GH2 Purchased a GH2 this weekend!

Brandon Rice

Brandon Rice

Distributed Producer
I am finally back to Panasonic, and I could not be more excited! I am still learning the camera, but I'm sure I'll have MANY questions for you all. It came with a 14-140mm kit lens, and I guess my first question is... How do you manual focus this thing? I've been digging into the menu, but I don't see where I can switch it to full manual focus... Any help would be great! I also received an FD (Canon) adapter with the camera, so I'll be looking at some older Canon primes as well. Any suggestions on those would be great too.

Thanks all! I know I'm a little late to the party, but I've been "away" from film-making for a few years. Looking forward to jumping back in.
 
Brandon, have you read the setting up your GH2 sticky thread at the top of the Panasonic GH page?
It contains some very helpful material.
 
welcome back Brandon, gh2 is a sweet little rig, but we are entering the gh4 realm very soon. Yeah man check out some of the helpful GH2 posts as well as youtube videos.

 
Kevin Lee said:
welcome back Brandon, gh2 is a sweet little rig, but we are entering the gh4 realm very soon. Yeah man check out some of the helpful GH2 posts as well as youtube videos.

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Thanks, and thanks for the info! Yes, the GH-4 is IMPRESSIVE! Unfortunately, my budget can only allow me to step back in at a few generations back. That is okay for me, as I'm convinced it's not always about the pixels, but what you do with them that matters :)
 
Long time gh2 shooter here, still love it!! I recently bought the g6, which is a great b-cam to the gh2 or gh3 for the 1080 60p, however the 60p on a hacked gh2 looks damn good. To answer your question based on lens advice, my new favorite (well for about a year) is an old 24mm f2.8 Tokina I found in a thrift shop, It was for a pentax pk mount. This lens is my goto lens for most every thing. It's sharper wide open than my Canon 24mm fd, it looks so beautiful compared to my Samyang 24mm, or the Canon for that matter. I love this lens. They can be found on ebay for small money, it's light and compact. I also had fun shooting an old Hannimex zoom, 28-80, f3.5 slow, yes. But it had a really great macro feature. Unfortunately my fd to m4/3rds mount got stuck, and my temper got the best of me. I ended up throwing it on my garage floor smashing it. I have low tolerance to crappy Chinese adapters :) So now I'm looking for another, q:>)
 
Brandon Rice said:
...I'm convinced it's not always about the pixels, but what you do with them that matters :)
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Yes. Obviously I'm biased as I own a GH2 as well, but cameras have been good enough for some time. The difference between say, a T2i and the C300, while significant, is greatly diminished by so many other aspects of production. I'd love a bit more dynamic range, and might eventually spring for a Blackmagic Pocket Cam (or its successor), but a hacked GH2 is an outstanding camera.
 
Thanks for all the information everyone! One more question I've got. I'm going to primarily be using the camera for a lot of live event stuff, such as weddings. I was wondering what battery solutions there might be out there? When using a 5D I've used some 3rd party batteries with moderate success, even some communicating to give me an idea on how long I have left. The first party batteries are so expensive, but if I have to get them I will. Any thoughts?
 
There is a battery grip for the gh2, I never did buy it though. From what I've heard the after market batt, are not chipped, and therefore can not give a battery life reading. Although that may have changed. There's also some vids on YouTube that show how to make a long life setup using a 9volt batt, with an after market dummy batt. Be careful with the HDMI connector, I use a cage with a cable lock to keep it snug. I can post a vid of some different rig configs to give you some ideas for a cost effective solution that would help with rigging it. Are you going to use an external monitor?
 
maranfilms said:
There is a battery grip for the gh2, I never did buy it though. From what I've heard the after market batt, are not chipped, and therefore can not give a battery life reading. Although that may have changed. There's also some vids on YouTube that show how to make a long life setup using a 9volt batt, with an after market dummy batt. Be careful with the HDMI connector, I use a cage with a cable lock to keep it snug. I can post a vid of some different rig configs to give you some ideas for a cost effective solution that would help with rigging it. Are you going to use an external monitor?
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I won't be using an external monitor, but I need it to be easy to run-n-gun with at a wedding event. I haven't been able to find the grip.
 
I just purchased a Canon 50mm f1.8 for $40 on Ebay to try out the older lenses with this camera. If I like it, I'll probably pick up a few more older manual lenses.

Probably will be more for narrative stuff, as I'll use the zoom for live events.
 
No problem. They are headed to EBay, but I won't get around to that this month - I'll give you a heads up when I'm about to list them. I'm asking $60 for the 135mm.

GH
 
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