GH2 Stalin Quantum V.5 vs. GH13 75Mbps

magnus387

My brother got me a GH2 for the holidays (yeah, he's the best), and seeing as how I had been using a hacked GH1 since hacking was even possible, I figured a small comparison would be fun.

Not Scientific, but both pixel peeping screen grabs are shot using the fantastic Voigtlander 25mm f0.95. The GH2 was patched with Quantum v.5 ( @driftwood , @Vitaliy_Kiselev you guys are rock stars), and the GH13 was patched long ago with 75Mbps variant (one, I've always been happy with).

(EDIT) Both grabs are f4.0 shutter 1/50 ISO 400

My initial impressions were confirmed when I transcoded the MTS files using 5dtoRGB, and brought the files into FCP7 and brought up the mids using the 3-way color corrector - the hacked GH2 is hiding tons of detail, and the difference is in the numbers - gh2 is at 145Mbps, the GH13 is at 34Mbps. I honestly couldn't believe my eyes. The GH2 noise structure is so much finer than the blocking that occurs on the GH13, and it resembles film grain in my humble point of view.

Happy holidays everyone.

mrbill

The highest performance GH1 patch that works reliably for me is lpowell's 75mbps flavour - although no patch on earth will make low-light GH1 footage look much good.

MarkV

Ok guys, I need a tip. I will take my good old hacked GH1 tomorrow on New Years eve shooting. Mostly low light things.. My question is: Can you recomend me the best, peak bit-rate patch? I'll be doing AVCHD 1080p25 and 720p50. There will not be much detailed structures so I'm not afraid of buffer crashes and lockups. It will be just about getting the best out of the GH13! Thanks so much!

magnus387

Thanks for the info @LPowell . I'm already noticing exactly what you are referring to in terms of matching the GH13 and the GH2 Stalin.

I'm pretty sure that the GH13 hack I have is some variation of one that your posted on dvxuser, so forgive me for omitting a "thanks" in the original post. Damn fine work. I'm going to post some more comparisons this evening between how each camera handles evening darkness.

Any one have anything specific they would like compared between these two cams?

LPowell

Interesting comparison of how the GH1 and GH2 respond to color correction. I've put some work into matching their ungraded exposure and color balance, and found that the GH1 consistently exposes 2/3-stop higher than its ISO rating. For comparable exposure, I recommend the following ISO settings:

GH1 ISO: 100 - 125 - --- - 200 - 250 - --- - 400 - 500
GH2 ISO: 160 - 200 - --- - 320 - 400 - --- - 640 - 800

The 1/3-stop settings that I omitted are ones that are excessively noisy on the GH2. Beyond GH2 ISO 800, the camera does not record any additional analog detail, it simply scales up the sensor output digitally. Note also that the GH2's ISO 160 - 320 - 640 settings should be selected by clicking down from the next higher ISO 200 - 400 - 800 setting, in order to produce the lowest noise levels.

In Smooth Film Mode, I've found the GH1 produces a greener tint overall than the GH2. I correct this in-camera by setting M-5 in the Film Mode on the GH1.

rozroz

very nice. thanks.
i like organic grain anyway. to a limit.

magnus387

@rozroz Here is the GH2 grab ungraded, just so you can see how much the mids are being lifted.

rozroz

i first looked at the GH2 png and thought it was.. well, decent.
but then i looked at the GH13 :p

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