Lightwars - Low light video GH1 versus 5D

In order to really test compare the cameras for narrative work you should set them to the same and workable DOF for camera and actors moving around; ie 25 mm with f/2.8 on GH1 versus 50 mm with f/8.0 on 5DmkII. Anybody who can consistently manage to keep moving objects in focus at 2.8 on a 5DmkII shouldn't be hanging around this forum but make loads of money in Hollywood as a focus puller ninja.

Seriously.
 
Many Hollywood films are typically shot at a 2.8/4 split, meaning about f/3.4. Since you have to adjust 1.5 stops to match the DOF of a 5D to a movie camera, that would mean f/5.6 on the 5D Mark II, vs. 3.4 on the 7D.
 
Martti Ekstrand said:
Yeah, sorry. Read the DOF table cross-eyed. 2.8 on GH1 equals 5.6 on full frame.
Click to expand...

Workable DOF is very important, and in my testing it shows that although you may need a slower lens speed, upping ISO to compensate still gives you good results compared to the GH1 at a much lower ISO.

Remember those colour chart tests on CamcorderInfo.com? I have a colourful wall poster that can do a similar job and may do a test shoot tonight with my GH1 and 5D to show you how they compare purely on keeping colour in varying degrees of bright light.

Seen as that is one of the 5D's only advantages over the little GH1, it bears getting my facts right on this before I decide which one to keep. Obviously all the signs so far show that the 5D trounce the GH1 but that the GH1 still has a nice cinematic feel generally.
 
Here is a little comparison to see how the GH1 and 5D handle colour & detail in low light, to varying degrees:

Both set to custom white balance (3100k), both with Zeiss lenses roughly equivalent in 35mm terms bearing in mind GH1's crop factor and 16:9 aspect sensor. Same ISO, same F stop. Same shutter rate.



Also a strange thing is happening with regards 30p and 24p. The more I watch cinematic footage in 30p from people on Vimeo and from my own camera the more I associate 30p with cinematic and the more film like it gets. Now when I watch 24p it looks less film like and more jerky. Could it all be in the mind?

Imagine a potentially amazing film like James Cameron's Avatar in 30p. Watch it for the first time in 30p. Then watch it in 24p. All hypothetical of course. But I think you'll be surprised how your perception of 24p being 'cinematic' begins to change.
 
commanderspike said:
Here is a little comparison to see how the GH1 and 5D handle colour & detail in low light, to varying degrees:

Both set to custom white balance (3100k), both with Zeiss lenses roughly equivalent in 35mm terms bearing in mind GH1's crop factor and 16:9 aspect sensor. Same ISO, same F stop. Same shutter rate.



Also a strange thing is happening with regards 30p and 24p. The more I watch cinematic footage in 30p from people on Vimeo and from my own camera the more I associate 30p with cinematic and the more film like it gets. Now when I watch 24p it looks less film like and more jerky. Could it all be in the mind?

Imagine a potentially amazing film like James Cameron's Avatar in 30p. Watch it for the first time in 30p. Then watch it in 24p. All hypothetical of course. But I think you'll be surprised how your perception of 24p being 'cinematic' begins to change.
Click to expand...

Very Cool test. Thanks! I like the GH1 better IMO. It feels more organic!

However without knowing your settings on the GH1 ( film mode etc ) it's hard to gauge it. What were they?

.
 
Last edited:
PappasArts said:
Very Cool test. Thanks! I like the GH1 better IMO. It feels more organic!

However without knowing your settings on the GH1 ( film mode etc ) it's hard to gauge it. What were they?

.
Click to expand...

Film mode 6 of 12 (not sure of name, my cams in Japanese!), set to custom parameters:

Contrast -2 (reveals shadow details, and prevents high & low from being crushed. Also increases colour saturation in bright areas of the image. A MUST!)
Sharpness +2 (compensates for lack of sharpness versus 5D)
Colour + 2 (compensates for lack of performance versus 5D)
NR -2 (doesn't need it!! very good sensor)

I like the GH1 best this way.

And Faithful mode on the 5D with the colour turned down. It can been too vivid out of the box (typical Canon).

The GH1 compares really well. Bit softer, but pretty good isn't it.

That video was shot at ISO 320. I did some other tests this evening:

IN LOW LIGHT, ISO 1600
It's a different story for colour and banding. GH1 is much worse in these regards at high ISO. So depends on if you want to shoot a lot of indoor stuff at ISO 1600 I guess, whether my testing influences your decision either way. It might not make a diff.

IN GOOD LIGHT, ISO 1600
Wow. GH1 punches well about it's weight and almost matches the 5D punch for punch. The 5D's image is sharper, more punchy and contrasty, deeper blacks and better colour, but the gap is not as wide as in low light at ISO 1600. The GH1's image is much helped by the settings above. You may lose a bit of contrast but the default settings give an image that in no way competes with the 5D in terms of shadow detail and vivid colours.

Throughout these tests, the GH1's codec stands up well on static images. Little or no moire, aliasing. But on movement and brightness changes, we see a stepping effect in colour gradients (as on ISO 320 test video above) and the usual compression mud on movement. However the 5D's codec, whilst much better for movement, gives plenty of moire and jaggies on static imagery, mostly around lines that aren't quite horizontal.

When the light is good, the GH1 seems to be as much a match for the 5D as any other camera, even at ISO 1600.

It's pretty amazing considering it's size.

Noise levels on both cameras are incredibly low for video cameras, but we knew this already.

I think if you're gonna project an image to the big screen, the 5D wins because it's codec is more robust and it's image is sharper and better in low light. But if you're gonna do web stuff the GH1 wins because it's simply more versatile.

You can say the GH1 is more cinematic and more organic, and the 5D a little too perfect. But you cannot say this in all circumstances. The 5D's shallow DOF, use of the full 35mm lens circle, low light performance, robust codec (and dare I say it even 30p) are all what you'd consider cinematic.
 
Last edited:
The more I compare these two cameras in anything but REALLY low light, the more the gap in image quality seems to narrow. GH1's codec issues cannot really be worked around completely, but the colour issues I found earlier seem only to be present in very low light. A lot of it seems to be down to white balance and colour presets.

Now I have the 5D and GH1 at the same custom WB, and have found a way to optimise both camera's image preset settings, they really do look very similar in good light.

I will reshoot the night scenes in the city, shoot in the day light. I think optimising image settings, etc. has given this competition a new angle.
 
Well just got back from reshooting some night scenes and also some daytime / twilight shots. The footage this time was really nice. I caught 'magic hour' and had an incredible city sunset to play with. The bad new is that the 5D decided not to mess around and literally blew the GH1 into the weeds this time. And no excuses either - both cameras were optimised, will fully manual white balance on the K scale. The amount of colour, subtle variations and detail the 5D pumps out is just extraordinary.

I viewed all footage straight down the HDMI pipe into a nice big 50 inch LG plasma.

Another thing where the GH1 tripped up badly was with the sunset. Why can't it do oranges properly? Look GH1 I said ORANGE. Not green. Not yellowish green. Not purple. ORANGE!! I played with literally every colour and white balance setting in unison. Still - nothing. So I switched to sunset mode on the dial and that's as good as it got. A little better, but it looked like a sunset of sick not a sunset of the sky.

The -2 contrast on the GH1 does give a nice improvement overall because it helps to hide the fact that the GH1 has a very video-like dynamic range and colour, but the shadow detail is very muddy. Also even with contrast this low, you still have very little dynamic range. That accounts for shadow detail, but still the high contrast detail looks awful compared to the 5D. For example on a warm sunlit tree just as the sun goes down, the leaves on the 5D footage had a subtle roll off between orange and green, with a clear outline and plenty of detail in the leafs. The GH1 footage lacked punch and contrast, but had a very aggressive roll off between the highlights (which had washed out colour) and the shadows, which had a muddy grey appearance. The detail was much lower mostly due to aggressive compression.

Disclaimer: GH1 still a great camera. But 5D much better :)

However in one shot, you proud GH1 owners can sit back and laugh at the 5D. It puked up badly on a building and made it go to moire hell. The good news is that you get an idea on the LCD where moire will occur, and subtle movements in the angle of your shot or focus softening can solve this.

The footage really needs to be viewed on a big colourful plasma to view the gap between the GH1 and 5D in all it's glory, but I will try to illustrate my negativity with some actual evidence later on tonight :)

In summary, is there $1000 difference between the 5D and GH1's image? Yes - in fact double that. You know those blurays they have playing on big TVs in stores? The 5D's footage looks like that. It looks like something shot by hollywood or the BBC. It's that good. But in comparison, great though the GH1 is, it still looks like camcorder footage just with shallower DOF.

Lenses used were Zeiss Distagon 28mm F2.8 on the GH1, and a less expensive 50mm Zeiss F1.7 (Contax mount) on the 5D. Curiously, although the crop factor of 2x on the GH1 meant the 28mm should = 56mm, the 5D's 50mm was still wider at the same viewpoint / distance.
 
Last edited:
commanderspike said:
In summary, is there $1000 difference between the 5D and GH1's image? Yes - in fact double that.
Click to expand...
How convenient -- because that's the price difference between them.

Curiously, although the crop factor of 2x on the GH1 meant the 28mm should = 56mm, the 5D's 50mm was still wider at the same viewpoint / distance.
Click to expand...
Why is that curious? 50mm = wider than 56mm, so isn't that what you were expecting to see?
 
Sorry, brain typo while I was shooting. Ignore that bit about focal lengths.

Barry, your 4k chart test on the 7D forum showed that the 7D does indeed have moire issues, and my test shows that the 5D is indeed much further ahead on image quality than the GH1. No revelation each, but I didn't nitpick your findings. This has been a useful comparison for people who can put the price factor aside (c'mon it's not that big when you take into account lenses - more expensive to get a fast portrait and fast wide for the GH1), and need to decide between the GH1's form factor and kit lens, or the 5D's image quality and stills.

More to come...
 
commanderspike said:
Film mode 6 of 12 (not sure of name, my cams in Japanese!), set to custom parameters:
Click to expand...

Yeah Commanderspike; that's not the best mode to be in. That would put you in Vibrant mode. Narrow Dynamic range and way to contrasty and dark even at -2 setting. This means your tests have been inaccurate with the GH1. You need to either shoot in 1 ( standard ) or 4 ( Smooth ) if you want to get smooth/wide dynamic range with less video tonal curve characteristics overall....


.
Michael Pappas
http://www.pbase.com/Arrfilms
Arrfilms@hotmail.com
http://www.PappasArts.com
 
commanderspike said:
Sorry, brain typo while I was shooting. Ignore that bit about focal lengths.

Barry, your 4k chart test on the 7D forum showed that the 7D does indeed have moire issues, and my test shows that the 5D is indeed much further ahead on image quality than the GH1. No revelation each, but I didn't nitpick your findings. This has been a useful comparison for people who can put the price factor aside (c'mon it's not that big when you take into account lenses - more expensive to get a fast portrait and fast wide for the GH1), and need to decide between the GH1's form factor and kit lens, or the 5D's image quality and stills.

More to come...
Click to expand...

Everyone in my college film production class thought that despite the apparent codec weakness when the light changed in the second test that the GH1 had an edge in aesthetics...it just plain looked better.

I agreed. I also enjoyed making a stereoscopic 3D from the split image by crossing my eyes...good fun..worked nicely despite the different cameras (and created an amazing hybrid image that looked great :D)
 
commanderspike said:
Another thing where the GH1 tripped up badly was with the sunset. Why can't it do oranges properly? Look GH1 I said ORANGE. Not green. Not yellowish green. Not purple. ORANGE!! I played with literally every colour and white balance setting in unison. Still - nothing. So I switched to sunset mode on the dial and that's as good as it got. A little better, but it looked like a sunset of sick not a sunset of the sky.
Click to expand...

A GH1 sunset...like this one I shot with NO grading?

Looks pretty orange to me :D



Not sure if I did that embed thingy right...here is link: http://vimeo.com/6833995

Has vimeo been going really slowly for anyone else for the last week or so? At home on comcast, on parent's AT&T, at school on a blazing fast wired connection...all really laggy.
 
Last edited:
fixed that embed thingy for you :) if you edit your post, you will see the proper formatting for embedding. folks are still getting used to it, I know...

later,
jason
 
Jason Ramsey said:
fixed that embed thingy for you :) if you edit your post, you will see the proper formatting for embedding. folks are still getting used to it, I know...

later,
jason
Click to expand...

Great, thanks...is it embedded in HD because I am a Plus member or is it like that for everyone because of the way the forum is handling embedding?
 
Ben_B said:
A GH1 sunset...like this one I shot with NO grading?

Looks pretty orange to me :D



Not sure if I did that embed thingy right...here is link: http://vimeo.com/6833995

Has vimeo been going really slowly for anyone else for the last week or so? At home on comcast, on parent's AT&T, at school on a blazing fast wired connection...all really laggy.
Click to expand...

Great video Ben.

OK first issue I found versus 5D today in my final tests...

Here is how my GH1 sunset came out versus the 5D tonight :violin:

The velvet red / dark orange tones are a pale greenish yellow in the GH1 shot, even though the cameras were at identical exposures and white balance (6500k which is quite warm). I wasn't able to solve this colour issue with the GH1 no matter what.

**GH1**
sunsetgh1.jpg


**5D**
sunset5d.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top