Is the gh2 the new low light high ISO DSLR king

gonzo_entertainment said:
I guess I have just been lucky. The couple times I have shot exteriors with details like brick that could have caused an issue it didn't and fabrics (like the fronts of the speakers in the commercial I posted above) are easily fixed with a slight focus adjustment. Compared to the larger issues of rolling shutter, narrow dynamic range, tendency to blow out highlights in a very ugly fashion that are common to all CMOS sensors I am aware of are much more of an issue.
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Yeah, every now and then I see someone do something with a Canon that *should* have been terrible, and comes out fine. For example, I noticed this video the other day: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?268407-Spoof-Honda-commercial.

He shot this in 720p 60fps to slow it down. And we all know what 720p on a Canon should look like. Yet, there are intricate grills and brick backgrounds, and aside from a slight pattern on a railing (which you have to be looking for to notice), the footage came out pretty clean, especially on all those bricks.

Not that I also haven't seen footage ruined by Canon's limitations- I definitely have. I'm just saying, I've been surprised by what works sometimes as well.
 
The one time it bit me was an event shoot (ugh, yuck, let me take a shower). B camera (7D) was being run by my normal audio guy as the wide shot (so didn't have to pull focus or anything, just hit record). A girl had fishnets on and we got moire on her fishnets. That's the one time I got all the way into post and realized a shot was ruined by it.
 
I think everyone has his choice of standard. For me looking at eye brows is already annoying. Personally I don't think many people in an audience will see it (in the eye brows I mean, not on clothes), but I always prefer to put the best quality input, it will guarantee a better level output.

I am not saying that the hdslr which was pioneered by Canon did not bring something positive. From looking at the short films in general done before and after, you can clearly see the difference. But we all knew that we had to make a lot of sacrifice for the s35 and vista vision look. But when better tools come along, I am not going to advocate to stick with it. I don't have to make any compromise in terms of resolution, moire/aliasing, overheating, monitoring now ... not in some perhaps future technology. Now we might even see an update at the Sony Nex level (I hope not) for the lower end Canons. When we have all the above advantages for about $ 700 and perhaps even better low light (subject of this thread), I will encourage everyone to look seriously at it.

The web is always a leveling medium with the kind of vimeo and youtube. There will always be exception. If you take a 720p camera like the Canons dslr and you take there 720p output I would like to know at about what rez are you shooting. How would this video look projected or on a big 1080p television.
 
Danielvilliers said:
I don't have to make any compromise in terms of resolution, moire/aliasing, overheating, monitoring now ... not in some perhaps future technology.
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Yes, but you do have to make compromises when it comes to native lens selection, especially important for photography. I originally invested in this equipment for video, but having the ability to quickly swap over to product photography has actually landed me some extra gigs. I ended up investing in some native zoom lenses because my manual primes, while excellent for video, were often rather frustrating for photography. Not that the GH2 and its native lenses are BAD for photography, but you just don't get the selection of fully automatic native and third party lenses that you do for the Canon mount.

Now, I know not everyone cares about that- especially in a film making forum, but it is a compromise that many have considered a concern (myself included). Also, on the subject of monitoring- is there a way to monitor audio out of the GH2 yet? The day I got Magic Lantern working with a wireless lav mic and live audio monitoring via headphones was the day I stopped bringing my full sized camera along to shoots. As I understand it, that kind of monitoring is not (yet?) available for the GH2. Is that still true?
 
hendosan said:
Thanks for these crops. That actually looks okay. Similar to ISO 3200 on a 7D - chroma noise is ugly, but a touch of noise reduction should fix it up very nice. And 99% of the time I probably wouldn't even go higher than 3200, but it's nice to have the option of going outside at night and shoot without having several thousand watts of lighting at my disposal.
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They're appearing @ about 50% in the forums so copy url and open in it a new window to view full size.

As you can notice the can is a lot less noisy than surrounding areas.. because it is up higher in exposure over some kind of threshold point.. therefore cinema mode is going to be a lot better than smooth, as you can increase exposure further than smooth without blowing any more highlights.. but then the point of such high ISO is you don't have much choice in terms of exposure, but it can be handy if you want to stick to the whole stop ISOs.

The ISO 10,000 vimeo video has in camera noise reduction on top of neat video. I'm not sure which does a better job, probably neat video due to the ability to control what you're doing. One trick I used to use on stills was to run noise reduction (noiseware), and have it only apply fully to OOF areas, and partially apply (grey mask) to in focus/textured areas as it's far less noticeable there.. really clean up the OOF areas gives a -much- cleaner image perception.

I would use some kind of detect edges or other filter that can separate blurry/smooth areas, put some image processing on that to make it black/white and use it as a mask for noise processing.
 
"How would this video look projected or on a big 1080p television.'

Hopefully I'll find out soon. My last film (shot on an HVX) played about 15 film festivals. I start hearing on the new film (shot on a 5D) in about 2 weeks. I did project it, from Blu Ray, about 9' wide in a local venue for the premiere and it looked pretty darn good. Even the HVX looked decent on the big screen. I mean I could see the "grain" in it, but the audience for the most part doesn't care.

We nerd out WAY too much on this stuff. Unless it looks like garbage the most people watching it will not notice or care. They care about engaging characters and a compelling story.
 
DOF said:
^^ sounding like a real Canon fan boy

for the money + performance.. GH2 cannot be beat
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My 60D performs better in low light, and is cheaper than a GH2 and looks identical to the 7D. The grain of the 7D, 60D, T2i etc is also finer and more regular, ie easier to knock out in post whilst preserving detail. Details in the 60D are preserved way down in to the darkest noise.

This is why the 7D, 60D, T2i has now been used in full feature, globally cinema released films. eg;

Like Crazy - Official Trailer [HD] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-ZV-bwZmBw took out Sundance, made $4M, and was filmed on 7D

Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Like_Crazy
IMDB http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1758692/


Which feature films have the GH2 been used in ? My challenge to the GH2 fanboyz, is to post some links to to fully featured, widely distributed for the big screen, GH2 work.

The fine, regular is also nature of the noise, is also the reason the 5D2, 7D, 60D, T2 etc are the DSLRs of choice for the astro-photography community, for both stills and video. Not even the Nikons are recommended for asto work due to the Nikon's dodgy RAW (hot pixels are already mapped out in the 'RAW' and thus Nikons are known as 'star eaters'). I have yet to see the GH2 recommended for astro work.

For an education in astro phototography (both stills and video) goto the world's biggest astro forum: http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php or, more specifically DSLR: http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/postlist.php/Cat/0/Board/DSLR
 
c3hammer said:
the lowlight capability of the hacked GH2's is astounding.
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I haven't seen any evidence to support this claim. The low light areas still look muddy to me, but not nearly as bad as the GH1.

In this clip: The Personal View 'Driftwood INTRA' Showreel 1 (ungraded version) - Panasonic GH2 http://vimeo.com/32563119

this hacked GH2 certainly looks worse than my 60D in low light, and the 5D2 is even better that the 60D.
 
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So we should take the photo side of the Canon dslr and compare it to the video side of the gh2, yes it is completely relevant. When someone talks about detail with the Canon (that I owe) even in normal light, not just a flower with 90% of the background blurred, but some real foliage in mid to wide angle even in sunlight at low ISO it makes me giggle. Now when someone talks about the high ISO detail... Ah sorry we were talking the photo or the video side ;-) because I forgot that Canon was giving us 18 megapixel 14 bit video RAW files.
 
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Pepster said:
My 60D performs better in low light, and is cheaper than a GH2 and looks identical to the 7D. The grain of the 7D, 60D, T2i etc is also finer and more regular, ie easier to knock out in post whilst preserving detail. Details in the 60D are preserved way down in to the darkest noise.

This is why the 7D, 60D, T2i has now been used in full feature, globally cinema released films. eg;

Like Crazy - Official Trailer [HD] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-ZV-bwZmBw took out Sundance, made $4M, and was filmed on 7D

Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Like_Crazy
IMDB http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1758692/


Which feature films have the GH2 been used in ? My challenge to the GH2 fanboyz, is to post some links to to fully featured, widely distributed for the big screen, GH2 work.

The fine, regular is also nature of the noise, is also the reason the 5D2, 7D, 60D, T2 etc are the DSLRs of choice for the astro-photography community, for both stills and video. Not even the Nikons are recommended for asto work due to the Nikon's dodgy RAW (hot pixels are already mapped out in the 'RAW' and thus Nikons are known as 'star eaters'). I have yet to see the GH2 recommended for astro work.

For an education in astro phototography (both stills and video) goto the world's biggest astro forum: http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php or, more specifically DSLR: http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/postlist.php/Cat/0/Board/DSLR
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Pepster said:
I haven't seen any evidence to support this claim. The low light areas still look muddy to me, but not nearly as bad as the GH1.

In this clip: The Personal View 'Driftwood INTRA' Showreel 1 (ungraded version) - Panasonic GH2 http://vimeo.com/32563119

this hacked GH2 certainly looks worse than my 60D in low light, and the 5D2 is even better that the 60D.
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::facepalm::

Careful there, pepster- I think you're making us Canon fans look bad.
I still stand behind my decision to prefer Canon for now (magic lantern, native lenses, photography), but I have to disagree with some of your points there. I think the GH2 really excels at video, and it is evident when comparing footage side by side. And this is coming from a Canon fanboy. :)

This is just my personal opinion on the matter, so take it with a grain of salt (in no way representing the Canon users here):
<rant>
Films like "Like Crazy" were shot on the 7D because that was *THE* HDSLR back when they were in production. Everyone had heard of using the 5D for dramatic full-frame dreamy video by then, and the 7D was its little sister that supported HDMI out and APS-C sized images for more traditional use of lenses. If they were to start again now, I'm not so sure the 7D would have been the camera model of choice. Heck, even in the Canon world folks recommend the 60D over the 7D because of improved video features. And the GH2 is really shining in the areas that Canon is deficient (resolution and moire), and its compatibility with more vintage lens types has started to make it popular in the film making underground.

Now, I say underground because I feel like broadcast television and Hollywood film crews aren't interested in the GH2. Canons are standard equipment for stills, and I feel like perhaps some of these big production houses might have already had access to them and decided to do some double-duty as a film making tool. But if they were to purchase a smaller camera specifically for the task of hacking the firmware and using for video, I think they would probably opt for a more traditional video camera instead. But for the filmmaker on a budget, until the digic5 cameras are available I really do think there is merit to those who claim a GH2 is superior.
</rant>
 
The FS100 is superior in pretty much every way to the 7D, but have you seen a feature shot on it? Nope? Okay it must really suck then!
 
M. Gilden said:
::facepalm::Careful there, pepster- I think you're making us Canon fans look bad.I still stand behind my decision to prefer Canon for now (magic lantern, native lenses, photography), but I have to disagree with some of your points there. I think the GH2 really excels at video, and it is evident when comparing footage side by side. And this is coming from a Canon fanboy. :)This is just my personal opinion on the matter, so take it with a grain of salt (in no way representing the Canon users here): Films like "Like Crazy" were shot on the 7D because that was *THE* HDSLR back when they were in production. Everyone had heard of using the 5D for dramatic full-frame dreamy video by then, and the 7D was its little sister that supported HDMI out and APS-C sized images for more traditional use of lenses. If they were to start again now, I'm not so sure the 7D would have been the camera model of choice. Heck, even in the Canon world folks recommend the 60D over the 7D because of improved video features. And the GH2 is really shining in the areas that Canon is deficient (resolution and moire), and its compatibility with more vintage lens types has started to make it popular in the film making underground. Now, I say underground because I feel like broadcast television and Hollywood film crews aren't interested in the GH2. Canons are standard equipment for stills, and I feel like perhaps some of these big production houses might have already had access to them and decided to do some double-duty as a film making tool. But if they were to purchase a smaller camera specifically for the task of hacking the firmware and using for video, I think they would probably opt for a more traditional video camera instead. But for the filmmaker on a budget, until the digic5 cameras are available I really do think there is merit to those who claim a GH2 is superior.
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^^^^^^ nice rant
 
Pepster said:
Which feature films have the GH2 been used in ? My challenge to the GH2 fanboyz, is to post some links to to fully featured, widely distributed for the big screen, GH2 work.
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I think you are a messiah, you ask for something and it just appears :-)

Incredible trailer...... Give it time and they will come. I remember the time when people where arguing on this board if you could do a feature on the dslr (Canon 5D) and films where being projected at Cannes shot on the 5D. Give it time and they will come, the gh2 has been readily available only 6-8 month ago, with a little time people will know about it and its capabilities. This was done with just the 44 mbits hack.
 
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To be honest I don't see the value in the super high bitrate hacks. Vanilla AVCHD is more than sufficient for most of the scenes that people shoot.

I do like the option for scenes that can break the codec, but those are few and far between.
 
Did a short film yesterday with the GH2 Hack, interiors. Minimal lighting (500w China on Dimmer, 2 x Lite Panels, 2 x 150w Tungstens Blued down and opaled). Very very minimal daylight let in--diffused and reduced, shot into night. All at 400ISO. Zeiss Standard Speed T2.1's shooting at 2.8.

Doing a short film today and tomorrow on 5D, minimal lighting indoors and a smaller space. Lights are 2 x 4bank Kinos, 2 x Lite panels and a ton of daylight. 800 ISO, having to stop down to 5.6~8 to focus and work the light.

The cameras are equally noisey at these ISO. The grain pattern is slightly finer on the GH2, appears ever so slightly more prevalent in mids than the 5D. 5D even with Canon glass is nowhere near as resolute. The extra Sensor Width is helping out, as it always does on tiny shoots.

Neither area easier or harder to work with, and have their major flaws without accessories. GH2 being too light to handhold, MKii having no rotating LCD.

I would probably choose GH2 + PL for most projects, but could use both of them together for certain applications.
 
M. Gilden said:
::facepalm::

Careful there, pepster- I think you're making us Canon fans look bad.
I still stand behind my decision to prefer Canon for now (magic lantern, native lenses, photography), but I have to disagree with some of your points there. I think the GH2 really excels at video, and it is evident when comparing footage side by side. And this is coming from a Canon fanboy. :)

This is just my personal opinion on the matter, so take it with a grain of salt (in no way representing the Canon users here):
<rant>
Films like "Like Crazy" were shot on the 7D because that was *THE* HDSLR back when they were in production. Everyone had heard of using the 5D for dramatic full-frame dreamy video by then, and the 7D was its little sister that supported HDMI out and APS-C sized images for more traditional use of lenses. If they were to start again now, I'm not so sure the 7D would have been the camera model of choice. Heck, even in the Canon world folks recommend the 60D over the 7D because of improved video features. And the GH2 is really shining in the areas that Canon is deficient (resolution and moire), and its compatibility with more vintage lens types has started to make it popular in the film making underground.

Now, I say underground because I feel like broadcast television and Hollywood film crews aren't interested in the GH2. Canons are standard equipment for stills, and I feel like perhaps some of these big production houses might have already had access to them and decided to do some double-duty as a film making tool. But if they were to purchase a smaller camera specifically for the task of hacking the firmware and using for video, I think they would probably opt for a more traditional video camera instead. But for the filmmaker on a budget, until the digic5 cameras are available I really do think there is merit to those who claim a GH2 is superior.
</rant>
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Good post.
 
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