Pros and Cons -- GH1 vs Canon 7d

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
Click to expand...


Hey Glenn, are you sure about this 600 lines res issue? I have been downloading 1920 x 1080 clips clips day and night for the 7D & the GH1 and the 7D seems to hold up way better in 1080p and you can ever MOVE the camera and it doesn't turn too blocky weird city. I mean I assume you have seen the Perya & Dublin's People videos on the 7D that everyone's raving about. You're telling me that is less than 600 lines res?

Have you done a resolution test on the 1080p of the GH1? What does it come out as? There is so much more detail data in 1080p it just seems the GH1's avchd can't handle it and the 7D is much more robust and solid looking without areas of the picture breaking up all over the place. I agree the horizontal line aliasing is an issue though.

Ahhhh what to do. .. Someone shoot me in the eyes.
 
Blackout, have a search around these forums for Barry's Res Chart tests. This will back up the facts about the 7D's resolution. (Unfortunately, the GH1 doesn't come a out a whole lot better on the charts, there is some give and take) Apparently, resolving power is not the strong point of any HDSLR, although we still love the look.
 
Well I am picking up one of these puppies tomorrow, and I really can't decide between the GH1 and the 7D... I am near just flipping a coin at this point.

From what I have seen of both cams, the break down is this:

GH1 Benefits

More filmic looking 24p motion / gamma if locked down
Perhaps more resolution? (if locked down or smooooth tripod)
Better control & ergonomics
Better LCD screen.
No aliasing problem on deep focus wide shots
720p mode & slomo much better than 7D

GH1 negatives
weak codec
weak codec
weak codec
seems to have more jello / image break up / artifacting in 1080p than the 7D
forget about hand held anything
not true 24p, have to do pulldown removal (wastes the thin codec even more)

7D benefits
higher bandwidth more robust codec
higher bandwidth more robust codec
higher bandwidth more robust codec
Has true 24p. Dump it in a timeline, no pulldown removal needed.
Richer colors right off the bat (some might see this as a negative)
Seems to have less jello in 1080 24p than the gh1
A lot less compression artifacts
You can get away with hand held stuff with much less jello / mud than the GH1
Most agree it's a better still camera than the GH1.

7D negatives
awful aliasing on horizontal lines in deep focus wide shots
seems to have hotter highlights (some complain too 'video' looking)
very saturated colors right off the bat (some see this as a positive)
lcd screen is small and can't swivel
controls and auto not as good as GH1
720p mode very poor
Lower resolution? on a chart than GH1

Well after going over that list, I definitely know now that I have no idea which camera to get.

Where's that coin?
 
Correction. 7D has awful aliasing period. Hair, eyes, clothes. I'm inclined to believe that if thights could be seenthe would suffer terribly as well.
 
What in the world are "thights"? Do you think some 7Ds exhibit more moire and "awful" aliasing than other 7Ds?
 
Was on my iPhone typing.

Correction. 7D has awful aliasing period. Hair, eyes, clothes. I'm inclined to believe that if thights could be seenthe would suffer terribly as well.

Correction: the 7D image exhibits awful aliasing PERIOD. It's in hair, eyes, clothes... I'm inclined to believe that if thoughts could be seen they would also suffer from aliasing as well.
 
Kholi said:
Was on my iPhone typing.

Correction. 7D has awful aliasing period. Hair, eyes, clothes. I'm inclined to believe that if thights could be seenthe would suffer terribly as well.

Correction: the 7D image exhibits awful aliasing PERIOD. It's in hair, eyes, clothes... I'm inclined to believe that if thoughts could be seen they would also suffer from aliasing as well.
Click to expand...


I thought you were just gay and lisping a bit.

If thighths could be seenth the worldth wouldth sufferth
 
Granted we all know the downfalls compared to the 7D and I wont list them.

just for the heck of it, can we list some of those downfalls???
 
Just to update my stance in this thread, after much internal dilemma, I did end up buying the GH1 at B&H. The cost was a big factor, being that the GH1 is now $1300.00 for the kit, that's a $600 difference from the 7D price. You also have 30 days, so I figured if I didn't like it I could return it and cough up the extra money and go for the D. Part of me kind of drools for the big hunkering monster that the 7D is compared to the GH1. The 7D feels like a serious machine and the GH1 is like a tiny little stealth camera in comparison.

I am running a PC setup at home so getting clips off the camera and viewing them correctly was a bit of an issue, and nothing really worked right until I got neoscene, so if you want to do anything with these clips you really have to add $100 to your considerations.

That being said though, have decided on keeping the camera. 1080p on a smooth head tripod is fantastic and you can avoid most mud / codec issues by carefully composing shots and moving the frame at controlled rates. While I do like some aspects of the 7D's slightly over saturated colors a bit, I find that in general, the GH1 shots seem to have more detail and in the wide shots with the GH1 kit lens vs the 7D kit lens, the GH1 wins. They really are just very different looks and it's hard to accurately compare them. I haven't gotten in to playing with different lenses yet.

The swivel LCD on the GH1 and lack of one on the 7D is a big deal. It sucks not to have that once you get used to it. another factor that led me more towards the GH1 purchase.

I figure, just keep the GH1, make some money with it, then buy a 7D as well and have both until the next better thing comes along.

They need to up the codec bandwidth though. 17 mbit is too low. You can get away with it, but you are right at that tiny little thin edge with very little margin of error or headroom.

Got a Zoom H4N4 as well. It keeps perfect sync with the GH1 as an audio recorder, but the preamps on it are not great if you have a very high end boom, which I do.
 
AKED said:
Here is something to read about the GH1 codec.
It seems, that not the codec needs improvement, but the understanding about it.

http://vimeo.com/groups/gh1/forumthread:10768
Click to expand...


Read that article and I have to tell you, being an expert in compression technology for over 10 years, the article is a bunch of crap. It makes ** few ** semi valid points but then states some GLARING errors.

Basically, her argument is that because the GH1 has a better in camera processor and actually does more processing to the video, that the GH1 has more 'headroom' for quality then the canons.


The exact paragraph:

The Canon uses 40 mbps to cover the fact that it doesn't have the horsepower to compress the video adequately. They do minimal feature extraction and just dump video into the H.264 stream very lightly compressed. This is fine if you want to buy expensive flash cards and burn a lot of hard drive space. But it also means that given the differences in codec, the GH1 actually has more headroom for quality than the Canons.

Let's repeat her own sentence again and maybe she will read it:

They do minimal feature extraction and just dump video into the H.264 stream very lightly compressed.

THAT IS GOOD - THAT IS WHAT WE WANT! VERY LIGHTLY COMPRESSED.


Again, I'm non canon fanboy, nor a panasonic fanboy, I chose the GH1 at this time after playing with both of them for a while and it was a hard choice, but this article is blatantly off it's rocker. She also states there would be no benefit to increasing the codec bitrate to 24mbits. Another load of horse manure. No matter WHAT is going on with the processors and HOW efficient they are, they can only be effecient within the limitations of bandwidth they have, and when that is exceeded - you see the severe artifacts such as mud and color banding that the GH1 gets. Uppin the bandwidth WOULD allow the processor more room for highly detailed scenes, unless panasonic programmed it in some highly retarded way that I am unaware of.
 
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