@filthy I think you just about pulled everything you could out of the GH2. Nicely done.

Just tried out Intravenous II on some nature shots, and I have a question. I shot some local woods around midday with the standard Panasonic 14-42 lens, ISO 640, and there weren't any extreme dark areas of what I was shooting. But when I looked at the footage when I got home, there was a lot of digital noise present. Maybe this was due to my watching this on Windows Media Player, but... well, has anyone else had noise problems with Intravenous II?

@Brian_Siano - Might the noise bug issue. Pretty known issue with GH2. Also ISO 640 is supposed to be unusually noisier than the rest. Been discussed plenty around here. Just do a search for both topics to find the workaround.

i love iso 640 more after some tests i've done. didn't try intravenus but i use moon t5 and it is really good! especially for noise.

IV has always had the best "Across the board" noise pattern for me. One of the things I like about it. Have you put it on scopes and see if those areas were underexposed? Even if they looked good in cam, they might have been in the 20 and below range on a waveform monitor which will bring in much more noise than the rest of the footage.

I'm pretty new to this, but I'm also getting noise with Intravenus II. It's nice when there's light, but when it's darker, it's like this (see attached file). Does that count as noise (in such conditions)? 14-42 mm kit lense, f5.6, 125 shutter, 160 iso, smooth all -2.

@bernardlv You're shooting in a dark room at base ISO 160 with a slow kit lens at f5.6 and doing so at 60fps so you're starving your sensor even further with a 1/120 shutter. It's sort of the perfect storm of sensor starvation. Try upping your ISO to 800 or even 1250, shoot your kit lens at the wide end to get f3.5 and a lot more light in, and maybe try shooting 24P with a 1/40 or even 1/30 shutter. You can't starve the GH2's sensor like you're doing and expect clean footage. Let there be light.

@bernardlv Shooting at base ISO 160 does you no favors if you're shooting in low light conditions - whatever benefits you might get from shooting at a low ISO are swamped by the noise penalty you incur from starving the sensor of light. The GH2 shooting IV2 is relatively clean up to ISO 1250 I find, with 1600 usable with a bit of NeatVideo NR to clean it up later. Don't be afraid to shoot at ISO 400 or 800 - these ISOs are your friends, and feed the sensor enough light to produce good looking footage. Get your exposure up between 0 and +2 on the GH2's meter and you'll start seeing lower noise and much cleaner footage.

A half empty chip bag in a dark room is not how you learn how to do this stuff. Get out and shoot the real world. You'll quickly learn to match ISO with aperture with shutter and get the right combo for most any real-world setting. Takes some experimentation, but you'll get it, we all started where you are.

PS don't shoot 24P with a 1/120 shutter unless you want Saving Private Ryan stutter motion effects on your chip bag. Try 1/40 shutter or even 1/30 shutter for more film-like motion blur. 1/50 if you feel those two are too blurry for what you're trying to achieve. 1/120 is for when you shoot 60P. The lower shutters will also let in a lot more light and help you out with that slow kit lens.

@bernardlv Yes, there is apparently a "noise bug" some GH2 users have noticed on certain ISOs. The solution some have found is to set the camera for a higher ISO than what you wish to use, and then toggle down to the right ISO. Me, I shoot at ISO 400 or 800 99% of the time and never get any kind of noise bug with or without the toggling. You'll find that the "noise bug" seems to vary for different complainants, and there's no universal consensus on its solution. My advice is to try shooting 400 and 800 and see if you get noisy footage. Try 1250 in very dark conditions. Also, get yourself some faster and better glass - hit up eBay for the Lumix 14mm f2.5 pancake for $170. Infinitely better looking glass than the kit lens. Not the fastest lens in the world but faster than the 14-42 and quite a bit better to boot. I blew this lens off when it first hit but it's seriously great, a gem. And much better suited to video than the 20mm pancake.

FWIW I never saw the "noise bug" on my GH2, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist for some users and some cameras. Remember, it's a Chinese made consumer product and maybe the Chinese part doesn't really matter anymore all things considered but the main thing is it's not an artisanal piece of gear, it's a commodity item mass produced by people who don't care if every fast moving target on an assembly line meets spec. Sometimes a bunch of bad iPhones/GH2s/BMWs go out the door and some end users complain on forums and it becomes "all ____ have this problem" when in fact only some do.

If you're worried about a possible GH2 issue you read about on a forum, test it for yourself. Takes 10 seconds. If it affects your camera, drill down and find the solution. If it's not an issue for your camera, yay, one less thing to worry about.

Finally, try shooting 1080/24P instead of 720/60P. Unless you're a soccer dad or shooting Mexican soap operas, why do you want 60P? May as well forget the GH2 and just get an LX7 or G5, call it a day.

No, I don't have any video for you, what's the point? Buying lenses based on seeing a stranger’s compressed clips online which allegedly used said lenses is pointless. Not to be curt, but either take advice or don't. Google the Lumix 14mm or search the many threads here discussing its quality for video. $170 is peanuts to try a new lens, especially one of the handful for m43 this wide and fast.

I'm finding that I really like Intravenus II. I still see HF shimmering but it's the nature of the camera I guess. But this patch seems like it has a smooth, cinematic feel to it and I think will be my go to for a lot of things. Moon Trial 5 seemed a bit too sharp for me, although admittedly I have not done a side by side with the two hacks to compare on same lens, same content.

Anyway, nice job with this one!

Wanted to show some love for the Intravenous II