kirk

No, I haven't got the tripod myself... just searched in German shops. There is a review of sorts on YouTube as well. What is your camera weight? For my GH2 with a very heavy zoom, and also for the slider, I use a 75 mm bowl Cartoni of about 3.5-4 kilos with great satisfaction. I'd hate to schlepp much more around, since 90% of what I shoot is on slider or tripod. Cost me about 250€ second hand.

Heavy'ish and dead cheap in Germany: [url="http://www.fotokoch.de/fotowelt/Bilora_Stativ_Video_Pro_II_Doppel-Profilo_25673.html?prepage=stat.html"]http://www.fotokoch.de/fotowelt/Bilora_Stativ_Video_Pro_II_Doppel-Profilo_25673.html?prepage=stat.html[/url]

I'd still get the kit lens, just to have an alternative to nothing (and there is a deep focus world too :-) . I have recently aquired a 40 mm 1.8 Konica lens plus adapter for very, very little money, and the test shots are really nice.

Although you can't get the 14-140 kit, you can get the 14-42 kit for $ 750 at B&H, offer expiring tomorrow!!... even though it is a somewhat "kitty" lens, it would give you some welcome wider angles in addition to the 50mm. I would perhaps choose a shorter prime, like a 28mm or 35mm... The GH2 is an absolute lovely camera and can produce stunningly beautiful shots... why wait?

[quote name='christianhubbard' timestamp='1340724733' post='13149'] Very well shot, but a little amateur when it comes to composition of the piece. -First of all I think it was a little long, i got past 2 minutes and then became bored. +I really liked the folly sounds of the building running, glad you kept that running over the entire video -Do your slider both ways, get two directions of every shot, that way you can pick and choose which ones you want later. after getting halfway through, 99% of the sliding shots slid to the right. Looked great though! :) [/quote] Thanks for the comments Christian! I AM an amateur... still learning ^_^ Length is a matter of taste (and age)... this video is all about an age-old, tranquil place, and I 'd hate to rush anything. So if modern, restless youngsters get bored, so be it. I always run the slider both ways when shooting... there are 4 left, 13 right and 10 still shots.... Did you know that studies show most western people prefer camera moving to the right, the way we read? I chose an overweight of rights after trying more varied, as it somehow made the video calmer (again not for the restless :blink: ) I'll use this opportunity to express my joy of working with the GH2. There was very, very little light coming through the floury windows, no interior lighting... The shots were made with an unhacked GH2! Amazing piece of hardware...

Thanks for keeping it simple Andrew!!

Nex 7 in disguise?

The pans at the end of the comparison are not slow pans IMHO. Obviously dslr CMOS chips aren't the best suited for your filming... All equipment will have limitations... you'd probably be better off with a good, smaller chip videocamera, but will probably pay a higher price and loose the benefit of the optional shortest depth of  field. But then again if you see what some skateboarders have acheived with superfast camera movements and ultrawide lenses on their GH2s there are ways of working around the problem...

Just like with your other post about your issues with motion jitter/judder, why not upload video examples of the problems?? Would make judging/evaluating/solving the problems so much easier  :) Also perhaps have a look at this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqYRmQ7v5TM

I absolutely favor the last suggestion... Keep it simple! All these "enhancements" and "improvements" everywhere on the web tend to annoy more than please...

Could this fit the bill?: http://dfocussystem.com/dmatte.php

Flour-covered interior shots from a still working watermill i Sweden. The real thing, not a museum. My GH2 was pressed to the limit in the high contrast environment, only lit from small, dirty windows.. http://vimeo.com/44530426

The digital Bolex should cover that when it arrives? [url=http://www.digitalbolex.com/products/]http://www.digitalbolex.com/products/[/url]

The Igus track has a silky smooth action, with a nice, even resistance. Any jerkiness of sliding motion in the video is my own inexperienced fault... http://vimeo.com/42359275

Here's a photo of my homemade IGUS parts slider... two rubber end stops, mounted permanently to a home made aluminum quick release plate for the Cartoni, a 3/8ths threaded hole in the sled for the old ball head. That's it... About € 110 total cost.

The glider in your link (and a lot of other commercial ones) is based on standard IGUS industrial track and sled parts. I bought a meter of track and a sled from IGUS in Germany, drilled/tapped a few holes, installed two rubber stops, ball head and a quick release, saving a couple of hundred euros in the process... works like a dream!

Re 1: All hacks will open a switch for choosing PAL or NTSC... you don't necessarily need to increase the bitrate etc, but can just tick the switch and whatever other features you'd like...

I use my trusty R1 for all stills work. The sublime quality lens coupled with a wonderful and reliable color rendition makes it the perfect tool for me as a landscape artist painter, both as a high end sketchpad and for painting reproduction purposes. I have often wished the R1 had video capabilities... if this new Sony can produce similar quality in stills AND video it will be on my wish list for sure. Pity the didn't keep the 24 mm wideangle though...

Being in the same financial neighborhood as you it seems, I admit to owning, and using extensively, a very cheap chinese variable ND filter. It works extremely well for my needs at least... And the possible slight decrease in image quality should be weighed against the lessening of image quality using f-stops above 11 or so...

Nostalgic here too :-)

[quote author=tony wilson link=topic=657.msg4883#msg4883 date=1335748057] i must say apart from the negs this new old technology is getting one amazing thing is it has made the fat boy look thin. i assume the bloke with the crack pipe is george lucas. the fundamentals look grim though do we really want to see the bloke from the office and lot's of munchkins in nasty eyepopping clinical digical  3d :'( super high res hot swedish teen romp maybe  ;) but not little people with big noses from munchkin city. i believe that uncle petes been smokin a lot of dope and watchin reruns of his masterpiece braindead. [/quote] You display such a fine tuned sense of taste... really gives weight to your arguments...

Or perhaps just get a GH2 and enjoy shooting with a magnificent camera!?  8)

I recently made a short video with a jazz drum solo, using a crane mounted GH2. External recorder Tascam DR-05 on a mic stand a couple of feet away... when editing both the musician and I found the sound from the camera closer to reality, so 90% of the mix is from the camera... The camera was only inches from the drum at times (11mm wideangle). [url=http://vimeo.com/40110815]http://vimeo.com/40110815[/url] The GH2 is one hell of a camera  :)

The Nostalgic is one of several film modes available on your GH2, hacked or unhacked. Since you can't yet shoot in raw it is important to choose the settings carefully to get the most information down on the card, and make editing easier. The nostalgic opens up the shadows nicely, providing a greater span from blocked highligts to pitch blacks to work with. If you turn on the histogram you can see the changing curves of the various film modes. Turning contrast down to minus 2 helps further too...  Have fun!

If I read you right, you are not talking about hacked GH2 and the various patches? If I'm right, the highest quality is the 24 fps cinema setting and with the new 1.1 firmware there's a high bit rate 30p setting too... The various film modes are good for different types of shots... I have become best friends with the Nostalgic setting, which I feel gives me the best flat base for grading... but shoot lots of test scenes in the varous settings to see for yourself!