GH2 Is the hacked Gh2 seriously not blowing people away!!?

L

L1N3ARX

Well-known member
Since I got this camera a few weeks ago, I feel as if I have this secret weapon that nobody knows about. Talking within the "cinema" realm of planned / scripted shots, where achieving the "cinema" look is definitely on your short list, this camera is absolutely unreal. I showed a couple friends and family who are film buffs raw footage with a Sigma 30mm 1.4 and 176bit hack, and they thought they were actually looking something shot on film stock. I am so oddly satisfied by the GH2, that I find myself smirking when I see people spending 5-10k on higher priced cameras and arguing which one looks more like film (totally subjective of course). I can't help it, this camera is just too good, and it's not even a price thing, I could see myself trying to buy this camera at around 5k if I saw what I'm shooting now. Obviously, the right tool for the right job, and many people need a real camera and not a picture camera that makes amazing video, but seriously... after seeing some of this footage.. good lord. You'd almost think people would be chomping at the bit, to get close to what this camera is doing now that it's hacked. Maybe I'm just way too excited about the the potential of my new toy, anybody feel the same?
 
I have one on the way, and I'm pretty excited to get the hack going. Would the difference be the equivilant of say.... Shooting on the AF100 with onboard codec vs shooting on the AF100 with recorder to pro res?

I find it pretty hard to get any real hack to non hack comparisons online, because all the examples are either simple scenes that don't push the codec, or they are compressed to hell through vimeo and youtube, which end up looking like crap fullscreen.
 
DBP said:
I have one on the way, and I'm pretty excited to get the hack going. Would the difference be the equivilant of say.... Shooting on the AF100 with onboard codec vs shooting on the AF100 with recorder to pro res?

I find it pretty hard to get any real hack to non hack comparisons online, because all the examples are either simple scenes that don't push the codec, or they are compressed to hell through vimeo and youtube, which end up looking like crap fullscreen.
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The problem with many comparisons is that it's usually a shot of a tree or a leaf blowing in the wind or other innate objects. This will NEVER display what the hack is capable of... especially in the Youtube / Vimeo format. The first time you shoot footage of kids running around, hair blowing, and just normal movement... it's one of those jaw dropping moments, as if you ripped off Panasonic for the price you got the camera. Seriously... with a bit of good glass, you're going to be impressed to say the least.
 
What sigma did you used ?
4/3 mount with adapter ?
Auto or manual focus ?
If AF, was it fast ?
I tried a lot of olympus - leica 4/3 lenses with adapter , but the are slow on focusing...
 
I love the camera, I don't think the hack makes a big difference; rather, there is a small difference: the camera is very good out of the box. Lighting more important than hack. High bit rates to me can sometimes look noisy, others really like the look of the noise.
I am pretty sure I could not pick out the difference in a double blind. I did like the super high ISO recently unlocked.
As far as people not knowing about it, I think a lot of ppl do :)
 
Canon mount, with the kipon. I was under the impression that only panny lenses and some leica focus track, but kinda slow like you said. I just manually focus everything, but if its a setup / scripted shot, it's no biggie.
 
Are there any examples of the hack with something narrative. All the examples I see are of people's friends/children/etc. or the town they live in or of nature. I was not a huge fan of the GH2 look pre-hack and neither were most of my clients, which is why I sold mine, but I'd love to see an example of a narrative with proper lighting to see if the hack has changed my mind.
 
Cory Braun said:
Are there any examples of the hack with something narrative. All the examples I see are of people's friends/children/etc. or the town they live in or of nature. I was not a huge fan of the GH2 look pre-hack and neither were most of my clients, which is why I sold mine, but I'd love to see an example of a narrative with proper lighting to see if the hack has changed my mind.
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I realize you asked for something with a narrative, but still this video is worth a mention http://vimeo.com/31256823. The shots are very well composed and its really just a beautiful little video. I'm planning a full length feature to be shot solely on the gh2 with the 176bit hack, so when that comes out it hopefully will show some GH2 potential. And here is something that looks like it was taken out of a narrative http://vimeo.com/26818589 , not too bad...
 
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L1N3ARX said:
The problem with many comparisons is that it's usually a shot of a tree or a leaf blowing in the wind or other innate objects. This will NEVER display what the hack is capable of... especially in the Youtube / Vimeo format. The first time you shoot footage of kids running around, hair blowing, and just normal movement... it's one of those jaw dropping moments, as if you ripped off Panasonic for the price you got the camera. Seriously... with a bit of good glass, you're going to be impressed to say the least.
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What exactly is it that makes it jaw dropping, and that much better than stock? Detail, color, motion cadence? I'm curious.

Also, is there much difference between the 176mb patch, and the moderate bitrates increases, like the 44 and 66mb ones? It seems like the type of thing that would show the most improvement for the initial increase, and the the return would exponentially drop with each bitrate increase. But again, I don't know. I am really curious though.
 
DBP said:
What exactly is it that makes it jaw dropping, and that much better than stock? Detail, color, motion cadence? I'm curious.

Also, is there much difference between the 176mb patch, and the moderate bitrates increases, like the 44 and 66mb ones? It seems like the type of thing that would show the most improvement for the initial increase, and the the return would exponentially drop with each bitrate increase. But again, I don't know. I am really curious though.
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Well, I did just get the camera 3 weeks ago, and am sort of stepping into the DSLR world myself, so I definitely lack the ability to describe technically the variables at play, but an obvious one aside from increasing the bitrate / data captured in each pixel, would be lowering the GOP down to 1. At 24p you have "24 key frames" without interlaced frames... which is easily noticeable with any amount of considerable movement, and in my opinion makes a pretty big difference in getting the "film look".
 
I shot a very low budget indy feature with this camera in ireland about 6 weeks ago. I was in the boondocks - and really had not budget for a dp - so I would set up the shots, get my exposures and have my wife hit record. I was playing the lead in it. It's rough - sure - but when I throw the image up on my projector - ****.... it helps shooting in ireland mind ya :) Below is two very rough trailers I banged out on fcpx - learning it - I'm no editor :) but thought I would share.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxgE7U4Y5_s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTXqUwGbMJo
 
kevin baggott said:
I shot a very low budget indy feature with this camera in ireland about 6 weeks ago. I was in the boondocks - and really had not budget for a dp - so I would set up the shots, get my exposures and have my wife hit record. I was playing the lead in it. It's rough - sure - but when I throw the image up on my projector - s**t.... it helps shooting in ireland mind ya :) Below is two very rough trailers I banged out on fcpx - learning it - I'm no editor :) but thought I would share.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxgE7U4Y5_s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTXqUwGbMJo
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is that you running stark bollock naked?! fair play to ya

As for me I'd still like to create something really awesome with anamorphic lenses. That unique look coupled with the hacked GH2 ought to be a winning combo. But so far I've only shot an obscure music video and some forgettable "for Vimeo" type vids.
But mind you I am very impressed how the GH2 has progressed. Now I feel there is no excuse to go out and create something great with this awesome (and affordable) tool.

Then there's procrastination.
 
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DrDave said:
I love the camera, I don't think the hack makes a big difference; rather, there is a small difference: the camera is very good out of the box. Lighting more important than hack. High bit rates to me can sometimes look noisy, others really like the look of the noise.
I am pretty sure I could not pick out the difference in a double blind. I did like the super high ISO recently unlocked.
As far as people not knowing about it, I think a lot of ppl do
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What you say may be true for static "well lit" shots but for everything else I can't agree. The stock GH-2 is plenty sharp and has nice colors but when it comes to motion and dark areas it looks like mush. This is the case with all the DSLRs. My pet peeve for CMOS based (maybe it's an AVCHD thing) cameras AND camcorders was always the smoothed over mushy look in dark or underexposed areas. The stock GH2 is no exception. But with the hacked high bit rate GH-2....it's ALL gone. I wish ALL cameras (especially in this price range) could do this.

Now when it comes to the noise there are times I like the textured look of it. Then there are times I really don't want it there at all. Yes, the GH-2 seems to produce a bit of noise in certain shots. But here's the big difference between the hacked and stock footage... detail. I know you've heard it before and are probably sick of people making the claim...but the proof is in the pudding. Because of the stock GH2's lower bit rate and noisier sensor you will never get the FULL detail out of the camera. Colors are less accurate and the compression just smoothes everything over. This is why more folks didn't have a problem with noise early on. It, as well as a lot of the detail, was hidden and masked by the "mush/compression artifacts." By Vitaliy opening up the camera to higher bit rates we now can see the fuill potential of the sensor and that includes the noise. Do you notice as you go up in ISO on this camera (and basically every other camera out there) when it gets noisier you start to loose detail and color? Not anymore. Everything is now retained and gives us more options in post. The image detail, particularly in the dark areas, is much better. The stock footage, at the lower bit rate, would just smooth over the noise and would often cause compression artifacts (especially in motion). You get barley a hint of that (if any) with the hacked footage. As a matter of fact when cleaning up the stock footage you would lose even more detail in the dark areas. You don't have that issue at all with the hacked version. With a good noise reduction software like Neat video (best that I've come accross) you will retain all of your detail.

Another thing is the motion of the hacked camera is miles ahead of the stock. Remember when the GH-1 first came out @ 17Mbps and the famous "mush" appeared when in motion? We all blamed the lower bit rate (which was "sort" of correct). Well I've seen that issue with my Canon 7D and in other Canon footage as well but to a much lesser degree. The stock GH-2 was no exception. In the higher bit rate GH-2...it's gone.
So, my point in writing all of this is to say that Yes...the hack does make a big difference. Those are just "some" of the examples that stick out to me. Others might have more or less.

ed_lee83 said:
Then there's procrastination.
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He he... here's my issue also.
 
Another thing to consider when it comes to the issue of noise in the GH-2 is the ISO bug that was recently discoveredn Not a lot of folks know about this and just blame the sensor. But thank God for the workaround.
 
Ian-T said:
Another thing to consider when it comes to the issue of noise in the GH-2 is the ISO bug that was recently discoveredn Not a lot of folks know about this and just blame the sensor. But thank God for the workaround.
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what's the iso bug and workaround?
 
I can't find the thread that discusses it on personal-view dot com but it's relatively easy. ISO 320 seems pretty noisy on this camera though it has been the cleanest on others (Canons etc.). What I've learned recently is that if you want to shoot at that ISO you have to first scroll to 400 ISO and then backwards to 320 (as opposed to scrolling to it from a lower ISO). The image comes out as clean as expected. The average Joe, like myself, woud just scroll to ISO 320 and shoot without having a clue and in the end blame the camera on being noisy. Some other folks state that this works at higher ISOs as well. But for now...I notice ISO 320 is not much of a problem as it was before. This probably also explains why at times when I shot ISO 800 -1600 I would sometimes get nice clean images vs the nois(ier) ones.

EDIT: Ok here it is -- http://personal-view.com/talks/discussion/comment/22936#Comment_22936

The bug seems to be at ISO 320, 640 and 1250
 
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