GH2 Philip Bloom Christmas Shootout

[Peter J. DeCrescenzo]

Someone in the AF100 forum mentioned an air of REDuser in the gh2 forum ... Cant imagine why....

I get the joke, but: Um, no.

If EVERY. SINGLE. POST. HERE. kissed the *ss of Panasonic's President, then maybe I'd say yeah, we GH2 enthusiasts give off a REDuser-like fragrance.

But since the GH2 users who post here are about as likely to b*tch about the GH2 as praise it, I much prefer these forums.

We GH2 enthusiasts get pretty excited here sometimes, but at least it's reality-based excitement, or maybe more fairly: Proportionally bang-for-the-buck-based excitement.

I can only stand reading REDuser for David Mullen's excellent monster Q&A thread (which he should get a special Oscar for!):
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?2714-Ask-David-Mullen-ANYTHING

Cheers!

 

[fargee]

I wouldn't go that far. Yes the GH2 is a great camera. I have both and wouldn't trade in the AF-100 for a GH2. 2 XLR inputs and head phone jack, over and under cranking, built in ND. All good reasons. The AF-100 is still the best camera for the money, and I feel the GH2 is as well.

I wouldn't trade GH2's image quality for any of the AF-100's advantages you mentioned.

 

[Cosimo Bullo]

If you haven't seen it, there's a lot of Zeiss S16 + GH2 stuff here: http://vimeo.com/33858689




Honestly, I am trying very hard ... very very hard, to find a way to justify shooting this entire feature out on S16mm lenses. ETC mode is really awesome, but to get it as clean as Non ETC mode you have to shoot 160-200ISO. But man, you have to just kind of calculate what we're talking about here:

. Zeiss Super 16mm Superspeed Set: 10-100/2, 5.9/2, 8/1.3, 9.8/2.4, 12/1.3, 16/1/3, 25/1.3 (requires shooting in ETC mode, which most of my footage has been from)
-- Downside to this is having to shoot in ETC, which is still pretty awesome looking on a massive screen (2K projector), but sometimes the noise can be overbearing.
-- The 5.9mm (which should equal about an 15mmish with ETC mode) is nice and wide, but with no focus ring (at all) it will be hard to use.
-- Upside? 10-100/2 Zoom? Technically wouldn't need another lens. But when I do, the others are swift and sharp.
-- Incredibly awesome vintage look out of the box. Swear it screams S16 when I look at it and just watch it all come together with color adjustments etc.

. Zeiss Standard Speed T2.1 Set: 16, 20, 28, 32, 40, 85 (all T2.1, which should be equal to F1.3)
-- 28mm Blooms wide open but is good at about 2.8 and on.-
-- No zoom, switching lenses means losing time, especially without an AC present.
-- Slow for exterior night work.

ETC mode = 2.4x Sensor Output but a straight up 1920x1080, and you can see the resolution is there. It's insane. So 2.4 X 5.9/T2 = 15mm ish with S16 DOF. Versus a 1.86 (although I think Gh2 in video mode might be like 1.7ish) x 16mm = 28ish FOV.

It's more about the speed (for me) and then the wide angle. Not to mention the S16s have sick close focus ranges (although the T2.1's are pretty awesome, too) and distortion control is pretty nice.

I've posted this a few times now but I really hope Quantum V6's noise patterns are an improvement over the already sick V2. It seems like the gains trickle down to ETC mode

Those are my two options right now, well that and possibly two Olympic Zooms depending on if I can score them or not. Those would be great: 14-34/2 and a 35-100/2, just the focus throw on the 35-100 is crazy, it's a loud lens and it's bulky. Still... images look quite nice.

I don't think it's worth the color quality loss to shoot ETC with S16 lenses vs full sensor, even if that means struggling through with Nikkors....

 

[Kholi]

I don't think it's worth the color quality loss to shoot ETC with S16 lenses vs full sensor, even if that means struggling through with Nikkors....

Where did "color quality loss" come from? There's no discernible difference in that area shooting ETC or Non, only the differences the glass introduces in cast, sharpness, etc and the greater noise dB that ETC mode introduces.

 

[Cosimo Bullo]

I feel like the ETC stuff I've shot (using 16mm lenses from my Bolex) looked much noisier colorwise, but I may be off-base as in fact I've not tested much in ETC mode since installing the hack a few days after it became available.

Also, for what it's worth, the ETC stuff in the link above did look sharper to my eye than the 200 crop. Love seeing Santa Monica again!

 

[Kholi]

I feel like the ETC stuff I've shot (using 16mm lenses from my Bolex) looked much noisier colorwise, but I may be off-base as in fact I've not tested much in ETC mode since installing the hack a few days after it became available.

Ah, that's because it is noisier. My guess is about 2 stops noisier than non ETC mode. My threshold for ETC mode is 800, non ETC is 1600. And, of course, your 16mm Lenses weren't' designed for digital sensors, so naturally you're going to experience some strange things. The ETC mode itself and shooting the subset of 2K/1080 pixels wouldn't be any different if you had a lens designed for the application and an identical one designed for the full sensor.

Even shooting through the center of modern lenses kinda shows that.

I do, however, agree that it's a bit of a challenge to justify. I've seen the footage on a large enough screen at its noisiest and I love the look, I also would like to be able to shoot at a 200ISO (no higher than 320) for a serious project in ETC mode. It's nowhere near as bad if you "convert" the chroma noise to luma noise.

Could justify shooting 640~800 in non ETc mode... on up to 1600 if need be. =\ Which sucks because that also means I need to go and get a 10mm Ultra prime to satisfy the need for a fast wide.

Hence... using the 5D for wide interiors...

 

[Phenixone]

As said before, All the AF100's advantages have now been compensated with external tools that will even survive the Camera refresh.

-No XLR? Use an external recorder and my personal tip, feed back a wireless to the gh2 as a backup/sync sound. Your sound gear will survive your camera for sure.
-No waveform? invest in a DP6 from SmallHD, you can even use this monitor on a RED or even on an AF100, so... yeah
-No ND's, err I believe that a nice matte box with ND's are the best way personally, otherwise you have the Helioplan NDs, but Polarizers are tricky.
-Camera is in plastic and may break? For the price of one AF100, buy 3 GH2's and you are safe. Personally the choice is made..
-Focus nudges the lens. Same issue on the AF100, it's due to the mount. Get a good mount with a rail fix. There you go
-Color shift on monitor and HDMI out. After some training you get to learn how it behaves and the problem disappears.
-Battery life. I use Dolgin's battery plate. I power both my GH2 and DP6 on one battery for 4 hours.
-No slow motion. You have the 30% slow. not real slow but not bad. Okay, rent an AF100 for the day in case of slow mo (AF100 is great for that with cranking)
That's it.

Now the great things about this camera.
-Small, I mean super freaking tiny! I had situation where my rig would not fit (thinking subway and crowd) the gh2 is so small and light!
-Versatile. You want ti to look like a 35mm camera, no problem. dress it up and you're good to go.

-- Actually I really consider the GH2 close to the film mentality. No (good) sound, no auto tools. All manual. Now go tell me that Spielberg's monitor is slightly shifting color when recoding on a Panavision HAHA! SD video tap rules! --

Me? REDuser like fan? No! If Canon, or Sony or anyone else, even RED (super cheap RED would be nice) comes up with a better camera in my budget, the bye bye Panasonic hello (name of new cheap revolutionary camera here)


To get back to PB's testing. Let's see for the rest of the tests, GH2 is pretty contrasty, even in soft settings and may fail more in this part. Wait and see

 

[Kholi]

You forgot professional monitoring connections... which is a serious issue. One I'd say is more serious (to me at least) than any issue on that list. Feeding a signal to a solid production monitor is a severe pain.

Are people actually complaining about battery life? I can function with no worries on two if there's power around to keep the other one charging, three to four if there isn't.

What's the big deal??? Am I missing something?

 

[bgundu]

I had both the Af100 and GH2 kitted out on location and I always reached for the Af100. I was also shooting to the Ninja (more for backup). But damn that skew is pretty bad on the GH2. They certainly both have there place. I have a scarlet on the way too. Different tools. Heck I still have my HVX200 with the Brevis!

 

[yoclay]

as said before, all the af100's advantages have now been compensated with external tools that will even survive the camera refresh.

-no xlr? Use an external recorder and my personal tip, feed back a wireless to the gh2 as a backup/sync sound. Your sound gear will survive your camera for sure.
-no waveform? Invest in a dp6 from smallhd, you can even use this monitor on a red or even on an af100, so... Yeah
-no nd's, err i believe that a nice matte box with nd's are the best way personally, otherwise you have the helioplan nds, but polarizers are tricky.
-camera is in plastic and may break? For the price of one af100, buy 3 gh2's and you are safe. Personally the choice is made..
-focus nudges the lens. Same issue on the af100, it's due to the mount. Get a good mount with a rail fix. There you go
-color shift on monitor and hdmi out. After some training you get to learn how it behaves and the problem disappears.
-battery life. I use dolgin's battery plate. I power both my gh2 and dp6 on one battery for 4 hours.
-no slow motion. You have the 30% slow. Not real slow but not bad. Okay, rent an af100 for the day in case of slow mo (af100 is great for that with cranking)
that's it.

Now the great things about this camera.
-small, i mean super freaking tiny! I had situation where my rig would not fit (thinking subway and crowd) the gh2 is so small and light!
-versatile. You want ti to look like a 35mm camera, no problem. Dress it up and you're good to go.

-- actually i really consider the gh2 close to the film mentality. No (good) sound, no auto tools. All manual. Now go tell me that spielberg's monitor is slightly shifting color when recoding on a panavision haha! Sd video tap rules! --

me? Reduser like fan? No! If canon, or sony or anyone else, even red (super cheap red would be nice) comes up with a better camera in my budget, the bye bye panasonic hello (name of new cheap revolutionary camera here)


to get back to pb's testing. Let's see for the rest of the tests, gh2 is pretty contrasty, even in soft settings and may fail more in this part. Wait and see

banding.

 

[lawriejaffa]

Yeah i was delighted with how it performed utilising the hack as well, but was the mega bit rate not really high for Blooms short clip? 170mb+ or something (maybe i got that wrong!) So im just wondering with the hack what levels are sustainable, because you know what, like so many folks id happily plonk down for a gh2 b cam if with a hack like that could deliver such promising results!

 

[Danielvilliers]

I am starting to believe Vitaliy when he says the Lumix division is much better than the Panasonic video division. They have there $ 700 photo camera competing against the + 10K Sony and Canon cameras, while their $ 5000 video camera that was suppose to be an upgrade to the dslr barely out-resolve them. I won't talk about the DR (highlight) also which is below the dslr again. It is true that it has other qualities but in terms of image quality it is barely better than the dslr if you factor in things like moire/aliasing/skew. But the gh2 would loose only on skew and win in every other department. For me image quality is the most important thing, the rest, I will deal with it, perhaps because of my shooting (more controlled) for short or commercial. I can understand that people that d events etc will prefer a camera like the Af-100.

I hope that Panasonic will bring some of their lumix people to their video division. A next generation gh3 sensor with one stop better DR and Iso (Hope the resolution stays the same 16 megapixel is good enough), put in the shell of a proper video camera with at least 50 mbs (option for 100 would be better), 10 bit and a log picture profile, will sell a lot more camera in the AF-100 price bracket. I sincerely wish that they open to what they have (gh technology) and not become defensive and try to stick to their AF type of technology.

 

[qap15]

Does Panasonic really realize that the little GH2 "David" is fighting their battles in an almost saturated market and a competition stiff as never before. I 've heard that robots would one day turn to their owners, but didn't know how or when? A camera which the other wing don't want to hear a word of is defending itself gallantly.

 

[dcloud]

As said before, All the AF100's advantages have now been compensated with external tools that will even survive the Camera refresh.

-No XLR? Use an external recorder and my personal tip, feed back a wireless to the gh2 as a backup/sync sound. Your sound gear will survive your camera for sure.
-No waveform? invest in a DP6 from SmallHD, you can even use this monitor on a RED or even on an AF100, so... yeah
-No ND's, err I believe that a nice matte box with ND's are the best way personally, otherwise you have the Helioplan NDs, but Polarizers are tricky.
-Camera is in plastic and may break? For the price of one AF100, buy 3 GH2's and you are safe. Personally the choice is made..
-Focus nudges the lens. Same issue on the AF100, it's due to the mount. Get a good mount with a rail fix. There you go
-Color shift on monitor and HDMI out. After some training you get to learn how it behaves and the problem disappears.
-Battery life. I use Dolgin's battery plate. I power both my GH2 and DP6 on one battery for 4 hours.
-No slow motion. You have the 30% slow. not real slow but not bad. Okay, rent an AF100 for the day in case of slow mo (AF100 is great for that with cranking)
That's it.

i dont see the point in comparing both af100 & gh2. I wouldnt do any of your suggested workarounds if i were to shoot. it all comes down simply to the user.

to me, I dont see any discernable difference in resolution between AF100 & GH2. and after seeing papa's comparison, (which included desaturating the GH2) its not that big of a problem. Yes when it comes to fine details, the AF100 blurs it out.

I still see moire on the GH2 and if you tell me its something you can live with, its the same thing ill tell you with the af100, I can live with the blurred out fine detail.

now mind you, i own both. I love how papa;s test made me see how close you can make both cameras look.

bottomline, we all have different way of shooting (i wouldnt buy all that gear when it will cost almost the same as an af100 :\) I prefer my style of shooting with the gh2 guerrilla on the fly and without setups. I like the AF100's features when i simply want to shoot faster on the set.

 

[Razz16mm]

It is smart for Panasonic to let people hack the GH2. Think how much they can learn from the process themselves that could apply to future models.

 

[yoclay]

It is smart for Panasonic to let people hack the GH2. Think how much they can learn from the process themselves that could apply to future models.

Panasonic isn't letting anyone do anything. The hack is happening despite them. If they were really smart they would have an S35 sensor on the market in the form of the Gh2 and make it open source.

 

[TheDingo]

It is smart for Panasonic to let people hack the GH2.

Panasonic encrypted the GH-2 firmware to stop anyone from hacking the camera, but Vitaliy Kiselev ( an extremely talented and resourceful programmer ) found a way around this and made the hacked GH-2 possible. We all owe Vitaliy a big show of gratitude ( a donation at his site is a start ) for the work he has done.

 

[TheDingo]

So im just wondering with the hack what levels are sustainable, because you know what, like so many folks id happily plonk down for a gh2 b cam if with a hack like that could deliver such promising results!

You need high speed memory cards to be able to shoot reliable long form videos with these ultra high bit rates. ( 170+ Mbit/sec )

The Sandisk 95 MB/sec 64 GB SDXC card ( $190 at B&H Photo ) is the only card I've heard that can reliably "span" ( split long videos in to 4 GB segments ) at the 176 Mbit/sec data-rate.

 

[Alpha Beta Omega]

GH2 is a camera with super value just like the GH1 is and compared to the other videocameras AF100 is also a camera with great value. Go Panasonic!

 

[HotConductor]

The GH2 is simply a stunning camera. The only drawback for me is its appearance. It looks like a dang toy. I hate it when clients see my work and then say 'oh, you must shoot on Canon!' No, and I don't edit on a Mac either. I have honestly thought about buying a broken 5Dmkii body, carving it out, and fitting a GH2 in there, JUST to be the guy that people walk up to and say "awesome, LOOOOOVE the 5D", only for me to turn around a go "AAAHHHHH HA! Gotcha! Its a hacked GH2 running an Intra-frame codec at 80Mb onto SD cards, with no overheating and less moire than your 5D. Wha wha whaaaaaattt???"

For many of us it is ALL about the image. Everything else is secondary. Run around the world with a GH2, 20mm pancake lens and TONS of batteries and cards, you can go all day/night/week/year-long. Audio can be recorded on a field recorder and for many people (commercials, promos, documentaries) audio is done entirely in post production.