OT: Panasonic Lumix LX5 - Hacks available?

M

MountainKing

Member
Hi!

This is my very first post here in this very cool forum. Thanks to all the busy developers in here. Great work!

So, I own a GH1 that's hacked. Well, I'm not that much on the" professional movies" line. For my needs shooting in 720p should be satisfying. AND I'd really prefer to have a kind of a portable pocket all-in-one solution for stills and movies. So I stumbled around the LX5 ...

http://www.panasonic.de/html/de_DE/...ische+Daten/5434745/index.html?trackInfo=true

... which should feed my needs completely (low- / available-light shooting, quite nice video, bokehs possible, extremely portable) - well, nearly completely. Two issues are:

- screen is not movable
- shooting are only available at "720p" - but the websites states only 30 pictures per second. I'd really like to have 50p/sec.

So, in short: is there a hack out there for the LX5?

If not, would it be possible to work on GH1 or G1 hacks in order to get them prepared for the LX5?


Cheers from germany

Jens
 
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I know this topic might seem a bit exotic regarding the camera type I mentioned.

But well, I just saw that there ARE hacks available at least for the GF2 and so I'm still hoping that this might be possible for the LX5 as well. Any news on this?


Cheers!
 
Unfortunately there are no hacks available for LX3 or LX5 (to my knowledge). I started with LX3, which had 24.00 720p M-JPEG video, but no manual exposure controls for video. There were a few workarounds, though. The video was nice but not quite enough for my tastes. So I went to LX5, which had manual exposure controls for video. But no 24p M-JPEG. The AVCHD at 25p (PAL version camera) did not make the cut.

So I went to GH1, then GH2 and am back to GH13 again.
 
Thanks a lot for your response.

Hmm. That's a bit disappointing but on the other hand no suprise.

OK, should we have any hope that hacks might be coming up for this little camera (LX5)? PLEASE! Or no chance at all? I guess some of the developers had to answer this question, right?

I never got the reason for preferring 24p over 25p. My experiences in video are quite poor so far - jus for the info. So, could somebody explain why 24p is better then 25P? I'm in europe and would be using PAL if that matters.

Regards Jens
 
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I remember Vitaliy, the main hacker, mention that there are no plans for hack for LX3, so I assume the same holds for LX5. He could only answer, though. There is no major difference for 23.976p, 24.00p and 25.00p because you can make them all run at the same speed without rendering. The important thing is to have at least one of those frame rates available.

Unfortunately the better color quality M-JPEG codec in GH1 and GH2 runs at 30p (or 29.97p) only (on purpose), not suitable for digital cinema making. 30p can not be converted to 24p or 25p without a hit in image quality (besides going slow motion).
 
I asked this same question almost 1 year ago.
Vitaliy's response was that, there isn't enough of a following to justify the time, energy, and resources to opening this little camera up.

I LOVE(ed) my little LX5. The video wasn't bad at all considering it was 17mbit, and too NOT forget it had a f2 lens that you could zoom while recording.
Probably, if the camera was hacked earlier... it may have had a huge following. But I think its a little late now to hope for anything.
@MountainKing
There are now several cameras offering 60p as high as 1080p, for a little less then what the LX5 was new.
The market will be introducing many more high frame rate, high bit rate cameras, pocket cameras VERY soon...if not already.
And then of course, you can always grab a GF1/2/3 and get some nice 720p/60p video from those.

Also, it sounds like your recording action shots mostly... and you want something small and fast to capture these actions shots? Or else the GH1 at 720p should be perfectly fine otherwise.
Have you looked into the GoPro cameras? I just bought a GoPro 2 and im super happy with it's quality, size, and frame rates. Now my brothers want one and looking at older models, you can grab one for like $100 or less...
 
Thanks, daihard.

I LOVE(ed) my little LX5. The video wasn't bad at all considering it was 17mbit, and too NOT forget it had a f2 lens that you could zoom while recording.
Click to expand...

Yes, it seems that's why this camera is this valuable.

Maybe I should describe my needs a bit more concretely:

- good low-light capacity (so aperture at least f2.0 would be the way to go I guess)
- good video
- shooting BOTH stills and video (so as it seems the GoPros are just video cameras, no stills, right? If so, they aren't an alternative option. But they are interesting for sure)
- the more compact the whole unit the better (I'm not traveling that much but calling it a "travel camera" would describe it in a good manner)

What do I shoot?
- everything (family, friends, holidays)
- band and live shootings often at low light situations like practice room or stage light (our band: www.butcherfingers.de)

As I stated above I DO own a hacked GH13. Actually I got the kit lense (14-42) and a Canon FD 50mm f1.4 that gives nice bokehs and what we call in germany "freistellen". Don't now the english word for it. It means separating the main object from its background. Yesterday came cheap 25mm f.1.4 CCTV lense that I did not investigate so far.

But I'm a friend of "reduction". Equipment as small as possible. And the LX5 is a nice camera that fits into every pocket. The GH1 "rig" would need for sure. Well, my ambitions aren't "professional" and therefore the LX5 video might fit my needs satisfyingly. But of course... a better video always would be highly appreciated. So, what sort of kindness could we (I ?) do to Vitaly in order to keep the hope for a possible hack on the horizon alive? ;-)

Vitaly, if you're around here I would be glad if you'd put in a small statement on this issue.

Cheers Jens
 
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The rate conversion dosent affect the image quality. It'll effect the "cadence" of the video flow...if anything.
But this little camera is not shooting 24p/25p, but rather standard TV frame rates... so the video looks a bit more digital anyhow.
 
I have the LX5. I love it for stills. The video is good... but has one fatal flaw - so called "blooming" (google around for "LX5" and "blooming"), which is a purple vertical band that appears if the sun or strong light hits the lens within certain angles, which makes it very limiting - basically it means you cannot use it for serious video work. It uses a codec they call AVCHD Lite. One neat thing about the LX5 is that it has some interchangeable lenses. I bought the panasonic 18mm lens for this (you also have to buy an adapter) and I use it quite a bit for smaller spaces (restaurants etc.).
 
daihard said:
The rate conversion dosent affect the image quality. It'll effect the "cadence" of the video flow...if anything.
Click to expand...

I would consider motion rendering significant part of the image quality and ruinous for the look, if the conversion needs to be done. For slow motion 30p is fine.
 
Thank you all. Seems that this little camera is interesting for some guys around here.

Yes, the blooming issue is mentioned in some of the LX5 vids on the net. OK, now it should to be cleared up what "serious video work" means. Of course the LX5 can't be an option for pros at all.... but maybe for us non-professionals. This is nice video that shows the blooming effect.


Putting this "Blooming" aside I'm very pleased by the video quality and DOF capability. Could be my future camera.


But maybe the Olympus XZ-1 could be an option as well.
 
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I'd love to see a hack for the LX5.... still.

Is there an easy way to customize existing GH2- or GH2-hacks for own needs - here using it for the LX5?


I have to ad and admit that I do NOT have any coding experiences at all so far.




BTW:
Vitaly getting hijacked by panasonic was an april's fool, right?
 
It's not easy task to reverse engineer the software if you start from zero. Embedded software is often in Assembler language. Somebody with very good Assembler skills can start to locate the different software blocks and evaluate what they do, then carefully start changing things. It would be a bit easier if some help could be had from those who coded them.

VK might be interested in looking at this if enough support materialized. It's actually the LX3 I'm more interested in because of 24.00p M-JPEG codec, very rare in cameras these days.
 
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