Panasonic lumix g6, wow

[Nigel Barker]

Wow! That is a cheap price. That is a good lens especially for £100. The aperture is a disadvantage in dark venues but the reach is great. It means that even with the lens G6 is £300 cheaper than a GH3 body alone. g6 - Search Results - Wex Photographic

Noa, does that mean that you prefer the G6 if you are operating it? It seems a bit of a waste to just use the GH3 on your Steadicam. If you wanted a camera just for the Blackbird the new Panasonic GM1 looks like it would be perfect.

[Noa Put]

No I don't prefer the g6 over the gh3, it's a weight and iso issue, the g6 is much too light for my blackbird and I need to have a extra wheight solution that I will be looking into after my last wedding of the year tomorrow and it's a iso issue as the gh3 can go to 6400 iso as opposed to 3200 on the g6, it has happened I needed 6400 iso on the steadicam but I plan to add a videolight to the g6 on the steadicam so 3200 iso will do for those extreme situations where they turn down all the light during the first dance, I also plan to use an extra light on a light stand near the dancefloor that is remote controlled just to give that extra light when needed, the 12mm f2.0 oly will help as well but I know the focus will become very tricky.

I have seen gm1 test videos showing its better and cleaner then the gh3 in low light but that's yet another camera :) Allthough I would prefer the gx7 as it can do 50p but that camera is the same price as a gh3 body, overpriced if you ask me.

[Nigel Barker]

I hadn't realised how much lighter the G6 is compared to the GH3 (body only but including battery 340gm vs 550gms). I suppose that all you need is a 200gm slab of metal to add some mass to the stage of the Blackbird. The GM1 is just 204gms body only battery included - that's tiny! The GM1 doesn't do 50p though.

Why would you want a GX7 rather than another G6? The in body stabilisation doesn't operate in video mode.

Focus should be easy with the 12mm as the hyperfocal distance with that lens on an MFT camera even at F/2 is under 5m so everything is in focus from 2.5m to infinity. Unless of course you don't want a super deep DoF.

I have found using the Canon 5D3 at ISO6400 that F/2.8 always gave me decent exposure so ISO3200 at F/2 would be the same as there is always the possibility of dropping down to 1/30 shutter or an extra stop unless you are shooting 50p with 1/100 for a 180 degree shutter.

[Noa Put]

I need to add a batterygrip to the gh3 to get sufficient wheight for my blackbird so for the g6 I need to see how much weight exactly is needed. The gx7 has 50p and that's what I need for my steadicam work, slowed down steadicam moves look awesome for my trailers :) Haven"t seen any direct comparisons but it looks like the gm1 is cleaner then the gh3 at high iso's which would be the only reason to use such a camera for steadicam work + the fact that it's more expensive brother has 50p but like I said I think it's a overpriced camera.

[Nigel Barker]

The G6 has 50p so what would be the advantage of the GX7?

The prices here in the UK for body only are GH3 £849 GX7 £719 G6 £449 (£549 with 14-140mm lens) & the GM1 is £629 (including 12-32mm lens) so the G6 really is a lot cheaper than the other models.

[Noa Put]

From what I've seen it's a lot cleaner at high iso, only I"m not sure if it can do 6400 iso? 3200 iso however looked noise free on that little cam which is remarkable.

[Pete Carney]

Noa, doesn't the Blackbird have a height adjustment for the gimbal to the sled? If I'm not mistaken, if you simply add a 15mm or so between the sled and the gimbal the lighter G6 should come close to balancing perfectly with the same weight. I've found a longer distance between the camera and the gimbal is essential for lighter cameras to be operated smoothly.

I have a new Olympus 17mm f/1.8 I've been testing on a jib pole stabilizer I've been developing. The combination of the ultra light G6 and that tiny lens is allowing some amazing stabilized images extended away from the operator by as much as 15' all hand held.

Here's some of my first samples with that combo.

YouTube (Short URL)

Cheers,
Pete

[Alex Anderson]

Pete,
I have been doing the same thing with a small canon eos-m camera and a small staedicam on the end of a handheld long pole. I am working now on using a small gimbal setup with brushless dc motors and a controller board from ideas I have form all the RC multicopters hobby stuff. I was starting to build a quadcopter, but I am finding about all these laws and restrictions they have for flying these things. You cannot fly one and get paid for the footage or use it commercially without permission from everyone who owns land in the area AND you need a certain license on top of that. BUT, they do allow anyone to fly them for recreation purposes. How stupid is that. The commercial flyer is more experienced and careful for safety. So I now hesitate building one cus a man nearby where I live was fined $10,000 by the USA FAA cus he sold some footage he shot in air flying a quadcopter with a gimbal and a small camera. His intention was recreational and later someone saw the footage and bought it. He now has a lawyer and goes to court to fight this first time case ever of this nature. Sorry, got OT here. :-)

I forgot, that Olympus camera with 5 axis IS would also be real good by itself with a gimbal handle on the end of a long pole, handheld..

[Tim Akin]

I'm searching for any setup advice for the G6. I just bought the G6 for my daughter and son-in-law who are expecting their first child. They know little to nothing about cameras of any kind. I do have a GH2 so I somewhat know my way around the Pany's. Should I just tell them to run in IA for both video and stills? I've been through the menu and changed a few settings that I know about but was wondering if some of you who have been using the G6 for a while could give any setup tips.

Man, I feel like I got real lucky when I made my purchase from Amazon (B&H was $50 higher at the time) for under $500 with the kit lens 14-42. I notice now it's back up to almost manufactures list and out of stock.

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Tim Akin

I'm searching for any setup advice for the G6. I just bought the G6 for my daughter and son-in-law who are expecting their first child. They know little to nothing about cameras of any kind. I do have a GH2 so I somewhat know my way around the Pany's. Should I just tell them to run in IA for both video and stills? I've been through the menu and changed a few settings that I know about but was wondering if some of you who have been using the G6 for a while could give any setup tips.

If they no nothing & don't want to stress over using the camera 'properly' then by all means tell them to use iA as it does a fantastic job. It's not just getting the exposure correct it's very smart in the way it selects the actualaperture & shutter speed http://www.panasonic.co.uk/html/en_G...604/index.html

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Alex Anderson

Pete,
I have been doing the same thing with a small canon eos-m camera and a small staedicam on the end of a handheld long pole. I am working now on using a small gimbal setup with brushless dc motors and a controller board from ideas I have form all the RC multicopters hobby stuff.

I think that R/C style gimbal with brushless motors is going to be the way forward. If you combine a handheld stabiliser like a Merlin or Glidecam with a simple 2 axis gimbal you could have a very cheap system compared to a $15K all-singing all-dancing 3 axis gizmos like the Freefly Store - Freefly M?VI

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/stabiliz...steadicam.html

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Pete Carney

I've been testing on a jib pole stabilizer

That footage looks great Pete, do you have a photo from that jib pole stabilizer?

I know I can use a gimbal extender and I even have a shorter vertical tube but I don't like the super light set up as it makes smooth moves more difficult to achieve, it all becomes very sensitive to touch, that's why I like to add a bit of weight which helps from my experience to achieve smoother movements.

Below a picture of my set up I used yesterday at a wedding which worked very well, I added my g6 (that had a olympus 12mm f2.0 on it) to my mini shouldermount, it is attached to a quick release plate so I can easily take it of the steadicam if necessary. It looks a bit odd because it extends to the back so much but I can show you a real run and gun shot I did with it, see explanation and video below.

Just to explain what happened; I asked the manager when they where going to bring in the cake and he said: "soon, they are preparing it now", I thought I at least had a few minutes but when he left I saw in the corner of my eyes something sparkling, when I looked I saw a line of waiters holding a small cake each with a sparkling stick (or whatever it's called) that was being lit on one by one and when the stick started to sparkle the waiter started moving.

I had to run from halfway the large venue to get my blackbird which was in standby on it's resting stand, I switched the camera on, I pointed it towards a wall which was about 4 meters from me and pushed the shutterbutton to let the lens autofocus and lock to that distance, I adjusted my f-stop as the lightconditions changed since I last used the camera and I needed to set it to f2.0 and iso 800 ( I knew my sharpness would be limited to the first few meters in that way as I focused to a shorter distance so needed to stay closer to the waiters) and pressed record and started running to catch up with the waiters, in my haste I noticed I had my resting stand still open when I started to fly as the blackbird tilted down, you can hear it click into place att the beginning. Below you can see what happened as soon as I pressed record, I was in such a hurry you see the up and down walking motion in the beginning but once I got into the zone I did let it fly :D The waiter I let pass at the beginning was the last one in line, I waited a bit for her to have a starting point for my shot.

I spontaneously did the moonwalk after I nailed that shot. These type of shots are the reason why I have the blackbird and why I like it so much, especially in combination with the g6 now and the great oly 12mm lens. A bit of luck was involved as well as the timing for placing the sparkling candles on the tables and the position where they where placed was absolutely perfect.

As you can see there where some really challenging light situations. I had to set the whitebalance to auto as there was a mixture of daylight and tungsten colour lights and there was no way to have a "right" preset without the image looking odd depending from where I shot, at the start the image was overexposed due the overwhelming flood of pink high power spots that was positioned against the wall but I knew I had to set it like that as it was much darker in the rest of the venue.

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[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

with a sparkling stick (or whatever it's called")

From your description I thought they were going to be what we call sparklers (metal wire with firework material stuck to it) but looking at the video they are in fact Roman candles (paper or cardboard tube full of firework material).

Well done with the video. Those dreadful pink lights seem to be at almost every wedding venue nowadays. I really would like to try a Blackbird.

[Bill Bruner]

Nicely done, Noa. Especially on such short notice!

Bill

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Nigel Barker

they are in fact Roman candles (paper or cardboard tube full of firework material).

It's good to finally know the correct English term :) They are used at almost every wedding here.

Originally Posted by Nigel Barker

Those dreadful pink lights seem to be at almost every wedding venue nowadays.

Especially this year I have seen these dreadfull lights (led) appear at a lot of weddings, it looks special seen through your own eyes but having only bright pink, blue or most worst red is killing it for video, I never know how to set my whitebalance, every preset I try looks even more funky, at the last wedding I even had to use 1/40th shutter to get rid of some grey stripes that would run from top to bottom on my screen. On my g6 screen it was also very hard to set the right exposure. For the first dance I asked the light technician to add some white light and that made all the difference.

Originally Posted by Nigel Barker

I really would like to try a Blackbird.

Here's another more controlled one I did when the venue was empty, the people from camera motion research have been very friendly and offer excellent support, for me it doesn't feel like they are located on the other side of the planet because they don't treat me like a number, a feeling I do have with some Belgian companies. :)
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