I think it all comes down to lens choices, lighting and grading. Make sure you protect your highlights (diffuse the light if it's to harsh) and fill in your shadows to get that extra dynamic range.

For me, Musgo pretty much nails the look in many of these shots:

What exactly is your before and after showing?

They are exactly the same frame. This is obviously not a hacked VS non hacked comparison.

The only difference between those frames is white balance and a slight difference in the exposure curve. Both of which should be able to be adjusted either in camera or in post.

I think you're talking about depth in the image. And any effect a hack would have is minor compared to depth creating lighting assisted by grading.

What makes video look like video is too sharp, too artificial, no softness from the highlights to midtones and shadows, poor highlight rolloff. A hack would help by holding up better in grading. Looking at the work of many in this forum, if things are done right, the gh2 can look as much like film as any dslr and many cinematic cameras.

But why pick such an in descript film to compare to? The after one looks more like the film, I think. The before one looks videoish around the light. But I don't think any of the images are something to aim for.

Look at Shian's work with singularity. Looks like film to me.

Yes, exactly what I expected...

Well, why does everyone write one and the same words and phrases of what has been heard or read? But never self experienced or made? And everytime the "Musgo" is the only example given by everyone as a prove?!? Give your own GH2 work as a prove. Actually, maybe the best GH2 production is "Mandorla", but a professional equipment and only pro cine lenses are used. "Musgo" is also one of the best GH2 productions, but the look there is not generally because of the lenses, it's the post editing. The a la Shadows and Highlights/Unsharp filters is what makes the look, don't you see, although it's over used in my opinion.

At the end, to be clearer for all who still misunderstood my point: take a frame from any kind of GH2 video, scene, settings, etc. and try to make it anyhow closer to the characteristics of the frame below! No need excuses or explanations, just do it and upload it here. Then all of you will surely get what I meant saying "material depth". Chauncy is close to.

Ithink what you meen y cinematic is good exposure on the highlights. I un der. Expose all my footage -2 on exposure compensation and run shutter of 40 on 24p no 50 or 60. Shutter 40gives the cadence Of cinema on gh2

In post thanks to the high bitrate you can get more information from the shadows.

The rest is coloring

Yes get it.

What you referente to material depth is color resolution. Working on an 8bit code ruins it all. Greens skin tones all messed up

Gh4 should avoid this issue with its 10bit 4:2:2 color.

I'm happy enough with the colors I get out of the GH2.

This shot is a bit noisy because of how I exposed it but it captured enough of what I wanted it to which was to keep the sky from blowing out to white. The stills photographer was shooting a 5DMkII and she was complaining about the lighting and dynamic range in the scene.

I think part of the softness comes from the 14-42 kit lens and the ND2.1(7 stops) filter that I had on so I could keep the shutter at 1/40.

@producer My take is that if you are not pleased with the way a camera shoots or looks for your particular tastes then you should probably go find one that does. Life is too short to be trying to do something you aren't cut out for, or trying to make something fit the image you have in your mind when either you don't have the skill to do it, or you find the equipment you are using is not capable of achieving that ideal.

Always thought this looked pretty good from a look standpoint.

What a crock of BS! If @producer was able to understand the article that he posted a link to, he would see that his whole argument is unfounded. BOTH sample images are the hacked GH2, before and after grading. Producer says 'While the "Before" frame produces much more characteristics of a movie look, looks much more cinematic closer to the Hollywood motion pictures.' Well in effect he is saying he likes the UNGRADED HACKED GH2. End of argument. I would be very pleased if electronic camera sensors could capture the colour space of film stocks, but they don't, yet. One day it might happen. Meanwhile I choose the best looking cameras for my work and get on with it. Cinematic is a word I never use because it is a purely emotional term that means different things to different people.

@oscillian: Oh, yes! Although I'm not a Sony fan at all, A6000 just melts GH2 (and not only!). The look, details, shapes, depth, nuances that it produces by itself are much far better. Even with its 8-bit, it can be graded wonderfully because the colors and all the nuances it gives - they don't need much tweaking in post to get what you'd never get from GH2 even with serious grading.

A friend owns Sony a57 which gives very pure and organic image characteristics, no matter that the model has some things not better than hacked GH2.

I love gh2 for its superior image quality. I'm not filmmaker so I'm not bothered with some minor problems it has