sorry for leaving topic. I wonder how Mr. Hurlbut realized the car scene? From my experience polarizers and ND fader also get you a very ugly pattern from multi layer security glass in car windows

good points by many. I'll only add one--not that important in the grand scheme really--but I've noticed that how the gh2 actually handles highlights better in terms of color if you manually white balance to the light source of the highlights rather than just use the kelvin scale. It doesn't get "yellow-ish" like on the zacuto shot. I'm unsure how they handled the white balance. And as I say, it's not that important in the grand scheme--I just watched about 2 minutes of the empirical shot and that's about all I'm going to watch.

@apefox: "... keep idynamic enabled on the high setting" - I have used "intelligent contrast" while recording 24H several times, with sometimes actually visible benefit.

(And btw.: I think the GH2 could have profited from using this setting in the "window" empirical test scene.)

if the hack could give us an option to keep idynamic enabled on the high setting it could help us to deal with the dr limitations.

@DouglasHorn: Best quote I've seen in this thread. Well summed up!

The hacked GH2 is a remarkable camera. To me, this test says, Look, a $700 can film things so well that it can even be in a comparison with cameras of the Alexa caliber.

Yep, exactly. The Alexa and GH2 (and most cameras these days) can both produce amazing high-budget looks. The Alexa just has a much wider sweet spot and forgiveness. The GH2's sweet spot is ALLOT smaller in comparison to the "bigger cams"... but once you do hit it... well... go back and see which was the most liked camera in Part 2. :)

There are a lot of things I can do with my GH2 that we could not have accomplished with the Alexa--like easily fitting into a very small space, going handheld for a long time without injuring the camera op's back, risk a "crash cam" type shot, disappearing into an environment, be affordable enough to make a 1-camera shoot into a 3-camera shoot, etc. Those kinds of things can also be invaluable in production.

+1

I was just shooting all day yesterday with my GH2 on a Glidecam 1000. No vest... and no fatigue at all. The shots and rigs you can pull off with a smaller/lighter camera are amazing. Simple things, like tracking a subject while walking, are a breeze on something like the GH2... with a giant behemoth (in comparison) like the Alexa, it turns into a multiple-hour ordeal with steady-cam operators, AC's, and about $10,000 more dollars. The shot-to-cost ratio of the GH2 is amazing!!! The size-to-image ratio is the BIGGEST advantage. If you want to compete, and even exceed, the production value of the big shoots... plan around the advantages! If you're hired to DP a shoot with a DSLR-like cam, don't just sit there and complain to the director and producer about the faults of the camera so they'll rent a "bigger one for you to play with" next time. Highlight the advantages... and light your damn set properly. Good results will fallow.

I've always said that the Alexa is the camera for 'cinematographers'. The GH2 is for the DIY "Robert Rodriguez" director. I like to do everything myself... so it's a no-brainier for me. Big crews piss me off! :)

I just directed three commercials that we shot on the Alexa. It's a beautiful camera and does amazing things in a wide range of shooting conditions. Frankly, the Alexa is truly a bargain at its price. But that price is tens of thousands of dollars more than a GH2, so what kind of idiot expects these cameras to go toe-to-toe? That's whack, yo!

The hacked GH2 is a remarkable camera. To me, this test says, Look, a $700 can film things so well that it can even be in a comparison with cameras of the Alexa caliber. This camera is like the guy who comes in sixth in the 100m dash behind Usain Bolt. He may not get a medal or the glory, but that's a remarkable field to be racing against--the guy--and the camera is still world class.

There are a lot of things I can do with my GH2 that we could not have accomplished with the Alexa--like easily fitting into a very small space, going handheld for a long time without injuring the camera op's back, risk a "crash cam" type shot, disappearing into an environment, be affordable enough to make a 1-camera shoot into a 3-camera shoot, etc. Those kinds of things can also be invaluable in production.

@P4INKiller: I will sound elitistic when I say this, but what you do is like @shian says: You light it. While you can pull out information in the highlights, it's still not a "strongpoint" of the GH2s DR. Point still stands: It handles highlights like crap and that means you need to control it. Exposing for highlights is fine for situations where you can't light or for small projects, but as a DP, you can't say: Oh don't worry, we can pull up those shadows in post. What you need to do is to light the GH2 well and control the DR. That means putting ND on windows, adding more fill and taking more time. Cole did an amazing job, but Art Adams (who I did feel was a bit harsh here, but otherwise a fan of) has a good point: Info was hidden. What they really should have stressed even further in Part 2 was just how well lit these cameras were, but that needs to be taken into account. The GH2 is not a "point and shoot" camera, at least not in a professional sense. I friend of mine owns an Epic and we had a shot (I was the operator for the shoot) of environments where we had this AMAZING sky with storm clouds coming in, which was perfectly exposed and so was the ground. It was the camera you could capture it all in. The GH2 can't, no matter how much you pull the shadows.

So after that rant, what I want to say is this: It is an amazing camera, when handled well, but like the 7Ds problem with moiré, the GH2 has problem with range. It is luckily something that can be controlled and I'll be darned if it hasn't made me a better DP, as I've learnt to really think of how I light.

Of course, one can get creative with it too! I've invested in Black Pro-Mist filters for this very reason, as they can help you by getting a nice bloom on the highlights. Combining that with completely blowing them out (to white) tends to look pretty good. It's still blown out and no detail, but then you get an effect of it. Look at Kaminski, who does it all the time (and to great effect I might add).

The DR of GH2 is an issue for sure..Like others have said it makes you work harder to get things looking like you want ..I wounder when we will start seeing the next phase of low budget DSLR's or Cameras that have the high DR of Black magic, or will Black magic be the only option at that price for a while ..

These are shitty tests. A real world test is shoot a real, edited scene with sound, grading, and you can tell how they cut together. A scene of two people going from a car day-ext, to an interior hallway.

At 800 ISO the Alexa's DR is symmetrical, i.e. the same number of stops over and under middle gray.

Here's an interesting critique of the whole process. Essentially, he is saying that if you have complete lighting control, then of course you can get good results, but that in the real world, the budget doesn't always allow that. I'm not sure I agree.

http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/aadams/story/cameras_why_zacutos_latest_camera_test_may_have_screwed_us_all/

@Gabel Hence why you expose with highlights in mind.