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Post by rowmat on Dec 28, 2017 19:35:18 GMT -6
I have a bit of an addiction to vintage lenses especially old Pentax and Takumar SLR camera lenses.
When used with an adapter on my GH2's they are beautiful for shooting video.
The lenses produced in the late 1960's through to the early 1970's are not only optically beautiful but are constructed as well as any Leica or Zeiss lenses.
They can still be purchased relatively cheap used.
I've picked up Takumar 50mm F1.4 lenses for around $100 in the past.
Around 2012 I bought two brand new GH2's from B&H after the GH3 came out for $500 each.
A GH2 with hacked firmware and Takumar glass can produce very organic looking film like footage that doesn't resemble the typical digital video footage of many consumer digital video cams.
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Post by svart on Dec 28, 2017 20:56:40 GMT -6
In the end most of the better lowend vidiots I know use DSLR's because it comes down to the quality of optics's! I have three old Panasonic GH2's which are so-so for stills but excellent for video especially with a firmware hack that increases the bitrate. I use mostly old Pentax prime lenses with adapters which are great. I'm still amazed by the image quality that these rather cheap, small cameras produce. I have a hacked gh2. I was part of the original group who worked on the original hack of the gh1. I now have a gh5 for primary use. I still have the gh2 and a G6 that I'll end up selling, and a bunch of manual Nikon primes to sell too. |
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Post by rowmat on Dec 28, 2017 21:13:47 GMT -6
I have three old Panasonic GH2's which are so-so for stills but excellent for video especially with a firmware hack that increases the bitrate. I use mostly old Pentax prime lenses with adapters which are great. I'm still amazed by the image quality that these rather cheap, small cameras produce. I have a hacked gh2. I was part of the original group who worked on the original hack of the gh1. I now have a gh5 for primary use. I still have the gh2 and a G6 that I'll end up selling, and a bunch of manual Nikon primes to sell too. Interesting. I actually looked at a GH3 when they first came out but discovered they had quite a bit of moire and aliasing compared to my GH2 which has very little. The main issue with the GH2 is the dynamic range and you have to be careful with the highlights but I find that overall it still can produce pretty decent video footage. I've seen GH1 footage that looked quite organic for a relatively low cost consumer camera. Obviously the GH5 is 4k and I believe has a couple stops more of dynamic range over the GH2 but how is the moire in comparison with the GH2? I never particularly liked the footage from the Canon 5D MKII's that were all the rage some years ago. Once you got past all the crazy ultra shallow depth of field videos that were being posted all over YouTube and Vimeo and actually looked more closely at the video quality I thought Canon's image was a bit soft and mushy with a lot of aliasing. To my eyes the GH2's resolution looked better at 720 than a 5D MKII did at 1080. I always turned off the in camera sharpening which of course in just contrast edge enhancement anyway. |
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Post by indiehouse on Dec 29, 2017 6:54:50 GMT -6
I use a GH3 with some nice lenses (Voigtlander 25mm, Olympus 75mm, 45mm). It's mostly about the quality of glass.
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Post by jcoutu1 on Dec 29, 2017 7:40:38 GMT -6
Here’s an example: The occasional fixed position from the back is the v770. The rest of the shots are GH4’s. It’s not the best advertisement for the V770 because the GH4 is so much better... but it’ll give you an idea. That GH4 footage looks balls. How close would a GH2 get to that? |
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Post by svart on Dec 29, 2017 8:38:33 GMT -6
Here’s an example: The occasional fixed position from the back is the v770. The rest of the shots are GH4’s. It’s not the best advertisement for the V770 because the GH4 is so much better... but it’ll give you an idea. That GH4 footage looks balls. How close would a GH2 get to that? Gh2 won't be that sharp. It has a smoothness to it that looks cool, but it's not nearly as sharp as the later gh series. I have a G6 body for sale that's much closer to the gh4 in terms of sharpness and color.. the G6 doesn't have live HDMI viewing while recording, but it does have Wi-Fi viewing via an app while recording. |
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Post by jcoutu1 on Dec 29, 2017 9:46:24 GMT -6
That GH4 footage looks balls. How close would a GH2 get to that? Gh2 won't be that sharp. It has a smoothness to it that looks cool, but it's not nearly as sharp as the later gh series. I have a G6 body for sale that's much closer to the gh4 in terms of sharpness and color.. the G6 doesn't have live HDMI viewing while recording, but it does have Wi-Fi viewing via an app while recording. Pm me with the info on what you're selling. |
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Post by rowmat on Dec 29, 2017 11:06:35 GMT -6
That GH4 footage looks balls. How close would a GH2 get to that? Gh2 won't be that sharp. It has a smoothness to it that looks cool, but it's not nearly as sharp as the later gh series. I have a G6 body for sale that's much closer to the gh4 in terms of sharpness and color.. the G6 doesn't have live HDMI viewing while recording, but it does have Wi-Fi viewing via an app while recording. I never felt the GH2 lacked sharpness for a 1080 camera especially compared to most other hybrid DLSR's that were around at the time. I spent more time trying to avoid the digital oversharpened look. Heck I even bought a couple of Tiffen Pro Mist filters to take the edge of things. I guess I was trying to get more of a film look. A bit like mixing a Pro Tools session to analog tape on an old Ampex AG440 1/4" at 15ips! |
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Post by jcoutu1 on Jan 2, 2018 13:39:26 GMT -6
What are your thoughts on 1080 vs. 4k these days? It seems like 4k is the best option for being a bit more future compatible and allowing better editing ability in post. Is 1080 still worth investing in or should I jump straight to 4k since I'm basically starting from scratch? wiz, thanks for the editing vid. Here's a vid I shot Thursday. For this video, I had 2 phones set up on selfie sticks taped to mic stands. Then I played back the audio recording in his phones, he played along with it, and I got the moving shots. Chopped it all up in Final Cut. Bada bing. |
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Post by wiz on Jan 2, 2018 14:34:46 GMT -6
What are your thoughts on 1080 vs. 4k these days? It seems like 4k is the best option for being a bit more future compatible and allowing better editing ability in post. Is 1080 still worth investing in or should I jump straight to 4k since I'm basically starting from scratch? wiz , thanks for the editing vid. Here's a vid I shot Thursday. For this video, I had 2 phones set up on selfie sticks taped to mic stands. Then I played back the audio recording in his phones, he played along with it, and I got the moving shots. Chopped it all up in Final Cut. Bada bing. That's great... now look up ken burns effect...and shoot B roll of other stuff...your gear...his shoes....guitars coming out of cases etc....use some transitions....and change vision every 4 to 5 seconds...with a couple of long bits. also put your website and contact and artist details at the start and all in the comments of your video.... also tag the video on YouTube with lots of stuff, flea microphones, locomotive audio, Midas etc great stuff Wiz |
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Post by jcoutu1 on Jan 2, 2018 15:05:30 GMT -6
What are your thoughts on 1080 vs. 4k these days? It seems like 4k is the best option for being a bit more future compatible and allowing better editing ability in post. Is 1080 still worth investing in or should I jump straight to 4k since I'm basically starting from scratch? wiz , thanks for the editing vid. Here's a vid I shot Thursday. For this video, I had 2 phones set up on selfie sticks taped to mic stands. Then I played back the audio recording in his phones, he played along with it, and I got the moving shots. Chopped it all up in Final Cut. Bada bing. That's great... now look up ken burns effect...and shoot B roll of other stuff...your gear...his shoes....guitars coming out of cases etc....use some transitions....and change vision every 4 to 5 seconds...with a couple of long bits. also put your website and contact and artist details at the start and all in the comments of your video.... also tag the video on YouTube with lots of stuff, flea microphones, locomotive audio, Midas etc great stuff Wiz Thanks wiz. We shot some B-roll stuff the other day too. This vid was just a test to get multiple cameras set up. Next vid will incorporate some control room shots and all that stuff too. I've got the sites in the description and tagged all sorts of stuff like you said. Thanks for the tips. |
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Post by indiehouse on Jan 3, 2018 11:48:59 GMT -6
Like I said, glass is the most important thing. Your lenses will be keepers. Body's come and go. 1080, 4K, etc. Not sure if you need to invest in 4K at the moment, but if you pick up a current body, I'm sure that will be an option. Also, keep in mind the GH series uses micro 4/3 lenses, not the full frame lenses of bodies like Nikons and Cannons. You'll want to make the decision up front whether to go with micro 4/3 or full frame. Invest in nice glass. www.slrlounge.com/11-key-differences-micro-43-vs-dslr/ |
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Post by svart on Jan 3, 2018 12:17:50 GMT -6
Gh2 won't be that sharp. It has a smoothness to it that looks cool, but it's not nearly as sharp as the later gh series. I have a G6 body for sale that's much closer to the gh4 in terms of sharpness and color.. the G6 doesn't have live HDMI viewing while recording, but it does have Wi-Fi viewing via an app while recording. I never felt the GH2 lacked sharpness for a 1080 camera especially compared to most other hybrid DLSR's that were around at the time. I spent more time trying to avoid the digital oversharpened look. Heck I even bought a couple of Tiffen Pro Mist filters to take the edge of things. I guess I was trying to get more of a film look. A bit like mixing a Pro Tools session to analog tape on an old Ampex AG440 1/4" at 15ips! I shot all my GH2 work on old Nikon AI lenses. Not the sharpest, but had a nice organic feel. Good film is really, really sharp, above 100megapixel of digital sharpness.. So I don't necessarily equate sharpness with digital, or film, but it seems the blending of the colors and/or grain make something feel a lot more like film. Since the GH2 had a relatively low megapixel count, but used a specific way to scan out pixels, the result looked a lot more organic, than purely sharp. The G6 was a lot more "sharp" in edge contrast and differentiation, but still used the same class of sensor as the GH2 did, so it also looks relatively "filmic" while being sharper overall. The GH5 I'm now using looks a whole lot more "sharp" to the eye, but the noise grain from the compression is a lot less noticeable, so it looks a lot cleaner, but less organic. Testing some post-production stuff on Davinci Resolve, I can make it look a bit more filmic, so I've been playing with workflows to maintain the sharpness of the GH5, but blending colors and such like the GH2. |
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Post by svart on Jan 3, 2018 12:20:55 GMT -6
What are your thoughts on 1080 vs. 4k these days? It seems like 4k is the best option for being a bit more future compatible and allowing better editing ability in post. Is 1080 still worth investing in or should I jump straight to 4k since I'm basically starting from scratch? wiz , thanks for the editing vid. Here's a vid I shot Thursday. For this video, I had 2 phones set up on selfie sticks taped to mic stands. Then I played back the audio recording in his phones, he played along with it, and I got the moving shots. Chopped it all up in Final Cut. Bada bing. 4K takes a pretty powerful machine to edit and color correct. Otherwise, it's just the amount of detail you want to capture and maintain. I think 1080 is fine for pretty much all studio music vids, but 4k is a lot more warranted if you're doing more composed/scripted work. I plan on staying 1080 for most simple music video projects, but using 4k on my short films, etc. |
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Post by svart on Jan 3, 2018 12:23:47 GMT -6
Like I said, glass is the most important thing. Your lenses will be keepers. Body's come and go. 1080, 4K, etc. Not sure if you need to invest in 4K at the moment, but if you pick up a current body, I'm sure that will be an option. Also, keep in mind the GH series uses micro 4/3 lenses, not the full frame lenses of bodies like Nikons and Cannons. You'll want to make the decision up front whether to go with micro 4/3 or full frame. Invest in nice glass. www.slrlounge.com/11-key-differences-micro-43-vs-dslr/Because of the flange distance of M4/3 bodies, you can use external adapters to pretty much all types of lenses, in any flange types including Nikon F/G, Canon, PL, etc. There is no compelling reason to use M4/3 lenses other than the option to autofocus and some lenses having OIS. |
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Post by indiehouse on Jan 3, 2018 12:41:19 GMT -6
Like I said, glass is the most important thing. Your lenses will be keepers. Body's come and go. 1080, 4K, etc. Not sure if you need to invest in 4K at the moment, but if you pick up a current body, I'm sure that will be an option. Also, keep in mind the GH series uses micro 4/3 lenses, not the full frame lenses of bodies like Nikons and Cannons. You'll want to make the decision up front whether to go with micro 4/3 or full frame. Invest in nice glass. www.slrlounge.com/11-key-differences-micro-43-vs-dslr/Because of the flange distance of M4/3 bodies, you can use external adapters to pretty much all types of lenses, in any flange types including Nikon F/G, Canon, PL, etc. There is no compelling reason to use M4/3 lenses other than the option to autofocus and some lenses having OIS. True. Just be aware of any cropping issues you might run into. Also, not sure if all adapters are the same. You might need several adapters depending on lens. One more thing, I'd look at lenses that do well in low lighting since you'll be filming in your studio, which I'm assuming is mostly vibe lighting? My Voigtlander 25mm goes down to f/0.95. Love that lens. |
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Post by rowmat on Jan 3, 2018 17:00:28 GMT -6
I never felt the GH2 lacked sharpness for a 1080 camera especially compared to most other hybrid DLSR's that were around at the time. I spent more time trying to avoid the digital oversharpened look. Heck I even bought a couple of Tiffen Pro Mist filters to take the edge of things. I guess I was trying to get more of a film look. A bit like mixing a Pro Tools session to analog tape on an old Ampex AG440 1/4" at 15ips! I shot all my GH2 work on old Nikon AI lenses. Not the sharpest, but had a nice organic feel. Good film is really, really sharp, above 100megapixel of digital sharpness.. So I don't necessarily equate sharpness with digital, or film, but it seems the blending of the colors and/or grain make something feel a lot more like film. Since the GH2 had a relatively low megapixel count, but used a specific way to scan out pixels, the result looked a lot more organic, than purely sharp. The G6 was a lot more "sharp" in edge contrast and differentiation, but still used the same class of sensor as the GH2 did, so it also looks relatively "filmic" while being sharper overall. The GH5 I'm now using looks a whole lot more "sharp" to the eye, but the noise grain from the compression is a lot less noticeable, so it looks a lot cleaner, but less organic. Testing some post-production stuff on Davinci Resolve, I can make it look a bit more filmic, so I've been playing with workflows to maintain the sharpness of the GH5, but blending colors and such like the GH2. I believe the GH2 sensor utilised pixel binning (effectively combining several pixels into one) to downscale the sensor pixel count from stills to video and also didn't suffer from strong anti-aliasing filtering typically used on many hybrid consumer video cams. (see below) Pixel binning is supposed to reduce aliaising (those stepped little jaggies especially notticeable on straight diagonal lines) and moire artifacts (the random rainbow type effects that often appear over patterned clothing and fabric). The cameras that use the line skipping method to reduce the sensor pixel count were typically worse in this area. The GH2 had far less moire when shooting video than many other cameras I saw (the 5D MKII had a lot and quite a strong anti-aliasing filter I believe which is why the video didn't have the detail of even the GH2) and I noticed the GH3 seemed to have quite a bit compared the GH2 although I think Panasonic changed to a Sony sensor in the GH3. Correct me if I'm wrong but because of the method of pixel reduction used in the GH2 my understanding is the GH2 either required no anti-aliasing filter or a fairly weak one which was typically employed to slightly blur the image in order to lessen the sensor's pattern artefacts especially when line skipping was used. I had a couple of Nikons and a few Ai lenses which I liked. The SMC Pentax/Takumar lenses are beautiful and still quite cheap especially in screw mount. The Takumar's are much more nicely constructed than the later Pentax lenses that replaced them. A Takumar SMC 50mm F1.4 in a M42 screw mount is a thing of beauty in both build quality, feel and optics and they can still be found for around $100. |
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Post by rowmat on Jan 3, 2018 17:06:50 GMT -6
Because of the flange distance of M4/3 bodies, you can use external adapters to pretty much all types of lenses, in any flange types including Nikon F/G, Canon, PL, etc. There is no compelling reason to use M4/3 lenses other than the option to autofocus and some lenses having OIS. True. Just be aware of any cropping issues you might run into. Also, not sure if all adapters are the same. You might need several adapters depending on lens. One more thing, I'd look at lenses that do well in low lighting since you'll be filming in your studio, which I'm assuming is mostly vibe lighting? My Voigtlander 25mm goes down to f/0.95. Love that lens. Kudos on the Voigtlander 25mm. Is yours the version with the unstepped aperture ring option? Mine was an early version so only has the standard aperture ring. I also have the 17.5mm and the 10mm Voigtlanders. The 10mm completely solved the lack of very wide angle lenses for the Micro 4/3rds format. |
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Post by svart on Jan 3, 2018 17:34:23 GMT -6
I shot all my GH2 work on old Nikon AI lenses. Not the sharpest, but had a nice organic feel. Good film is really, really sharp, above 100megapixel of digital sharpness.. So I don't necessarily equate sharpness with digital, or film, but it seems the blending of the colors and/or grain make something feel a lot more like film. Since the GH2 had a relatively low megapixel count, but used a specific way to scan out pixels, the result looked a lot more organic, than purely sharp. The G6 was a lot more "sharp" in edge contrast and differentiation, but still used the same class of sensor as the GH2 did, so it also looks relatively "filmic" while being sharper overall. The GH5 I'm now using looks a whole lot more "sharp" to the eye, but the noise grain from the compression is a lot less noticeable, so it looks a lot cleaner, but less organic. Testing some post-production stuff on Davinci Resolve, I can make it look a bit more filmic, so I've been playing with workflows to maintain the sharpness of the GH5, but blending colors and such like the GH2. I believe the GH2 sensor utilised pixel binning (effectively combining several pixels into one) to downscale the sensor pixel count from stills to video. This method is supposed to reduce aliaising (those stepped little jaggies especially notticeable on straight diagonal lines) and moire artifacts (the random rainbow type effects that often appear over patterned clothing and fabric). The cameras that use the line skipping method to reduce the sensor pixel count were typically worse in this area. The GH2 had far less moire when shooting video than many other cameras I saw (the 5D MKII had a lot) and I noticed the GH3 seemed to have quite a bit compared the GH2 although I think Panasonic changed to a Sony sensor in the GH3. Correct me if I'm wrong but because of the method of pixel reduction used in the GH2 mu understanding is the GH2 either rewired no anti-aliasing filter or a fairly weak one which typically used to slightly blur the image to lessen the sensors pattern artefacts. I had a couple of Nikons and a few Ai lenses which I liked. The SMC Pentax/Takumar lenses are beautiful and still quite cheap especially in screw mount. The Takumar's are much more nicely constructed than the later Pentax lenses that replaced them. A Takumar SMC 50mm F1.4 in a M42 screw mount is a thing of beauty in both build quality, feel and optics and they can still be found for around $100. I don't remember what the test results were back then, but IIRC, the GH1 and GH2 actually had very aggressive AA/OLPFs, which reduced the high frequency detail. At the time of the first hacks, the GH1 and GH2 were considered sub-par in still picture performance due to the lack of perceived detail compared to the 5D and 7D (the ONLY competitors of the day), which led to some folks removing the OLPF in some cameras, and greatly increased moire and aliasing.. To which most put back in, or used external ones. The Optical Low Pass Filter worked just like any anti-aliasing audio filter does, by reducing photons above a certain frequency, so as the sensor's wells weren't being saturated with light that couldn't be seen. However, they worked well to soften edge detail to make the picture very smooth looking. The GH series used crop sensors during video, not binning like Canon used. this is why it wasn't great for low light, nor was it especially low noise. Because of the Bayer pattern, the sensor was a bit noisier than others, which is why I think panny used an aggressive OLPF, to severely limit photons outside the visible range from saturating the sensor and lowering the SNR (which wasn't great to begin with).. The bayer pattern was also the reason the chroma noise in the red channel is much higher than the blue/green and red on other cameras. At least that's how I remember the early days of the GH series. I now have a set of Nikon AI in F1.4 for low light and beauty shots, and a set of Panasonic F2.8 zooms with AF and OIS2 for more run/gun situations. The Panasonic lenses are much more sharp, almost to a fault! The nikons are much more smooth. |
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Post by rowmat on Jan 3, 2018 17:53:45 GMT -6
I believe the GH2 sensor utilised pixel binning (effectively combining several pixels into one) to downscale the sensor pixel count from stills to video. This method is supposed to reduce aliaising (those stepped little jaggies especially notticeable on straight diagonal lines) and moire artifacts (the random rainbow type effects that often appear over patterned clothing and fabric). The cameras that use the line skipping method to reduce the sensor pixel count were typically worse in this area. The GH2 had far less moire when shooting video than many other cameras I saw (the 5D MKII had a lot) and I noticed the GH3 seemed to have quite a bit compared the GH2 although I think Panasonic changed to a Sony sensor in the GH3. Correct me if I'm wrong but because of the method of pixel reduction used in the GH2 mu understanding is the GH2 either rewired no anti-aliasing filter or a fairly weak one which typically used to slightly blur the image to lessen the sensors pattern artefacts. I had a couple of Nikons and a few Ai lenses which I liked. The SMC Pentax/Takumar lenses are beautiful and still quite cheap especially in screw mount. The Takumar's are much more nicely constructed than the later Pentax lenses that replaced them. A Takumar SMC 50mm F1.4 in a M42 screw mount is a thing of beauty in both build quality, feel and optics and they can still be found for around $100. I don't remember what the test results were back then, but IIRC, the GH1 and GH2 actually had very aggressive AA/OLPFs, which reduced the high frequency detail. At the time of the first hacks, the GH1 and GH2 were considered sub-par in still picture performance due to the lack of perceived detail compared to the 5D and 7D (the ONLY competitors of the day), which led to some folks removing the OLPF in some cameras, and greatly increased moire and aliasing.. To which most put back in, or used external ones. The Optical Low Pass Filter worked just like any anti-aliasing audio filter does, by reducing photons above a certain frequency, so as the sensor's wells weren't being saturated with light that couldn't be seen. However, they worked well to soften edge detail to make the picture very smooth looking. The GH series used crop sensors during video, not binning like Canon used. this is why it wasn't great for low light, nor was it especially low noise. Because of the Bayer pattern, the sensor was a bit noisier than others, which is why I think panny used an aggressive OLPF, to severely limit photons outside the visible range from saturating the sensor and lowering the SNR (which wasn't great to begin with).. The bayer pattern was also the reason the chroma noise in the red channel is much higher than the blue/green and red on other cameras. At least that's how I remember the early days of the GH series. I now have a set of Nikon AI in F1.4 for low light and beauty shots, and a set of Panasonic F2.8 zooms with AF and OIS2 for more run/gun situations. The Panasonic lenses are much more sharp, almost to a fault! The nikons are much more smooth. Okay but I though the GH2's video crop sensor mode was 1:1 only when you engaged the EX TELE CONVERSION mode which used the centre of the sensor at a 1:1 pixel ratio for a 2.6x focal length factor. This is indeed noisier than the standard mode. Apart from that I thought pixel binning was used in normal video mode. |
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Post by svart on Jan 4, 2018 9:20:59 GMT -6
I don't remember what the test results were back then, but IIRC, the GH1 and GH2 actually had very aggressive AA/OLPFs, which reduced the high frequency detail. At the time of the first hacks, the GH1 and GH2 were considered sub-par in still picture performance due to the lack of perceived detail compared to the 5D and 7D (the ONLY competitors of the day), which led to some folks removing the OLPF in some cameras, and greatly increased moire and aliasing.. To which most put back in, or used external ones. The Optical Low Pass Filter worked just like any anti-aliasing audio filter does, by reducing photons above a certain frequency, so as the sensor's wells weren't being saturated with light that couldn't be seen. However, they worked well to soften edge detail to make the picture very smooth looking. The GH series used crop sensors during video, not binning like Canon used. this is why it wasn't great for low light, nor was it especially low noise. Because of the Bayer pattern, the sensor was a bit noisier than others, which is why I think panny used an aggressive OLPF, to severely limit photons outside the visible range from saturating the sensor and lowering the SNR (which wasn't great to begin with).. The bayer pattern was also the reason the chroma noise in the red channel is much higher than the blue/green and red on other cameras. At least that's how I remember the early days of the GH series. I now have a set of Nikon AI in F1.4 for low light and beauty shots, and a set of Panasonic F2.8 zooms with AF and OIS2 for more run/gun situations. The Panasonic lenses are much more sharp, almost to a fault! The nikons are much more smooth. Okay but I though the GH2's video crop sensor mode was 1:1 only when you engaged the EX TELE CONVERSION mode which used the centre of the sensor at a 1:1 pixel ratio for a 2.6x focal length factor. This is indeed noisier than the standard mode. Apart from that I thought pixel binning was used in normal video mode. I had to go back and research since this has been almost 10 years since the GH1/2 investigations! So the GH series doesn't do line skipping, but it doesn't do direct binning either, rather it reads all lines and uses an algorithm to "assemble" groups of pixels based on the efficiency of the codec, aka some kind of "smart downscaling". Makes sense, since the bitrate hacks didn't necessarily help the primary detail, but rather the secondary detail (shadows, background, etc). |
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Post by joseph on Jan 4, 2018 11:24:29 GMT -6
My friend used a hacked GH2 with old Nikons primarily and now mostly a Blackmagic Cinema with vintage Zeiss 21mm. Course you need a lot of studio lights with the Blackmagic cameras and they're not handheld.
The best convenient compact video solution I found other than the GH5 was the G85.
However, I preferred the colors on my friend's hacked GH2 over the G85 at least (namely the greens and skin tones), and the G85 kit 12-60mm is okay. The overall picture is more saturated video than film-like. It requires a fair amount of work in Resolve to adjust these things.
In general I pefer the Fujifilm colors straight out of the camera, albeit much less so vs the graded Panasonic examples I've seen (rather than straight Cinelike-D) and their kit lenses as well as their more affordable F2 primes for that matter.
The stills on X-T2 and 20 are better, which is 60% of the use for me.
So recently I went with an X-T20 even though there's no IBIS yet so you often need a tripod or gimbal and the video file handling requires more cuts (not a problem for my uses). The battery life is also worse and no 4k/60p (I don't care cause I hate 60p). Same sensor as X-T2, but there is slight aliasing with line skipping in 4K vs XT2 but no crop, and no joystick and generally the X-T2 body is better, but Panasonic ergonomics better still.
If they come out with an X-T3 with stabilization, I would probably upgrade to that eventually.
Still, I think the G85 may be the best overall affordable solution and is definitely better for handheld video.
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Post by svart on Jan 4, 2018 13:01:27 GMT -6
My friend used a hacked GH2 with old Nikons primarily and now mostly a Blackmagic Cinema with vintage Zeiss 21mm. Course you need a lot of studio lights with the Blackmagic cameras and they're not handheld. The best convenient compact video solution I found other than the GH5 was the G85. However, I preferred the colors on my friend's hacked GH2 over the G85 at least (namely the greens and skin tones), and the G85 kit 12-60mm is okay. The overall picture is more saturated video than film-like. It requires a fair amount of work in Resolve to adjust these things. In general I pefer the Fujifilm colors straight out of the camera, albeit much less so vs the graded Panasonic examples I've seen (rather than straight Cinelike-D) and their kit lenses as well as their more affordable F2 primes for that matter. The stills on X-T2 and 20 are better, which is 60% of the use for me. So recently I went with an X-T20 even though there's no IBIS yet so you often need a tripod or gimbal and the video file handling requires more cuts (not a problem for my uses). The battery life is also worse and no 4k/60p (I don't care cause I hate 60p). Same sensor as X-T2, but there is slight aliasing with line skipping in 4K vs XT2 but no crop, and no joystick and generally the X-T2 body is better, but Panasonic ergonomics better still. If they come out with an X-T3 with stabilization, I would probably upgrade to that eventually. Still, I think the G85 may be the best overall affordable solution and is definitely better for handheld video. I think a lot of what people forget, or simply don't know, is that even digital cinema cameras need reasonable amounts of light to work right. Red, Alexa, etc, all have low light capabilities of only a few percent better than the DSLR of today. Most professional digital is shot with F stops between 2.8 and 8 depending on DOF desired. If anyone has been on a set before, the sets are generally MUCH brighter in real life, than they look on screen after editing and coloration. However, it's the same in the DSLR world as it is in the audio world of today.. People want professional results, from investing little to nothing in their gear. They also expect that cheap gear to do all the work for them. Much like the lack of room treatment you see in bedroom studios, I've seen a lot of folks spring for the most expensive camera and lenses, but never buy lights, or invest in learning to light properly.. The BM camera uses S16 sized sensors, right? That would make the pixels even smaller, hurting the low light performance further from M4/3 (which is almost the same as S35 film..). However, for the panasonic cameras, it's always been the case of the "yellow tinge" being present. It's gotten better, but it's always been there. Anyone who's shot on panasonic should know the tricks.. Trick #1 is to turn down all the picture attributes. Turn down saturation, sharpness, etc., to as low as they'll go. This effectively shuts down any extra processing and gives you a flat picture to grade. Trick #2 is to go into manual WB mode, and then to the color offset, and push the picture towards blue a few clicks, and that gets rid of the yellow tinge. A white/grey card should help with this. |
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