Canon 5DMkII vs Panasonic GH1

[Steev Dinkins]

Call it haste, but I'm out of the GH1 interest. Goin for the 5DMkII. As someone had predicted, "you can wait for other cameras to come out, but the look of the 5DMkII will get under your skin." - and it has.

So far for the GH1, here's what it came down to. I'm seeing bad noise from the GH1, intermittent banding, not as much latitude, no pulldown flags on the 60i, 2x crop factor, slow lenses in the 4/3rds line, and overall, I'm not seeing the magic in the images. I'm sure people will make this camera dazzle, but I have gotten addicted to the 5DMkII look. I'll deal with the lack of manual controls and 30p frame rate. I have a lot of ways to get around both. Plus I like the thought of easier workflow with the .mov files out of the 5D - I can easily mount the CF card, pull out some select clips in QuickTime Player Pro, and save it out. The full frame sensor rocks beyond belief. And on top of it, I can easily rent lenses for it, and it's truly a pro still photography camera. I opted out of the f4 kit lens and went for the cheaper EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS lens, so I have something for simple auto-focus photography. All my other lenses are Nikon.

Thought I'd share my mindset for anyone deliberating. Now I unsubscribe from GH1 threads.

-steev

[Fei Meng]

Originally Posted by Steev Dinkins

Call it haste, but I'm out of the GH1 interest.

What I find interesting is that you make this announcement on the very day that the GH1 becomes available in Japan. In the next week or two, there will be many more sample clips available to allow a more fair assessment. So this is ridiculously hasty. You haven't given the GH1 a fair chance. You've only been able to see a small number of poorly shot clips trashed by compression for Web streaming. That's hardly representative of what the camera can and cannot do.

I'm seeing bad noise from the GH1

Where? The clips so far have seemed pretty clean to me, especially the ones posted in the last 48 hours. I can easily make the 5D Mk II noisy as well. Of course, it would take more effort, but that's beside the point. With enough light, the GH1, just like the D90, offers a sufficiently clean image. Recent tests have shown that the image remains reasonably noise-free up to ISO 800. If you're serious about videography/cinematography, you'd be employing real lighting in nearly all shooting situations anyway, except for maybe run-and-gun. Don't think just because a camera can handle low-light better, that it's an excuse not to use a proper lighting plan.

intermittent banding

How do you know that it's not an artifact of the compression for the Web? If it is, then you could find similar examples from 5D footage as well, if you look for it. The 5D has aliasing and moire issues, which haven't been seen in GH1 footage so far.

not as much latitude

Again, how can you tell, definitively, just from the few sample clips that you've seen? And how much latitude do you really need anyway? In other words, in how many situations will the possibly greater latitude of the 5D really matter, anyway? It can't have to do just with the "look" of the image. Reversal film has plenty of fans, and it has poor latitude.

no pulldown flags on the 60i

Really? That seems odd, given that the 1080p footage is supposed to be 24p in a 60i wrapper. There must be a way to extract the 24p out of the 60i. Even if what you said was true, how is that worse than having to deal with 30p?

2x crop factor

This is not necessarily a detriment. In fact, I have just come to see it as a benefit. How so? Consider this: It allows you to have faster telephoto lenses. Good luck finding an affordable 300mm lens faster than f3.5. With the 2x crop factor, you can use an easily obtainable 135mm f2.8 lens for a 270mm-equivalent field of view. What about the normal and wide end, you say? Use the Nikkor 24mm or 28mm f2.0 for the normal field of view. Get the Tamron SP 17-50mm f2.8 for a fast zoom that covers the 34mm to 100mm range. You can also get a 35mm f1.8 or f2.0 for a short telephoto.

slow lenses in the 4/3rds line

See above. With the 5D Mk II, I bet that you'll be using mostly manual lenses (and manual focus) anyway, so who cares about the Panasonic kit lens and the Canon L lenses? AF/AE lenses offer little to no advantage when shooting video with the 5D.

I'm sure people will make this camera dazzle, but I have gotten addicted to the 5DMkII look.

Nobody who really knows what he/she's doing with the camera has posted a serious demo yet. Nobody has done what Laforet did with the 5D. Anybody can easily make crappy 5D footage. For now, you've simply gotten used to the 5D "look." How can you be so sure that you wouldn't become "addicted" to the GH1's "look"? How do you know that you wouldn't be saying the same thing about the GH1 if the first footage that you saw from it happened to be competently shot by someone like Laforet?

I have a lot of ways to get around both.

I own a 5D Mk II. I was anticipating holding onto it for months until the Scarlet finally ships, but I will soon be ditching it for a GH1 because, among other things, I got fed up with the hoops that I would have to jump through in order to make the 5D do what I want it to do. My philosophy is that in general, image quality is the top priority, so normally I would be sympathetic to your views about the 5D, but there's a line to be drawn somewhere. The more effort that you put into making a tool work for you, the less useful the tool is. Useful tools are supposed to get out of your way in order to let you create as freely as possible.

Plus I like the thought of easier workflow with the .mov files out of the 5D - I can easily mount the CF card, pull out some select clips in QuickTime Player Pro, and save it out.

This doesn't make sense to me. You should be able to just drop the QuickTime files from the 5D directly onto the FCP (or whatever) timeline. No intermediate steps required. But if you like to make the extra effort, then AVCHD is not much different in its workflow. By the way, you can't just save sub-clips from an H.264 stream. Since it's an interframe-compressed format, you have to recompress.

The full frame sensor rocks beyond belief.

Why? How is it that much better than APS-C or Four-Thirds? There is such a thing as too little DOF. The effective image area of a full-frame sensor is almost exactly the same as VistaVision. So it's a lot larger than Super-35. Having too little DOF makes focusing more difficult.

And on top of it, I can easily rent lenses for it

By quantity alone, there are many more options for the GH1.

So why are you forgetting about the GH1 so hastily, again?

[Valeriu Campan]

Originally Posted by Steev Dinkins

The full frame sensor rocks beyond belief.

So, a RED ONE camera with a sensor closer to the APS size and not far from 4/3 doesn't rock?!?

Another example where the shallow DOF craze is more important than a good a good story. Cinematography and film making is not only about depth of field.

[Steev Dinkins]

I'm back! To begin with, I have since reconsidered and may end up buying a GH1 as well. My 5DMkII will be here tomorrow. I'll admit, "Writing off" the GH1 was necessary at the time for me to commit to buying the 5DMkII. It's been analyzed a lot that decision making, while as technical as we may want it to be, often becomes purely emotional. And the emotional response to the GH1 footage so far has been - eh, hmm, well, I don't know, well, oh wow, that looks awesome, but then a bunch of it looks pretty boring. By contrast, footage from the 5DMkII has consistently captivated and interested me from the very start.

So on with the technical...

Originally Posted by Fei Meng

Bad Noise - Where?

1) Barry's clip had a bunch of macro block noise on footage that appeared to be pretty well lit. http://www.holyzoo.com/content/dslr/...decBlowup1.jpg It's reminding me of early HDV all over again. Whereas I haven't seen the 5DMkII fall apart like that. In this noisier clip I have, the codec looks more organic and bottom line - cleaner: http://www.holyzoo.com/content/dslr/5DMkII_Codec.jpg

2) This GH1 clip shows some strange banding on it in the beginning of the clip:

http://www.holyzoo.com/content/dslr/GH1_Sample14.mp4

Sure it's web compressed, but that's not what's causing this.

Originally Posted by Fei Meng

not as much latitude - how can you tell?

On this one, I'd have to spend far too much time gathering clips and doing side by side comparison to pedestrian stuff I've seen with the 5DMkII. Bottom line is think about the first time you saw night time footage shot on the 5DMkII - for me it was mindblowing. The night time footage I've seen so far from the GH1 doesn't look any more impressive than the state of the art camcorders on the market. It's "good", but I'm not seeing it look "revolutionary".

Originally Posted by Fei Meng

no pulldown flags on the 60i

Well, let's be honest, it definitely is a bummer they didn't include flags. So you have to use Compressor and hope that it finds the pattern (it may not). Or you JES deinterlacer - and that has proven to be pretty cumbersome for me. It crashes and sometimes can't find the pattern either. Although I have just discovered that HF S100 footage might just work fine without removing the frames, when just throwing it into a 24fps timeline. I tried this with Barry's GH1 clip and it didn't work right at all - it was horribly juttery. Anyway, it's pretty messy not having a quick way to remove pulldown like it was with the DVX100 24pa. I agree having 24p SOMEWHERE in there is better than being stuck with 30p on the 5DMkII. That's why I may end up buying the GH1 anyway once it's easily available.

Originally Posted by Fei Meng

slow lenses in the 4/3rds line - so who cares about the Panasonic kit lens and the Canon L lenses? AF/AE lenses offer little to no advantage when shooting video with the 5D

Well I'm really not impressed with no fast wide angle lenses in existence for 4/3rds. Where is a fast lens in the 35mm equivalent 10-35mm focal length? I love wides, and I want them fast. With the 5DmKII I've got a 20mm f1.8 and have access to a ton of fast wides from 16-35mm f2.8 and a bunch of 2.8 fisheyes. On the GH1? Well you know what the cropping does. In the end though - the lack of fast lenses isn't what has bothered me most about the GH1 so far. So put this complaint low on the list. I could deal with the lens options for the GH1. Would have to hope that their 7-14mm f4 doesn't cost $1400. Because there's not a whole lot more out there in the wide lens options for it.

Originally Posted by Fei Meng

I got fed up with the hoops that I would have to jump through in order to make the 5D do what I want it to do.

I agree that when you are being exacting with a production, you need as much control as possible. The 5DMkII is full of frustration in that regard. However, I thought about what I'm personally wanting to do with it, and my approach will be much more experimental and philosophically geared towards letting go of the obsession with control. To that end, I like how with the 5D, I started to care less about shutter speed and ISO, and more about dialing in an aperture on my Nikon lenses, adjusting exposure with a dial, locking it and go.

Originally Posted by Fei Meng

By the way, you can't just save sub-clips from an H.264 stream. Since it's an interframe-compressed format, you have to recompress.

Well, what I do know is I can open up a .mov file off a CF card from the 5D in QuickTime Player, make a selection and save that as a new file with hardly any effort. I know I can't do anything of the sort with AVCHD.

Originally Posted by Fei Meng

Full frame sensor rocks - Why? How is it that much better than APS-C or Four-Thirds? There is such a thing as too little DOF. The effective image area of a full-frame sensor is almost exactly the same as VistaVision. So it's a lot larger than Super-35. Having too little DOF makes focusing more difficult.

Well, I was thinking also that I didn't *need* all that DOF. But I reconsidered what I was wanting to do artistically, and I came to the conclusion that I want as shallow as I can get *as an option*. And at whatever focal length I want - from wide to telephoto. I know I can do that with full frame.

With that said, I do agree that shallow DOF isn't everything, and often dof chosen is way too shallow. For example, I still prefer to see events and sports with a great DOF (most things in focus). I also agree that the GH1 sensor size has plenty of shallow DOF - read my prior posts on that.

Originally Posted by Fei Meng

So why are you forgetting about the GH1 so hastily, again?

Well Fei, you got me! I'm not. I've resumed my interest in the GH1, even though I have the 5DMkII hitting my hands tomorrow. It's only money right! Looks like we'll have to wait awhile though.

-steev

[Steev Dinkins]

A lot of people deciding to use this professionally despite the limitations, and I'd say they aren't just wooing their friends in the living room.

Shot entirely on 5DMkII - The Other Side - Ghost Whisperer - CBS.com

5DMkII used on select shots - YouTube - Hoobastank - So Close, So Far

And a ton of professional wedding videos (they make money). The list is getting mighty long now.

I'm surprised by the ambition taken with this camera. Collectively, people are saying "we're going to use this no matter what."

It'll be interesting to see if the GH1 makes it as far in usage. I think it probably will.

-steev

[Alex Chong]

From what I have read, GH1 has a problem with jello effect when panning fast. I tried this with my 5D2 and can't seem to see any jello effect. Plus night shot with 5D2 is really good. I wonder if the smaller 4/3 sensor will do well in low light. So far we have seen footage of GH1 night shot at low resolution. Wonder how it would look on a FullHD tv.

[Ian G. Thompson]

Actually the skew is much better in the GH-1 as compared to the D90 and 5Dll.

Edit: Check out this video. First part is handheld (shakey)...but looking at this tells me if a decent DOP got his hands on this cam like Vincent L. then there would be lots of beautiful pictures.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t7xHgOHxl8&fmt=22

[Klas Persson]

You cannot mention d90 and 5dmii in the same sentence here. The d90 is much worse I believe... About the GH1 I've heard very conflicting information about this, I guess we'll just have to wait a little bit longer before we know anything at all about that one.

[Adrian Frearson]

Originally Posted by Alex Chong

From what I have read, GH1 has a problem with jello effect when panning fast. I tried this with my 5D2 and can't seem to see any jello effect. Plus night shot with 5D2 is really good. I wonder if the smaller 4/3 sensor will do well in low light. So far we have seen footage of GH1 night shot at low resolution. Wonder how it would look on a FullHD tv.

In low light, I don't think there is any contest, the Canon looks to be a real benchmark here and it's never been one of the strong points four thirds. The GH1 does look like it will do pretty well in this department though, especially when compared to other camcorders.

On the Jello, it's still a case of waiting for real tests. Interestingly, I heard about a new helmet cam today, ContourHD Helmet Camera Features
It's designed for fast action, but still appears to suffer from some rolling shutter problems. Cool little helmet cam though.

Adrian

[Fei Meng]

Originally Posted by Steev Dinkins

I'll admit, "Writing off" the GH1 was necessary at the time for me to commit to buying the 5DMkII. It's been analyzed a lot that decision making, while as technical as we may want it to be, often becomes purely emotional.

I know how that is. Everyone does that. Like I said in another post, I've had a lot of debates with myself, some of which has involved "writing off the 5D Mk II" in order to justify giving into the temptation of committing to the GH1. By that I mean that I've stressed to myself the very disadvantages of my beloved new camera that I told myself to ignore in order to convince myself to buy it in the first place.

And the emotional response to the GH1 footage so far has been - eh, hmm, well, I don't know, well, oh wow, that looks awesome, but then a bunch of it looks pretty boring. By contrast, footage from the 5DMkII has consistently captivated and interested me from the very start.

To each his own. But again, the problem is that nobody has yet done for the GH1 what Laforet did for the 5D. There's a LOT of 5D footage that is "boring" and uninspiring to me. And I had to talk myself into accepting the very "digital" quality of its look that I hadn't seen in D90 footage.

Bottom line is think about the first time you saw night time footage shot on the 5DMkII - for me it was mindblowing. The night time footage I've seen so far from the GH1 doesn't look any more impressive than the state of the art camcorders on the market. It's "good", but I'm not seeing it look "revolutionary".

How do you know that if Laforet had used the GH1 instead of the 5D, the GH1 wouldn't look similar? Again, all of the night footage on the GH1 so far has been poorly shot. We're talking poor lighting, framing, and locations. Some guy was impressed with low-light footage of a Sony AVCHD camcorder compared to the GH1. You know the clip that I mean. He was impressed with something that I thought looked terrible. So it's all very subjective.

To that end, I like how with the 5D, I started to care less about shutter speed and ISO, and more about dialing in an aperture on my Nikon lenses, adjusting exposure with a dial, locking it and go.

Actually, to me, lack of control isn't what has bothered me most about the 5D. It's the fact that I have no idea what settings the camera is actually using in video mode. The information that it gives you when using the half-shutter-press is only an approximation for still mode, not what the camera is using for video. I recently did a camera test in extreme low light. We're talking ten tealight candles only. The camera reported a shutter speed of 1/5s, which is impossible for video. Exposure compensation wasn't working in this extremely lighting situation. I think that's when the first big crack in my love for the 5D appeared.

Well, what I do know is I can open up a .mov file off a CF card from the 5D in QuickTime Player, make a selection and save that as a new file with hardly any effort.

Why would you need to do that? Why not just drop the footage in an NLE and save a step?

Well, I was thinking also that I didn't *need* all that DOF. But I reconsidered what I was wanting to do artistically, and I came to the conclusion that I want as shallow as I can get *as an option*.

True, but also consider than in order to get a DOF closer to regular 35mm film, you have to stop-down the lens, which comes with its own pros and cons. I personally like the fact that I have to open up the aperture in order to get shallower DOF on the GH1, because more light gets collected, improving performance. Also, a wide-open lens will always have the "best" bokeh.

And at whatever focal length I want - from wide to telephoto. I know I can do that with full frame.

My problem with this argument is that there is an ambiguity about what you are using as a reference point. Are you accustomed to shooting with full-frame cameras? The whole concept of "35mm equivalent" focal lengths is using full-frame as the reference, despite relatively few people shooting full-frame in the vast majority of scenarios. The size of a 35mm film frame is roughly equivalent to APS-C. So with 35mm film movie cameras and still cameras, there has ALWAYS been a "crop factor." A 20mm lens on a film SLR is not the same as 20mm on a full-frame DSLR. So there is little substance to the phrase "whatever focal length I want," because you haven't specified what your frame of reference is.

[Fei Meng]

Originally Posted by Alex Chong

From what I have read, GH1 has a problem with jello effect when panning fast. I tried this with my 5D2 and can't seem to see any jello effect. Plus night shot with 5D2 is really good. I wonder if the smaller 4/3 sensor will do well in low light. So far we have seen footage of GH1 night shot at low resolution. Wonder how it would look on a FullHD tv.

I can get the jello easily on my 5D. In fact, if I merely stuck a 135mm lens on it and started to pan steadily, the jello already appears. The rolling shutter on the 5D is a very good one, but not as good as high-end prosumer camcorders like the EX1. People who have extensively tested the GH1 so far have reported that the rolling shutter is EX1/RED-level. So that's amazing.

[Steev Dinkins]

Originally Posted by Fei Meng

Actually, to me, lack of control isn't what has bothered me most about the 5D. It's the fact that I have no idea what settings the camera is actually using in video mode.

Yep it sucks, but on the other hand, I have an appreciation for where it steers in me in my thinking right now - choose my aperture on any Nikon lens, let the camera auto expose, adjust it brighter or darker with the wheel, lock it and record.

If I wanted more control? I may buy the GH1 when it's available, go throw together my Redrock Micro on my HVX, rent a Red One, or later this year or eventually S35 Scarlet may be in my hands on a daily basis. The 5DMkII is for a different purpose for me.

Originally Posted by Fei Meng

QuickTime saving - Why would you need to do that? Why not just drop the footage in an NLE and save a step?

Let's say I liked merely one part of one clip out of 10GB of footage. I can easily browse through them all in the finder in Mac OS X, then open it in QuickTime Player, then just save that part out and trash the rest.

Originally Posted by Fei Meng

True, but also consider than in order to get a DOF closer to regular 35mm film, you have to stop-down the lens, which comes with its own pros and cons.

Yes, and the big pro here is getting some seriously shallow dof.

Originally Posted by Fei Meng

My problem with this argument is that there is an ambiguity about what you are using as a reference point. Are you accustomed to shooting with full-frame cameras? The whole concept of "35mm equivalent" focal lengths is using full-frame as the reference, despite relatively few people shooting full-frame in the vast majority of scenarios. The size of a 35mm film frame is roughly equivalent to APS-C. So with 35mm film movie cameras and still cameras, there has ALWAYS been a "crop factor." A 20mm lens on a film SLR is not the same as 20mm on a full-frame DSLR. So there is little substance to the phrase "whatever focal length I want," because you haven't specified what your frame of reference is.

My frame of reference is 35mm adapter work - my own and RedRock Micro, as well as still photography (back in the day). The crop factor - yes, there's always been a crop factor, but I've gotten really used to my 20mm being wide, not normal, as it would be on the GH1. And to get that, I'd have to grab a 10mm lens, and I have not seen one single fast lens that wide (f1.8-2.8). Additionally my beloved 105mm micro nikkor is pretty useless to me on a GH1. It was already at the far end of as telephoto as I was wanting.

So, yeah, if you think differently about focal lengths and don't care about fast wides, and invest in some 4/3rds lenses, the GH1 can be pretty awesome.

Bottom line for me - I see the GH1 as a killer tool. The footage I've seen this week has been impressive and changed my mind on a few points. However, my observation on compression artifacts seems to be correct. And with that, I think I may be done with the dichotomous "this or that" part of the debate.

I may end up owning both. Or wait until my employer pays for the Scarlet S35.

-steev

[Ian G. Thompson]

Fei Meng...it absolutely looks that way. For starters check out this clip of a train. Halfway through you will see a traini zipping by very fast....take notice of the skew. It's so minimal that I'm shocked to say the least. Don't get me wrong...it's definitely present...but if that were the D90 or 5Dll...the lean would look a lot more.

YouTube - LUMIX GH1 ?????

And if you want to see some great shots....check out Phil Bloom's stuff on Vimeo here. Thia was shot using the slow(er) stock lens.

Panasonic Lumix GH1. First footage on Vimeo

Imagine Panasonic decided to put this in their camcorders.

[Andy Corleone]

Now I'm a bit confuse with DOF in FF and Cropped Sensor:

I did two test with a 5D MKII

ImageShack - Image Hosting :: 5dmkii200mmf28.jpg

and with a Cropped Sensor 400D

ImageShack - Image Hosting :: 400d200mmf28.jpg

Maybe I'm wrong but I'm not getting the same DOF in booths Test. The Focus is in 20mm

Thanks

[Alex Chong]

I think you posted this in the wrong section of the forum.

But to answer your question, I don't think DOF has anything to do with what size sensor you use. As long as your lens aperture is set the same, the same DOF effect will happen no matter what size sensor it is. Just that the field of view of a larger sensor is more than that of a smaller sensor. Imagine the 400D image is cropped from part of the 5DmkII image. That's what it is essentially.

Just my thoughts.