GH2 Questions about GH2 and GH3 cameras for video

Fresno Bob said:
I'd say if you are asking that question, you haven't done enough research before posting.
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Not really. The question was part of the research.

Though in a way the question is rethorical. I guess if I ask it at the Canon forum they will also list a bunch of films made with it.

The GH2 certainly looks like a very interesting option and it has its deserved following. Comparative tests I have seen here put it in a very good place.

About losing my chance to get a new unit, the one I could got get in Canada was a bit expensive, not at B&H prices, and I can't get it from B&H. So I can't rush it.
 
I'm coming again to this topic, because I haven't given up on going the GH2 way. But I want to know for sure what I'm getting myself into. I don't want any regrets afterward.

Yesterday I was googling on the Pana AF100/101, and I found this test comparing the AF101 to the GH2:

http://vimeo.com/26841285

For one thing it's a real pity Panasonic, with its usual behaviour that I can't quite understand, discontinued the AF100/101, as I think it was a good option to the FS100.

Anyway, the AF100/101 sensor is the 4/3 used on the GH2.

What got my attention is once again what looked to me as rolling shutter distortions. On several moving subjects, they seem to "break" in the middle, looking like the "Total Recall effect" (first version), if you know what I mean.

Is the rolling shutter which is causing that?

There's a shot of the GH2 at about 2:38 minutes, with the dog face up front, and some people pass-by behind. At about 1:19 there seems to be a similar aberration on the guy shot. I see them sort of "breaking up" in the middle, but I wonder if that is Vimeo clip doing that instead of the rolling shutter.
 
carlmart said:
I'm coming again to this topic, because I haven't given up on going the GH2 way. But I want to know for sure what I'm getting myself into. I don't want any regrets afterward.

Yesterday I was googling on the Pana AF100/101, and I found this test comparing the AF101 to the GH2:

http://vimeo.com/26841285

For one thing it's a real pity Panasonic, with its usual behaviour that I can't quite understand, discontinued the AF100/101, as I think it was a good option to the FS100.

Anyway, the AF100/101 sensor is the 4/3 used on the GH2.

What got my attention is once again what looked to me as rolling shutter distortions. On several moving subjects, they seem to "break" in the middle, looking like the "Total Recall effect" (first version), if you know what I mean.

Is the rolling shutter which is causing that?

There's a shot of the GH2 at about 2:38 minutes, with the dog face up front, and some people pass-by behind. At about 1:19 there seems to be a similar aberration on the guy shot. I see them sort of "breaking up" in the middle, but I wonder if that is Vimeo clip doing that instead of the rolling shutter.
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You are thinking way to much.......
First and foremost the Af100 was discontinued because a NEW Revision of that model has been released
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=905777&is=REG&Q=&A=details


Secondly GH2 sells for very cheap online (Ebay) that ships to any part of the world. If $700 or less is your worries then you have some other priorities you need to get straight.

Finally, NO camera is perfect and you work around their weaknesses and play to their strengths. Just like a user here mentioned that his old camera was better for handheld work and auto focus, within that same vein I would say the Hacked GH2 has more dynamic range, shallow dof and A LOT better in low light shooting.... Point is, these cameras are more than good to shoot a film with.

Canon or Panasonic dslr's while not perfect can achieve good things with many other factors involved within a project.
Get to work and be creative is the #1 thing we all need to be doing

Peace
 
First, AFAIK thinking too much has rarely been a problem.

Second, my main question here was the problem I saw in the image, and I asked if it might be a camera problem or a Vimeo problem. Can you tell me that?

About getting to work, I am working, shooting a documentary with a Sony Z1 in 50i, that I intend to make into a feature length movie to be released in theaters. Hopefully I am being creative too. ;)

But I want to improve on the quality I already have, particularly to achive shallower depth of field, defocusing the backgrounds.
 
carlmart said:
There's a shot of the GH2 at about 2:38 minutes, with the dog face up front, and some people pass-by behind. At about 1:19 there seems to be a similar aberration on the guy shot. I see them sort of "breaking up" in the middle, but I wonder if that is Vimeo clip doing that instead of the rolling shutter.
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I just watched the whole thing a couple of times over and I see none of what you're describing in the way of "breaking up", I'm also seeing no rolling shutter effect in it.

I have 3 GH2's and just got a GH3 end of January. I am seeing no faults in anything I've done with any of them. So if you want a GH2 you better get after it while they are still available, otherwise budget for the GH3 but quit "agonizing" over it.
 
I'm not really agonizing over this matter. In fact seeing a bit more of the rolling shutter problems all DSLR cameras seem to have made me think things again.

I might get a chance to get a new GH2 at a shop in Buenos Aires in a trip I will be doing there, as I saw a few at a good price. Not B&H prices, but reasonably good.

If I don't get it, it will be fine too. As somebody said on this topic, GH3 prices will go down eventually too. My problem with the GH3 camera anyway is that it does seem to come in PAL and NTSC versions, and even have some recording time limitations on some versions.
 
I'm hoping the GH3 will eventually be hacked making it the better choice in the long run, IMO
 
I believe a little less than a year..but I may be wrong. I remember people getting a hold of the camera towards the end of 2010/early 2011 and then lots of progress in the hacking was done in the summer/fall of 2011...but again may be totally wrong. Regardless, the GH3 is still so new. It's only been a few months and I'm assuming hacking a camera/firmware isn't easy..especially if Panasonic made it extra difficult this time around.
 
carlmart said:
How long did the GH2 hack take to be released?
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The GH2 hack appeared shortly after Panasonic released the first firmware update was released.

The GH3 hack will also require a firmware update from Panasonic. ( I expect this will happen within the next 6 months )
 
Which are the best mem cards to use with the GH2, and which capacity is better?

This may seem an "old fashioned", but I'm not used to shooting with mem cards. How do you backup the media so you will not lose what you recorded?

What I mean is how many backups?
 
Initially when I come back from a "shoot" I pull the card from the camera and using a reader (either built in or external) copy the files to a temporary folder where I can do a quick review and rename (so I'll have filenames that "mean" something).

At this point I still have the original "take" on the media card.

Then the "renamed" files are copied to a project folder on TWO separate external hard drives (2TB) and I keep a third drive is in "standby" status in case of any problem with one of the primary pair.
 
OK. Upload and backup seems to be well taken care of with such procedure.

About the mem cards, SD, SDHC and SDXC Memory Cards are the ones the can be used with the GH2. Are there specific brands or types that work or do not work with it?

I ask this because I have a digital audio recorder, and there were some card models that did and others that did not work with it.

The GH2 can record continuous takes for how long? Is there a limit time? Apparently there is on some GH3 types.
 
carlmart said:
Which are the best mem cards to use with the GH2, and which capacity is better?
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SanDisk SDXC UHS-I 64GB 95MB/sec cards are currently the best high performance cards for the GH2/GH3 cameras. These cards will work with any of the high bit-rate hacks.

The smaller sized SanDisk SDHC UHS-I 64GB 95MB/sec cards ( i.e. 32GB or smaller ) will NOT span at the higher bit-rates, so if you want to shoot long takes at high bit-rates you MUST use the 64GB SDXC cards.

Using Lee Powell's excellent Flow Motion ver 2.02 patch ( variable bit rates up to 130 Mbits ) you can expect to shoot 2 hours of high quality footage on one 64GB SDXC card, which means that you can shoot one 2 hour take on one card. At the lower bit-rate setting you can expect to almost double this time.

The patched GH2 has no time limit for a single take, provided your battery doesn't die or your memory card doesn't fill up. In theory you could shoot one 12+ hour take at the standard GH2 bit-rate.

...In North America you can buy the Patriot EP SDXC UHS-I memory cards for less than $50 from NewEgg.com or Amazon.com. I own several of these cards, and they work fine with any of the 100 Mbit/sec patches I have used them with. ( I've been using Patriot SDHC cards for more than 5 years now with no problems at all, but I still own a pair of the SanDisk 64GB SDXC UHS-I 95MB/sec cards just in case )
 
OK. There seems to be lot of information here for me to digest.

To start with, and beginning with the end, how is it that AVCHD format files are a lot that need to be stitched later on? What programs do that?

My editing program of choice is Avid Media Composer: will it do it or I will need a conversion step?

If you can't explain this, please refer me to where I can get information to learn about this.

And then how is it that this firmware works and how many firmware hacks are there?
 
carlmart said:
How is it that AVCHD format files are a lot that need to be stitched later on?
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This has nothing to do with the AVCHD format.

All consumer memory cards use the Microsoft FAT32 partitioning format, which has a 4GB maximum file size limitation.

To get around this limitation the AVCHD format segments larger video files into 4GB pieces and also writes meta-data to the memory card that describes how the pieces can be reassembled back into a single large AVCHD video file.

Most of the major video editing apps ( Sony Vegas, Adobe Premiere, Final Cut Pro X, etc... ) come with an import utility that will reassemble the segments back into one file on your hard drive.

I would expect AVID Media Composer to have this type of utility too.
 
TheDingo said:
All consumer memory cards use the Microsoft FAT32 partitioning format, which has a 4GB maximum file size limitation.
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That's not entirely accurate. The cards themselves can be formatted as exFAT or NTFS. It's the camera makers that limit their use to the outmoded and limiting FAT32.
 
That's certainly true. It's the same with memory sticks, which now come in large sizes, and can be formatted for FAT32 or ntfs. That's something the camera makers are to be blamed for.

Panasonic allowed exFAT on their AF100 video camera, so I wonder why they didn't use it on the GH2/GH3. The only demand is that you will need Windows 7.
 
Jim Simon said:
The cards themselves can be formatted as exFAT or NTFS.
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Yes, these card can be formatted using several different partitioning formats ( I've never tried Linux partitions, but it would not surprise me if that works too), but they are shipped from the manufacturer with FAT32 formatting and the cameras that you will use them with require FAT32 formatting, so until things change, we are stuck with the limitations of FAT32.
 
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