there's always a reason to wait on the next iteration. The best camera is the camera you have and are using. The reality of the situation is that you can always sell your GH2 when the GH3 comes out. GH1s held their price well after the GH2 release. Also, the GH2 is hacked. the GH3 wont be when it's released.

It was in a German photo magazin, kind of an anouncement. It's hard to judge how good a new AVCHD 2.0 version as well as a 60p mode will be. I know that Sonys A65/77 is offering that which made the SLR become an competing alternative to the GH2.

It true yeah, its selling pretty well. Panasonic is even running a cash back discount at the moment. I think I will go for it :) Unfortunately, I havent figured out what setting I shall use for the hack yet, but guess I'll find some good suggestions to run a stable version of the hack.

@ johnnymossvillejohnnymossville

sounds great. Is there a good adaptor for canon lenses?

Thanks mate!

The GH2 is a remarkable camera. To give you an example, I'm finishing a series where the first six episodes were shot on a 5DII with Zeiss primes and the next 4 episodes--plus pickup shots for the first six--were shot on my GH2s and FD primes. The quality difference is immediate and spans across areas of color quality, sharpness, and even intangibles like the fact that we were able to get certain shots with the GH2 that we could not have gotten with the 5D. I think the camera is amazing at this price, but frankly at any price. It just looks great and allows you to do things that few other camera systems can match.

If you have projects to shoot now and need a camera, a hackable GH2 is a pretty good bargain, especially since the majority of your accessories will transfer to a GH3. If you don't have anything you have to shoot now, maybe you should wait. (Man, I hope that GH3 really does have a global shutter as rumored. Take away the jello cam and the thing is darn near perfect for actual use.)

Thanks for your feedback.

@lolo What*s the excat adventage of the "lock-open"? As I might be going for somes older lenses like canons 50 mm f1.4 for which I will need the adaptor. Was also thinking of using the voigtländer 25 mm f0.95. Of couse both lenses can only be used in manual mode. Will there be advantages shooting with or without an adaptor?

For AF shots, zoom, etc I am going to getting the kit lense 14-140 which is said to provide decent results.

@DouglasHorn I am planing to shoot short films as well. Would you say its kinda hard to edit and deal with hacked GH2 footage (I am using AE, Premiere Pro CS4)? How much mbit/GOP ius required to really boost your image quality?

@Alexauwa the avchd 2.0 is in many way just marketing fluff, yes it gives you 1080p 60fps but at only 28 mbs. So if you divide it it as if you are filming at 12 mbs at 24p. The Sony 60p are full of mud/loss detail at 60p as soon as there are some detail. Now a gh3 with it would be good just because it can be hacked. I would have preferred that Panasonic puts its avc ultra 10 bit codec in a gh3, but I guess that with the success of the hacked gh2, they won't because a hacked 10bit gh3 would overshadow a lot any present and future large sensor cam as the AF-100 and any Af-200.

@lolo
>the "lock-open" switch is really useful if you want/need (and you need one for video) a stepless lens
mmm, don't know if they are better lock ring than the one on my cheap adapter, but it's not dampened, and it take's half a centimeter to go from fully opened to fully closed, so it's almost unusable for the (relevant) purpose of having stepless aperture. Maybe usable with a FF, but then you will need 3 hands to change aperture, focus, and hold thecamera, unless you have a rig on a tripod.
But I admit I'm biased as I use my GH2 without a rig, and often for stills to

@lolo I did that thing with my RJ adapter : stepless aperture works fine, but... now my 50mm ssc is stuck in it ! just can't figure how to remove that bloody thing (not a huge problem until i have to sell it) :') In the meantime, thanks to lenuisible, i'll buy the ciecio one for my others FDs... hope it handle infinity focus (which wasn't the case w/ RJ one).

Low bitrate 1080p60 wouldn't be great even if it has B-frames. Also... gawd... who knows how long it would take for announcement, availability, delivery, hacking, setting, tuning, testing, etc.

Those who are upgrading from GH1 to GH2 right now didn't miss much.

@Alexauwa
No, it's not hard to edit hacked footage. I'm currently shooting at the 60MBPS 12GOP, but planning to test out Driftwood's patch at about 2.5 times the data rate. At the moment, I still use FCP7, so I transfer to ProRes422. However, I expect to switch to Premiere in the near future.

I'm very happy with the 60MBPS patch. It's a great balance between quality and usability. I am typically shooting very quickly with two GH2s at a time. Losing a shot can be a disaster, so reliability is paramount. In my tests two months ago (before my series shoot) 60MBPS was the sweet spot with any additional quality at 80+MBPS seeming minimal. However, the new GOP1 approach may warrant the higher data rate. I'll have to do some tests.

Bottom line for me: the shit just works and looks great. I can accept and mitigate the few shortcomings. I've been doing this long enough to remember that this GH2 is a far better camera in pretty much every respect than the Sony CineAlta I shot my first feature on just 5 or 6 years ago. I could not have imagined owning that camera plus lenses and accessories, now I have two GH2s plus an amazing set of kit for a very low price. The hacked GH2 is pretty much the point in history where no one really has an excuse not to get out and make amazing films.

I'm only waiting on the GH2 because I have no cash to buy one right now. Probably early next year, I'll buy a GH2 or two, especially if the price drops as substantially as the GH1 dropped when the GH2s came out.

Aside from that, I have no faith in Panasonic's ability to give us what we want. We want twice as good for the same money, and they'll only give us slightly better for slightly more money. A hacked GH2 is proven superior value for money and until I can afford something like a Red, that's more than good enough.