I have been a lurker in the world of hacked GH2 for close to 3 years now. I've been studying the drewnetwork approach to Hacked GH2, filling notebooks with notes. It's all been theoretical, though. I've owned GH2 cameras for a few years now and I've never hacked them. Back in late 2011, as a camera noob, I decided to get to know how to use a stock camera first. Also, I didn't have any projects or deadlines or proper motivation to get me off my butt and get hacking. I was worried about working with big file sizes too. I didn't have a proper editing machine before about a month ago. Bla... Bla... Bla. There's so much I'd like to say right now, but I'm going to try and restrain myself.

I never would have guessed that after having Drew as my unofficial Hacked GH2 mentor for so long that I would have tried anything other than a Nick Driftwood hack first. I found @apefos by accident and I started reading his various posts. I was intimidated, so I kept trying to read enough background info so that I could comprehend him. I shot my first big project ever this weekend. A wedding. I had my wife's 6D with a 50mm 1.8, and 2 vanilla GH2s with Nikkor AI primes. I was devastated when I started trying to match them and saw how much the Canon put my stock GH2s to shame with depth of field, color vibrance and low-light performance. I was starting to re-think years of research. So, I finally bit the bullet and hacked my GH2. I used the latest iteration of "The End" as my first hack ever.

I was so blown away by the difference in performance that it prompted me to stop everything and jump on to this forum. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!! Thank you to @Vitaliy_Kiselev @driftwood @LPowell and of course to @apefos. I'm unemployed right now and I've never made a penny off with video or photo work, but I am going to find a way to contribute to this forum. Perhaps I can sell one of my kidneys. Thank you to the PV community!

I am lazy to work more for this patch. my tests shows that it is already good to me.

What do we want from our gh2?

1. This is a photocamera, not a telescope. The Gh2 is sharp, but not that sharp.

2. If a client ask me for a video, I don't want a noisy, flickering, artifacted product to show.

3. If I shot an interview, I don't want a stop in camera while working. I don't want to use unstable patches.

4. I need both, good quality Hbr and 24P modes.

5. I need a trusted color palette. This is a difficult issue, where the gh2 seems not to be so good as a full frame photocamera.

I tried quite a few of these settings but didn't like the overall image. Although some scenes had less noise it was at the expense of detail and image quality. When shooting high ISO the image was unuseable like most gh2 footage above 800 ISO. I personally use my gh2 as a backup camera but perfer it sometimes under perfect conditions. it is far from use able under poor conditions. I tested your hack along side another gh2 on my cameras previous hack only in 60p 720p through all picture styles and found that although the picture has less noise the image is still so bad above 800 iso and not really improved in the gh2 sweet spot at 320iso. If you want better dynamic range and lowlightperformance I think the dual ISO hack is the only option but, nothing is better than proper lighting tho

@Manicd it seems to be another problem, not focus. the image from the end seems to be recompressed a lot, some shadow raised also. in my tests i cannot see the same level of compression and macroblocking in dark areas. but maybe I am wrong, who knows. Maybe my settings are no good for iso low iso...

the important thing is: there is nothing else for me to do. i did my best, now is time for people to test and choose.

it is time for me to be away again...

@Manicd no problem, maybe my development is bad, sometimes we need to recognize a fail... the goal of your tests is to show the truth, this is important for the PV members to chose a patch. I did my best, I see no more things to do, but it is no good, unless the test is not well done, but it seems you did it correctly.

@Manicd I saw your first video test again, in another monitor, Samsung. This monitor shows better the dark areas. To my eyes Sanity X is the best image, then comes Canis, Moon T8, Intravenus v2. Strange thing, but The End is the worst for me. In my real world shots I like it so much, but in this test it is the worst.

@apefos yes I will probably post to vimeo once I have an good comparison clip. If I find a good method for youtube I will do that as well.

Also the iso noise bug has a topic made about it in this forum somewhere. 320 iso is still okay in your patch, or any patch. The problem is when you switch from 160 to 320, the 320 will now have worse noise than even 640. Simple fix is always go from higher iso to lower before recording. Switching from 640 to 320 will make 320 look good again. My problem was I forgot about all this when testing all the patches. I had already finished half of them when I remembered and decided to keep testing anyways, with the iso bug being recorded. So what I am saying is your patch should have no problem at 320 iso, unless other people forget about iso bug switch but that affects all GH2 and patches.

And I have good news! I am still testing but right now I see more detail in The End than any other patch... Moon T8 is close but not 100% match and even takes more post editing to show extra detail. The End shows more detail straight from camera. Still testing to comfirm these results. I will update The End topic when I confirm this.

To make things more easy for people to find the final version and avoid mistakes and confusions, I created a new topic for the "The End" patch which is the final version, with full description.

http://personal-view.com/talks/discussion/12645/the-end-patch-for-gh2-hack

if you test previous versions post here, if you test "the end" final version, please post there.

@producer I can't find nothing else to do... Now it is time to see the tests.

Hey what's up @apefos I see you still @ work on the patches. I recently sold one of my GH2's and my other one was sent-out for some repairs. Soon as I get it back gonna be testing away that's for sure keep up the great work.

Maybe it will be better we show the tests and allow people to do their own conclusions instead of say what we like most, this way all people will feel free to do their choices, because all patches can be good for different purposes and for each people taste. Instead of find better, it is more useful we consider different options, better will always be a "personal-view".

about high iso, from iso 160 to 2000 I see no flickering, flickering starts in iso 2500.

strange thing: iso 2500 is showing more flickering than 3200 in my tests, I do not know if this is a iso bug. I perceived in my tests iso 3200 shows less flickering than 2500, strange thing. If 3200 is ok I think the patch is ok, but I can be wrong. I even like 6400 more than 2500. 6400 after denoise is better in terms of flickering compared to 2500 in my tests.

@apefos Thank you for providing a detailed description of your patch development. It was above & beyond what I was expecting. Now it's time for me to do some testing.