galenb

[quote name='kirk' timestamp='1349939840' post='19592'] I agree on the usability of no-brand stuff ! There's a LOT of snobbery about what is needed to do a bit of filming. The no-brand guys make the tripods for the brands too. [/quote] Exactly! Good point! A lot of the so called superior name brand equipment is made in China and then re-branded in other countries. They Sometime even license Chinese goods for sale in their own country and no one is even the wiser. What's even sillier is that some of the brands that we think are of superior quality are actually outsourcing to china. Eventually we are going to have to come to terms with the fact that not everything that comes from China is poorly made. Yes, there are a lot of cheap knock-off goods that are just made to look like they are passable but the same can be true for equipment made anywhere. I live in the US and I would not say that everything made here is of higher quality.

The Fancierstudio is cheaper than the Silk and more stable at full hight. Also, I know it sounds weird but, the longer handle is actually quite important for doing smooth pans and tilts. It give you more leverage. The shorter handle on the Silk is more prone to jerky movement. Another nice thing about the Fancier is that the quick release plate is a larger sliding type as opposed to a clip in one. This is just easer for use with larger video cameras. The legs also have pins as well as soft rubber feel so you can stick it into the ground when you need to. But really, the Fancier is a video tripod and the Silk is for photography. The advantage that the Silk has is that it's smaller and lighter weight but still pretty stable.

Well, I happen to disagree. Craig, you are just starting out, you don't need to buy a $500 tripod. The one you picked out on ebay looks fine for what you are trying to do. I've always preferred the aluminum tube, crutch legs over the telescoping legs design. Most of the tripods I've used in studios have been this type. But whatever, thats a matter of taste I think. There are a bunch of similar ones on Amazon for about $120-150. Just look up Fluid head video tripod. http://www.amazon.com/Ravelli-AVTP-Professional-Camera-Tripod/dp/B00139W0XM/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1349936949&sr=8-2&keywords=fluid+head+tripod+for+video http://www.amazon.com/Professional-Heavy-Video-Camcorder-Tripod/dp/B003UOMWOK/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1349936983&sr=8-3&keywords=fluid+head+tripod+for+video My personal pick: http://www.amazon.com/Fancierstudio-Professional-Camera-Tripod-FC-270/dp/B004XMW4SW/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1349937009&sr=8-7&keywords=fluid+head+tripod+for+video By the way, if you are concerned about your tripod blowing over, try using a sandbag. Sheesh guys.

I think that if you are applying sharpening to your footage and you are seeing nothing change, you are probably doing something wrong. Anyway I think that ultimately, if you are happy with the raw footage I see no reason why you should worry about sharpening it.

Did you format the card properly?

[quote name='pietz' timestamp='1349344615' post='19382'] thanks galenb. i agree, go with the GH2 for superior video quality and sharpness or a FF of choice for the look and slight moire and aliasing problems. with the 5D3 being probably the best FF fpr video right now, i keep thinking about the 6D because for video purposes its essentially just as good as the 5D3 except for the missing headphone jack. would you agree? only 97% viewfinder coverage, little worse AF system and a little lower resolution dont hurt me as a videographer. and for that its 40% cheaper! can anybody say something about a comparison between the D600 and the 6D? they are both about the same price. an advantage for the 6D would be that a lot of my friends are using canon cameras, borrowing their lenses is a big plus. is the D600 that much better to compensate for that? is the A99 woth the extra $800 dollars? [/quote] I don't really know to much about this stuff because I've only ever used a 5DmkII. From what I've seen in comparison reviews out there, the 5DMkIII is definitely an improvement over the mkII in both ISO performance and less aliasing and moire. Although it's yet to be seen, the 6D has the same sensor and chip combo as the mkII so it should perform about the same in video. But really, we don't know for sure until the 6D is actually released. So given that I would wait for the 6D. As far as the newer Nikons and Sonys go, other then using older Nikons for years in stop-motion animation, I have absolutely no experience with them so I can't comment. Just a little story: I used to work at and animation studio that used Nikons for stop-motion all the time. We stayed away from Canons because the aperture was electronically controlled and in our tests, it would fluctuate ever so slightly over many frames. When played back, it would flicker a little. So, we stuck with Nikon. Later when we got into Live action, we tested out the latest Nikon cameras (which would only do 720p at the time) but they proved to be very bad for video. Then one day, someone brought in a 5D and showed us some footage. We were all pretty much blown away by how much better it looked then the Nikons. That was then though. Times have certainly changed but I just feel Canon care a little more about video then Nikon does. But that's just my personal opinion that's not based on any kind of facts or anything. ;-)

[quote name='stevesas' timestamp='1349436721' post='19408'] I am troubled by the sensor change in the GH3 which means that wide lenses won't be quite as wide. [/quote] <Deleted incorrect information!> [i][b]Edit: Looks like I was totally wrong about this! The GH1 and GH2 have the same multi-aspect sensor. Check out this for the real story on the GH3 sensor:[/b][/i] [i][b][url="http://m43photo.blogspot.com/2012/10/multi-aspect-sensor.html"]http://m43photo.blog...ect-sensor.html[/url][/b][/i]

No, it's not fake. It was from a large local retail store. when I say cheap I don't mean It was like $2 or something. It was and 16 gig at about $40. I took it back already. Thanks for the reply Andy! Would you mind adding your vote please? :-)

Hi everyone, Recently I found a class 10 SanDisk Extreme Pro 95MB/s card at a local store and snatched it up because it was really cheap. I've heard great things about this one and so I thought I'd give it a try in my hacked GH1. I have been using the "100Mbps Max-latitude" patch with a cheap class 10 PNY 20MB/s card and haven't had to many issues. In fact, the only time I ran into an issue is when I tried to run a 720p GOP-1 patch. Had to take the battery out a few times that day. So, I was hoping that with a better card, I could try upping the bitrate even higher or trying out the GOP-1 patch again. Well, I got the card home and it failed right off the bat without even upping the rate. I worked on and worked on it and finally got it to work with a disappointingly lower bitrate patch. I wanted to try and get to the bottom of this little issue because it seems like a lot of other people have run into something like this too. Some class 10 cards work while others don't. Some times it really is down to manufacturing standards but I have a hunch it might actually be UHS-1. From what I've been led to believe it's not actually supported on the GH1/GH2. To make matters worse, it seems that these cards might even run at lower speeds. So I think a poll is in order. Please take a moment and help me suss this out. It might turn out to be nothing but it will be great to at least tick this one off the list anyway. :-) Thanks!

No. that's not right actually. Getting data off the sensor has never been the bottle neck. It's getting that data into the card fast enough. How do you think they can get uncompressed streams out to the HDMI like they do on so many cameras? You can even read the interview with the Panasonic engineer on this site, he explains how it works on the GH3. Basically, They take the image from the sensor at full res (16 mp), down sample it to 4k then down sample again to 2k and still have time to compress it and then write it to the card. Image acquisition is not the problem here. What governs whether video looks good or bad has everything to do with the algorithm used for down-sampling/scaling/summing/etc. Canon, Sony and Nikon have never put video quality ahead of still image quality in their DSLR's. Panasonic on the other hand, have made a very clear point of trying to get the best quality video out of their cameras. And they know that scaling the video is where all the aliasing and moire come from so they have worked extra hard to make it look better then anyone else. Keep in mind to that they were making video cameras long before they made still cameras so you can bet they know a thing or two about making video look good. What does all this have to do with Leica? Well who do you think have been making most of their digital cameras up until now? Do you think Leica haven't learned anything from them in the process? Well, we won't know until one of has one of these cameras in their hands but I'm betting it's going to be really nice simply due to that former relationship with Panasonic.

Yep, awesome job. For some reason it looks like the slow-mo is even more slower then regular 50fps to 24fps. Did you do any further timestretching? Also, did you use any additional lighting or was that all natural? I love that song by the way. :-)

Wow, it's weird how much we've been attacked lately. And it's not even to advertise penis pills either. ;-) Time to install capcha in the new user registration I guess. Anyway, I'm really surprised by the reaction to this. I would have thought people here would have loved it. To me it looks awesome! It looks like one of Syd Mead's design sketches for Bladerunner. Very futuristic looking. and what's up with everyone freaking about the price? Have you see how much cages usually cost? This is €750 + tax which is just under a $1000. This is actually cheaper then most high end cages out there. Go look on Zakuto's website and see how much their cages costs. ;-) [url="http://store.zacuto.com/Blackmagic-Stinger.html"]This one is over $1600![/url] Or BeBob or CPM for that matter. And their stuff isn't even hand made. Considering this, I think it's a very reasonable price. I'm I going to buy one? Hell no! I don't have that kind of money! :-D But if I did, I totally would. And, most production studios who want a striking rig that sets them apart would too. Seriously guys, unless you are buying cheep Chinese made rigs (and I can totally understand doing that btw), $1000 for a cage is a totally normal price.

That was awesome! I love slow motion. I could watch it for hours. I really looks like you lead a fun life. ;-)

Hi everyone, The other day I finished editing some videos that I've been woking on. http://vimeo.com/50466184 This was an experiment in shooting Black and White at 720p 60 fps for slow motion. Other then some minor issues with compressing for Vimeo, I really like how this one turned out. It was shot on a GH1 with Pentax 50mm and 80 ~ 200mm lenses. It was shot on Mt. Tabor overlooking the Portland city skyline. It just so happend that it was the Fall equinox on that day hence the name. http://vimeo.com/50510429 recently I went to a local skatepark with my son and shot some video of him and his friends. I wanted to shoot a skate video that didn't look like the typical films of that genre. this was also to practice flow focus and shooting action which I never do normally. Agin, Shot on GH1, 1080p 24 fps with Pentax 50mm. Comments and critique welcome. Thanks for watching. :-)

[quote name='craigbuckley' timestamp='1349154330' post='19300'] ok ok thanks again everybody... In choosing an adapter, does this matter on the lens? Say I am purchasing one of those canon fd 50mm 1.4 lens, is the fotodiox going to work with that or do I need a specfic adapter? [/quote] Okay, I think I see what you are asking here. By "on the lens" you are wonder if different lenses need special adaptors to support different features of those lenses? If that's the case then, like I said before, you can only use "manual" lenses on the GH2. Those lenses don't have any special features that you need to worry about. Just keep in mind that if you find a lens that has autofocus, you won't be able to use that feature. In many cases, you can still use the lens on the GH2 but it won't "Autofocus" for you. But when shooting video, You'll find that autofocus is one of those things that makes video look like video. ;-) And, when shooting with autofocus on the GH2 it tends to jump in and out really quickly anyways. When you shoot with a film camera or DSLR, you usually try and make your focus changes nice and smooth so focusing by hand is the best way to get really nice results. The other common issue you will run into when looking for old lenses is automatic aperture control. Most newer lenses use a feature where you can set the aperture with a button or dial on the camera or have the camera set it for you automatically. In doing this, most camera designers decided that because of that, you don't need an aperture ring anymore. Most modern lens systems are like that now a days. So, if you can't use any automatic features on the GH2, how are you going to change the aperture? Exactly. You can't. Therefore, you need to make sure that the lens you buy has an aperture ring. All old lenses like Canon FD, Nikon F, Minolta MD, etc. all have aperture rings so if you stick with those, you'll be fine. You only need to buy one adaptor for each different type of lens mount you get. So, if you get 3 different Canon FD lenses and one Nikon lens, you only need to get two adaptors. One for the Canon mount and one for the Nikon mount. Afterword, you can continue building your collection with either of those two mounts or you can get another adaptor for another lens system and build out that way. It's one of the beauties of the Micro 4/3 system.

[quote name='pietz' timestamp='1349186823' post='19317'] i can achieve the shallow depth of field with faster lenses, but youll always get a more cinematic look with FF. can you convince me of the opposite :) ? [/quote] Nope. Essentially you're right. ;-) Better low light performance, better DOF, less noise, etc. I'm sure if we had our druthers, we would all be shooting on full frame cameras. But, they are usually cost prohibitive for many a starving artist. When it comes to the argument of FF camera's like the 5DIII vs GH2, It's all about a balance of compromises. One thing you should consider though: so far, all the full frame HD video capable cameras out there still don't produce as nice an image as the GH2. This is really the reason so many people choose the GH2 in the first place. I mean, you are making a lot of compromises when you choose Micro 4/3 but the quality really is that good. The biggest issue for me with full frame cameras is that Canon (and from what I've heard, Sony and Nikon) all use a process called "Line skipping" to scale images down to 2K. Basically, if you have an image and you want to make it half the size, you can just throw out every other pixel. This is usually what produces the aliasing and moire in those cameras. On top of that, these cameras usually employ high or subpar compression which causes further detail loss and softening. Panasonic on the other hand, use pixel summing when scaling down the original 16 mega pixel image to 2K. This greatly reduces Aliasing and moire. Then with the hack, you are able to retinal a lot more of those details due higher bit rate compression. To me argument seems more like an issue of convenience then anything else. FF cameras give you the ability to shoot in less that satisfactory lighting conditions and still give you nice looking results. They also give you the ability to use cheaper lenses with say, an f/3.5 aperture and still get beautiful bokeh. So, you don't have to try as hard as you would using a camera like the GH2. However on the GH2, even though you get don't get the same shallow depth of field, the final image is going to retain so much more of those crisp and organic details that get lost in the down scaling and compression of the FF cameras out there. So, you kind of have to ask yourself whether you would like less convenient sensor size but better looking over-all video quality or more convenient sensor size and lower quality video. And lets be honest for a sec, it's not like the images from a 5DIII or A99 look like crap. Most of the time, you won't even notice it and the video will look amazing. It's only when you see it in comparison to the GH2 that you notice all the detail loss. And really, as I've been learning recently, If you are just going to upload your movies to Youtube and Vimeo, does that matter? P.S. I find it funny sometimes when people say that full frame cameras are more cinematic because of their larger sensors. I mean, it's true and all but actually a frame of film on a super 35 motion picture camera is actually closer in size to an APS-C sensors. So, with a FF camera you are actually getting a "Vistavision" frame.

[quote name='andy lee' timestamp='1349118213' post='19288'] also Cosina 20mm is good and cheap too pentax k mount [/quote] Oh how weird! I was literally just looking at that!

Lower f-stop numbers like f/1.4 or f/2.0 are better then f/3.5 or f/4. Lenses are usually described with a focal length and widest possible aperture. The wider the aperture the better. So if you see a lens described as a "50mm, f/3.5" and then another "50mm, f/1.4", the latter is better because the lower F-stop number indicates a wider aperture opening. f/1.4 is better then f/3.5.

I saw a really great video on Youtube a few years ago about shooting documentary but I wasn't able to find it again. However I discovered that the same guys above has a really nice tutorial as well. Take a look at this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdyhjh4jR4s&feature=relmfu

The 14mm and the 14-42mm? Well, I'n not sure I understand why you would want them both? The 14mm pancake is f-2.8 and the 14-42mm starts at f3.5 so you are only gaining a about a stop with the pancake lens over the zoom so I don't really think you're gaining much there. Like I was saying before, if 14mm isn't wide enough for you, you should be looking at wider lenses, not those with the same focal length. So, I think if it's not wide enough for you, like if you want a fisheye lens, then that's another story all together. There are some nice 7mm lenses out there if that's what you are after but they are going to cost you. As far as the 14mm having a better film look then a 20mm, this is really subjective and there are a lot of differing opinions on this. There are a lot of factors contributing to how "filmic" or "Cinematic" a shot looks. The lens has a lot to do with it but there are some other very important things to keep in mind as well. The lens's focal length has more to do with what you are trying to convey or the story you are trying to tell then how cinematic it will look. You actually need to have a good range of focal lengths in order to say different things about different kinds of scenes. There are some general rules that you can apply to film making but it's really up to you how you follow them. For instance, wide angle lenses are good for establishing shots and showing the hugeness of something like a building or vista. Medium focal lengths are good for... well, medium shots of course. And telephoto lenses are good for close ups and giving the viewer a sense of intimacy. So, the lens focal length is more about the story then the look. As far as look goes, let me refer you to a great little beginner video: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf_3gX_Z6Lo A[/media] very important thing I think that HD-DSLR's gave to film makers though is shallow depth of field and this has a great effect on how cinematic something looks in my opinion. Lower f-stop numbers will give you better shallow depth of field then higher numbers so keep this in mind when lens hunting. Personally, I would go for an older lens in the 24mm to 35mm range with as wide an aperture as you can find (the lowest f-stop number like f2.0 to f1.4) to add to the kit lens so that you can shoot some nice shallow depth of field stuff. Then, maybe a cheap old 50mm f-1.4 lens. Those old 50mm lenses are a dime-a-dozen and offer really nice shallow depth of field in a nice telephoto range. This way you have wide angle, medium and telephoto covered.

I still think you should get the 14-42mm but the Panasonic 14mm f2.8 is a really nice lens and very inexpensive. It looks like it's about the cheapest 14mm you can get: http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-Aspherical-Thirds-Interchangeable-Cameras/dp/B008R6F6HG/ref=pd_sim_sbs_p_2 Oh and check out this guys website where he does some really great scientific comparisons between different micro 4/3 lenses: http://m43photo.blogspot.com About Neutral Density filter: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_density_filter Basically, it allows you to shoot wide open aperture in full daylight by cutting down the light entering the lens. It's so you can get that shallow depth of field look in brightly lit scenes. A variable ND filter is actually two pieces of specially coated glass that rotate against each other. The more you rotate the top glass, the less light gets through. It's an indispensable tool and great for outdoor shooting.

So this is what I've been able to come up with so far: http://vimeo.com/50466184 This was using h.264 @ 12Mbps cap, setting the keyframe to every 32 frames... Looks nothing like the original now. All the detail is smeared out, there's banding and a lot of noise seems to have been enhanced. Thanks for any help you can give me!

Thought it looked great! Looks like it was a lot of fun to shoot too! I like rap when it's in french. It sounds so much better when I have no idea what they are saying. ;-)

Yes, that adaptor will work on the GH2. Now for that particular lens, I'm going to offer my personal opinion. ;-) First off, I have a lens almost exactly like it but I paid about $40 for it. It's a Minolta 50mm f1.4. 50mm is about the most common lens you can find out there. Check ebay and I'm sure you'll see what I'm talking about. But here, there is a slight issue you should be aware of. The sensor in the GH2 is a micro 4/3 size. That means it's smaller then an APS-C sensor and even smaller then a full frame sensor. So, if you had a full frame sensor camera, a 50mm lens would be a 50mm lens just fine. But on a micro 4/3 camera, The sensor is actually crops the lens by 2x more then a full frame sensor. So a 50mm (which is about medium focal length on a full frame camera) is actually 100mm on the GH2! This means that a medium lens is actually a telephoto! Now, this is both good news and bad for some people. I love the look of telephoto. To me, I have this cool, 70's, raw documentary kind of romantic vision in my head. So this is right up my alley. However, a lot of people are really into wide angle or even fisheye lenses. If you look through the listings on ebay, you'll quickly see that wide angle lenses are some of the most expensive out there. To make things worse, what is considered wide to a full frame camera is actually medium focal length on a GH2 because of the 2x crop. So a 24mm lens is almost a 50mm on a GH2. So, you need to go down further and further in focal length to to actually get a wide angle look. The kit lens is 14mm-42mm so with the crop that's actually 28mm-84mm (which is actually perfect for most people's taste). So, the kind of lens that you'll be wanting to get is either something wider then 14mm (like a 7mm or 10mm) if you want to shoot skateboard videos... Or, something longer then 42 mm (like 100mm... well, you get the idea). But wait, there's a special trick that GH2 has that allows you to push in on the sensor to get a 2X telephoto zoom. It's kind of like digital zoom but it actually just grabs the middle 1920x1080 pixels of the full 16 megapixel image and gives you a 1:1 pixel ratio. So it is for all practical purposes a regular 2X zoom with the flick of a switch. One thing I also wanted to say about the Nikon lens you picked out. That lens is pretty expensive due in part to a lot of features that you wouldn't even be able to use on that camera. So, you need to keep in mind that even though Nikon lenses and Canon lenses and whatever lenses can be adapted to micro 4/3, the GH2 won't be able to use auto focus, in-body aperture control or optical image stabilization. Only the full manual lenses are of any use. If you really want those features, take a look at the Panasonic micro 4/3 lenses out there. They are expensive but very sharp. If you don't care about auto control, cruse ebay for old lenses. Search for "Nikon F mount", "Canon FD mount", "minolta MD", "Pentax PK", "Olympus OM" and "M42". These are all manual lens mounts and in general, pretty safe for the GH2. I have PK, F, and MD adaptors for my lenses and they all work great. The last thing I wanted to add was, if you have money burning a whole in your pocket, think about investing in some of the other tools you might need. Like a really nice tripod or a follow focus rig ( [url="http://www.amazon.com/Camera-Shoulder-Support-Handles-Standard/dp/B008MTRGJY/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=2JCTXBQZ88F4F&coliid=IXXSDLH9NRU1G"]I've had my eye on this[/url] ) or a nice veriable-ND filter with some stepper rings. Reflectors, lights, soft boxes, etc, etc... [edit: hmmm. Looks like I took so long responding that two other got there before I could! :-D]

Which adaptor you buy depends on the mount of the lens you buy. So for example, if you get a nikon lens, then you'll need a Nikon F mount to micro 4/3 adaptor or if you get a minolta lens, you need a minolta MD mount to micro 4/3 adaptor etc., etc. I feel like lenses are kind of a subjective thing. They arguably have the largest influence on you final image. So what lens you need will be dictated by what kind of look you are going for. At least that's what I think anyway. :-) I would definitely recommend getting the kit lens with the camera. I got a GH1 body only because I already had a bunch of old lenses but now I'm really wishing I had a nice simple zooming autofocus lens with image stabilization so that I would just quickly pop off a shot now and then or shoot hand held any time I felt like it. As it is, I always need to use some kind of rig and I often miss a shot because I'm busy focusing. Not that I would use it all the time it's just nice to have for those quick, in the moment times. From what I hear, the panasonic 14-42mm is actually a really nice lens. In fact, I would recommend starting with that, shooting with it for a while and seeing what it is that you feel it's lacking and then using that to inform your next lens purchase.