Personal View site logo
GH2 with 2/3" B4 adapter at the 2012 War & Peace show
  • FW200FW200

    Hi all, I used my GH2 at a reenacting event this summer. I used a homemade shoulder rig along with a homemade B4 adapter. Sadly the lens I got only had a x1.7 extender and not a x2 so the edges of the lens are visible.. This is why I chose to do a fake 21:9 conversion in the edit.. I also used footage from Gopro HD Hero 2's (One running at 720p50 and one at 1080p25), a contour SD model and another camera running at 30fps (which you can hear). The GH2 footage can be easily identified.. I used flowmotion v2.02 iirc.

    Audio was recorded on 2 microphones through a zoom H4, though I used the camera mics from gopro's etc as much as possible. My style is throwing the camera around a lot and the GH2 worked quite well for that. It was set at 1080p25.

    The event shown in the video was a reenacting display we took part in, showing Soviet gear (vehicles, uniforms and weapons) vs "mujaheddin".

    Despite the fact that the lens was not a x2 extender lens I was pretty happy with how it turned out, sadly I couldn't do much about the other cameras (and their settings).. only one gopro was mine..

  • 6 Replies sorted by
  • FW200FW200

    Also, I have to say that the GH2 worked quite well as a traditional ENG camera, throwing it around and adapting to the quick situation (with a lot of sun and then some shadows etc). I also put a small ND filter (46mm or similar) between the lens and the sensor in the adapter, since I knew I was going to shoot outside in the sun. This was my camera rig, along with 2 screengrabs:

    CameraGH2.jpg
    1000 x 801 - 150K
    Still0730_00001.jpg
    1920 x 1080 - 227K
    Still0730_00002.jpg
    1920 x 1080 - 283K
  • tonalttonalt

    The footage was surprisingly good for old B4 mounted lens. What power solution you were using for the lens zoom?

  • FW200FW200

    Since I used an old Sony BVP body (it was broken) I used the existing 12 pin hirose plug.. My brother (who is a wizard with electrical things) designed and made the power system which takes the power from the Anton Bauer battery and divides it into 12v (Lens), 9.3v (Zoom H4 and viewfinder) and 5v (HDMI to CVBS converter)..

  • FW200FW200

    Also, I have to add that despite being an SD Viewfinder, that the BVF-20WCE worked like a charm to focus.. The GH2 is pretty suited to ENG style camera work with this rig.. The only problem I had was that the 3.5mm line to 2.5mm mic cable I had between the Zoom H4 and the camera died. It still recorded some sound and because I didn't stop recording (Kept going for ~25 minutes) it was quite easy to sync it up.

    I did buy a seperate B4 extender with x2 but sadly it got lost in the mail.. Which is why I still had to use this lens with the edge problems..

  • kavadnikavadni

    That's way cool, my 13 year old son loves it too.
    As an Australian, i have no idea what the battle was about .. who the two side were.
    Might like to add something to provide context, graphics? / voice over?.

    Only really bad thing about footage is some of the jello, but that was probably not the GH2.

  • FW200FW200

    The GH2 was the main camera, so it's the one following the action from a distance.. The rest are mostly POV ones (aside from the one with crappy news graphics overlays)..

    It was a battle between Soviet forces in Afghanistan (which we follow) who are ambushed in a village by Mujaheddin.. For next year I'm definatly going to try and visualize it a bit more..

Add a Comment