Starting out! GH2... or GF1(3)?

M

MarsDC

New member
Hi, I'm a student who's about to take a serious plunge into videography. I've virtually no experience in this and thus have trouble deciding on equipment on my budget... but I've got a better clue now thanks to a few excellent threads i had a short look at which had some good advice on that subject. So i post this hoping for some friendly advice too :)

Anyway, after looking around, i think m43 is right for me. I'm really interested in the GH2. Problem is, it won't be available in my area for months and even then it'd be priced a lot higher than in other territories. So I am faced with a few options:

1. Friend in US visiting end of march. She agrees to look out for the camera but it seems like the cameras are in short supply there so I'm not sure if she can secure one.

2. There seem to be plenty of used GH2 bodies selling in stores in Tokyo. I could get a friend who resides there to send me one. This option will be a little lighter on my wallet. Unfortunately, the camera menus are in Japanese only. It would also seem that lenses are sold separately so I'm awaiting feedback from my friend on the prices of lenses to go with it.

3. Import, when option1 & 2 isn't feasible.


I'd like to save as much as I can so I'd go wih option 2, and more likely if i can get lens with it at a good price. The japanese menus would be annoying but I think after some time shooting with it it won't matter as much.


Now my worries have added up.
Recently I came across a good local GF1 deal--about 600USD for body + 20mm f1.7 lens, and that's as good as it gets around here. The serial no. of the camera as I recall was FV0CBxxxxxxx which I assume means it's hackable.
I am really tempted to buy this camera.

My question is--Can someone who owns a GF13 tell me how it fares for video and matches up to the other cameras?
Will it be good enough for a complete beginner such as myself?
I hope to work on some short films and music videos... and I hope GF13 would be good enough to handle that. Can it do 24FPS which is what i want to mostly shoot in?

Even if I make the purchase, I'll probably get a GH2 anyway, especially the japanese body one and forget about getting the 14-42mm kit lens (I have 45-200mm and a legacy 50mm in my plans though). Or perhaps GF13 would be sufficient enough for my needs until a GH3 announcement (at the rate Panny comes up with these G cameras has me thinking it'll happen this year's end). Ah, decisions decisions. :tongue:


Also, I am buying a new laptop as I need a capable machine for editing photos and videos. Been looking for some under the 1000USD range which I hope are adequate enough.
I'm kind of puzzled between the i5 and i7 processors. I heard rumors that at that price range the i5 would perform better. Is this true or should I be going for i7 instead.


Hurhur, pretty lengthy for my first post. Thanks a lot to anyone who bothered reading through that. So...
What do you think? Some feedback/advice would be greatly appreciated! :)
 
The GH/GH1(3) is excellent and fully capable of doing what you need it to. The GH2 has features you might want. Only you can make the final decision, but I can tell you that a hacked GH1 performs beautifully, and I regularly use it for professional work. The 24p thing, though, is a bit more complicated. It can do it, but only if you use some external program to remove pulldown.

As for computers, i7 is very much superior to i5. Just make sure it's not socket 1156 i5. Most of the editing advantages, however, come from the hyperthreading, which you won't really see the benefit for until you hit about 12GB of RAM. The triple channel RAM is also a nice improvement. For almost everything the i5 is fine and it's not worth the upgrade, but video is one of the few exceptions. That said, the i5 works fine with transcoded footage, it just depends how much you want to spend and where your priorities are. I don't know what the pricing is for laptops, since I don't edit on mine.
 
Thanks for the reply Cassius! The GH1 does sound really good. Getting one, especially a hackable, could pose a challenge though. Local vendors seem more keen on selling GFs. I haven't yet seen a GH1 available. Guess I should look more into that. :D

Your post about computers is very informative and helpful. I'm out of the loop with computer hardware so I really have no idea about the "i" things. I'll go for one with i7 then! However I think I'll have to settle for 8GB of RAM which I hope is sufficient for editing, as I don't see any laptops around that price that have more than two RAM slots. I do prefer desktops but a laptop will be far more convenient for my current needs.
 
Malaysia. Like almost everywhere else Canon dominates and everyone keeps telling me why I shouldn't want a Panny, but yes I think I do. :)
I had a talk with a Lumix vendor recently and he mentioned GH2 launch would likely be end April. Want one sooner than that.
Hadn't really looked into availability in UK before... I suppose if I had to import my chances are better from there. Thanks!
 
As I am seeing your post you have basically 4 purchase decisions to make here. You need to get:

1. Camera
2. Lens/Lenses
3. Computer
4. Software.

You didn't mention anything about already owning editing software, so I added that as it is extremely important to what you need to learn too.

Your software choice is going to help determine your computer needs so that is where I would begin. Depending on which software program you select, you may need to go to an i7 with lots of ram right away. It also may require a better graphics card than a laptop offers. Or you may pick an entry level consumer program that will work well on that i5.

I'd start with figuring out what your total budget is, that you have available to spend to get going. Then look a bit backwards from there, adding up the costs of everything, to see if you have enough or whether you have to cut back some. The last place I would be looking to cut back is where you seem to be starting, which is with the camera.

The GF1 will "get you in the game". Consumer grade editing software will "get you in the game". An i5 laptop will "get you int he game". Depending on how fast your progress is though, you could run into the limitations of these choices sooner than later.

It's taken me a long time to learn that I don't want to buy "too much" nor do I want to buy "too little" when I am looking at new gear. When you buy "too much" you waste money with your purchase because you paid more than you needed to. When you buy "too little" you waste money when you need to replace it with what you should have bought in the first place.

If it were me and I was stuck to working with a set amount of money and it wouldn't cover everything I really wanted to get, what I would concentrate first on would be the best camera and computer that I could afford. I would then get the cheaper lenses and consumer software to "get me by" until I had more money to buy the ones I really wanted.
 
I appreciate the excellent advice, ChipThome. It's really set me thinking. I think I have a better idea now on how I should be allocating my budget. I feel pretty silly for fussing over stuff I want before I've even begun. I really should just get whatever I need to get started and work it out from there.
I'd forgotten about the software too so thanks for bringing that up! :)
 
ChipThome said:
The GF1 will "get you in the game". Consumer grade editing software will "get you in the game". An i5 laptop will "get you int he game". Depending on how fast your progress is though, you could run into the limitations of these choices sooner than later.
Click to expand...

Id forget about a GF1 and just go for a pre owned GH1.

If your on a budget id not get the GH2 (second hand GH1 can be had for about $500USD, forget about the GF1, its great but second hand prices are pretty much the same as GH1)
check this thread about serial numbers...
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?218181-GH1-and-GF1-valid-serial-range

if your on ebay and find a GH1 email the seller and ask for the serial number... you want a WE9 (2009) model, WE0 (2010) are less likely to be hackable.

if your starting out and want to limit the damage to your cash...

1. GH1 (ebay, second hand, check serial number for a WE9 model)

2. Canon FD to M4/3 adapter (ebay ($20USD) so you can attach old manual focus canon lenses, still affordable and good quality)

3. Canon FD 50mm f1.4 & Canon FD 28mm f2.8 (ebay, around $70USD each)

4. Computer (with enough RAM to cut, edit & play 1080 HD footage) i bought a 27" Apple Mac with 8GB RAM and it runs super high res with ease ($2000ish USD)

5. Adobe CS5, you can download a trial from the Adobe website and use it for 1 month to test it out, its the full version, it is missing the AVCHD timeline templates but when you enter a serial to unlock the trail to the full version it opens up all features.

This was the route i took and i've learnt so much in 1 year, theres plenty tutorials on youtube and stuff on how to edit in Adobe Premiere CS5, plus its not that hard to pick up once you have the basics.
 
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