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Part 2, Revenge of the Great Camera Shootout 2012
  • johnnymossvillejohnnymossville

    Well, it's live, what did everyone think?

    I won't post the results yet until everyone had a chance to view it.

    I will say I picked the GH2 second behind the Alexa.

  • 79 Replies sorted by
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    LOL

    For me - just one more link to ignore. As I fully ignore any Zacuto shootouts now.

  • JizzyjonesJizzyjones

    I originally picked F, B, A as a top3.....and I thought GH2 was H. Very impressed with the results from a GH2 perspective. Just realised which cam Francis Ford Coppola picked as no1 aswell :D

  • brianlucebrianluce

    Which was the GH2? Do they ever say?

  • PhilldaagonyPhilldaagony

    @brianluce, watch the video! Hint, Francis Ford Coppola picks it as his top choice HA!

  • johnnymossvillejohnnymossville

    Yes, they match the letters to the cameras this time Brian.

  • johnnymossvillejohnnymossville

    Francis Ford Coppola has good taste. haha

  • kronstadtkronstadt

    You know you're on the right track when 2 of the 3 of your favorite picks coincides with one of the your favorite directors of all time. But what really brightens up your night is when that director favors the camera, the previous generation of which is sitting right there in front of you right now.

    Right now I'm rejoicing.... so happy that 2 years ago I didn't get any of the Canons (7D, 550, 5Dm2 etc) or any other cameras. As soon as I saw the early, and at that time un-hacked, GH1 footage, I knew that this is the texture, feel and, importantly, closer to natural colour handing that I would want to have in my films.

    I think for now I can put to rest any thoughts of getting a BlackMagic camera, DigitalBolex or whatever. I've got a second hand GH13 for next to nothing; been using the hell out of it in all sorts of situations and conditions and I'm very happy with it. MAYBE I'll get a second hand GH2 when it's price drops to £200, or a GH3 (if they resolve the rolling shutter issue). Otherwise, GH13 is a perfectly good enough tool to shoot your film on. Write a damn good screenplay, learn how to light up the scene correctly, how to capture a good sound, learn how to bring out the best performance from your actors and how to work with people around you -- and you're good to go.

  • danyyyeldanyyyel

    I thought that the test was great because it put the art back at the center of cinematography. In the days of fanboyism where "my camera is better than yours" syndrome, we can really see that from the gh2 and up you can make very good images. They are not identical as surely the last episode will show (DR), but with some good lighting skill you could get close.

  • rockroadpixrockroadpix

    My big regret was not seeing it on the big screen. I hope they hurry up and get it on vimeo so I can watch the comparisons on my plasma.

  • stoneystoney

    Don't get sucked into Gh2 fever. There will be endless discussion about Gh2 vs Gh3. Then Gh3 vs Alexa vs F3 etc. We all know that Gh2 is good enough. I'd rather read more film related books.

  • AriaAria

    Well IMO it wasn't necessarily a well accepted fact about what the GH2 was capable of and there is nothing wrong with something like this to make it more widely known just what you can do with cameras of varying price points. The big boy cameras are really amazing in what they can do with less help which you would expect for the price, but if you want to have something you can use daily to learn on and make quality product you don't have to spend an arm and a leg just to do that.

    I actually picked the GH2 as an image that looked a bit too much like video, but I believe that was due to the lighting and grading. They did so much to bring up the overall light that It didn't have enough of a natural look to me. It may have looked better on a big screen tho, since that extra POP it had probably made it look amazing in the theater next to many other scenes. What I took away is that I would like to see the films I make on a large projector to see how the final product translates. Seeing it on smaller LCD screens makes it hard to really judge.

    I'm really looking forward to what the GH3 might be like as a tool. I'm really hoping for more DR cuz that is one thing that makes it harder to work with in uncontrolled situations.

  • punditpundit

    If anything I thought the GH2 looked too saturated which probably contributed to its 'video' look. Personally I think I would have lowered the saturation a notch or two. Still it shows what can be done with relatively inexpensive gear if you know what you're doing.

  • chazzmoechazzmoe

    I think the lighting and color grade and maybe the lens used had more to do with the final look than the camera in most situations? Like if the gh2 was graded slightly less saturated I wonder if more of the people that thought it looked too "digital" would of thought otherwise. Also in a lot of the shots it looked to me like the final two actors in the ending were under exposed and slightly "grey" in a lot of shots maybe because some were so concerned about showing of dynamic range of the camera that they exposed for outside and then tried to fill the couple in, to me anyway. I think the lighting on the 7D and Gh2 was better than the lighting on some of the other cameras, didn't like the 7d look as much though. Also nice to see @driftwood big pimpin' in the house!

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    I'd rather read more film related books.

    Exactly.

    And even more useful is go out and shoot. Just not moving slideshow.

  • davhardavhar

    @VK- why not put a sticky for some good ol' non-stinky slideshows or tests but sweet little GH2 shorts?

  • BlackoutBlackout

    Zacuto zashmooto but it's a great thing to know that one of the world's most respected film makers picked the little $800 GH2 when it was right next to $100,000 cams.

    You could almost see the fury in some of the people who are so dedicated to "you get what you pay for" motto and one guy even said "more expensive is better" while he groaned and I think gave himself a tumor.

    And that's all I have to say about that!

  • julesjules

    did they use an unhacked GH2?

  • kaekae

    Download the Technical Specs PDF for the shootout: http://www.zacuto.com/zvideo/RGCSO-TechnicalCameraDocumentation-V1.pdf

    It listed the GH2 firmware they used as Quantum B v9 @ 150Mbits. Kudos Vitaliy and Nick!!

  • shianshian

    My choices were

    image

    and my thoughts were

    image

    I had the Alexa and Epic backwards, but nailed the GH2 and F65 and the iPhone.

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  • BlackoutBlackout

    Remember you guys are viewing it at 720p, super compressed, on various monitors. They were all watching on the same high end PROJECTOR at Skywalker ranch. Reflected projection does not come off as saturated as your $200 LG LCD monitor. Or whatever you are using.

    I have seen the GH13 and GH2 hacked going from my master file out to multiple projectors in times square and it looks awesome even at 4k. My home projector is a Epson 8350 and the image is mind boggling. Many times that digital look is your lcd or screen coupled with bad internet compression or streaming or that 24p (23.98) does not divide evenly into 60hz lcd screens or your graphics card's handling of video... etc. I see my colors and light change when I go to youtube or vimeo and also where I was a HUGE sony vegas fan I am starting to use Edius more and more.

  • ppcroftppcroft

    What I found interesting was that Panasonic was not represented by anybody, while Canon, Arri and Sony had their representatives. If Panny had decided to be the daddy to the bastard hacked GH2, then it would have made for some nice speeches.

    "Ladies and gentlemen, our engineers tried our best to prevent GH2 from being competitive, but there are few stupid people with plenty of free time to hack our product and bring it close to the cameras that cost lots money. What losers"

  • DreamcoreDreamcore

    It is amazing that a 700$ camera can give such professional looking resaults. There should be no more excuses, if you have a vison, go and make it happen, nothing is stoping you, especially not tehnology!

  • RobertoRoberto

    Hard to watch. Music plays constantly, slow zooms, (sigh) I can't help wondering about the tests themselves when the video is the way it is.

  • stipstip

    LOL For me - just one more link to ignore. As I fully ignore any Zacuto shootouts now.

    Amen.

  • stipstip

    For me - just one more link to ignore. As I fully ignore any Zacuto shootouts now.

    +1

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