I've spent weeks researching, and I've decided to turn to some aficionados.

First up, Camera: I've found that the GH2 is the best price/performance camera. Is this still true today, or are there better ones, such as the Olympus E-M5? Or, would it be best to wait -- do you think there will be anything extraordinary worth waiting for in the first few months of 2013?

Lastly, Lens: I've seen some people use old TV SD 2/3" Lenses, like B4 and C-Mount, etc. Are these worth it? I've heard that (for the most part), the IQ isn't very good, and there's a large amount of work (modifications) to get them to work.

Should I instead be looking at native lenses, like the Leica 25mm? Lots of people talk about anamorphic lenses, and the Voigtlander f/0.95. It seems like almost everyone raves about the Voigtlander, and while it seems expensive, is it truly worth it (price/performance) over say the Panny 20mm or even the Leica 25mm?

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope this topic helps others as well! -Josh

I a using an Audio Technica with XLR phantom power attached to the DR-40, and the DR-40 Attached to the GH2.

I noticed there are 4 levels on the GH2:

Level 1: Level 2: Level 3: Level 4:

What is the best level for recording dialog?

What settings will work best for getting crisp, clear sound with very little noise?

What I envision as a workflow would be the following--use a preset from each cam, not a custom WB, so anyone could use these Look Up Tables, then shoot some scenes with the Macbeth Color chart, using the same chart and lighting for each cam, and then finally just put the numbers online. I suppose an even better solution would be to somehow convert these LUTs into Cineform values so we could bypass Speedgrade altogether.

The result would be that one could open a preset, say "incandescent" in the GH2 and 5D MK2, or pro camcorder, then just apply the LUT. And anyone could use the LUT because it uses the preset WB in the Cams, which presumably are the same for every user.

Anyone in the world could then use these LUTs.

Paolo Rudelli's Batch software AFAIK is only useful for dealing with MOV files you have already created using 5DtoRGB. It's no use for batch converting original MTS rushes - or am I missing a trick?

Someone who has a good Windows 5DtoRGB GH2 workflow - please help! (I'm using Flowmotion 100Mb btw) Thanks so much

250,000 kilograms of ice and 250,000 kilograms of snow will be used to represent the fairytales of Little Red Riding Hood, Puss in Boots, Cinderella and Rumpelstiltskin, making it the single biggest ice sculpture festival in Europe.

This winter will see Zwolle’s city centre dominated by the Grimm brothers and their famous fairytales. Dozens of Dutch and international ice artists will be creating ice sculptures on the Rodetorenplein square, showing off their personal interpretation of the Grimm tales.

Music : "Be a tease" by Luciano Foglia (lucianofoglia.com), "AUTUMN SUNSET" by Jason Shaw (audionautix.com)

Camera : Michiel Boogerman, Richard van Der Laan.

Montage / Post : Michiel Boogerman, Richard van Der Laan.

Camera : 2x Panasonic GH2 AVC-Intra Driftwood VY Canis Majoris Day.

Lens : Nikon AF-S 24-70mm f2.8 G ED, Nikon NIKKOR 80-200mm f/4.5, Tokina 11-16mm F2.8 AT-X PRO DX.

Martin Bernhard is a well-established dutch Djembe drum maker, teacher and owner of foladjembe.nl

ADVICE: For best experience, turn on your HiFi speakers or put on a headphone.

Camera : Richard van Der Laan, Michiel Boogerman Sound : Maarten Boogerman Edit / Post : Richard van der Laan Artists : Martin Bernhard, Annebeth Elfrink, Marlijn Dompeling, Patrick Pol Location : Brink 21, Deventer (Netherlands) Photos : Patrick Pol Production : veasonic.nl

Camera : 2x Panasonic GH2 AVC-Intra Driftwood VY Canis Majoris Day Lens : Nikon AF-S 24-70mm f2.8 G ED, Tokina 11-16mm F2.8 AT-X PRO DX Gear : Sachtler FSB-4 75 CF, Kessler Hercules 2.0 Head, Kessler K-Pod Tripod System, Gini Follow Focus Rig, Lilliput monitors Recorder : Fostex FR-2LE Microphone : Superlux S502

Monopods, Glidecam HD4000, PBPocket Dolly, and manfrotto sticks. LPowell's Flowmotion 2.02and 75mbit reliability settings were used in the cameras respectively. Post done in FPX. Continued thanks to Vitally for unlocking these cameras potential, and the pioneers who test and produce the settings we need for our work. And to Driftwood and LPowell to whom I've used the most settings. Merry Christmas to everyone here at personal-view.com. May there be peace on earth, and good will toward men. Paul Christopher (pchristoph)

Once again I am pondering a decision to which I would like to inquire on this forum's awesome knowledge of all things GHack2 related.

So what is this all about? You see, I am in pre-production for a no budget webseries called JÄSØN (http://creativemonkeys.org/jason/), a satire about a failing wannabe serial killer klutz. The style I am going for is grimy dark and dusky narrative. A lot of Se7en and 8mm. The first episode has a long low steadicam shot going through several rooms of Jäsøn's trashy apartment, showcasing his failed and broken life. There are moments of serenity, when light breaks through barred windows and plays with dust in its path, there are many dark corners and an overall low saturated, mid/hard contrast range and a wicked eeriness I want to achieve. Then there is a low light scene in a bathroom with flickering fluorescence light, and one ultra slow motion moment.

Our DoP will light it properly, I have no doubts, but I would like to have the proper Hack for the right shot prepared. I thought about getting a couple of cheap and slow SD cards and store different hacks on them and use them on set as we need them.

But here is my problem: My DoP is not familiar with the GH2 - he has a 5D MKII he suggested to use, but I think the GH2 has a nicer film look - and I want to make it as easy for him as I can, by having the best settings ready. And since I am not so good with cameras to understand the finer details as much as many of you do. This is why I am turning to you for help.

I need a set of 3-5 hacks that I can swap on set when needed, to accomplish the best shots. The premises are:

Best Quality - The best possible image quality. Is 2k HD MotionJPG an option? Any other suggestion? Film Look - as close to narrative cinema (80/90ies) as possible. I am considering to use anamorphic lenses here and there, so that should work too. Slow Motion and Ultra Slow Motion - I don't mind using 720p and upscale it later for those shots. How much difference is GOP1 and GOP3. Good Low Light - I do have light, so I am not too worried about low light situations, but I might want a shot were we deliberately do not use any light and for that, I would like to be prepared. Equal Quality/Equal Style - All the hacks need to work and/or work together flawlessly. 25FPS - Living in Europe, I have to adjust to the 50Hz issue. This is why I am opting for 25FPS, but IIRC it should work just as well with 24FPS as long as the shutter is set to 50/100 etc. right? [Edit] Greenscreen - For some effect shots, we will use a greenscreen and a good setting for that, to preserve as much color and details as possible, would be great too.

I am looking forward to your suggestions (including in-camera settings, workflow etc.) and thankful for your help.

PS: I forgot to mention: I have a 64GB 45MB/s SanDisc Ultra and currently no budget to buy the 95MB/s version, as I have to put the few bucks I have into other things, but spanning is irrelevant for me, as there are no shots that should be longer than 3-4 minutes. Thoughts?

this is a short doc I shot last April with the GH2, Voigtländer 25mm 0.95 and Panasonic 14-140. Hope you like it!

or vimeo:

What my initial primary purpose for getting a flash now is for club photography (such as this kind of style: http://www.snapstarlive.com/events.aspx ), which means challenging lighting conditions (a fast wide prime lens will be my next purchase after this... but one thing at a time!).

I think the most important features I'm looking for is:

a) ability to bounce the flash off the ceiling (essential!)

b) rear curtain sync (essential!)

c) affordable

d) compatible with my Nikon D50 (of course... )

Would be "nice to have":

e) iTTL

f) would also be compatible with the Panasonic GH2 (as I'm going to buy this for taking video next month, or sooner... as soon as I spot a Christmas sale bargain, was very recently going for only US$499 for the kit. I wonder if I might again see this kind of pricing, or better, soon?)

g) fast recycle

h) swivel head

i) has a battery pack option

Suggestions that fit my criteria? (and is there anything else important that I'd use which I'm missing out from this list?)

Am a little lost when looking at flashes for bargains, but it seems these would be good options:

http://www.amazon.com/Opteka-Autofocus-Dedicated-Digital-Cameras/dp/B005KA60BS/ (with this too: http://www.amazon.com/Opteka-Universal-Diffuser-Olympus-External/dp/B0017U0WM8/ yes? )

Seems to have everything I want (except I can't tell if it would be any use with a Panasonic GH2?), but I'm a little concerned about quality.

From what I've read about Yongnuo (http://stores.ebay.com/hkyongnuophotoequipment/Flash-Speedlite-Unit-/) as a non-Nikon option they seem like a really good choice, I would quite like to consider the Yongnuo 460 (the cheapest), the 560 (cheapest with an option of later getting a battery pack), or the YN-467 (I quite like that it has a reported extremely fast recycling time in the test) if they would work as that would be ideal (or from any other brand at a comparable sub-US$100 price?). However I've read in quite a few places that although the Yongnuo range for Nikon is compatible with Nikon i-TTL cameras it is not however compatible with D100 D50 D2Hs D2X D70 D2H. Hmm... why? Can I still get it for my D50?

http://speedlights.net/2010/09/10/yongnuo-yn-467-speedlite-review/ The YN-467 originally is reported not to work with certain older Nikon DSLRs but the more recently produced YN-467 models are reported to work with the D200, so would it be reasonable to assume it then works too with the comparably aged D50?

This thread mentions the D50 a few times and makes feel optimistic the Yongnuo range can work with my D50: http://www.flickr.com/groups/strobist/discuss/72157627857970265/ But they're only mentioning the YN565EX (which is almost the most expensive Yongnuo flash), would it be reasonable to assume from that thread the cheaper Yongnuo flashes should also work similarly with the Nikon D50?

Disappointed I didn't have the guts earlier to pull the trigger and buy this when I saw it: http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=543490048 As I'm realising now in hindsight that was a really good deal (even though it doesn't have iTTL).

Thanks

I've recently bought a Panasonic GH2 because of the great video quality once hacked (Thank you!). I never really compared the quality to the stock firmware because I hacked it right away, and started testing afterwards.

I made a extremely difficult testing set-up:

In a completely darkened room I projected thin white stripes of light on a model, and filmed it with different settings. At first I was a bit disappointed with the results, because allthough the footage looked good, a closer inspection revealed some serious flaws.

When color grading the grain in the blacks appeared very glitchy, almost like a digital rain... it seemed impossible to remove. But I was also trying out different conversion software, and by accident I noticed it made a huge difference..!

Pavtube was one of the first programs I tried, and apparently was responsible for the 'digital rain'. because ClipWrap gave a much smoother grain in the blacks..!

Watch the difference here:

Http://www.johannez.nl/oud/content/dump/testfootage-web.mov (100MB QuickTime movie, half-size but zoomed in 200% for acurate pixel size)

GH2 - hacked with Flow Motion, filmed in 24P Cinema mode @ 3200 iso (if i remeber this correctly.. is there some way to read out the meta-data and find exactly which settings were used for a particular shot?)

unfortunately I found out today about this free plug-in, which eliminates the need for conversion software. Allthough ClipWrap still seems to do a lot better coversion job then Final Cut Pro..! https://eww.pass.panasonic.co.jp/pro-av/support/dload/avccam_impt/agree_e.htm

Hope this helps..!

Until recently, the field has been absolutely ruled by Canon and Nikon, companies who broke the ground for hybrid cameras and acquisition.

How can such old news become news? Simply because it's an example of how the GH2 series can slip into independent use right under the radar of Industry.

Thanks anyway to writer Michael Hamish, especially for the personal-view.com plug. But the industry still gets the wooden spoon.

http://www.tvtechnology.com/equipment/0082/panasonic-lumix-dmc-gh-camera/216881

Anyone have one with some extra batterys or good accessories that wouldn't carry over to your gh3 upgrade? :-)

I haven’t been able to post much this weekend. However, I have been doing a ton of testing. Here are some resolution chart screen captures for the GH3, GH2, and LX7.

I have only included a few of the samples in this post. Honestly, some of them are just so close to others that it really isn’t necessary to post all of them here. For those of you who want to see all of them I have a link below that will allow you to download all of them at once in a .zip file. I will post the original video files to a downloadable Vimeo Account later today.

First off the GH2 and GH3 are very close in resolution and I haven’t been able to detect moire in either of them. They both can exhibit very slight aliasing but only with test charts and not in real world situations.

Whatever moire we saw in pre-production models is not existent in my NTSC GH3.

I included the GH2 1080p @ 24 FPS(Mildly hacked) image here because increasing the bit rate does nothing for resolution of a static image like this. I also included the 1080p @ 60 FPS, 1080p @ 24 FPS All I, 1080p @ 24 FPS regular, 1080i and 720p @ 60 FPS AVC-HD images here. In addition I have charts from -5 sharpness through +5 for the GH3. However, you have to download the .zip file to see those.

All of the GH3’s 1080p settings are very similar except for the ones that are derived from 1080i(ie: 1080i/60 and 1080p @ 30 FPS). The 1080i derived ones show much more aliasing.

Take a look at the GH3 1080p @ 24 FPS AVC-HD and compare it to the 1080p @ 24 FPS all I. The files are almost identical. Again for static scenes the bit rate does not matter and it won’t affect resolution.

I personally like the 1080p @ 60 FPS mode the best. It is absolutely wonderful to have the flexibility to record 1080p @ 60 FPS and play real time or switch to slow motion without having to make that decision beforehand.

I have settled on +2 sharpness for my liking. I am sure yours will vary from that depending on how much you want to edit it. It appears that -2 or -3 sharpness is closest to an unsharpened RAW image. Therefore, shooting with a -5 sharpness and applying in post might not actually be beneficial.

It was too much trouble to post all of those images here so you have to download the zip file if you want to see the sharpness settings. All of the test images are shot with Standard Color mode 0 Contrast, 0 Color, lowest Noise Reduction at ISO 200, with the 35-100mm lens @ 35mm F3.2.

What I found most interesting is how the LX7 did. Don’t get me wrong it isn’t even close to the GH2 or the GH3. However, this is a $300 camera (When I bought it) and it shoots VERY GOOD 1080p @ 60 FPS video. The 720p @ 120 FPS is not good because of severe aliasing. However, it is much better than the 720p @ 120 FPS of my GoPro 3 Black.

3 Pana Lens are used -- 20mm pancake, 14-42mm X lens, 45-150 lens. Most of the footage were filmed in 720 60P. Used Twixtor for slow-mo effect. Edited in Premiere Pro.

Shot on a GH2 with Canon FD lenses.

filmed with hacked gh2 and 550d with fisheye lens.

Mountains, white sands, turquoise seas, rainbows, the machair and beautiful deserted beaches, I wonder why I love Harris so much

The northern lights at the end were an unexpected bonus

I've ran into a slight problem. I downloaded the new ptools and now when I try to load a patch from 'my populars' basket, it wont recognize the patches/ files. I can however make a patch of my own and save it. Am I the culprit here or is this a glitch of some kind? Pardon my ignorance, I'm not new to this but l'm no genus either, this is the first problem with using ptools, it might be me, and if it is I'd like to know what i'm doing wrong. Thanks in advance