Gh2 vs canons in low light conditions in night clubs which wins hands down ?

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produce12

Active member
Im selling my 7d but am getting mixed reviews for GH2 when it comes to Low Light conditions. I will be doing video in low light settings in the night clubs. I will be having an LED Panel on top of the camera. But with that said which camera's are better for low light video ?
 
produce12 said:
Im selling my 7d but am getting mixed reviews for GH2 when it comes to Low Light conditions. I will be doing video in low light settings in the night clubs. I will be having an LED Panel on top of the camera. But with that said which camera's are better for low light video ?
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I have both the 7D and GH2. Where the 7D usually disappointed in low-light, the GH2 is constantly surpising me, even at 3200ISO. I recently captured good clips with the GH2 using an f4.0 at 3200ISO. In the same setting, the 7D failed using an f1.8 at 1600ISO.
 
I did a test as well in low light situation
voigtlander 25mm + gh2 the result is really good.
I didn't go higher than 1600 iso (3200 is too noisy for me)
It was a bar, so quite dark (but not as dark as a night club)
Anyway I would say if you have a voigtlander f/0.95 with your gh2 you'll beat everything on the market in low light situation (unless you're ready to pay more than 3 times the price of this setup...and probably more....)

http://vimeo.com/22182253
 
if you are having an led pannel then both will do fine hands down =) what are you planning to get canon wise to replace the 7d? 5d with super fast lens and super shallow dof is still up there for me for low light performance though im not a big fan of super shallow dof.

are these reviews comparing canon side by side to anything else?
 
an led panel is really only going to help you on closeup shots. you might get some fill on a medium wide shot. but not a ton...

i think a lot of what you hear about the 5D and 7D being better in low light has to do with sensor size. the speed of your glass has as much to do with things.

i expected better performance from my gh2 out of the box because people spoke so highly of the 14-140 kit lens (even though i knew it was pretty slow at f4). but i was wholly unimpressed. then i got a 20mm 1.7 "pancake" lens and everything changed on that front.

now im on adapter and lens quest. to see what kinda crazy stuff i can dig up.
thats if i dont sell it and go back to a 35mm adapter on my hpx170 ; )
 
the voiglander lens that the person posted in that video would likely allow you to shoot a club with ambient lighting. f0.95 is incredible fast.. that said its a manual focus lens and one of the merits of the gh2 is its video autofocus. so i would go for the f1.7 20 mm pancake but this lens is non-stabalized... I have been wracking my brain to figure out a fast lens with stabalization but there appears to be nothing.

Still it shoudl work fine especially tripod'd. But this IS a guess.
 
If you see this video by Philip Bloom, you will be able to judge the performance of GH2 with the 0.95 wide open Voightlander.
The 5D will have an advantage as it has a full frame sensor, which I think increases the light by 1.4 stops...The 7ds and other cameras have slightly bigger sensor so slightly more light gets in as compared to GH2. But if you have a 0.95 lens you should be able to beat the canons...The tricky part of shooting that wide is to keep the people in focus....some DPs say never shoot below t2.5. If you are going by that rule use the 5D....It will also give you a greater field of view in the cramped spaces....So it really depends, what factors you are working with.
 
produce12 said:
Why does reviews say Canon is better in low light ? Is this forum biased ?
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Even if the canon 7D chip performed better than the GH2 in low light (but the review you read was probably talking about the 5D, witch would be a correct statement), the fact remains that the GH2 has the only f.095 lens available for a video DSLR. That lens can let more light hit the sensor, making the combo GH2+Voighlander lens, one of the best kits for extreme lowlight shooting there is. I would assume a canon 5D MKII + a 50mm 1.2 lens would be somewhat comparable, with the 1Ds MKIV still leading the way. The faster normal lens you can get for the 7D is a 35mm f1.4, witch is blazing fast, but a lot slower than f0.95.

And I would add that this forum is definitely biased. Biased towards giving correct and objective answers, and against gratuitous inflammatory comments.
 
The problem with the f.095 and the GH2 is that if you are up close, it will distort more then a 50mm 1.2 lens. I think distortion is important to take into consideration, especially when shooting people.

Another question: Which one has better noise handling at lower ISO - Canon aps-c or GH2? I've always thought when I had a GH1, it was pretty noisy at lower ISO.
 
produce12 said:
Why does reviews say Canon is better in low light ? Is this forum biased ?
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To be true its bound to be,with a previous canon 550D even the kit 18-55mm was fair in low light,tamron 10-22mm and 50mm f1.8 good,i only have 3 lenses with myGH2 the 14-140 a 75-200mm and olympus 9-18mm and all are hopeless in low light,clearly to get any low light ability a specialist lens must be bought which if you rarely film in low light is a pain.:angry:
 
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flinty said:
To be true its bound to be,with a canon 550D even the kit 18-55mm was fair in low light,tamron 10-22mm and 50mm f1.8 good,i only have 3 lenses with myGH2 the 14-140 a 75-200mm and olymous 9-18mm and all are hpoeless in low light,clearly to get any low light ability a specialist lens must be bought which if you rarely film in low light is a pain.:angry:
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20mm pancake ....
 
Grisnjam said:
20mm pancake ....
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http://www.four-thirds.org/en/microft/lens_chart.html from the lens chart there is few options for low light and am i correct no wide or zoom options this is the lens you refer to but at 40mm 35 equivalent its not wide enough for many situations http://www.whatdigitalcamera.com/equipment/reviews/lenses/128129/1/panasonic-lumix-g-20mm-f-1-7.html

http://vimeo.com/17487969 hand held with my 550D and tamron 10-22mm,real wide was esential for that and my current panasonic lenses would have been hopeless doing it.
 
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flinty said:
[URL]http://vimeo.com/17487969 hand held with my 550D and tamron 10-22mm,real wide was esential for that and my current panasonic lenses would have been hopeless doing it.
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Well...since in video mode (not stills mode) the Canons are not that much bigger than the GH-X's that lens would work just fine on the Panasonic. Also, since the tamaron is f3.5 then the Panasonic G Vario 7-14mm f/4.0 would also have sufficed.
 
I know this might be too sensible of an answer for this forum ( :) ), but why not just find someone on this forum that is local to you and has these cameras and go test them yourself? I'm sure someone would be happy to oblige for the sake of testing (and bragging rights).

OR

Just rent the cameras for a day and test them before buying?
 
Ian-T said:
Well...since in video mode (not stills mode) the Canons are not that much bigger than the GH-X's that lens would work just fine on the Panasonic. Also, since the tamaron is f3.5 then the Panasonic G Vario 7-14mm f/4.0 would also have sufficed.
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well i think that pana lens costs several times the price of the tamron i had and even the olympus 9-18 was more expensive by a lot,there is no adaptor that would work with the lens exept fully open on manual which was no good for me plus the GH2 body is cheaper than the 7-14 here.
 
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