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Panasonic GH2 for video

nowherean

nowherean

Member
Im thinking about getting the GH2 for video and hacking it to enable better rates. Anyone here uses hacked GH2? What lenses do you use for video? It seems like Olympus makes better lenses but GH2 may be the best low budget video solution (once its hacked of course). Thanks in advance.
 
hot

hot

Active member
Not hacking makes good video - it's necessary a GOOD man/woman behind camera !
 
Jorgen Udvang

Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
The GH2 delivers rather good video also un-hacked. As for lenses, both Olympus and Panasonic have a few good ones, but Pana has more lenses optimized for video.
 
M

MRfanny

New member
jump onto the dvxuser ghx sub forum, you will get more answers and info there. i frequent it alot.

I have patched mine to 34Mbit. stock 17Mb SHD and 24Mb FHD just doesn't cut it anymore. You will need to buy an ultra fast SD card in order to use the really high patches. Really keen on playing with the 40fps burst rate patches though. 1.9k res 10 sec goodness.

I have most of the pana lenses. they are good for planned shots but for random on the go they are a pain because of the focus by wire and poor auto focus hunting. i resort to focus locking alot. the only decent one is the 14-140 which is made for video, it is a very good day lens. I use my zeiss glasses more for on the fly shooting but you loose OIS which does a great job at eliminating shake. the oly 45 f1.8 is surprisingly good at auto focus though, it doesn't hunt like the 20mm.
 
hot

hot

Active member
haha - I have patched mine to 34Mbit


Videos with most Canon cameras are 43 Mbps - these are 5.4 MBps = Class6!
Faster cards are tricks from dealers to get your money.
My cheap Transcend cards (Class6) are 1a for these Canon videos, for Lumix also of course.

But imagination of men = holy.
 
Tesselator

Tesselator

New member
My Class 10 cards are $20 for 8gigs so I guess they're not getting too much of my money. I've patched my GH1 to 55Mbps 24FPS and only class 10 cards work without stopping.

For lenses there're the ones already mentioned here but I'd like to say that manual focus lenses are pretty nice for pretty cheap and some of the MF lenses have a lot more character than any of the µ4/3 native offerings. If you go with MF lenses look into a follow focus rig and some shoulder riggings. There's a $30 shoulder-rig that looks pretty good here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rhJ-m3-Qa0 Some follow-focus rigs are pretty cheap as well. Older M42, C-Mount, and RangeFinder lenses have a stopless aperture ring which is nice! With only a small tweak many lenses can be made stopless.

There are too many awesome MF lenses to start recommending one or two here and there. A lot of the selecting will have to do with your preferred focal range and your idea of good balance and operation.

Have fun! Ask lots of questions!
 
kit laughlin

kit laughlin

Subscriber Member
The GH2 with the latest firmware update (which includes a higher bit rate video capture, 1080p, 25fps, 24-bit) makes lovely 1080p video that look really great, with excellent handling of movement. I have only watched this on a high-rez quadcore MacBook Pro screen.

I have seen tests which show the results of the even higher bit rate video that Vitaly's hacks allow, but I have not seen these shown on a pro. high rez video monitor, which is where I would expect to see any difference. Most people frequenting user's groups have not ever seen video on one of these expensive monitors and are commenting on YT or Vimeo conversions of the cameras' outputs and in my experience, you really can't make a judgement about what you're seeing using this method.

For any work that will end up on a standard definition DVD (like my current work) 720p video is superb: we shoot in this format, edit in Apple ProRes 422, and down-convert and standards-convert the edited program from 720p to SD NTSC for the final DVD duplication.

If you are planning lots of graphic effects post-production, or you are planning on converting your video to film at some point, then 1080p is preferable.

Re. lenses: the Oly 45/1.8 is excellent, and so is the 20/1.7 (we do not record sound using the GH2; we do second system). I have heard that the 12/2 Oly is excellent too, and those three lenses will do all that we currently need. hth, kl
 
M

MRfanny

New member
hot said:
haha - I have patched mine to 34Mbit


Videos with most Canon cameras are 43 Mbps - these are 5.4 MBps = Class6!
Faster cards are tricks from dealers to get your money.
My cheap Transcend cards (Class6) are 1a for these Canon videos, for Lumix also of course.

But imagination of men = holy.
Click to expand...

sorry but i dont get why you are laughing.

yes canons fly around 43Mbit but they also use a different codec.

on the old firmware it was 17Mbit (SHD and FHD) and 24Mbit cinema mode standard. at 44Mbit my panasonic class 6 and transcend (yes i know its a cheapo) class 10 cannot write fast enough and i get write speed error. 44Mbit worked fine though on my GH1, go figure. if you were to go with driftwoods 176Mbit patch there is no chance a class 6 will cut it. these high bitrate patches have been proven to work only on high write speed SD cards in the patch community. thinking otherwise and your just wasting your time.
 
G

GDI

Member
MRfanny said:
sorry but i dont get why you are laughing.

yes canons fly around 43Mbit but they also use a different codec.

on the old firmware it was 17Mbit (SHD and FHD) and 24Mbit cinema mode standard. at 44Mbit my panasonic class 6 and transcend (yes i know its a cheapo) class 10 cannot write fast enough and i get write speed error. 44Mbit worked fine though on my GH1, go figure. if you were to go with driftwoods 176Mbit patch there is no chance a class 6 will cut it. these high bitrate patches have been proven to work only on high write speed SD cards in the patch community. thinking otherwise and your just wasting your time.
Click to expand...
I have played around with a number of patches - the cards make all the difference in the world. I ran Driftwood's 132 and it will work only on my fastest cards. It is silly to claim it is marketing hype.

That said, IMO, the reason the GH2 MUST be hacked is to get the high ISO options for video. It makes for great B&W footage.
 
nowherean

nowherean

Member
So much info... I need to digest it all. Driftwood patch seems like a great way to convert this camera into a real beast. I take it, its no problem to patch GH2 with a later firmware. Ok, fast cards for all that bit-rate makes sense. Lenses, still not sure...
 
ustein

ustein

Contributing Editor
>That said, IMO, the reason the GH2 MUST be hacked is to get the high ISO options for video. It makes for great B&W footage.

Where are some good instructions to add a moderate hack? 50Mbs or so?
 
kevinparis

kevinparis

Member
A new GH2 user here.... not seen a need to go the hacking route as yet... I am sure there is some benefits to it but there eis more than enough to learn about the camera and video making in general without adding extra variables into the equation.

so far only really shot with the 20 and the 45/1.8... and have been pleased with the performance.

you can see some of my early efforts here

http://vimeo.com/user2196855/videos

the first three videos all shot on unhacked GH2

K
 
kevinparis

kevinparis

Member
uwe

i had seen that.... my issue with the whole hacking thing is that I have yet to see an example where they actually 'show' what difference it makes rather than just telling me its better.

As it stands the stock GH2 is a way more capable camera than I am a film maker :)

K
 
ustein

ustein

Contributing Editor
>As it stands the stock GH2 is a way more capable camera than I am a film maker :)

Same for me. But our landscape shots lust for details :)
 
Last edited:
D

Diane B

New member
Kevin, wasn't that Jono in the Lobster Dinner?? LOL

I keep watching these threads. Don't have the Gh2 but the G3. Talked myself out of GH2 when I bought since I didn't think I would do video but now I'm so tempted.

kevinparis said:
A new GH2 user here.... not seen a need to go the hacking route as yet... I am sure there is some benefits to it but there eis more than enough to learn about the camera and video making in general without adding extra variables into the equation.

so far only really shot with the 20 and the 45/1.8... and have been pleased with the performance.

you can see some of my early efforts here

http://vimeo.com/user2196855/videos

the first three videos all shot on unhacked GH2

K
Click to expand...
 
kevinparis

kevinparis

Member
diane

indeed that was jono....he passes our way every so often...which is wonderful.....though i'm sure he will now always try and stand behind me when I have a camera out !!!

happy new year to all
 
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