Panning 'mud', reasons why and firmware update

Did you bother to check the example clips I posted? Those pans are as fast if not faster than the 'running grandpa' clip. My point is pans like this are very common. Now what I would like to see is a faster pan shot in 60P or 30P and converted to 24P. I have my doubts as to how well that will turn out. If this thread is indeed about workarounds, that's one I would like to see. :)
 
Well the fact for me is that I am not going to give up on a feature rich, big sensor, interchangeable lens, multiple formats and much more camera that costs $1500 because I can't do medium and fast pans. I'll do tracking shots, crane shots, steadicam instead if I have to. I have no problem with that. But past on a camera with which I can do music videos, commercials, web news features, interviews, documentaries with the beautiful shallow DoF for that kind of price? Forget about it. Its too many pluses and so few minuses.
 
John Caballero said:
I'll do tracking shots, crane shots, steadicam instead if I have to. I have no problem with that. But past on a camera with which I can do music videos, commercials, web news features, interviews, documentaries with the beautiful shallow DoF for that kind of price? Forget about it. Its too many pluses and so few minuses.
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I think once you get your hands on this camera you will become incredibly dissapointed. In my case, even if I do a SLOOOOOOOOOOW pan, the MUD appears all over the screen. It is not one frame or two...in some cases, if you do a 5 second pan, I will have 5 seconds of garbage, unusable stuff. AND i am not whipping it or flinging this thing...just simple, normal speed anyday use pan!

All I am able to do it to lock down the camera and not move it...so all you have left is maybe do isome nterviews in a lock shot fashion. I do love the camera for it's "possibilities" but as it stands right now, for me personally, it is pretty much useless. That one minus overshadows all the pluses.

As I was explaining it to a colleague...the GH1 is like a beautiful sports car with all the nice features inside, great motor, leather seats, navigation, rims, etc, etc,. Put in on the road, give it gas..zoooooom it goes..BUT BEWARE..don't take a turn cause it will stall...just drive straight and steady and you will have no issues.
 
Can you please do some tracking shots sideways, in and out, etc. Can you also do some crane shots: Even if you dont have a crane you can sort of simulate it handhled.

Also just curious what settings are you using. Do you use the IExposure setting? Is it off or on all the time? And are your pans autofocus or manual? Also can you try a pan where you start by pulling the camera backwords as you start the pan and then continue the pan if you have the time. I wish I had the camera already to test myself.

BTW: Other than the panning whats your opinion of the image quality.

Thanks.
 
John Caballero said:
Can you please do some tracking shots sideways, in and out, etc. Can you also do some crane shots: Even if you dont have a crane you can sort of simulate it handhled.

Also just curious what settings are you using. Do you use the IExposure setting? Is it off or on all the time? And are your pans autofocus or manual? Also can you try a pan where you start by pulling the camera backwords as you start the pan and then continue the pan if you have the time. I wish I had the camera already to test myself.

BTW: Other than the panning whats your opinion of the image quality.

Thanks.
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We have tried it in every setting we can think of....but we will do extensive test this weekend and write down our findings...

The one thing I can tell you is that we connected the SD card to a PS3 and viewed it on a Mitsubishi 60-inch 1080p DLP HDTV...24P AVCHD simply looks awesome!
 
The one thing I can tell you is that we connected the SD card to a PS3 and viewed it on a Mitsubishi 60-inch 1080p DLP HDTV...24P AVCHD simply looks awesome!
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Thats good. Thanks for sharing. Its funny, I was watching an episode of Rescue Me in Hulu and there was no paning done for the whole thing, maybe a 2 seconds movement here and there. There was no paning in the commercials either. Thats why I don't care much about the 'mud" in the pans for the GH1. Oh, and not much shallow DoF in Rescue Me either.

Some crane shots and tracking shots if you can please.
 
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admactanium said:
You're not getting it in MJPEG mode are you? I haven't ever seen any "mud" in that mode.
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We have gotten mud in MJPEG but it is almost unnoticeable...the only way we saw it is by going frame by frame...and it ONLY shows up in maybe ONE frame here and there in pans versus a series of frames in AVCHD....to the naked eye it is almost impossible to see....
 
Super8 said:
I think once you get your hands on this camera you will become incredibly dissapointed. In my case, even if I do a SLOOOOOOOOOOW pan, the MUD appears all over the screen. It is not one frame or two...in some cases, if you do a 5 second pan, I will have 5 seconds of garbage, unusable stuff. AND i am not whipping it or flinging this thing...just simple, normal speed anyday use pan!
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Ugh, another satisfied customer. I'd love to see some samples if you can share a few.

I do love the camera for it's "possibilities" but as it stands right now, for me personally, it is pretty much useless. That one minus overshadows all the pluses.
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Exactly. In the end it's all about picture quality. If you can't get a decent image when panning, shooting fast motion, or high detail backgrounds, then that puts a severe limit on what you can do. Depending on your shooting style it may or may not be a deal breaker. For me it's a no go - I just don't want to be constantly worried about if my picture is breaking up every time I move the camera.

As I was explaining it to a colleague...the GH1 is like a beautiful sports car with all the nice features inside, great motor, leather seats, navigation, rims, etc, etc,. Put in on the road, give it gas..zoooooom it goes..BUT BEWARE..don't take a turn cause it will stall...just drive straight and steady and you will have no issues.
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Again, I say it's like the D90 - it has massive Jello, but if you super careful you can get some great stuff out of it. It's just sad that GH1 has so many great features only to be neutered by lackluster encoding at 24P.

- - -

Back to the workaround. Specifically shooting at 30/60P and converting to 24P. Everyone says that's the workaround, but I'll be damned if I can find some good examples of this online. Anyone have some good links?
 
Super8 said:
We have gotten mud in MJPEG but it is almost unnoticeable...the only way we saw it is by going frame by frame...and it ONLY shows up in maybe ONE frame here and there in pans versus a series of frames in AVCHD....to the naked eye it is almost impossible to see....
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I know it's odd to change formats, but can't you just shoot your pans in MJPEG 720 and your non-pan shots in 1080 AVCHD? At least for the time being there is a workaround. It's not ideal, but it's not deadly either.
 
Boz said:
Again, I say it's like the D90 - it has massive Jello, but if you super careful you can get some great stuff out of it. It's just sad that GH1 has so many great features only to be neutered by lackluster encoding at 24P.
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I have a d90...today, I still will choose the d90...when it is weighted down, it produces decent images with great DOF and a nice 24P....i know that the encoding is not the best in the market, but in my opinion, I is still my weapon of choice when it comes to DSRL's. Next week I get my Canon 5d...so my opinion might change.......
 
I still will choose the d90
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Oh boy.

I was checking Monk and counted one 3 secs pan. Quite a few crane shots, tracking shots and some tilts. I feel good because two of my future projects are aimed at television series styles like Monk and Rescue Me. Monk is actually shot on 16mm and Rescue Me is shot in cinema video. So not any worries at all about pan and "mud" for me. Don't really need them for what I want.

Again: No pans in the commercials either.
 
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Super8 said:
I have a d90...today, I still will choose the d90...when it is weighted down, it produces decent images with great DOF and a nice 24P....i know that the encoding is not the best in the market, but in my opinion, I is still my weapon of choice when it comes to DSRL's. Next week I get my Canon 5d...so my opinion might change.......
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Did you see the GH1 vs. d90/d5000 comparison tests though? Nikon was noticeable weaker image wise, not full HD, and no mic input :(

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVkZfUax_yI
 
Super8 said:
I think once you get your hands on this camera you will become incredibly dissapointed. In my case, even if I do a SLOOOOOOOOOOW pan, the MUD appears all over the screen. It is not one frame or two...in some cases, if you do a 5 second pan, I will have 5 seconds of garbage, unusable stuff. AND i am not whipping it or flinging this thing...just simple, normal speed anyday use pan!
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When I read posts like this that seem to be totally contradicting previous posts from Kholi, Phillip Bloom and others it seems to me as if people were talking about 2 different cameras.
To some the GH1 is useless even if moved slowly, to some is totally usable as long as you don´t whip pan like crazy.
I believe either some units have to be defective or someone must be doing something wrong (wrong settings???)
 
Its as if all cinematography revolved around panning and all the hopes of creation with the GH1 collapsed because the "mud catastrophe" in the 1080p. And I thought the HVX 200 noise panic pandemic of couple of years ago was the most terrible event of digital cinema history. Its hilarious actually.
 
dmoreno said:
When I read posts like this that seem to be totally contradicting previous posts from Kholi, Phillip Bloom and others it seems to me as if people were talking about 2 different cameras.
To some the GH1 is useless even if moved slowly, to some is totally usable as long as you don´t whip pan like crazy.
I believe either some units have to be defective or someone must be doing something wrong (wrong settings???)
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I can't speak for Kholi, Phillip Bloom or others..I respect their work and value their input. The only reason I bought the GH1 was because I saw one of Philip Bloom's video with the GH-1 and I thought it would be a good tool.

I have been shooting video and film since 1988 and I have worked with various formats and cameras through the years...so I know it is not user error. Could it be I have a defective camera? I really don't think so...I honestly believe that when you view clips either on vimeo or somewhere else, you miss a lot. The only way this is going to be solved and explored in full is when more users in the US or abroad start to get their hands on the GH1 and run it through the ringer.

There are so many variables to this camera and so may combinations that can make this an effective tool to use...I just have to find one. I honestly believe that if you think the camera is going to run "perfectly" out of the box, you might be in for a surprise.

I ran some preliminary test with a couple of colleagues and viewed the clips on a HD screen and we all agree that the camera is not there yet. If you can't pan right or left without getting garbage..it is of no use. I am not talking of "whipping"...just a simple pan brings all that garbage to the forefront and the backgroud.

When I first saw the original "mud" pictures I thought to myself that the picture had to be altered in Photoshop or something. i could not believe that Panasonic would put out a camera like that...but when I finally got mine, I got the same results...

So who knows. I am not ready to kick the camera to the curb...It is not my only tool in my arsenal..thank God. I will just put it to the side and wait to see when the camera starts shipping in mass and more people play with it.
 
I didn´t mean to say you were doing something wrong due to lack of video recording experience and/or abilities (I'm sorry if that´s what you interpreted). I was talking about specific GH1 camera settings that might help reduce the codec break down. Some have talked about shooting in certain camera modes, some about turning off image stabilization, some about changing sharpening settings, some about an ISO "sweet spot" at 320, and the list goes on. I just wish we could start arriving to some conclusions and not just speculation... I guess that is how this works, lots of people doing their experiments and sharing their findings!
 
Super8 I would like to know what do you think of the static footage. Forget about pans, of which I counted maybe one in the two tv series I mentioned before. Is the image sharp enough, are the colors good, whats your take on that. I say this because a lot of music videos by example don't have any pans, maybe crane shots and dolly shots. The same as with a lot of commercials. You can produce a lot of excellent shots to move along a story without a single left to right pan.
 
Super8 said:
I can't speak for Kholi, Phillip Bloom or others..I respect their work and value their input. The only reason I bought the GH1 was because I saw one of Philip Bloom's video with the GH-1 and I thought it would be a good tool.

I have been shooting video and film since 1988 and I have worked with various formats and cameras through the years...so I know it is not user error. Could it be I have a defective camera? I really don't think so...I honestly believe that when you view clips either on vimeo or somewhere else, you miss a lot. The only way this is going to be solved and explored in full is when more users in the US or abroad start to get their hands on the GH1 and run it through the ringer.

There are so many variables to this camera and so may combinations that can make this an effective tool to use...I just have to find one. I honestly believe that if you think the camera is going to run "perfectly" out of the box, you might be in for a surprise.

I ran some preliminary test with a couple of colleagues and viewed the clips on a HD screen and we all agree that the camera is not there yet. If you can't pan right or left without getting garbage..it is of no use. I am not talking of "whipping"...just a simple pan brings all that garbage to the forefront and the backgroud.

When I first saw the original "mud" pictures I thought to myself that the picture had to be altered in Photoshop or something. i could not believe that Panasonic would put out a camera like that...but when I finally got mine, I got the same results...

So who knows. I am not ready to kick the camera to the curb...It is not my only tool in my arsenal..thank God. I will just put it to the side and wait to see when the camera starts shipping in mass and more people play with it.
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want to sell it?
 
dmoreno said:
I didn´t mean to say you were doing something wrong due to lack of video recording experience and/or abilities (I'm sorry if that´s what you interpreted).
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Don't sweat it..I knew that you meant from the get go. It is hard when you have to play around as a "workaround". It almost doesn't even seem fair to have to spend money in a product that you have to find a temporary solution. I don't care if I pay $1 or $50,000 for a camera. I want the features that were promised to work out of the box...just saying you know?

John Caballero said:
Super8 I would like to know what do you think of the static footage. Is the image sharp enough, are the colors good, whats your take on that.
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Static looks good..nice colors, sharpness is good and the footage handles well when minimal CC is performed...handles much better than the d90 footage. Next week when I get the Canon I wil be able to compare both images...
 
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