GH2 God i love my gh2...

L

L1N3ARX

Well-known member
Could someone please point me to a camera or piece of particular footage from a camera for under 20k (aside from anything RED), that has a more cinematic look than the GH2-X? Cause if it exists, I would really like to see it. The only camera system that seems to be on its own playing field at the moment, are RED Cameras. Last night I went out with an F3 owner and filmed a huge lighting display downtown with amazing opportunities for some stunning video. Lots of kids, families, smiles.. just everything that makes footage awesome. After a quick comparison afterwards, I was immediately struck by how good the F3 looked and how it seemed to balance all the highlights and darks with ease. But, as technically impressive as it was, in all of it's glory beating the gh2 at most every 'technical' metric by which you could judge video... somehow my gh2 stuff came out looking like a warm memory, like this piece of film that almost had a magical look to it. I liked it so much better I just had step back for a minute and ask why? Why isn't a much more expensive camera that is technically leaps and bounds better than my little $800 "toy" not blowing me away? Maybe I've just become too accustomed to the look or too unconsciously biased for my own good. After I showed the same footage to friends and family I asked them from a purely "aesthetic" point of view, to each pick out the footage they liked the look of best (all ungraded); everyone picked the gh2 stuff as their favorite without having any idea which camera was which and not knowing the slightest bit about video. As far as "cinema" goes or wanting to make a movie aimed at the average discerning movie-goer audience, I haven't seen a single camera that I would rather use aside from a RED if I had 20K to blow. Just thought I would rant after being blown away AGAIN by my GH2. I FREAKIN' LOVE THIS CAMERA!!!! ARGUGHGHGHGHAHAHA!
 
how similar were your shots? perhaps your camera work is better than your friend's?

also, can you post some raw clips of both?
 
Would be nice to see some comparisons. Also to further flame this a bit, The RED camera is not 100 percent reliable in the least. It has issues that would seriously start to bug me, especially after paying all of that money. I read that Phillip Bloom has said that his Epic is disappointedly unreliable and thus has not used it as much as he'd like... I know the event I went to hear a few years ago, the Red wouldn't even turn on... So, with that caveat I don't think that the Red would be the top of my list...

I'd like to get my hands on an Alexa or maybe the new EOS cinema camera... BUT to commend you. I love the GH2 so much too. I was all about buying the AF100 when it came out but I nixed that after I bought the GH2.. A friend bought the AF100 and it's a great camera, but it doesn't given much more stunning imagery considering the price and he's now about to sell the AF100 so I won't have access to it... I'm fine with that though and more than anything I think that I'm going to be shooting my feature on a GH2 and maybe a 5D. The 5D would be for background plates and 3D elements...


Cheers and sometimes it's nice to sing the praises of what we have and to be thankful for the options that an 800 dollar camera brings! In closing.. I remember a few years ago a friend of mine was on a shoot with a Sony F900 and he was shooting Broll with the EX1. The CLient ended up liking the EX1 footage more... also due to the rental price I"m sure. He said that on a monitor they were virtually the same and the next week the F900 wasn't on the shoot at all... cause for the rental price for a week, you could pretty much buy a EX1 camera... I also think that we are very much at a point where any 1080p camera is going to deliver stunning imagery.. That's what Peter Jackson said too!

Peace and good holidays sentiments to everyone...
 
I love my Gh2 as much as the other guy with a hack, but posts like these make me cringe.

Can we please see some raw clips? And if you're looking at the F3, were they CC'd? Higher end cameras like the F3 have a specific LOG and gamma system for advanced CC'ing.

And some people don't take highlight roll off seriously enough- one of the biggest factors, for me, for the cinema look. Gh2, even hacked, clips highlights like any consumer camera would. I think it's time the gh2 hack community takes a bit of a reality pill. It's a great tool, but posts like this without any substantive quality other than "I saw it and I was blown away" is really hurting objectivity here in these forums.

How about we just all shoot films and be happy we have these tools to begin with? It's a great time to be a filmmaker.
 
@ycabrera perhaps you haven't used the gh2 to its full potential, but for the feature film ww are shooting we have funding, and MANY camera options, including canon, epic, R1, and f3, as the do I chose the gh2 with LOMO primes, why? Because it is beautiful in the right hands, I.e. Mine, and my lighting director and producer loves me for my choice, our dailies and post is simple and just as beautiful as any of the opposition at HD delivery, and I prefer the dof of the m43 sensor to ANYTHING on the market.
 
You know I agree completely. I didn't want to come off as a tool overly impressed with his little camera, it's just that every once in a while there's a moment where you step back in a comparison and can't believe how well a certain camera held it's own against the competition. I'm impressed that's all. I admit completely that his footage was probably better than mine, looking at it from any way you wanted to judge it from a technical standpoint. For somebody like me, a complete noob in the video world with little money and time invested overall in this new hobby, it just excites me when I see a camera going far beyond it's potential... and to have other common people with no technical background in film/video come to the same conclusion. Sorry... It's just that I'm in love... and that's probably why I'm crazy. Maybe I'll get over it soon enough...
 
John Caballero said:
The GH2 is a fantastic little machine. With the hack is superb. It's got that Panasonic mojo.
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I love my GH2. But in all fairness, high end cameras don't want to capture with mojo. That's left to post and CCing. Those people want flat images that may not look fantastic straight out of the camera.

None of that negates what the GH2 can do. For us "peons" it's a gift from heaven.

And to a previous poster, no need to cringe or take a reality pill. The reality is that the GH2 delivers stunning images.
 
That is the problem, when the higher end camera will shine is on difficult situation. Unfortunately I see a lot of report of users using the hacked gh2 with Red, sony's etc but no one doing a test or at least some side by side footage. We can talk what ever we want but if we don't have any sensible comparison it will only be just mere impression. From what I have seen, resolution, codec with the hack don't have anything to be ashamed compared to the higher end camera, but the dynamic range, I don't know. I hope someday someone will post some footage side by side.
 
Purpose built cinema cameras like the F3, Red, AF100, and FS100 are better at making images than a cam like the GH-2 BUT it doesn't necessarily mean their images look better.

....marinate on that for a while. :)
 
Ian-T said:
Purpose built cinema cameras like the F3, Red, AF100, and FS100 are better at making images than a cam like the GH-2 BUT it doesn't necessarily mean their images look better.

....marinate on that for a while. :)
Click to expand...

Indeed! This camera is seriously meth. Every time I happen to show somebody new, a clip I've been working on, they ask me without fail what camera I used and why it looks like a movie. Ah, sometimes I just keep it a secret mwahahaha.
 
flinty said:
GH2 owner myself but can your footage realy compete with this http://vimeo.com/11285405
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Coming from a 7D and a MKII myself, I can pretty much say... YES. In fact, it's not even a comparison at this point. Now, if you are asking do I have footage on that "scale" Aerial shots, scripted scenes with actors etc. Of course not, my footage resembles average home video at best, and I'll probably never be anything close to a cinematographer. BUT, the quality of the footage itself? HA, if that was shot on a hacked GH2 with SeAQuake with some nice glass... forget about it; people would have to reel their jaws up from the floor.
 
I think alot of us fall into the category of simply not having a subject matter of that caliber, YET. Some people on here are aspiring film makers.. Others (myself) are too damn busy to have a pet project. While former friends of mine worked on their own big films (that bombed and never hit it big, like most indie films) I was working. Commercials, weddings, multi-cam concerts, so forth... And right now I am still just way too busy to go out and shoot an art film. I hope to do so sometime this Winter!

If I were hired to film a documentary or some cool short story, I am confident that with my GH2 and Magic Bullet Suite 11, I can produce stunning material. Even the unhacked GH2 is shockingly awesome.

5Dmkii/7D are great cameras for certain, but for what the GH2 can do, I am impressed on a daily basis.

My ONLY gripe about the GH2 is rolling shutter. If they made a universal shutter model of the GH2, even if it were un-hackable, I would pay.
 
Yeah and if you look well, you will see moire and aliasing. But if you are a good shooter and you have the means, definitely yes, you can do something like that with a gh2. Just look at the settings!!!
 
this is an indy feature I just shot on the gh2 - its an extended trailer - watch in 1080p - this is straight out of the box - I ain't no dp. Shot with that damn kit lens 14-42 - that's the only lens i had.



http://vimeo.com/33961713
 
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