GH2 Have a feeling the 5D Mark III's video quality won't come close to the hacked GH2s

M. Gilden said:
That'd be the first I've heard of it. I was under the impression that the problem mostly stemmed from the lenses not being designed for it, and thus being slow and noisy.
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From what I gather it's both. The lens' aren't designed for CDAF, so they're both noisy, and slow. However, it's also true that the additional pins of CDAF designed lens' mounts offer far better communication for the CDAF. I guess that pretty much lumps into the other category, as the lens' aren't designed for it. CDAF requires very fast communication to and from the lens to work at high speeds, since the lens needs to shimmy back and forth to pin point the exact focus point.

Also it's not just the focus motors that companies such as Panasonic/Olympus/Sony/Nikon/etc.. are changing in thier lens' to get them to CDAF fast and silently, they're also designing the lens' designs/groups so that the focusing elements are as light and nimble as possible.

I was hoping that when the time came, we could just send in our PDAF lens' and have them retrofitted for CDAF performance. Unfortunatly, new lens' are required instead.
 
The problem with the GH2 is I think Panasonic did a horrible job of getting it out there. I've NEVER seen one for sale locally at any stores, yet, I can find from the 1D down the whole spectrum. This includes camera shops AND big box stores. Granted, you aren't going to find a RED or an ALEXA either, but given the price point of the GH2, you'd think you would see it in more places, but you don't. Not to mention, availability wasn't the best either at times.

I think with the hack it has made a nice video camera, but as a stills camera I was not impressed, so really, you've got a mediocre stills camera that really only works well for video, compared to other DSLRs. It's like a product destined for failure. I've met one personal locally who has a GH2, who I met through here, and NO ONE else. I can probably count 50 people shooting on different Canon varieties.

The 5D is a fantastic stills camera than it ever was a video camera. THAT is one of the reasons the 5D is going to remain popular. It actually excels in a whole different market that I don't think the GH2 is even really considered in. Not to mention, full frame, which some people like (I am not one of them). I am going to be interested to see how the stills people feel about the new 5D over the old 5D and the new Nikons.

I recommend the GH2 if people want great IQ at the price point, but I also point out that investing in 4/3 glass limits your camera choices so I tell them to consider that. I use all EOS glass on my 7D, my previous AF100 and now my FS100.

I really don't know what to expect from Canon on this new version. Having read the specs of the new 1D, hearing their plans for the C series camera, looking at the last T3i and 60D specs...no clue. We could be overwhelmed, we could be underwhelmed. 60 point autofocus is wasted on me.

But, I will say this. The fact there seems to be a head phone port at all on the 5D means they did consider video to be important to some point. That feature has NO benefit for a stills person. So, hopefully, that is an indicator.

Personally, it's the 7dm2 that I want to know about :) I like APS-C myself.
 
jhero said:
Did you get a hold of an F65 Kholi?
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Yes sir! It's pretty sweet given what it is, I need to actually shoot something with it though.

You should see the size of the drive dumping station: it's pretty much a mini desktop box. LoL
 
Kholi said:


Yes sir! It's pretty sweet given what it is, I need to actually shoot something with it though.

You should see the size of the drive dumping station: it's pretty much a mini desktop box. LoL
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I'm so very jealous!!! From some footage I've seen, I'm seeing zero rolling shutter !
 
I'll echo that it seems like Panasonic missed an opportunity to really pimp the GH2. I asked about it at NAB, and the Panasonic rep kinda blew me off, and smugly said that it was a consumer product. Even if that's true, it was quite different to say Canon proudly displaying the 5D/7D/t2i with the other cameras.

Even the B&H rep kinda hesitated when I brought it up. None of my film making friends ever heard of it until I brought it up. I'm not sure how or why, but a real marketing opportunity was missed by someone. I also can't find it locally anywhere (east coast in Canada). Vistek was the only place online I saw, so I had to go through B&H, who I really like.

Hopefully they embrace the GH3 more.
 
DBP said:
I asked about it at NAB, and the Panasonic rep kinda blew me off, and smugly said that it was a consumer product. Even if that's true, it was quite different to say Canon proudly displaying the 5D/7D/t2i with the other cameras.
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I can understand why you might have gotten a disinterested response from a Panasonic rep at NAB. From Panasonic's angle and understandably so, the GH2 is a toy in the light of what Panasonic broadcast/professional division is there to show. The GH2 is from an entirely different part of the company. There two different worlds, literally two different worlds. Jan can vouch for that!

Where as Canon is not a serious broadcast manufacturer, albeit their products get used by some broadcasters, that doesn't mean that's their business outside the broadcast lens division. Their a consumer electronics company for the most part. The C300 is their first true attempt to get in this broadcast arena. However Panasonic Pro division is as serious as it gets in their plethora of offerings.

What is sad- that the division that makes the GH2 doesn't rip a page from the Canon playbook and run with it. The Image alone, would put GH2's at the head of the race. For some reason they don't- and that I'm stumped about.

Pappas
http://pappasarts.wordpress.com/
 
M. Gilden said:
That'd be the first I've heard of it. I was under the impression that the problem mostly stemmed from the lenses not being designed for it, and thus being slow and noisy.
Magic Lantern, meanwhile, uses some basic metering math to enabled autofocus on current Canon hardware. I tried it on my T2i with a Tamron 17-50mm, and it DID work, however was too slow and noisy to use for anything serious (I believe the camera body also noticeably vibrated during the whirring, which appears in the footage). I have heard that USM Canon glass was better suited for it, however I don't have access to any to say for certain.

Meanwhile, I don't know what the "extra pin" would be used for, exactly, in this situation. I mean, the electronics are totally different from mount to mount- on an EOS, you likely have a pin to control aperture, whereas the Nikon G lenses have a physical level that is moved. Also, since the Panasonic lenses are focus-by-wire, another pin may be required to send signals in both directions on that account. Either way, I wouldn't be so quick to say that the reason Canons can't autofocus has to do with a limited number of pins!

But, to be fair, it is also entirely possible that these new lenses can have a slightly extended interface in order to identify to the camera that this lens is autofocus-capable. Older EOS lenses would not have a pin there, and therefore not interface with that part of the camera. But this is all speculation.
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from what i read, i remember specifically they (by they i mean panasonic lumix executives) mentioned the extra pins are specifically for the autofocus. thats why these new lenses are so fast in autofocusing e.g. 14-140 by panny.
we will see if this rumor has any merit once this new rumored video lens by canon ever comes out or if it comes out and doesnt perform like the mirrorless cams
 
HVXguy said:
I love my GH2's - but really - who can't Panasonic make a camera with a servo lens in the
HVX form factor that has GH2 quality???
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You can put a B4-mount servo-zoom on a GH2 with the appropriate adapter. That, and a LCD Loupe, or a viewfinder extender and voila!
 
dcloud said:
we will see if this rumor has any merit once this new rumored video lens by canon ever comes out or if it comes out and doesnt perform like the mirrorless cams
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As I mentioned before, for all we know the new lenses will have extra pins, while still being backwards compatible with mounts that don't support it. Canon could easily modify the interface for a new continuous AF pin out (if needed) while still keeping the EOS mount. Much like the way Nikon retained compatibility with their F lenses on newer cameras, this wouldn't require an entirely new interface.
 
Rick Burnett said:
I think with the hack it has made a nice video camera, but as a stills camera I was not impressed, so really, you've got a mediocre stills camera that really only works well for video, compared to other DSLRs. It's like a product destined for failure. I've met one personal locally who has a GH2, who I met through here, and NO ONE else. I can probably count 50 people shooting on different Canon varieties.
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I would not consider still images from a GH2 a big issue. For stills one could (and should) get a Olympus E-PL1 for a few hundred and continue to use the same lenses, adapters and field of view. Olympus still images are superior to GH1 and GH2. I would not be surprised to learn Olympus still images compared well to the best Canon and Nikon cameras.

A 4k sample jpeg straight from E-PL1: http://www.fourseasonshd.com/epl1minoltaiso2.png

I can not get that quality from GH1 even if I tried to shoot in RAW and did all that I could to develop the image. But then again, I get rather good video out from a GH1 and not from any other camera in this class (besides GH2). Sometimes I feel like Canon 5D Mark II is okay, especially with the anti-alias filter, but when I go back to viewing GH1 video, I forget about Canon at the same moment.
 
Again personal aesthetic is such a huge deal here. The footage from the two cameras looks very different. Some prefer one over the other, both have situations where they shine. A medium two shot with the 5D and about an 85 on there, one of the most gorgeous shots I've ever seen when executed well.
 
When shooting still images with Olympus E-PL1 I am no longer afraid of shadows. The transition from light to darkness in the Olympus jpeg's is like magic. Certainly very skilled photographers crafted that jpeg encoding. Noise floor is a bit elevated in E-PL1, and this is where the Nikon and Canon might perhaps do better for still images.

My personal opinion is that Canon and Nikon are both overrated. Their brand reckognition is the best part in their products. This is how they survived the cut throat 90'ies, when Minolta and Konica could not. Canon and Nikon managed to get a decent price from standard products. Above all one needs loyal customers to survive in this business.
 
It's sad how much the GH2 Hack Destroys... just very sad.

18 Foot Screen in front of me, coloring a broadcast show--Davinci Suite...

5D is atrocious. And that's not bias speaking, because at first I said "hey this isn't as bad as I remember". Then the Studio cam footage (HD) and Epic footage came up...

Then the GH2 Hack stuff and the DP immediately asks me "Does it do slow mo? How much is it????"

So sad.
 
nigelbb said:
The fact that even Nikon who don't have a pro video camera market to protect haven't produced a cheap large sensor video camera with decent ergonomics probably indicates that the market is too small for them to bother with or at least sales would be too small to recoup the R&D whereas the millions of point & shoots that they sell make the majority of the profits.
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I've written similarly with respect to my lifelong sponsor, Nikon. In business, nothing beats coming into the lead from behind. "decent video on stills cameras isn't much more than a happy accident." You may want to aquatint yourself better with the project development process withing HW/SW firms. Nothing is a happy accident unless it's the discovery of Aspartame ;). I think it is more a matter of Let the sucker public betas tell us how it is and then we can bill them (upgrades) for the improvements. Nikon had a long lead over Canon in the pro stills world and they are no doubt very happy Canon has scoped out the market.
Keep in mind these guys share a LOT between each other in the form of patent licensing. They just pretend to be competitors.
One thing is for sure, It's high time the 'SLR' form factor grew up into a C300 miniaturized or something like a smaller FS100. As a longtime still shooter, I'm loath to buy a DSLR shape and yes, i have retired from shooting stills (or so i maintain).
One point I'd like to drive home. The Manufacturers , Designers and Business leaders of these companies are NOT focused on exotic users or small niches. They are big picture people and i imagine that they see that theater receipts are at an all time low and Home theaters have given way to 'Mobile theaters'. So please focus on that.
Mobile Content is the Mantra.
 
Kholi said:
It's sad how much the GH2 Hack Destroys... just very sad.

18 Foot Screen in front of me, coloring a broadcast show--Davinci Suite...

5D is atrocious. And that's not bias speaking, because at first I said "hey this isn't as bad as I remember". Then the Studio cam footage (HD) and Epic footage came up...

Then the GH2 Hack stuff and the DP immediately asks me "Does it do slow mo? How much is it????"

So sad.
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I honestly hope the Mark III doesn't provide what I need so I won't have an excuse to buy it. I'm about 75% sure if I were to buy the new Mark III I would still use my GH2 because the image quality is so good right now. Only reason I would buy the Mark III is because I'm addicted to having the new thing on the block smh.
 
Aki_Hartikainen said:
Above all one needs loyal customers to survive in this business... the cutthroat 90's
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That's true about the 90's but this Millennium will see either canon or nikon disappear or they will merge.How about Nican for a brand?
Nikon built it's brand and blew past the likes of Leica, Alpa and to an extent, Zeiss by being the best value in optics and HW bar none in the 60's-80's.
When you talk about loyalty, I know what you mean. I only had to use Nikon Service once on assignment and they FEDEXd replacement gear to me in less than a day. It will remain to be seen who rises to the top of the customer relationship management heap. I know that Canon & Nikon will take care of it's pro customers first. Panasonic? JVC? RED- sure. That's what it really boils down to- Support.
 
dtjohns1 said:
I honestly hope the Mark III doesn't provide what I need so I won't have an excuse to buy it. I'm about 75% sure if I were to buy the new Mark III I would still use my GH2 because the image quality is so good right now. Only reason I would buy the Mark III is because I'm addicted to having the new thing on the block smh.
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I've really got to look at the GH2+ hack, as I am not a gear snob.
Is there one unimpeachable, definitive thread on this camera? Where i can look up a checklist of features?
 
Kholi said:
It's sad how much the GH2 Hack Destroys... just very sad.

18 Foot Screen in front of me, coloring a broadcast show--Davinci Suite...

5D is atrocious. And that's not bias speaking, because at first I said "hey this isn't as bad as I remember". Then the Studio cam footage (HD) and Epic footage came up...

Then the GH2 Hack stuff and the DP immediately asks me "Does it do slow mo? How much is it????"

So sad.
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Wow. Your statement kind of helps put things into perspective for me. The image coming out of the GH-Xs right now is that good. Sure, it's not perfect but... @ $630 it's amazing (that's how much I paid for it at a Corporate discount over a year ago).

Even if the Canon delivers I can say with certainty that I will not get rid of the GH-2. It will make the perfect "B" cam.

I'm kinda with dtjohns on this however.. I hope Canon doesn't give me an excuse to go out and spend "more" money. It will have to be something real special (well above what I'm seeing from the cam I currently have).
 
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