GH2 driftwood hack in shootout with Canon C300

oscillian

delete

plasmasmp

Why disappointed with Gh2? That's just what nostalgic looks like. In that particular scene all those cameras can be matched nearly exactly

alcomposer

Although this is a dick measuring comp... one thing to notice is that the GH2 looks great compared to the other cams... enough said... can't wait to see the filming without overexposure... ;-)

derek

Disappointing that the GH-2, in this test is 9. Way to contrasty, and the dark hair no detail
Disneytoy
Dont cry for me Argentina :-(

DrDave

WooHoo! I Calibrated my monitor, and I preferred No. 9. Just need to dial back the contrast a bit, as we all do. I thought for sure it was the Nex5N. Now I don't have to buy anything for three months except a crash free SDHC Card.
I officially name tomorrow Driftwood Day, December 18.

alcomposer

@DrDave
+1

Have a look at the 64gig Sandisk 95MB/s cards....

danyyyel

The reason to be disappointed is simple, it means in this test that the gh2 is the contrastiest/low dynamic range of all the test. DR is the single less appreciated value by what I would call the pixel peepers and non pro's. If you see at the upper echelon of film-making DR has always been pivotal. Film makers even have sacrifice resolution by using filters etc. to get better DR. The reason is simple is that the human eye DR or perception of it is quite high compared to the usual video cam 10 stop. So even if the final delivery medium is not that high people will compress it into that space. It is not by hazard that the Alexa is the darling of Hollywood, not because of resolution but because it is the first camera to reach film level DR.

Now people, the super intelligent ones, will tell you that you can light your subject or use ND on the windows etc. For sure this is a solution, but it will require you much more time, logistic and sometime just plain impossible. Try lighting some wide shots with some heavy sunlight, or your scene is in the shade of the cloud and the background mostly the clouds have sunlight. Or filming in a modern day office at the 10th floor with glass bays. Yes you will can shoot at other times etc but it will take at lot more preparation etc.

It is true that as a final grade the image no9 would be closer than the other camera super flat image, but you could choose the level of contrast in post in the other that would be near impossible the other way round. For me no2 looks very nice. I am sure that 90% of woman would prefer a more softer lighting ratio for there face, I would prefer it if I wanted to get a more flattering look to an actress, I am talking beauty and not the mood of a movie which might be harsher to accommodate the style.

danyyyel

I would like to know if there is a big difference in DR between Nostalgic and Smooth. Fro what I have read apart from the nostalgic colour bias they should be quite close. If not we should perhaps ask @driftwood if he can tell philip to shoot smooth -2-2-2-2

rozroz

nostalgic- a tide more DR but yellowish ..
at least what i gather, recollecting all info on that.

Elenion

Quite difficult to judge with jpeg compression.
However i really do not understand why you always say that the gh2 is to blame because is too contrasty. Ok it is. But with a normal flat curve, for example the cineform one you can make it look like a x-log without any loss of quality (and if there is some kind of loss i can't see it even with heavy grading so...). With a proper curve (for example the cineform rspace or silog) you do recover ALL the details of the highlights and of the shadows if their not clipped. You're not criticizing the dr here but just a way the image is rendered, and you can change it with no effort.

Elenion

However all the images looks good except 1,2,3 and 10 that are unusable except for web stuff. The 5 is oversharpened but it's not so bad

RRRR

Hey guys.. we already know the DR of the gh2 is not huge.
So getting dissapointed from heavily compressed JPEGs from shots where the lighting does not look favourable to the camera itself and with unknown white-balance is a bit wierd. My guess is he shot on the same K instead of balancing each camera individually according to their color profile. Then we also have the issues of how all our computers handle a specific color profile and how they are displayed..

For this kind of shot I would try to light as to be able to expose to the right on the gh2, which IMO would yield a similar result as in image 2 (as I see it). That said, someone might think another way of doing it gives better results. For the reason of the test the lighting might be done as it is - to display the DR of the camera, rather than accomodate for the DR of the camera.

RRRR

@Elenion: seconded re post work.

danyyyel

In fact the picture at first site is a quite deceiving. I have downloaded the images and doing some test ... I know they are re-sized lower resolution and jpeg compression. Even then the gh2 is noticeably sharper and much much more detailed. In fact were the majority of the other ones are mushing the shadows the gh2 keeps a lot more, that can be boosted. I am quite surprised/amazed how this bad quality compressed shot stand up to correction in post, at least compared to the others. The histogram also tells another story, if you look at most they clip at different level (upper) while the gh2 does not. In fact the gh2 is one of the best (at histogram level) and seems a tad underexposed compared to most of the dslr. You can easily simulate the flat look of the other camera just by lowering your white and raising your white point in photoshop curve. (For copyright reason I think it is not good to post it here).

Hopefully he will upload some uncompressed screen grabs of these for some better judgement. There are too many variable to conclude about the true DR of these camera. The model is sometime moving and if the light source is near it can have and impact on the lighting and DR (White t-shirt could blow for example). Philip Bloom has done this test for skin tone and not DR.

kholi

@danyyyel

No offense, and I don't mean to be a jerk, but you sound like you haven't been using the GH2 Hacked much at all. I just started about three weeks ago and yes, I was fooled by number 9 being the GH2 because it isn't what I'm getting out of the Quantum V2 setup I'm using.

Philip has very little experience with the GH2 Hack... probably most of those cameras.

Your camera doesn't need to win a pissing match to be good, you just need to put it to good use.

As harsh as Vitaly can be with his words, he's right... especially for this "mini shootout", it's not definitive and it's certainly not the kind of test I would hang my opinion on.

You can work with the GH2 Quantum Hack and a 5DtoRGB workflow JUST fine for damned near any project.

You are right, though, I tend to shoot with NDs as much as possible, even when I shoot EPIC. Indoors, outdoors, if I can shoot with NDs I will. That's just how it's done.

otcx

What is point to listen what some Philip do ? Just go and shoot with your gh2 or whatever camara you have.
If result is good everything is fine. If Olivia make a video about cams I will Hmm watch.

Mihuel

Which of these is GH2 ?

lolo

1 5D
2 NEX5
3 AF100
4 C300
5 D7000
6 F3 AB
7 F3 S-Log
8 FS100
9 GH2
10 7D

keep in mind that the dynamic range depends also of the iso used, higher iso means lower dynamic range,

and about how to get and improvement in dynamic range, i do it in post, if the camera was in a tripod i shoot two takes (lets say that i´m in a room with a window), first i shoot exposing for the window outside, with no subject at all, and then i make other takes where i expose for the subject indoor, later in post i mix the two images

lolo

ap and about the dicks, i don´t understand why so much hate, of course this test was bias, but we can still get some knowledge, and bloom´s blog, is just his blog, he can do whatever he wants with his...

i´m actually interested in knowing how big is the difference between the cameras used in movies with a bigger budget than mine that are being proyected on the big screen, just to see if whatever i shoot will be of quality if i ever get blown up to film

and at least from this test being the gh2 the 9 and looking at the 7, wich is the f3 with the s-log, now i know nobody can complain about resolution on the gh2, the only difference are color space and dynamic range, two big terms,

but i´m really pleased seeing that the gh2 compared to the canon 7d and the 5d has more resolution, because when i bought my gh2, everyone was buying canon, the gh2 wasn´t yet hacked, so those 2 where my other choices, and i´m glad that i take a leap of faith against everybody that i know and end up having a better long term investment

kholi

@lolo

Has anyone ever actually tested this "higher ISO lower DR" theory? I'd LOVE to see that, because it sounds backward to me.

Low ISO means banding and posterization of brighter areas, and a quicker clip to white. The only thing that should see the maximum amount of range the camera has to offer is knowing what ISO it's actually optimized for, and what film mode setting.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

>don´t understand why so much hate, of course this test was bias, but we can still get some knowledge, and bloom´s blog, is just his blog, he can do whatever he wants with his...

It is not hate. :-)
It is constatation of fact. Yep, you can still get some knowledge, but much more knowledge, and of much better kind, could be obtained by reading some good books about using cameras by masters, lighting, etc And yet different knowledge is obtained as you start learning to use this theory in practice.
Our lifes are fuckingly short, so do not spend it discussing this shit too much.

lolo

@kholi somwhere in here http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/comment/30852#Comment_30852 you will find a dpreview of the jpeg output of the gh2... but still you can notice it at naked eye on the lcd screen, just record the same scene, one at iso160 and the other to iso 12800, you will notice the difference

Vitaliy_Kiselev

@kholi
We have special topic about GH2 DR, you can read some good explanations there.

lolo

@Vitaliy_Kiselev of course, there is better knowledge in books, but this way is more graphic and easy to digest in a fast way, all i´m sayng is that it is just a blog post, and an interesting one, it is not a scientfic study by any means, its just an article with interesting (bias) knowledge available, that is worth seeing

haha at least from my side, i was having fun, trying to figure it out wich camera was used on each frame

itimjim

I wouldn't say there was any bias, just not very well executed.

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