Pros and Cons -- GH1 vs Canon 7d

i'm so gah damn in love with my camera that i just want to shoot with it everyday. i found myself shooting a lot of stills with it too. ah well. need my light kit then i'm probably shooting every weekend.
 
Rayzrsharp said:
DING! DING! DING!! You hit the nail right on the head here! Panasonic seems to have the 24p thing down pretty good.
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Don't say that! I'm already jealous of all you US users.. I'm stuck with the PAL GH-1.. and all I ever really wanted was the 24p. Why can't panny release a firmware update? Come on.......
 
Luis Caffesse said:
I'll gladly respond to all your points via PM if you like - but I refuse to allow this thread to devolve any further.

Let's get back to the topic at hand - which is a discussion of the GH1 and 7D.
Thanks.
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Something that also gets glossed over for us event videographers, is that the gh1 is the only one that can record an entire ceremony, play, speech, etc that's longer than ~12 minutes. So the gh1 is the best choice for those situations hands down. I know of several wedding videographers that got the 5d, but they're justing using them for beauty shot footage.
 
matt9b said:
Don't say that! I'm already jealous of all you US users.. I'm stuck with the PAL GH-1.. and all I ever really wanted was the 24p. Why can't panny release a firmware update? Come on.......
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There are pros and cons with both cameras but I actually prefer the Pal version. It is much easier to get 25p out of 50p than 24p out of 60p.
 
Glenn Przyborski said:
Thanks for your kind comments... The 7D seems to be twice as sensitive to light (1 f-stop) than the GH1. The 7D's form factor also feels better in your hand when shooting stills. I just felt that the negative video artifacts which I didn't expect, rendered the camera un-useable for my applications in commercial television. Remember, you can't remove moire patterns and aliasing. Also, 1080P should look like real HD, not blown-up 720P. If you notice 7D video on other websites, it's always tight depth-of-field close-ups with blurred backgrounds.

I'm kinda from the old school and 800 ASA is as sensitive to light as I need based on what I'm shooting. As I mentioned, you need at least F2 or ideally F1.4 lenses for available light night scenes. The GH1 with its supplied F4 to F5.6 zoom won't cut it at night. It is however, a very sharp lens with a good image stabilizer in daylight.

If only there was an inexpensive place where forum readers could rent each of these cameras for a day before they made their purchase!
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Thanks for the info, Glenn.

I'm in NYC and while there are a few places that rent the 7D, there are none (that I know of) that rent the GH1. And funny enough, none of the camera stores (B&H, J&R, Adorama) have floor display models yet. And I don't spend $1500 on anything without actually holding it first :)
 
JMG100 said:
Thanks for the info, Glenn.

I'm in NYC and while there are a few places that rent the 7D, there are none (that I know of) that rent the GH1. And funny enough, none of the camera stores (B&H, J&R, Adorama) have floor display models yet. And I don't spend $1500 on anything without actually holding it first :)
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That is interesting. I must admit although Im a GH1 fan, I'm disappointed with Panasonic and feel that Canon have the ball rolling a lot more. The 7D is available pretty much easily already and you get the same specs worldwide, also they have rolled out a firmware update already for the 5D. The Gh1 still to this day can be tricky to get hold of, there are no firmware updates even now, and the only firmware update that does exist, doesn't install correctly on my Gh1 because apparently the update is ntsc only (which it didn't say on the tin, which wasted a lot of my time, and excludes all their european users from the improved firmware specs e.g. slower shutter, time lapse). Not only that, but I got the GH1 for its advertised 24p and it turns out mine doesnt even have this; it also doesn't even have 60i (and yes, being able to slow down by 8% more does make a difference for music vids and various applications). No one in the shop warned me that specs would vary depending on which area you're from. You could say this is my fault for not doing more in depth research, but then you could say this to any customer who is not happy about any product - I did save up a lot for this camera and did a lot of research - at what point does the manufacturer have to answer for things? It just all feels a little convoluted - why not just make the same specs worldwide.. if that's too hard, then why not let people choose which firmware to install. NTSC or PAL. It doesn't take a genius to think of this. I don't want to turn into one of these complainers, but I was hoping for a little more in aftersales from Panny. To make things a little more odd, Panasonic here in the UK weren't even aware that there was a 24p model in the US, or that models varied. In fact, they didn't know as much about the camera as I do.

The only thing keeping me from buying a 7D and selling my GH1 is the hope that panny will release a firmware fix. If not, I'm off to canon.
 
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apparently the update is ntsc only
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I've never heard that one before. Here in PAL-down-under (Australia) I've installed the two firmware updates with no problem and I don't recall even making any particular choice at any point to use a PAL rather than NTSC version (though my memory may be at fault).
 
If you want a week or more rental there is lensrentals.com in Memphis, who have GH1 and lenses for rent at reasonable prices. They express ship rentals and start rental period after transit time.

http://www.lensrentals.com/rent/micro-4-3-panasonic-gh-1/for-olympus



JMG100 said:
Thanks for the info, Glenn.

I'm in NYC and while there are a few places that rent the 7D, there are none (that I know of) that rent the GH1. And funny enough, none of the camera stores (B&H, J&R, Adorama) have floor display models yet. And I don't spend $1500 on anything without actually holding it first :)
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Car3o said:
quick clip using a fast lens.
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You're right - didn't see any banding or noise in that clip. Just a couple of quick questions...how did your pet chimp manage to get hold of your GH1 - and how often does he walk the dog? :D
 
tflak said:
You're right - didn't see any banding or noise in that clip. Just a couple of quick questions...how did your pet chimp manage to get hold of your GH1 - and how often does he walk the dog? :D
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once a night....and i didn't even know he had the cam till i found the footage on my computer.
 
This is a very difficult choice and I am breaking up into a sweat over it. I was just about ready to plunk down on the 7D because I have just seen way too many issues with the bad limited avchd codec and in all 1080p footage I have seen so far, the 7D shined above the GH1... but then Glenn posts that beast of a message and gets me worried again. I have only had a limited ability to toy with these cameras and not at the same time.
 
Glenn Przyborski said:
I've owned a GH1 for 6 weeks and I owned a 7D for 72 hours. As a fan of Canon lenses (I have 11) I fully intended to replace the GH1 with the 7D. I even had a buyer for my GH1.

After several hours of shooting 1080P with the 7D in daylight then again the following morning before dawn, I returned the camera for credit.

Analyzing the 7D's video files on broadcast monitors showed a resolution that I sincerely believe is less than 600 horizontal lines. On any scene element that is horizontal or near to horizontal, the camera exhibits the worst aliasing that I've ever seen in any camera... and I've worked with a lot of cameras. In addition to all this, the 7D adds a moire rainbow pattern to areas of horizontal detail.

There is no question in my mind that the 7D is a better still camera than the GH1, but it simply doesn't produce acceptable 1080P video that can be cut into programming that was shot on broadcast HD cameras. With proper setup (smooth setting, contrast -2, color 0, sharpness 0, NR -2) we've shot scenes with the GH1 that are perfectly acceptable for integration into broadcast projects.

Forum members (and Canon) have indicated problems with the 7D's 720 setting. If you're sincerely concerned about the visual quality and potential marketability of your projects, forget 720P. As bad as the GH1's AVCHD codec is, the camera simply looks better at 1080 than it does at 720. It's not that hard to remove the 3-2 pulldown and edit on a 23.976 timeline. If you want to release for the web or whatever in 720, 1080P down-samples to a great looking 720P. 720P (from these DSLR's) doesn't hold up when up-sampled to 1080. I don't want to stir up a hornets' nest, but 720P is rarely (if ever) the format of choice for major TV spot production or post-production.

Here's an example of 2 minutes of "B-Roll" footage from the GH1. Some of these scenes will be used as transition elements for an upcoming episode of a comedy TV series and as the BG behind closing credits. I down-sampled the 1080P to quarter size 960x540 H264. There is no storyline, just a series of shots that the editor will use. I shot the scenes at ISO 800, 400, & 200 using Canon 85mm F1.2, 135mm F2, 50mm F1.4, and a Nikon 35mm F2 lenses. The only "filters" used were Final Cut's 3 way color corrector and broadcast safe filter. I put it on our server for a couple days so you won't be looking at crappy, re-compressed, Flash video.

http://www.przyborski.com/HD_movies/B-Roll_GH1-960x540_H264b.mov
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Glenn, VERY awesome B-Roll footage. Compositions are, well, nice! I love the vanishing point stuff, I can never get that right myself or it just doesn't seem right when I do it.

I also said the SAME thing. Shoot 1080 on this camera, it's not worth it to avoid compression artifacts when the GH-1 @ 1080 just looks hosts better than the 720 in general.

Also, I can TOTALLY agree with you on the image quality versus the 7D. I was reminded of this in another thread where the GH-1 and 7D had a slight (yet not scientific) comparison; the GH-1 just looks better.

The issue for me was the video out during recording. =( That was the one thing that affected my decision the most and why I don't have a GH-1 at this moment, instead of several 7D's.

If I were shooting for myself, and I keep saying it, I'd get a pair or two pairs of GH-1's (for 3D practice and futzing with) but, for rentals and shooting for others, it ended up being the 7D.

I'm not looking toward the future, concentrating on getting something started right now, but it would be very cool to see better compression in a future model, video out and perhaps, if at all possible, a larger sensor. Although 4/3 is nothing to scoff at for motion picture acquisition.

Again, great footage and excellent insight in both of your posts!
 
Soroush Shahrokni said:
Kholi, let me get this straight, after posting all those awesome pre-release GH1 footage you ended up with a 7D?
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Right. Four. And a 5D. The sad fact, and it's also why I don't post a lot of footage, is that I don't really work for myself, I work for other people. While trying to build a reputation, it means making the best decisions not only for myself but for the people who have come to rely on me.

In the end, for various reasons, that meant giving up the camera that I like the MOST in favor of the one that's more suited for my environment. I had to do the same with the HVX200. It was just better suited for my working environment so I kept it instead of getting what I really wanted, an XH-A1.

Still, to this day, I think the XH-A1 > HVX200 and the GH-1 > 7D overall.
 
Soroush Shahrokni said:
I see, well congratulations, at least you get paid doing what you love and do best. I have not been able to get a job after three film schools and 12 years in the buisness here in Sweden, not even as a cable guy, I'm still on my own.

The closest I have ever been to a contract was when I was offered a one year contract with Levity Entertainment in US after I toured with Pablo Francisco around Europe for a month, but I never got a work permit from the immigrations in US: "This job is employable in the US". :(

I will never give up though. :)
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Hey Soroush then I bet you know Flip Schultz, he's a good buddy of mine who tours and opens for Pablo.
 
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