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It's the eleventh hour for the GH2, but it will still be a few months before I have its replacement in my hands so I am still trying to get the best possible performance out of it. And I'd still like to hang onto it as a B-cam, but not until I work some issues out. I did a full-range ISO test of my GH2 with the Flowmotion 2.02 settings, starting at 12800 and working my way down to 160. I did this after reading a little more about the GH2 ISO bug. Initially, I had read that if you wanted to use ISOs 320, 640 or 1250, you had to switch the camera on and first go to [i]any[/i] higher ISO, and then back to one of these three to minimize noise. Then I did some more reading on Personal-View and apparently what you want to do is go to the next ISO increment up, and then back down to the desired setting (so if you want ISO 320, go to ISO 400, then back to 320; if you want 640, go to 800, then back to 640). This seemed to result in a MUCH cleaner image than my initial tests with the first image. The footage is pretty usable up to ISO 1250, at least with the Flowmotion hack. What really surprised me was this: [img]http://www.eoshd.com/comments/uploads/gallery/album_13/gallery_18451_13_3510.jpg[/img] ISO 160 Flowmotion 2.02 Noise enhanced for visibility 500% crop [img]http://www.eoshd.com/comments/uploads/gallery/album_13/gallery_18451_13_74801.jpg[/img] ISO 320 Flowmotion 2.02 Noise enhanced for visibility 500% crop This tells me that working around the ISO bug as I have talked about above, ISO 320 is actually much [i]cleaner[/i] than 160. In fact, it's the cleanest ISO (at least with this hack on my camera). Thoughts?

[url="http://www.eoshd.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/BMD2-1.jpg"][img]http://www.eoshd.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/BMD2-1.jpg[/img][/url] There's some debate at the moment around the Blackmagic Cinema Camera and how useful the raw recording mode is. For me it is ground-breaking at this price point but it seems not everyone sees it with the same enthusiasm because of the workflow and storage requirements. "It is time consuming. It is not practical. My clients don't need it". Well let me begin this article by being very clear - there is no single answer that suits everyone, or every shoot. If someone says that their current clients don't need raw and they don't see an advantage to working with raw video - then they are absolutely right to believe that. If someone tries to tell you that their opinion on this is the ultimate and final voice on the matter, they are wrong. Personally I am in favour of raw for what I do (this opinion is based on my own needs, yours may differ). But part of the reason I am coming down so heavily in favour of raw myself is not just because of me - but because I can see some less obvious benefits to work that many would be inclined to 'shoot the easy way' with ProRes in-camera.

[quote name='Axel' timestamp='1347660691' post='18067'] Yes. So what? 4:2:0 equals roughly the spreading ratio of cone cells on the retina, which are sensitive only for a color each ('RGB'). The brain combines their signals to form the [i]sharp[/i] image in the center of our field of vision (the borders are blurred like a shallow DoF vignette, and are much less saturated, since outside the fovea the B&W rod cells predominate), interpolating much more color information than any video compression. If our own vision is hardly more than a roughly colored B&W image, how can 4:2:0 make such a big difference? In secondary color corrections, you often feather the masks quite liberally without any problems. We simply have no senses for color resolution. [/quote] We've officially hit rock bottom in pixel peeping.

All-I for 24/25p and 50mbps inter-frame for slow mo shots? I can live with that.

[quote name='Steven Phipps' timestamp='1347646012' post='18025'] thanks guys. andrew do u think we ll be dealing with shipping delays again like w gh2? or were they strictly earthquake related woes? [/quote] For reference, related to your earlier question about AF... Contrast detect AF on the GH3 is faster than the Nikon D3's phase detect. The only flaw of CD AF is if you have a very low contrast area of the image which you're trying to lock focus onto, you will get some hunting.

Lightpainter - your posts are unreadable. What are you on? I appreciate English possibly isn't your first language but please try and find a way to be clear otherwise you will have to go elsewhere, sorry.

This is the one I wait for :-) They need to send the first one to Vitaly, that way when it gets to the rest of us it will be much more improved!

[quote name='Zach' timestamp='1347566472' post='17920'] I can't imagine why you would ever need to adjust audio while recording. They don't do that in the audio world! You check your levels and leave them be. [/quote] Are you serious? So you ask everyone in front (or behind the camera) to maintain the exact same level of sound of whatever they're saying or doing throughout the entire shot... man you really have an amazing control over your cast/crew/surrounds! So you think cameras and audio recorders come with audio level displays just so you can sit there watching your audio clip and not do anything about it? Have you ever even seen anyone (properly) recording audio?

Some screen grabs from the video (property of Panasonic): [img]http://www.eoshd.com/comments/uploads/gallery/album_14/gallery_18451_14_111867.png[/img] [img]http://www.eoshd.com/comments/uploads/gallery/album_14/gallery_18451_14_870838.png[/img] [img]http://www.eoshd.com/comments/uploads/gallery/album_14/gallery_18451_14_598798.png[/img]

[media]http://youtu.be/9ZFhaYuiQSs[/media]

[quote name='FilmMan' timestamp='1347592634' post='17946'][list] [*][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]First Picture of GH3[/font][/color] [/list] [img]http://i1266.photobucket.com/albums/jj524/picrumors/panasonic_gh3_image-1.png[/img] [/quote] Fierce!

[quote name='Germy1979' timestamp='1347479136' post='17850'] I have this patch! All I can say is, thank you! haha! I always keep it on 160 to avoid this very thing... (unless i can't.) [/quote] I am glad that this could be of help. ISO 640 is just slightly more noisy than ISO 160 (but only if you select ISO 800 first, then go to ISO 640). It's very usable. There is also a theory out there that higher ISO will cut down on color banding so a little noise on this camera may not be such a bad thing!

[quote name='EOSHD' timestamp='1346509724' post='17095'] I'm trying out a Windows beta version of CineForm Studio Premium which supports CinemaDNG from the Blackmagic thanks to David Newman. Did you convert CinemaDNG to CineForm in that too Glenn, or in another program using the CineForm codec for Premiere? [/quote] I haven't actually tried the footage yet. Busy with 12 or so projects to finish right now. There's an article here about it - http://eyepatchfilms.com/?p=903

Personally, i would hate the idea of butting my head against the celing when it came to my equipment... I like the thought of not being limited by the tools i have and therefore, i can take full responsibility if my movie looks like trash. So I will be shooting Raw. But i understand the issue. I bought my Mac 2 years ago. It is currently a dinosaur... My paltry 3.1 Duo Core..(Yes...duo core.) - with 8 gb of 1066 DDR3 ram can grade footage at the speed of smell....and this is transcoded 5d2rgb pro res 4:4:4....which is still shy of raw. So unless I invest in a computer with enough horsepower to render Avatar 2 realtime while I host the Armageddon of Warcraft, i may have no choice in the matter. Which.....f--king sucks. Nevertheless, I know people who DO have Nasa mainframes and regardless of the hassle, I've found the determination to create a better product is 10 fold turbo charged when your resources are limited. I have Apogee Symphony conversion with Antelope's Atom clocking it, Neve pres, great mics, Focal Twins, and my floors float. (i know... with a 2 year old Mac...audio is a tad less demanding in a comparison) - point is, I made more music when I was a broke ass with a hundred dollar M-Audio mobile pre and a Nova mic in my living room using Cool Edit, than i ever have with all of this high end shit I lusted over for years... I saved, and now I have it, and now all I do is master records for other people... It's paid for itself, yes... But my dream as a kid wasn't to be mastering music i don't even like. I think if you're not careful, you can fall into the gear trap pretty fast. God forbid I win the lottery, i'd probably kill myself for letting my room full of Alexa's and F65's collect dust.

It doesn't bother me. Nobody with any experience on a Gh2 would cater to its weaknesses in a real world shoot like the Empirical test. I think they just went for the cleanest image with a nice sheen on it, and that's fine. It has kind of an immediately gratifying characteristic... But by no means would i give it the "film look" stamp. Seriously, an old fast takumar for about a hundred bucks and the right grading could've taken this in a totally different direction. You can't stick a razor lens like the Fujinon in front of a Gh2 with a 150mb patch and expect it to not perform surgery. You almost have to throw some dirt on it to give it some soul... But that's cool because it's cheaper. I've seen plenty of footage that looked filmic. Granted, I can't film an indoor scene on a bright sunny day and get all manner of what's going on out the window as well as inside. But i've seen plenty of Films shot on actual FILM that blow out windows also. Each sensor has its own character. A lot of these cameras throw a "milky" characteristic on skin that drives me nuts... You too $70,000 Alexa...

wow that is heated at provideo coalition.com!! Steve Weiss has a point , he's put alot of time and effort and money into this test, it's been very educational for all of us ! ............. for Free!!! he didn't have to do it ! and I think long term it will have inspired alot of people to pick up a camera from what ever price range they can afford to get shooting knowing that their results are not that far off the big cameras if you know what you are doing.

Almost all interviewees talked about telling stories. Yes, it matters for sophisticated film makers and movie critics, but the mass audience, where the most money comes from, do not care. They want to see boobs, special effects and stupidity -- a quick gratification for investing their money ($12 movie tickets) and time spend watching it (Youtube). If the exact contest was shot side-by-side with any of the two cameras tested, most audience members are not going to be concerned about what footage is better than another. They do not understand or care about a little noise, burned out highlights or a slight yellow cast. The general consensus seems to point to the direction that more money you spend on camera, easier and faster it is to turn it around. It all comes down to money. Most artists have luxury of time, therefore they can make any of these cameras work (well.. maybe not iPhone). Since their budgets are severely limited, they choose reasonably prices cameras. Big budget movie makers, on the other hand, need to get things done quickly first time around, therefore they choose the big-boy cameras, minimizing the overall cost. Having said all that, 7D still sucks compared to GH2. It just tells you what is popular (Canon) isn't necessarily the best for the money. Marketing determines results, not truths.