eye, the Canon videos have a nice look about them. I guess it's just a personal taste thing ;)
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Not sure how you could possibly compare the color quality of a video shot outdoors vs one shot under some obviously, colored, artificial lighting. No way.

The color out of my GH2 in the 'standard' mode looks extremely natural and accurate and virtually devoid of moire (the importance of which you won't understand until you see it with your Canon or whatever other DSLR you use). If you consider what your eyes see as 'poppy', then the GH2 outputs 'poppy'. If your definition of 'poppy' is brighter or more colorful than life, you won't get that without tweaking. But I suspect that no matter what clips are posted or what people say, you'll be happier with the Canon. Nothing wrong with that.
 
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R10k, I agree that some videos shot on canon cams look Great, but you are talking here about colors, contrast, mainly 'Look'. This factor actually depends on the situation, lighting, and mostly on Lenses. There are already lots of threads discussing lenses for specific 'Look'. But why these footages have to be so Great straight out of camera? They may also look great after Grading.

For example: If you take a look at the Footages came straight out of REDOne (or 35mm film scan), you'll see they're Badly unsaturated and low contrast. But if you look in deep, it's filled with so much details that the Grader can dramatically transform the footage into any kind of 'Look' he wants. And that's what we see in Theaters.

Coming back to GH cams. You will be amazed if you see the Details and Sharpness of out-of-(GH)cam footages. In close shots of faces, most cameras look identical in shallow DOF, but in case of 'Wide-angles focused infinitely', with small details like Trees, and grass, there's no HDSLR to beat the GH cameras. Canons are far behind.
 
In addition to other video cameras I have used or own, I have a t2i, a 60D and now a GH2. I only got my two extra batteries for GH2 today so I haven't had a chance to put it to the test in a professional environment. But, I can say this...the fact that I don't have to be so concerned about moire and aliasing with the GH2 is very much worth the price of admission. And, the colors look just fine to me. Eventually the GH2 may serve as a B-cam for an AF100.

Also, I've been in the industry for over 28 years and I feel a lot of people today are so involved in pixel peeping that they forget, even today, storytelling is what its all about. Get yourself whatever you can afford or feel comfortable with and go out and challenge yourself to make compelling material. Your clients will be happy and you'll get more business out of it.

There are tons of great tools from multiple manufacturers. Learn how to use the tools you have, tell a good story, and the rest will take care of itself.

Forrest
 
After comparing my 7D and new GH2 for several days and on the same exact situations I can safely say that the GH2 colors are almost perfectly true to what was being captured. Almost to the point of reliance for accuracy in post. The 7D has a more punchy look and the reds are over saturated at times and detail is lost on several saturated parts of the scene, skin tones are artificial also. However that look is very appealing to the eye and possibly what is causing the T2i to look better in some eyes, but it is definitely an inferior image if held to scrutiny.

However, the Codec on the GH2 even at 24mbits is not as good as the 40+mbit Canon output. I have had macro-blocking on some scenes that the Canon has aced but filled with color moire "on the 7D" of course. So I just hope that a hack for the GH2 comes to reality because this little camera has it all in the detail, color, form factor and motion dept... the codec is still the crippling factor.

I would go as far as to say that if the GH2 had a 40+mbit mode hacked in, it would be ready for an A cam in a variety of productions, it is that good!
 
I would like to see a video clip shot with the Canon 5D mk2 & 28-300mm and see how it compares to this clip shot with GH2 and 14-140mm (28-280mm FF eqiv) .
 
@James Benet -- Makes me wonder what went wrong when Panasonic implemented the AVCHD codec in this camera. 24 Mbps should be plenty enough for AVCHD.
 
I would like to see a video clip shot with the Canon 5D mk2 & 28-300mm and see how it compares to this clip shot with GH2 and 14-140mm
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Sure if you put my flights on your credit card - ill rustle something up!
 
The Gh2 has a technical advantage maybe, don't know what to call it but it's sharper on wide shots and it has less moire. It's a great camera however the Canons provide a very nice aestethic look. I've seen many videos, especially from 5dmkii on my 50" tv and you can't complain about much but I guess some people don't like the softness. Go for the Canon if you like it better, you're not alone. I'd rather buy the 60D than the t2i.
 
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Xian said:
The Gh2 has a technical advantage maybe, don't know what to call it but it's sharper on wide shots and it has less moire. It's a great camera however the Canons provide a very nice aestethic look. I've seen many videos, especially from 5dmkii on my 50" tv and you can't complain about much but I guess some people don't like the softness. Go for the Canon if you like it better, you're not alone. I'd rather buy the 60D than the t2i.
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Well, if you like the footage that comes pre-graded (if that's what you call aestethic look) straight out-of-cam, then you are in trouble. Because, as Lee said...
Lee Saxon said:
Less "pop" (contrast) = more dynamic range & more post options
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In simple words, if you get Vivid colors in High contrast image, you can't change it, since you lost many details in high Whites & high Blacks. But if you get low contrast image in Natural colors (that looks unattractive), you have got more visual Data, so you can change it the way you want, in Post. Even with Canon, I like to shoot low contrast.

I have used both Canons and Pannys, and I think Canon as the father all HDSLRs, and hence the canon Technology seems quite old.
 
Xian said:
I've seen many videos, especially from 5dmkii on my 50" tv and you can't complain about much but I guess some people don't like the softness.
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That's hilarious. I remember when I first watched a 5D clip about 1 1/2 years ago and I couldn't believe how razor sharp the image looked. In fact, I thought it was waaay too sharp to consider the camera a potential candidate for movie making. I liked the image out of the D90 much better. Since then, I've never really payed attention to the 5D, but I guess GH cameras really do have a sharper image...
 
RaviSun3D said:
Well, if you like the footage that comes pre-graded (if that's what you call aestethic look) straight out-of-cam, then you are in trouble. Because, as Lee said...


In simple words, if you get Vivid colors in High contrast image, you can't change it, since you lost many details in high Whites & high Blacks. But if you get low contrast image in Natural colors (that looks unattractive), you have got more visual Data, so you can change it the way you want, in Post. Even with Canon, I like to shoot low contrast.

I have used both Canons and Pannys, and I think Canon as the father all HDSLRs, and hence the canon Technology seems quite old.
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I'm far from being in trouble :-) you assume things. Yes, that's right. I shot flat 10 years ago, thanks for the information anyway. We used lights to shoot flat for a better job in post.


Pharao said:
That's hilarious. I remember when I first watched a 5D clip about 1 1/2 years ago and I couldn't believe how razor sharp the image looked. In fact, I thought it was waaay too sharp to consider the camera a potential candidate for movie making. I liked the image out of the D90 much better. Since then, I've never really payed attention to the 5D, but I guess GH cameras really do have a sharper image...
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So you have never payed attention to the 5D based on one clip 1 1/2 years ago. That's hilarious :-) and yes, the D90 is fine too.
5D is sharp but you can reduce the sharpness, moire and aliasing. Canon in general have a softer look than the GH cameras or is it really softer?
It's different, that's for sure. What I mean is that the thread maker should get Canon no matter what the Gh2 has in favor since he likes it's character.
 
No no, wrong conclusion. The clip I saw back then wasn't the reason why I haven't been paying attention to the 5D. It was a mixture between its price point and not caring about cameras at all. And I've probably seen a few 5D clips, but unless I'm in the market for a new camera, I couldn't care less with which camera these clips were filmed...
 
Pharao: ok, I get it.
I care about the camera but not the brand. I'll probably give the Gh2 a try with my fine nikkor lenses until Canon or Nikon comes out with something new.
 
gosh - and u know what, cam ops are actually smart and intelligent even IF.... they want a damned good look in camera! Its like jeez, kid buys an ipod and suddenly all cam work is decided in post. Well if im shooting for grading and fx i probably wouldnt shooting with all my eggs in a -1000$ dslr basket toy in the first place.

If you get a look thats damned well sexy for you - be it a 550d or a gh2 or a jam jar - then thats to be celebrated. Thats gonna get you off your fat ass to make a movie and get excited about how its gonna look.

Talk about sucking the fun out of everything... Oh camera 'x' is superior to 'y' because its bit rate is worth x2 your brainset and blah de blah or whatever the 'fact' is... Honestly its utterly pathetic that guys can squabble so much about cameras that in the end of the day, may differ here and there but are basically toys to the big boys, that are for all intended purposes roughly the same. If one can't realise that, if one gets all self-important about a titsy wee cam - then god knows.... your beyond hope.
 
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I'm actually quite thankful for pixel peepers in this forum, even if they can get annoying sometimes. I'm so glad I didn't have to spend months on a firmware hack and weeks testing reliable settings to name one of many examples. Let them be tech geeks, they let you be a filmmaker as well. Nobody forces you to join these discussions, so read what really interests you and skip the rest. That's my idea of smart and intelligent. Cheers. ;)
 
You'd think so Pharao - you really would, but if these pixel peepers arent being filmmakers lol then what the heck are they? God knows geeks would be great but we don't just see geekdom here, but self righteous geekdom declaring one cam to be automatically superior to whatever they chose not to buy.. People getting called stupid or basically being inferred as such just because they dont value one attribute like another does (invariably the attribute the model they've just bought has over another.)

One could skip it but im calling it out because its just a pain in the arse to read lol, without bringing up the valid point i think, which is that its bs. We all know it really is... these guys pixel peeping over absolute crap someones shot (like a vase in there living room) or what nut, when really they've actually already bought the camera they want (from there gut instinct.) Its a pointless exercise where the only folks asking for advice on what to buy, are the ones that already know what they want, but just seek further justification and so forth.

Further more and finally, if these folks only knew how ridiculous they appear to actual pro's who do not give a feck about it... whose entire existence, egos and lives just aren't dependent on 1 particular $1000 cam... or ipod....

Over and over we see it, from model to model and so forth... legitimate tests - fair enough, but conclusions would be for the individual to draw, not the bs
 
Why is it that in just about every (DSLR....mainly GH-2) thread you post in you have almost the exact same cynical response? You don't have to read or respond if it puts your knickers in a twist so much.

I like what Pharao had to say to you earlier:

Nobody forces you to join these discussions, so read what really interests you and skip the rest. That's my idea of smart and intelligent. Cheers. ;)
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That's sound advice.
 
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