How does the GH13 compare to Canon DSLRS in LOWLIGHT?

Futchibon

Futchibon

Well-known member
Hi guys,

I'm about to buy a DSLR. I'll be shooting a LOT of scenes at night, with either a 1.8 or 1.4 lens.

I've heard wonderful things about the GH1 hack but am I right to believe that lowlight is the GH13s weak point?

Any comments, or better still any footage, would be GREATLY appreciated.

Thanks.
 
please do some more research and decide for yourself. There are plenty of videos floating around that show you what each is capable of doing and some of those vids even show them side-by-side.

If you want my personal opinion though, I think they are roughly equal in light sensitivity although they both have their own issues with noise.
 
Futchibon said:
Hi guys,

I'm about to buy a DSLR. I'll be shooting a LOT of scenes at night, with either a 1.8 or 1.4 lens.

I've heard wonderful things about the GH1 hack but am I right to believe that lowlight is the GH13s weak point?

Any comments, or better still any footage, would be GREATLY appreciated.

Thanks.
Click to expand...



GH1 handles low light pretty well. The night street scenes of this film were done with available light, and the other scenes were shot with either practicals or with low light conditions (still utilizing a lighting kit...low key lighting, you'll see.)

This is waaay pre hack.

Sorry about limited options on embedded video...it's like that for my website. If you'd like to "like" it or comment on it here is a direct link.
http://vimeo.com/7517485
 
go to vimeo and search gh1 low light 5d test comparison or something along those lines. some very good examples of how it stacks up to something 2-3xthe price. Also good examples of talent behind the lens vs camera. read up on the GH1 banding/Fixed pattern noise to be more informed.

I find f1.4 is plenty for night shots if you don't mind the shallow DOF. I find it too shallow sometimes and shot at 2 quite alot.
 
It's pretty good, but you have to watch out for banding/FPN. To me, that's the worst part of the camera. Even crappy video noise is more watchable and less distracting than the banding. Usually a viewer would see other cameras in low light and say, "Well, it doesn't look great but obviously it's just low-light stuff..." whereas with the GH1 they'd say, "What's with the weird grid on the screen? Something's wrong here..."
 
GH1 is good in normal light (daylight) now with the hack, it gives a clean image, in AVCHD(i think). However the 5D still gives superior lowlight video image.
 
GH13 is awesome in low light. Or rather it looks much cleaner to me. Might be my imagination but it seems that I have less banding than with GH1.
 
What codec was that Kagero - My Daddy is a Thief video encoded with? I downloaded it from Vimeo (all 1GB of it) but can't play it. According to GSpot its codec is "xdvd" -- and neither Quicktime, not RealPlayer nor anything else I have is able to play it
 
anthonybsd said:
GH13 is awesome in low light. Or rather it looks much cleaner to me. Might be my imagination but it seems that I have less banding than with GH1.
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Hmm, I still see a ton of banding in your video. If only the banding weren't there, it would be very decent low light video!
 
tylerrad said:
What codec was that Kagero - My Daddy is a Thief video encoded with? I downloaded it from Vimeo (all 1GB of it) but can't play it. According to GSpot its codec is "xdvd" -- and neither Quicktime, not RealPlayer nor anything else I have is able to play it
Click to expand...

Ah, sorry it's XDCAM EX in a quicktime container. I've started using that as my finishing format after reading this:
http://www.eoshd.com/content.php/212-Shadowplay-Part-II-Native-GH1-24p-video

Since no one (especially on windows myself included) can play it I might have to come up with some other solid codec. I just really don't like Apple's H.264 implementation.
 
butler360 said:
Hmm, I still see a ton of banding in your video. If only the banding weren't there, it would be very decent low light video!
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Compare that with how bad my banding was before:


In the hacked video I barely notice banding, and only in really dark parts ( perhaps you are more perceptive than me? :) ) In this one it's a complete vertical streakfest .
 
butler360 said:
Yeah, the banding looks worse there. On the other video I didn't view it on Viemo, though, I downloaded it.
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Ya know what? I don't think I've ever viewed it in big screen myself! :) Was in a hurry with this last batch. Viewing on my 17 Macbook definitely see it more now. Shiver to view my pre-hack footage blown up now :)
 
anthonybsd said:
Ya know what? I don't think I've ever viewed it in big screen myself! :) Was in a hurry with this last batch. Viewing on my 17 Macbook definitely see it more now. Shiver to view my pre-hack footage blown up now :)
Click to expand...

Haha, yeah, and my monitor is a 24" IPS panel, so I'm seeing everything.
 
Sorry to revive this, but I didn't want to start another thread to ask this.

How can I avoid the banding, with or without the hack? should I not go over a certain ISO, or what? Do we know what causes it? I know it was a mystery as to what caused this, but I'm wondering if anyone knows why it's happening and how to avoid it by now.
 
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