GH3 to external HD or straight into computer?

P

ppodro

New member
My church is considering purchasing a gh3 to use for short documentaries and interviews, but will also need a camera to record the services, edit them and put them online. I have been using a Canon XHA1 connected by firewire directly into my mac to record the services, and then I edit the file with FCP.

Will the GH3 directly record to an external hard drive, or straight into a computer?

Is there anyone recording 90 minutes at a time with the GH3? Are there any problems with long record times?

Do you have a recommendation for a long lens? The 20x lens on the XHA1 gets a decent Medium Shot from 75 feet away? Would a 300mm lens get me there?

Thanks for your help in advance,

Paul P
 
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I just got my Gh3 this week, so don't take anything I say as gospel (pun intended). But I also have a Gh2 and AF100, and I think record times are limited only to the size of your SD card on all of these cameras. I have shot thirty minute takes on my Gh2, and there was never any kind of warning. As for the lens, remember that the m4/3 sensor has a 2x crop factor, so the kit 14-140 lens is actually a 28-280mm lens. It's not quite 300, but it's pretty long. Then, both GH cameras allow you to double that without losing resolution -- the camera uses the center of the sensor (as I understand it) to do that. It's as simple as changing a menu setting. So, the long end of that 14-140mm is 560mm. BTW, my initial tests with the Gh3 have me very happy. The only problem with that lens is that it's slow -- f4 on the wide end and 5.6 on the long end (I think). I hope that helps.
 
darwinandpaine said:
remember that the m4/3 sensor has a 2x crop factor, so the kit 14-140 lens is actually a 28-280mm lens.
Click to expand...

That's not quite accurate. The crop factor is compared to a full frame sensor. But the XH-A1 is not a full frame sensor, so the discussion of crop factor is entirely irrelevant.

The 140 m4/3 lens would give you the same field of view as native 140mm on the XH-A1.
 
So long as you have sufficient light I think you'll find the 14-140 to be just what the doctor ordered for your purposes (at 75').
It's versital (sp?), attractively priced, and extremely under rated (mostly by people who don't own/use one).
 
Thanks for the help. We ended up getting a 14-140 lens and the 100-300 lens. The 300 lens gets me to where I want to be, although I did not try the 14-140 with the ETC turned on. I just found out about that option.
 
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