I'm so sorry to do this...

B

Brandon Freeman

Well-known member
I hate to do this, really do.

But I'm heavily considering selling my 7D, because I use DSLRs to make video more than stills. I really like the form factor and the shallow depth of field.

My biggest problems (as everyone else's have been) have been aliasing/moire, and the inability to capture out of the HDMI (not that I have a ProRes recorder, but I'd like to go that direction). I'd also like to use my old FD lenses.

So... my question is, how much shallow depth of field will I be losing switching from the 7D's sensor to the GH2's smaller sensor?

(Frame of reference, the lenses I will primarily be using will be my FD lenses, 2.8 28mm, 1.8 50mm, 1.8 85mm, 3.5 135mm, 3.5 35-105mm.)

Should I make the switch? Or should I wait?
 
At f1.8-2.8 you're going to have pretty shallow DoF no matter what camera you use, but on the GH1 I wouldn't worry at all switching from a 7D. I've never used a 7d, but using old Nikon primes on my GH1 one has given me great looking shallow DoF. The only real difference will be your field of view (will become a 2x crop on the GH1/2) compared to your 7d (1.6x crop).
 
Thanks for the responses. I have seen charts that illustrate the difference in field of view, but are there any comparison photos out there that show the real world difference? I've read that the GH2 has a 16x9 sensor, so in video mode it's using the full sensor, whereas with a Canon APS-C, the sensor is 4x3, so video cuts off the top and bottom (thus making the crop factor even more confusing for video...). I guess I'll just have to wait and see. Hopefully the GH2's not out of stock everywhere once I can know for sure...
 
No matter what folks will try to feed you....you won't be able to tell a difference. This is coming from a former 7D owner and current GH-1 user. :)
 
Both the GH1 and the GH2 has a multi aspect ratio. You can choose either 16x9 or 3x4. Basically the DOF in reality is not that different.
 
Ian-T said:
No matter what folks will try to feed you....you won't be able to tell a difference. This is coming from a former 7D owner and current GH-1 user. :)
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Ian is right on; its the better part of a stop, nothing to lose sleep over.
I think of it as a huge advantage. 1.4 dof is a pain on s35, but the m4/3 lets you get the same brightness with more leeway to focus.
Too shallow dof is a tacky thing, which is now too often used all the time. Big movies try to shoot 2.8 or 4, depending on how much light can be afforded.
 
stip said:
Isn't GH2 sensor bigger than GH1, giving it 1.8 crop factor instead of 2?
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The sensors on both the GH-1 and GH-2 are the same size (the newer GH-2 having more pixels...which is not necessarily a good thing) and have a 1.18 crop factor to Super 35mm film cameras (not a great deal at all).
 
Are we still stuck on this shallow mentality? (pun by accident hehe)

I need bigger aperture to light some situations more naturally (I also need the GH2 sensor with less noise as well).

With S35 sensors I like to work at around f4 for situations I have plenty of light... When I put the lens at f2 I start to think the blur looks just awful, specially when there's plenty of information in the background... Unless you're trying to hide bad art direction but that's another situation.

Shot in FHD with the 14-140 lens at 140mm, obviously at f5.8:



Just look at this from this perspective: If your goal is to focus attention on the actors it's a good start not to draw attention to how blurred the background is... :thumbsup:
 
Oh, I'm not a shallow freak. I actually like deep shots (which is what excites me about the GH2, with apparently a great improvement on moire/aliasing issues that crop up in the deep focus shots). I just want to make sure I'll have plenty of wiggle room between shallow background to deep focus. Sounds like I will. I've loved what I've seen on Philip Bloom's blog.
 
Brandon Freeman said:
I hate to do this, really do.

But I'm heavily considering selling my 7D, because I use DSLRs to make video more than stills. I really like the form factor and the shallow depth of field.

My biggest problems (as everyone else's have been) have been aliasing/moire, and the inability to capture out of the HDMI (not that I have a ProRes recorder, but I'd like to go that direction). I'd also like to use my old FD lenses.

So... my question is, how much shallow depth of field will I be losing switching from the 7D's sensor to the GH2's smaller sensor?

(Frame of reference, the lenses I will primarily be using will be my FD lenses, 2.8 28mm, 1.8 50mm, 1.8 85mm, 3.5 135mm, 3.5 35-105mm.)

Should I make the switch? Or should I wait?
Click to expand...

Sell it now before the ebay market gets flooded with poor, lonely 7D and T2i's.....
 
HVXguy said:
Sell it now before the ebay market gets flooded with poor, lonely 7D and T2i's.....
Click to expand...
Or before it conks out. A friend was filming his kid playing in the surf with a 7D. A splash of water apparently got through all the "exclusive" weather-resistant seals (top LCD panel) and completely fried the cam. Canon USA claimed warranty wad void. When it was pointed out that it was unfair to advertise a product as weather-resistant but backtrack when "reality" was quite different the response was "life is not fair". True story.
 
Brandon Freeman said:
Oh, I'm not a shallow freak.
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LOL :-)

Brandon Freeman said:
I actually like deep shots (which is what excites me about the GH2, with apparently a great improvement on moire/aliasing issues that crop up in the deep focus shots).
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First reason I thought and still believe GH1/2 is a must have. But both brands will give you distinct color renderings. I woudn't give up of my Canon. And I didn't. I currently have both. More Panasonic units than Canons. But I will never trade the Canon for anything else. RED included. Especially now, without Scarlet S35 ;-)
 
You probably already know this, but there's a lot of half-truths spread around regarding DOF, so... The only thing to think about is FOV. For a given lens, the DOF will be identical on any camera. A 50mm f1.4 will have the same DOF on my GH1 as a 5D. The difference is that the image will be cropped on the GH1, making it appear as though the lens is like a 100mm equivilent. But, DOF doesn't become shallower as it would with a 100mm f1.4. It stays the same as a 50mm f1.4.
So for a given *framing* the DOF appears shallower on the GH1 (cause you'd need a 25mm for the same framing, which has deeper DOF). But for a given *lens* it stays the same.

All you need to do to see what the difference in images will look like, is take a picture with your 7D and the lens you're interested in knowing about, and crop out the edges to match a GH1 frame. DOF will be the same.

The apparent difference only comes about because you have to use wider lenses to get the same frame.
 
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Caesar said:
Isn't it 1/2 stop?

http://www.dvxuser.com/articles/article.php/21
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That article was written before I knew about the oversized nature of the m43 sensor, and before compensating for the narrower difference between the m43 and the APS-C when the APS-C is used in 16:9 mode. So, yeah, it's about 1/5 stop difference actually; the "Cinema Crop Factor" of the AF100 is about 1.19 as compared to 16:9 on a 35mm cinema camera or APS-C sensor. you compensate by that 1.19 factor, which is 20%, which is about 1/5 of a stop.

In other words, like Ian-T said, it ain't no different.
 
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