GH2 help a dslr newb out, should i invest in micro 43 or eos?

[Joshbalti]

How's it going, just looking for a bit of advice from some gh2/gh3 users. Basically as the title of the thread says, im investing in a dslr kit, and am unsure weather to go the canon or Panasonic route.
I come from a more conventional shooting background, and am used to shooting on 2/3 inch chip eng cams, however the past year or so I've been messing around with dslrs and have finally decided to buy one, mainly to use as a b cam, and for those projects where I need to travel light.

I've used the 7d and 60d a fair bit on a few jobs and am fully aware of thier shortcomings, however in the same breath I really like the erganomics of both cameras, not to mention the vast selection of lenses available for the eos system. Image quality wise it could be better but I don't think its as bad as some people make out.

The Panasonic's on the other hand are an unknown to me, I've never used one, but looking at some of the videos online the image quality looks much nicer than the canons. however having never used a gh camera I have no idea what to expect in terms of usability and features: basically can you operate the basic features on the fly, like appature, shutter,white balance, and iso without having to dive into menus. This is very important as 90 percent of what I shoot is factual/documentary, so I need to be able to work fast. Also I should note that I'm leaning towards a gh2 at the moment as here in the UK the gh3 is 3 times the price of the gh2.

so that's basically it, if there's anyone out there who has experience with both canon and Panasonic some constructive advice would be greatly appreciated, as this is quite a big investment for me when lenses are taken into account and I don't want to make the wrong choice.

 

[mrlittleteich@gmail.com]

I have the 7D and GH3. For me, i plan on buy 1-2 m43 lens for auto focusing and OIS. I don't want to marry the M43 system.
I want to have most of my lens to be able to work on Nikon and canon cameras. Therefore i have been buying Nikkor F and use some Nikon G lens. But by doing this it is all manual focus & aperture.

If you go the m43 route the 12-35 & 35-100 are excellent lens. Also the SLR Magic 12mm is awesome (manaul focus/aperture).


Honestly the GH3 IS worth the 3 time the price of the GH2 but you can get excellent images out of the GH2 for less.

 

[Bruce Foreman]

and for those projects where I need to travel light.

This is one of 2 main reasons I sold off my 7D, 60D, and T3i.

Weight. At 74 I appreciate being able to pack 28mm equiv to 90mm equiv lenses (14mm & 20mm "pancakes", and a 45mm Oly) and a body or two in a bag that's lighter and more compact than what I was used to trying to "lug" with the Canons. Slowest aperture in that kit is f2.5.

2nd reason, the incredible stunning sharpness and detail in Bruce Dale's "Summer Morning" (found on vimeo) done with a "stock" GH2.

The Panasonic GH2 is smaller, seems like a "half size" rebel but I like that.

basically can you operate the basic features on the fly, like appature, shutter,white balance, and iso without having to dive into menus?

Most definitely. All of those items you mentioned can be very quickly accessed with either buttons or on the touchscreen "Quick Menu" which is the slickest implementation I've seen. So good that it's "imitated" pretty well in the Canon T4i.

so that's basically it, if there's anyone out there who has experience with both canon and Panasonic some constructive advice would be greatly appreciated, as this is quite a big investment for me when lenses are taken into account and I don't want to make the wrong choice.

The way I did it (don't get me wrong, I'm not down on Canons) was to first find a used GH2 body (I had a couple of lenses for an Olympus Pen) and give it a try for myself. Then as I liked what I was seeing in tests I ordered more lenses. My Canon gear sold pretty easily.

What I wound up with is 3 GH2 bodies (one brand new with 14-42mm "kit" lens). 14mm f2.5 and 20mm f1.7 "pancakes", Panasonic Leica 25mm f1.4, 45mm Olympus Zuiko f1.8, and Lumix 45-200mm f4-f5.6 for longer reach. Plus the 12-50mm (24-100mm equiv) that Olympus offered as the best option on the OMD E-M5.

I loved the Canon gear but having always been a "sharpness" nut the IQ of the GH2 and the optics above sold me on the change. But what I'd advise is to grab a GH2 now while you can still get one and not sell off your Canon gear until you see for yourself that it can work for you.

 

[cut2052]

An advantage of the GH2/GH3 is they don't overheat and they have the ability to "span". If you record continuously and it hits 4GB, it makes a new file which is later easily stitched together into one large mts file in an editor or with freeware such as tsmuxer. You are only limited by your battery power and card size.

The Canons are limited to 12 minute clips or 4GB, without being able to span although (FWIU) the Magic Lantern hack expands to 30 minutes. (Not positive on the ML details.) The Canons may also run the risk of occasionally overheating, then you have to wait. I don't know how common this is or if a major concern, but I do know this is a possibility.

The Canons may still be a good choice, but just letting you know these things. If you do get a GH2, definitely do the hack but research it properly to make sure you know what you are doing and which one to install. If you're UK/PAL, you would have to do at least a basic GH2 hack to remove the 30-minute video limit.