GH2 More important: The lens, or the hack?

J

Julie_Freed

Member
I've always wondered this- If all things were equal (same cameraman, same lighting, no post), would it be better to have a great lens, say the Voigtlander 25mm 0.95, but with no hack? Or have the kit 14-42mm lens with a great hack? Purely hypothetical of course, I am just curious to know. :)
 
Lens. The GH2 shot great footage before the hack and can shoot even better footage after the hack. It's hard to beat a really nice piece of glass.

my opinion, of course.
 
Depends what you shoot. If lowlight or narrative then the lens. If 720p60 (which I use a lot) then the hack. But since the hack is free and reversible, there's no reason not to simply have both!
 
Lens again.
But they really operate in 2 different ways.
Lenses - especially a low-light monster like that Voightlander - give your image its character.
Hacks will marginally improve the resolution of that character.
Improving the resolution of an underexposed shot is not really going to help you.

The REAL difference between lenses and the hack is that the hack is FREE.
Personally - I am more concerned about lens choice in most shooting conditions.
 
+1

DPStewart said:
Lens again.
But they really operate in 2 different ways.
Lenses - especially a low-light monster like that Voightlander - give your image its character.
Hacks will marginally improve the resolution of that character.
Improving the resolution of an underexposed shot is not really going to help you.

The REAL difference between lenses and the hack is that the hack is FREE.
Personally - I am more concerned about lens choice in most shooting conditions.
Click to expand...
 
DPStewart said:
Lens again.
But they really operate in 2 different ways.
Lenses - especially a low-light monster like that Voightlander - give your image its character.
Hacks will marginally improve the resolution of that character.
Improving the resolution of an underexposed shot is not really going to help you.
Click to expand...
The hack makes absolutely zero difference to the resolution of the image.
 
For me it's glass first, no matter the subject.To this date the majority of my 'best' videos were unhacked. But damn, the glass I've used: Lomo (and anamorphic), Angenieux, Zeiss...
 
nigelbb said:
The hack makes absolutely zero difference to the resolution of the image.
Click to expand...

Technically, no, but in use, yes it does. The encoder has more bits to work with in representing small details in the image, details that allow us to see "resolution" in the image.
 
Lens. Period. The hack buys you more latitude in post and helps eliminate macroblocking, compression artifacts, etc., but doesn't provide the night and day difference that a decent lens will over the especially evil stock panny kit lens. Even in 720P60.
 
I think the lens makes much more of a difference. But that doesn't mean you have to spend a lot of money on lenses, either. I have the Voigtlander 25mm, and it's excellent. But I also love my Canon FD 50mm f/1.4 which I bought on eBay for $80. Either one is miles better than the kit lens for creating a more cinematic look to your footage.

As others have said, the hack is free, so there's no reason you can't have both the nice lens and the higher bitrate images. And, yes, the hack helps a lot with removing macroblocking artifacts (mud) and adding a nice film-like grain. Especially the INTRA high-end hacks like Driftwood's Orion V4b (what I'm using nowadays) make the footage feel more crisp and organic.
 
It makes me laugh with comments like evil stock lens,footage like waterfalls in the motion galleries show thats silly.
 
I would agree that lens is more important than hack, but I would also point out that most any lens can be made to look good, if used right. By the same token, expensive lenses can fail to impress if they aren't used right. Some of the best GH2 footage I've seen was shot on the kit 14-42mm lens. I've also seen some pretty mediocre footage shot on the Voigtländer.
 
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