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New Series Trailer Now Online. (Was: Just shot a series on hacked GH2s)
  • DouglasHornDouglasHorn
    Over the last ten days, I've shot several episodes of a high end action, sci-fi web series on my 2 GH2s with FD fast prime lenses. The footage looks remarkably good and I'm eternally grateful for VK's firmware hack improvements. We had 5 days of night shoots and the higher bitrate was invaluable for improving the look. We had shot our first six episodes on 5dIIs with Zeiss primes and yet this time around I'm getting constant comments about how much better the footage looks.

    A big thanks to everyone who made these improvements possible.

    -- Douglas
  • 13 Replies sorted by
  • brudneybrudney
    glad to hear that:) which script(s) did you use?
  • johnnymossvillejohnnymossville
    Nice to hear you made it through the shoot with hack. Did you encounter any problems along the way, and which hack/settings did you use?

    The GH2/FD Primes combo is very difficult to beat from a performance/value standpoint isn't it?

    -John
  • tinyrobottinyrobot
    Douglas you say you shot at night. Did you have any of the banding problem above 800iso?
  • killagramkillagram
    @DouglasHorn - can you tell us what type of lenses you used and as johnnymossville asked, which hack settings? Do you have any preliminary footage to share? Thanks.
  • driftwooddriftwood
    @DouglasHorn Which FD adapter did you use out of interest?
  • DouglasHornDouglasHorn
    Hey guys I'm following this, but wiped out. I drove LA to Seattle after the shoot and just directed another shoot today. So I'll plan to follow up on all questions over the weekend. Bear with me.
  • DouglasHornDouglasHorn
    We used the 66mbps AVCHD with AQ set to 3, I believe. We only went above ISO 800 for one scene, I believe. I have not yet fully reviewed the footage, so I don't know about banding or other artifacts yet. ISO 1250 looked a little noisy, but I plan to run it through MB Denoiser before delivery.

    @johnnymossville While shooting at ISO 1250, we did mysteriously lose one shot, which forced me to convert the entire card via 5DtoRGB instead of Final Cut import.

    Yes, the GH2/FD lens combo is remarkable. It looks great. I have a package of 13 FD prime lenses ranging from 17mm to 200mm including some matched lenses at the focal lengths I use most (24mm, 35mm, 50mm). I also used the Lumix 14mm, 20mm, and 45mm macro for the occasional shot.

    @driftwood I use a number of adapters so I can move quickly--mostly fotodiox. I don't notice a significant difference between adapters.
  • belfrymanbelfryman
    @DouglasHorn Nice one. Were you shooting 24p? How did you deal with no monitor output? I just shot a short and it drove me mad not having a monitor unless I shot 1080i - which I didn't!
  • DouglasHornDouglasHorn
    @belfryman We shot 1080 24p, so we had monitors when we needed them. Honestly, though, we rarely used anything but the LCD.
  • belfrymanbelfryman
    I need to see how people are framing things but if I hook up a monitor to the hdmi then whatever the camera is set to record to gets over ridden and it records at 1080i. You don't get that? It's sending me mental!
  • proaudio4proaudio4
    WTF?
    I have not heard of this. You may want to start a new post for this.
  • belfrymanbelfryman
    I mentioned it in another post and was told was old news. I rang panasonic about it and eventually got an email saying hdmi will only work in 1080i but obviously not the answer to the question. I tried setting it to record in various formats and all came out 1080i in fcp. Mind you i have a weird thing with fcp now ingesting 720p with the pic in slow motion if i tick the convert to 25p in ptools, maybe my fcp is just fucking with me!
  • DouglasHornDouglasHorn

    I wanted to update this thread and let you know that the trailer for DIVERGENCE is now online. The series was show on Canon 5Ds with Zeiss Primes and GH2s with FD primes and the CBrandin 66Mbps hack. (I know, it seems like ages ago, right?)

    The series is called DIVERGENCE http://WhatIsDivergence.com . You can watch the trailer here:

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