@Mark_the_Harp
"...I dug my Optex anamorphic out yesterday and had a go with it - it does seem to flare in uncontrolled lighting."

Thanks for the tip on Cinefoil, I've ordered some to try it out. The Optex 1.33X anamorphic lens uses the same glass as the Century Optics adapter, but the Optex's mechanical design lacks any provision for attaching a lens hood. I modified mine by removing the dysfunctional outer front ring. This allowed me to press-fit the plastic mounting ring of a 72mm collapsible rubber lens hood around the exposed front anamorphic lens mount. It fit perfectly. To give the lens orientation lock screw a good grip on the front element, I cut a narrow circular strip from a rubber lens focus ring I scavenged off an old broken lens. I stretched this around the base of the front lens like a wide rubber band. As you can see from the bottom photo, the 3-position rubber lens hood pops securely into place around its plastic lens mount, and can be adjusted to provide as much shading as needed.

The other trick with the Optex and Century Optic anamorphic adapters is to remove the rear lens element and reassemble it facing backwards. This produces a sharper anamorphic image for closeup shots, but puts distant objects out of focus.

I think it's very amusing that MrAnthony repeatedly and completely ignores the videos and explanations posted here, which indicate what the producer whants to say, which is, that the flat picture style is the only way to fit more dynamic range into the picture, which can then be taken into color correction. if you dont want to colorcorrect- dont use flat picture style, mranthony. :) But he, and many others want to- and so the flat option would be a blessing to improve GH2s small dynamic range, compared to film.

that is the "film look"-part. the dynamic range. period.

A flat style is not the same as actual dynamic range. Duh.

'I am awaiting the day most people owning the HDSLRs start shooting something worth looking at.' -VK

True. Very True. Content.. I just got a gh1, so i'm seeing what it can do. As far as film modes go, it is paramount that you use different ones for different situations. I have found that the approach that emphasizes taking the sharpness down to -2 no matter the situation is not a very good one. dynamic range is an analogous concern: in darker situations it becomes important if it isn't lit very well (although stopping down with decent lighting makes it somewhat less important)... I have found that dynamic mode bleeds the color a bit while adding contrast. nostalgic is seemingly the most flat and brightest of them all and has a fairly bland color response (it's a step past smooth in all these ways), standard is fairly self explanatory, nature seems to have better contrast than smooth and nostalgic and also has a balanced color response.

In using smooth with -2 sharpness for a while, as many testers have recommended as a must, I have found it negates the purpose of getting the sharpest lenses around because of the inherent limits of the format-mainly in comparison to medium and large format cameras, which are much less worried with sharpness due to the effective area of exposure (size of the picture). Also it may well be making the processor work harder with digital filtering and the like, by altering sharpness in film modes... So leaving the sharpness alone instantly cured a concern with clarity that i had using smooth or nostalgic modes.

I think it's a worthy topic to test at length the characteristics of the film modes because just in an hour or so I found that it significantly alters the characteristics of the image to the point of even a 1/2 to full F-stop compared from nostalgic to dynamic. Of course I haven't looked at the manual regarding modes either, but I doubt it says much.

Spend a little time to solve problems with colors on GH1. In most I don't like the Red color on it because it's almost orange. Only in RAW photos true Red colors. Simple example: Video

RAW

In the beginning i tried to fix it with Film Modes. On vectorscope they look almost same, but Vibrant -2 0 0 0 mode is little more close to RAW than others. So i took Vibrant as start point. Then i did use Channel Blend plugin in Sony Vegas to change color tones and shift them in RAW colors. Here is settings i get: First variation

Second variation, with brighter greens, and more close to RAW i think

Also you need to correct levels, after all this let's see the result: Video, did shot this with saturation +2

Video, this one i desaturated in post

RAW

@Aria thanks for response, i don't know how much people still seriously use GH1, but i believe they exist. Also there is new patched firmware for it http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/8601/panasonic-gh1-firmware-research-testing#Item_15

@humpman your findings on the film mode and Sony Vegas processing are very interesting! Is there any chance to closely replicate RAW colors using combinations of film mode and build in WB correction for GH1?