GH2 Sigma 20mm F1.8

Well... here is a small video punishing the Sigma 20mm 1.8 in low light and high isos. None of the shots are very practical, but I was curious to see how it holds up in less than accommodating circumstances. I'll post a good test with people / outdoors / proper lighting once my Vari ND comes in!

 
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Kholi said:
My thought's that the perfect lens set for this thing consists of a 20/1.4~2, 24~28/1.4~2, 35/1.4, and a 50/1.4

The rest is icing.
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Like Corpse, I was surprised to hear you say that!

If I had only one lens to shoot a feature with, it would be the Nokton 25mm 0.95, a wonderful, wonderful lens. Gareth Edwards shot MONSTERS just with a 50mm, and the Nokton would essentially have a 50mm eqv. focal length. It is the equivalent of what the human can see.

However, if I had 2 lenses to shoot a feature with, I would add the Noktor 12mm 1.6 to the Nokton. It's such a great lens, 24mm focal equivalent which is a film standard for wides, Andrew Reid's video here is a great example and review of it:
http://www.eoshd.com/content/4435/slr-magic-noktor-12mm-f1-6-gh2

The 12mm is super smooth handheld, and brilliant on a Glidecam HD 1000. I too like photographing people, using a Canon Fd 50mm 1,4 and Sigma 85mm 1.4, but I don't use them as much as the 12mm (and the 25 most of the time).

Give it a go Kholi! You'll soon fall in love with how cinematic it makes nightime city shots, use a 77mm Fader ND to create a truly unique look with a 1.6 aperture on a wide angle, and for interiors it's a godsend.
 
dvxhutch said:
Like Corpse, I was surprised to hear you say that!
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Kids like me say the darndest things. =V

If I had only one lens to shoot a feature with, it would be the Nokton 25mm 0.95, a wonderful, wonderful lens. Gareth Edwards shot MONSTERS just with a 50mm, and the Nokton would essentially have a 50mm eqv. focal length. It is the equivalent of what the human can see.
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Actually? It would be equal to about 32mm on GH2 in video. Calculate the oversized image, that's what you should arrive at. If you want to shoot 50mmish, use 35mm.

Oddly enough, 32~35mm is pretty much what lens you would grab on a S35 sized sensor most of the time. That's also why I like the look of my 28mm, it's perfect.

The 24/2 is nice too.
However, if I had 2 lenses to shoot a feature with, I would add the Noktor 12mm 1.6 to the Nokton. It's such a great lens, 24mm focal equivalent which is a film standard for wides, Andrew Reid's video here is a great example and review of it:
http://www.eoshd.com/content/4435/slr-magic-noktor-12mm-f1-6-gh2
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24mm in Full frame, though. You're basically looking at around 16mm AOV that would be displayed with an S35 sensor, or right, around 22mm on MKII (in video)

The 12mm is super smooth handheld, and brilliant on a Glidecam HD 1000. I too like photographing people, using a Canon Fd 50mm 1,4 and Sigma 85mm 1.4, but I don't use them as much as the 12mm (and the 25 most of the time).
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Can't argue with that. It should defnitely be super smooth. Probably just comes down to preference in composition.

Give it a go Kholi! You'll soon fall in love with how cinematic it makes nightime city shots, use a 77mm Fader ND to create a truly unique look with a 1.6 aperture on a wide angle, and for interiors it's a godsend.
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Well, I've actually used a 10/T1.3 Ultra Prime on GH2, wide open. xD It's too much for my tastes, but that's just me! I think a lot of people will like the 12mm look, though.

In the event that I do need that wide, I'm definitely gonna reach for a ZUP again!
 
L1N3ARX said:
Well... here is a small video punishing the Sigma 20mm 1.8 in low light and high isos. None of the shots are very practical, but I was curious to see how it holds up in less than accommodating circumstances. I'll post a good test with people / outdoors / proper lighting once my Vari ND comes in!

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Really can't wait to get this, now. That's pretty much what I mean by a good wide that doesn't distort like crazy. Not the sharpest tool in the shed wide open but I am sure the original looks not only more resolute but cleaner as well.

Thanks for posting! Wednesday is too far away.
 
That's very nice. Indeed this lens can create an illusion of a larger space than in reality. Which is the point of wide angle to begin with, a 5 meter corridor turns into 10 meter long in the film. I want that camera motion too.

The codec is still a bit mushy. You could try to boost green curve a bit and lower red and blue curves to see if that reduces mushiness. If so, then the problem is the same that GH1 has, which is low resolution red and blue channels. I get terrific almost noise free footage coming out of GH1 already, but with cold hues at the moment. I use a blue filter on the lens, which allows me to pull blue curve down and that has nearly eliminated serious banding problem of the GH1 leaving me with clean albeit cold looking footage. I would need more color filters for better testing but they are not easy to come by.
 
Definitely... I always grade / correct my footage, as you can see by my other vids. This was merely a high iso test with the footage intended to be left untouched / ungraded.
 
Is there a chance you might put a few corridor shots from the mid ISO range available for download, so I could test some cleaning methods on the raw material? Here is a sample of Internet video that finally comes from GH1, and at first it looked like it was going to be truly hopeless: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnw5jXCHG4k

That much noise reduction requires filtering on the lens. But there are several methods that I could test on the unfiltered GH2 material. Ideally ready made templates and presets would be created to allow cleanest video on a whim. Next I am going to start looking at the gamma curves, so that a lens filtered video could be turned into normal colors but with some noise reduction and hopefully clean color gradients.
 
Well on this video particularly, the noise / artifacting was far worse than the original footage; it was the first time I decided to export at 720p, which after further vimeo compression really exemplified the the overall noisiness. Today I shot another few scenes, but this time on tripod, comparing both it and the sigma 30mm 1.4 from the same position. There are a few corridor shots and low light shots in a parking structure. I'll probably upload it this afternoon.

This time however I'm going to encode at 1080p and a higher bit rate and let vimeo downgrade from there.
 
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If you're using After Effects, you can press Alt + 1, 2, 3 to view each RGB channel solo. You could then see which channel might require attention. Flattening and adding channel blur for red, for example, could help in scenes with warm tones.
 
Yeah, I definitely grade / color correct my other stuff but I needed to show raw footage straight from the camera for this kind of test, just to be more objective.

Okay so here are 2 more videos testing out the Sigma 20mm 1.8. The second one is again, similar to the other that I posted, but this time comparing it with the Sigma 30mm 1.4. I made the unfortunate mistake of leaving the sharpness at -2, which for this lens it could have definitely benefited from +1 or +2 sharpness, but it's not too bad. I've since grabbed a few more clips with +2 sharpness (not here) and it is really nice, almost the same as what the sigma 30mm is at -2.


 
Hmm... I really like the look of this 20/1.8. Very atmospheric. Definitely feels filmic, if that word has any meaning at this point. Thanks for this footage, L1N3ARX!
 
I gotta say, man, for just messin around you shoot some nice stuff. Great compositions all around.
 
OldCorpse said:
Hmm... I really like the look of this 20/1.8. Very atmospheric. Definitely feels filmic, if that word has any meaning at this point. Thanks for this footage, L1N3ARX!
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I'm definitely a fan of the sigma mojo, I find them more cinematic than similar lenses at the same price point.
 
Kholi said:
I gotta say, man, for just messin around you shoot some nice stuff. Great compositions all around.
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Well eventually, gonna attempt to do a film so I need to mess around as much as I can ha, shed some of my noobiness. The gh2 has definitely gotten me excited about the prospect of making a film; this thing is a godsend.
 
Man Amazon shipped fast! Though it wasnt' gonna be here until Wednesday, arrived an hour ago.

Gotta go n'grab it and some filterage too!
 
Nice, you must live close to where they ship from. I'm desperate to get a vari nd for mine, but it won't arrive until Thursday, which is pretty lame. Guess I'll just have to make due until then.
 
L1N3ARX said:
Nice, you must live close to where they ship from. I'm desperate to get a vari nd for mine, but it won't arrive until Thursday, which is pretty lame. Guess I'll just have to make due until then.
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Still debating the Vari ND.

Also, I'm curious about an 82mm Panasonic Wide Angle adapter going on it. Could be cool!
 
If you get a wide angle adapter, I wouldn't mind seeing what that looks like. The focus ring is weird, I didn't realize you had to disengage the "clutch" for manual focus. Never seen that before. I got worried for a second, frantically spinning the focus ring without it doing anything ha.
 
That's normal for Sigma glass, DG stuff, anyway. The Tokina 11-16's like that if I remember right.
 
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