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watch GH2 Hack Tests w/PL mount

brianluce said:
What aspects of the 5d are cleaner? My 7d was plagued with moire and aliasing and I find the GH2 much cleaner. How was your GH2 set up? Hacked? ETC mode?
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I meant noise. Moire and aliasing, right, but GH2 is noisy in every scenario, day or night. 320 ISO is the threshold before you start to see nasty banding, it is still a rather noisy ISO to work at even with plenty of light.

ETC mode on and off. ETC mode does have more noise, ETC mode off still shows noise even when there's plenty of light. That's part of the charm, though.

I shot part of Superseeds with an unhacked GH2, it was also noisy. Hacked has even more noise but more pleasant than the unhacked GH2, and it doesn't get muddy when you shoot underexposed areas.
 
brianluce said:
What aspects of the 5d are cleaner? My 7d was plagued with moire and aliasing and I find the GH2 much cleaner.
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The 5D MkII is at least a full stop cleaner than the 7D. That's one of the primary reasons why I only had my 7D two weeks before trading up to the 5D MkII.

As for the color issues, I'm running the CineStyle color profile so I get flat colors but a metric buttload of latitude for post.
 
escher said:
The 5D MkII is at least a full stop cleaner than the 7D. That's one of the primary reasons why I only had my 7D two weeks before trading up to the 5D MkII.

As for the color issues, I'm running the CineStyle color profile so I get flat colors but a metric buttload of latitude for post.
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It's not so much shooting flat, lattitude, etc. It's the sensor and the way it reproduces color, especially skin. Skin's the most complex for a digital camera to render, and the 5D doesn't do it well.

Cinestyle exacerbates the problem, although a lot of Davinci work can heal it for the most part.

I am not having this trouble with the GH2, but I am also using PL lenses which help by miles.

I agree, the 5D MKII is definitely cleaner (noise) than the 7D, and the GH2. In comparison, though, the 5D looks almost plastic even at its best, GH2 offering this weird organic image. People called it "Panasonic mojo" back in the DVX100 days.

knightly said:
Nah, I'm on a pretty fast network, and I'm used to waiting for the video to download before playing it. I may just need more RAM, I haven't maxed out this machine yet :) The picture quality on Vimeo is heads and tails above the other outlets, but the frame rate always seems to suffer for me somehow, perhaps it's just how they handle the bandwidth or something.

The pictures from that camera are GLORIOUS. Can you get color rendition like that from the stock lenses?
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Sorry! I just saw this.

I think that you could get the right color from stock lenses, but I wouldn't be inclined to use those zooms. They're too meticulous (Micro contrast is through the roof it looks like) for my tastes. I think you could get awesome color with older glass, like Canon FD's or my favorites, Contax Zeiss--super awesome lenses I tell ya.

Oh! and for a while I shot on 7Ds with a set of Zeiss ZF's and they were quite tasty, as well. Super-expensive (for the likes of us) but buttery and tended to lean toward a more neutral cast.

Contax Zeiss glass leans warmer.
 
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Kholi said:
Skin's the most complex for a digital camera to render, and the 5D doesn't do it well.
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Oh, I beg to differ. :)

That was shot in some really unflattering non-color-balanced florescent energy-saver-bulb light.

I'm noticing that a lot of digital shooters are completely forgetting that the digital image captured by these cameras is more like the latent image on a negative and always needs developing. Sure, one camera might do a bit better than another with the default rendition, but these are processing steps made by a machine. The best results will always result from a human sitting down with a color-grading filter.

I've also noticed that the lens I use has a much greater impact than the camera. The shot I linked to above was taken on the first day I ever used an L-series lens.
 
escher said:
Oh, I beg to differ. :)

That was shot in some really unflattering non-color-balanced florescent energy-saver-bulb light.
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Hehe. To me, the skin looks pale and unhealthy. That's my eyes, though. I will say you fair a lot better in Stills mode, which is a world of difference from video representation thanks to compression etc.

Nikon, to me, kills Canon in color reproduction. But, we all see something different!

I'm noticing that a lot of digital shooters are completely forgetting that the digital image captured by these cameras is more like the latent image on a negative and always needs developing. Sure, one camera might do a bit better than another with the default rendition, but these are processing steps made by a machine. The best results will always result from a human sitting down with a color-grading filter.
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Well, I shoot RED and EPIC for a living (90 percent of the time): I understand the digital negative. =] Also work in Resolve for most of my work, you can work magic there. Skin is still skin, it's composed of a ton of colors that digital sensors have a hard time parsing then reconstructing into one shade. A colorist will definitely disagree with what you're saying. The best color is captured in camera, even if that's raw, if the raw image doesn't net accurate color from the get go they'll have a hard time finding it in post.

That's just the nature of the beast, some people see things differently which is just fine by me!

I've also noticed that the lens I use has a much greater impact than the camera. The shot I linked to above was taken on the first day I ever used an L-series lens.
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Glass will impact a camera far more than compression, etc. That's why I choose to shoot PL if I can: it's balanced for motion and rendering color proper from the get go, while sacrificing tech details like MTF, so on and so forth.

For this reason, Cooke S4s are my go to lenses. They also cost 75K a set. xD
 
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escher said:
She has naturally pale skin, these energy saver lights suck, and I'm still an amateur at color correction. :P
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It was probably mostly the light. I can't stand cheap fluo's (bulbs, etc). Icky!

Colorists can help a lot, though! I agree. Netting it in cam is the strongest argument you can make for a pretty image, and to me (and seems to you) glass is more important in that regard.
 
http://vimeo.com/33326531 -- might be a bit tough to playback, download.

From Vimeo Description:
GH2 | Driftwood seaQuake 176mb Patch
Hot Rod Cameras PL Mount (hotrodcameras.com)
Zeiss Superspeed Super16mm Zoom T2 10-100
Profile: Smooth -2 -2 -1 -2
NDS: .3, .6, .9
ISO: 400

Nothing special, it's footage that I grabbed pre hack re-install so I need to go back out and try this again. I noticed that, after I re-patched, ETC mode looked a lot cleaner than what's being shown here. However, my eyes may be playing tricks on me.

This is a very specific look. Lots of noise. I did a chroma denoise with Magic Bullet Denoiser and left the luma noise alone, as I'm not a fan of how soft the image gets when you tear noise out of it.

I am a fan, however, of the noise altogether. It's different, adds something to it.

Pretty cool to be able to get two distinctly different looks out of one camera at this price point!

Footage has been graded and is not the image right out of cam.

And, yes, I know, I have shakey hands. Try holding this camera with a zoom on it and focusing without a neckstrap! I've found a temp solution though, so next time it'll be a lot smoother.

Promise
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knightly said:
Is anyone getting color saturation like this with the canon line at all?
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Man... I've tried for years, for the life of me, to get better color out of Canon and it just does not happen. With a ton of time in post, I think you can get there, but Canon's look is sort of it's look.

The C300 seems to be on the money in Vincent Laforet's short, but I can't say the same for most of the other examples that are popping up.

I'm barely even doing any work with the GH2, as you can see in the more subtle grades in all of the videos.

I think you can get it out of Canons, but you'll have an easier time getting it out of the GH2, and especially the D7000.

If you're one for skin and color representation, the D7000 I think kills all, but has trade offs elsewhere.

brianluce said:
Which hack are you using?
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Driftwood Quantum V2 Beta.

Smackin' your hands for not readin' the Vimeo, Brian. xP
 
portholeothumb.jpg

Ungraded straight from cam under (or over technically) a bed of fluo light.

portholethumb.jpg

and corrected.

Stills are from video that I'm about to upload. The black circle is called portholing: basically, with the S16 lenses I have to use either crop mode (ETC which is an actual sensor section being used, and not a digital zoom, for a solid 1920 x 1080 image or 2x Zoom, which is a digital zoom and has all sorts of artifacts going on) or the lens won't cover the image.

ETC mode is a 2.4x sensor crop side, 2x is 2x. I can use 2x without getting any portholing which means a larger FOV for the lenses. Wouldn't be too bad for internet video but it's about Nikon D90 quality so I wouldn't use it for anything super important.

EDIT or UPDATED:

http://vimeo.com/33858689
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Z611AIMG -- better compressed X264 with the right gamma. Same File Size

Check the vimeo description, but quickly: yes, I used 2x Zoom and the S16 for this one. All night material. 400 ISO and 800 ISO.

Lots of new revelations for myself, cam just keeps on giving.
 
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It's actually hilarious or ridiculous that you can get such performance from a $600 camera. Really.
So, I'm not clear on why you'd consider the 2x digi zoom over ETC, the wider FOV? btw, I didn't know ETC was 2.4x, had it in my head it was 2x also.
 
brianluce said:
It's actually hilarious or ridiculous that you can get such performance from a $600 camera. Really.
So, I'm not clear on why you'd consider the 2x digi zoom over ETC, the wider FOV? btw, I didn't know ETC was 2.4x, had it in my head it was 2x also.
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It's pretty insane. And it's not like it's "well it's really good for a DSLR"... it's more like "it's probably the best larger sensor video image your money can buy for under 10K." I think the FS100 might be it out in lowlight but I'd be hesitant to even say that.

The ETC option is deifnitely about 2.4x, because it's cropping out an exact 1920 x 1080 from the 4/3 sensor. That's why it's so insanely sharp. No pixel binning, no hurricane magic, just the 1920 x 1080 from the camera.

If it were as clean as the full frame I'd declare it better than shooting with it off.

I wouldn't choose 2x Digital Zoom over ETC mode, though. I mean, maybe for messing around, but ETC is way to clean and sharp in comparison.

What I am gonna try to do now is get my hands on some of the more expensive Nikon Zooms, and try to find a pair of PL zooms that are at worst T2.

That should settle up what I'm going to shoot the feature with as far as glass goes. As much as I would love to shoot with the S16 lenses, I'd need a lot more light to do so, to keep the ISO low. But when there's a lot of light man it's fantastic.
 
Here are some pics of the setups, and if anyone's interested in the NEX5N that's the second one:

GH2RPP18.jpg


nex5ndirectors.jpg


GH2CookeRPP.jpg


I had a chance to test the T2 Olympic Zooms, super sharp and super fast. Quite a nice look to them, much more interesting than I expected but should've known. Before I fly out today I'll post some stills of how well they net detail and how they render color.

Haven't really had a chance to put any other SLR glass on it aside from 11-16/2.8 and Zeiss ZF's.

Stills soonish.
 
Kholi said:
That big ol' fatty is a Cooke 18-100/T3.1 and she is quite a beauty. Heavy, though. Shot over half of Superseeds with it on RED and some with GH2 + The zoom.

About 15K used.
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I've shot with something that size on my GH2. It was a 35mm Angenieux cinema lens from the 70's. I believe it was T3.5 and 12-150mm. Weighed a ton but it was beautiful. New they were about 12k.
 
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