alright so this is the deal. theres the ongoing frame mode vs. normal mode battle, but a way that i found that truly lets you get the best both worlds is to shoot with a shutter speed of 1/30. its still interlaced, but the 2 interlaced images are the same since they are being recorded at 1/30. and you get a semi-decent film look; easily one mimicing the frame mode, without loss of resolution.

ok. anyway. on to my real problem. obviously the lens takes in much more light this way. i find that when shooting outdoors, i simply CANNOT film well! at all! with the built-in ND it was useless. hell, i went out and bought 2 ND 4's, and even together it's still pretty bad. i dont want to knock the shutter speed up, cuz of strobing and cuz i dont get the 1/30 look. i dont want to close the iris more than to say 3 stops or so because then i lose depth of field. so is the GL2 very bad outdoors like this? or is there a better filter I can use or something? because honestly im finding this ridiculous... i buy ND after ND and stack them and it still doesnt do much. and i obviously need to be able to film outdoors.... thanks!

Do you have auto gain turned on?

of course not. i use it in full manual. i always have gain set at 0. shutter speed at 1/30, fstop usually between 1.6 and 3.4.... its still too bright.

The ND 4 only cuts light by two F-stops. You will probably need two ND 8 ( total reduction of 6 stops) filters to be in range. You can also add a polarizer. Pol's cut light by about 1 1/2 stops.

Daniel, I have a question about your 1/30 shutter speed method. I understand how the recording would sustain a higher resolution than frame mode, but it seems like this method would just record one field copied to the other. Technically, that would provide better resolution, like you said, but only 1/2 of the full image (in two places). Also, do you have to deinterlace the video in order for it to appear correctly on a computer monitor?
This is just my understanding of your method, so if you achieve different results, please let me know.

thanks,
nicholi