There’s a really solid thread at DVXuser that delves into dynamic range and quality comparisons between the Canon 5D MKII and the recently-hacked Panasonic GH1. Previously the GH1 was an interesting camera hobbled by a frustratingly low codec bitrate, limiting it’s usefulness in the video world. But now that there’s a respectable codec bitrate option in the hacked GH1 firmware, people are starting to take another look at the camera. In the forum thread linked above, shooter Hunter Richards set up a good comparison test that pretty clearly shows sharpness and dynamic range comparisons between the GH1 and the popular 5DM2.

As a further comparison, the 5D Mark II is currently a $2300 camera body and the GH1 lists for $1,190 (B&H prices, buy links above).

(Via @ninoleitner)

I’ve got an upcoming commercial shoot for a client that will air on our local NBC affiliate. The station is currently standard-definition only, so the deliverable will be a 4:3 formatted SD master. Letterboxing would be an easy way out, but is undesirable to the client. Normally I would shoot this type of project on a standard definition camcorder in 4:3 mode; but this commercial script calls for some of the lens tricks possible with a DSLR, so I chose to shoot it on the 5D Mark II (currently $2399 @ B&H).

Unfortunately, the 5D offers no video guide overlays. There are only two Grid overlay options, and they don’t correspond to anything in the video world. There is a standard definition video mode in the 5DM2 (and it really does look pretty good), but I wanted to shoot this project 16:9 HD (protecting for 4:3 with guides), to future-proof the spot and give the client more options. So I was forced to find a way to make 4:3 crop marks on the display (as I don’t have a monitor with 4:3 guides either).

Magic Lantern has common crop mark overlays built in, but they don’t currently support the latest 5DM2 firmware, so that wasn’t an option for me. So here’s what I did to make my own. I locked down the camera and shot a tape measure. Then I dropped that footage into a 4:3 SD timeline in FCP. This by default displays as letterboxed 16:9 within the square frame. On the clip Motion tab I zoomed it to 50% to fill the screen (cropping the sides of the frame). Now with a full 4:3 frame of video, it was just a matter of comparing the tape measurements in the footage on the timeline to the same footage displayed on the 5D’s LCD. I stuck some clear tape on the DSLR’s LCD, and used a thin marker to draw 4:3 frame guides on the tape. As a little bonus, I placed the inside edges of the vertical tape strips roughly where the Action Safe guides fell in FCP. So now I’ve got approximate guides for the 4:3 Action Safe area of my frame as well as perfect guide lines to protect for 4:3 in my 16:9 frame. This whole process was highly annoying to have to do (and another example of the typical hoop-jumping you tend to do when shooting DSLRs), so I made some measurements that should simplify the process for anyone that might need to do the same trick. For consistency’s sake, I made these measurements from the on-screen Grid 1 marks.

Here’s how to quickly mark 4:3 frame guides for your 5D Mark II:
If you go into the menu under the Live View/Movie settings, there’s an option for Grid 1. Enable this for the moment. Now when you toggle on Live View, this will put a large hash guide of four intersecting lines on screen. Start by aiming your lens at an evenly lit bright surface. On the surface of your LCD screen, simply measure 12.5mm towards the outside edges of the LCD from the vertical guides displayed on the screen. Right around 12.5mm from those lines is where your 4:3 frame ends. Mark this on the LCD however you wish. You can use scotch tape as I did to make non-permanent marks with a Sharpie. Or you might be able to use these measurements to create a printed clear static sticker (inkjet printable static sticker blanks should be available at a decent office supply store). If I shot more 4:3 content, I’d probably make a sticker that I could quickly stick on the screen. Thankfully most of my work is 16:9 these days so I’ll probably just make do with the tape trick for now. Finally, when you are done making your 4:3 frame marks, you might want to disable the Grid 1 option to de-clutter your display.

Anyway, this solution is rather DIY and a rough hack, but it took some time to put together so I figured I’d share it here in hopes it will save some other poor soul stuck in Four By Three Land. Clearly a more professional solution would be a monitor with proper 4:3 aspect guides, or a camera that was intended to be used for video. Or both. If you’ve got any other guide or overlay tips, please let us know in the comments below. Happy shooting!

Adam Behr is the voice-over talent that did our NAB 2008 and NAB 2009 Australian-flavor vo, and he’s always been a pleasure to work with. He recently did an interview with Talk-Show.tv on the voiceover industry. There’s a lot of good info for amateurs and professionals alike. You can watch the 22min interview with Adam here. If you are looking for a vo guy who can nail a ton of interesting accents, I recommend Adam highly.

RED’s Jim Jannard made a statement on the Reduser forum recently that doesn’t sit right with me. I quote:

I fully expect the DSLR mfgs to get it right at some point. Make a non-line-skipping 4K camera. At that point, the difference will be RAW 5K and 6K vs. whatever they make. Until then, a line-skipping 1080P camera is just not in the running for a pro camera. Can you make OK images with a line-skipping 1080P camera? Sure. Should you be embarrassed? Yes. We are not in that business.

I saw the Canon commercial about shooting “motion stills”. They should be ashamed. Just try to take a still from their motion 1080P capture…

Jim

I appreciate the crux of what he is getting at…I appreciate his take-no-prisoners, uncompromising attitude. And yes, the current crop of imperfect DSLRs are a bridge technology, we all know it. But disparaging pros who choose to work around these issues for the present reflects rather poorly on Mr. Jannard. So my response to Jim is this:

I’ll be embarrassed for shooting on DSLRs when you ship a camera that can compete in roughly the same price and featureset. Until then, it’s all marketing hyperbole.

-Matt

You see, the problem for my production business is that I’m having a hard time making money with my non-existent Scarlet camera system.

(via Photography Bay, also a few other comments on this from a good EOSHD post)

UPDATE: Jim replied later in the thread to clarify some of his comments. See that original post here (quoted below):

Heh heh… I’m surprised that so many people are reading posts from Reduser! :-) Wow.

Clarification #1. I think that Canon should be embarrassed about pretending that line-skipping is good enough when they have the capability to do much more. I’m sure they will in the near future. Until then, they are delivering much less than they are capable of… which is one of the reasons I started this company. No one in this industry seems to move unless they are forced to.

Clarification #2. No shooting professional has to justify what equipment they use… only their results.

If people want to correctly point out our flaws as a company, they will only be joining my previous admissions. We have no idea what we are doing. We are always late.

On the other hand, I would bet that no company in any industry cares more about their customers than RED does. We have taught the industry about free upgrades, trade ins and customer service at 3am. We have set a new standard for direct communication with our customers, a standard that other companies are trying to figure out how to emulate.

I don’t have any problem with someone pointing out that I have no idea what I am doing… I have said that all along. But it is curious that the industry is falling in line to “be like RED”. All I can say is … “don’t do it. You are following the wrong guy.” :-)

If these other websites are going to post my comments, I certainly hope they will post this one without edit.
BTW… we have taken a lesson from Apple. We will no longer discuss what we are doing until we are done.
Jim

I’ll refrain from adding my own thoughts to his latest comments. There is some good commentary from FreshDV readers below.

Like the Canon 5D MarkII Magic Lantern project, the Panasonic GH1 (and GF1 apparently) has had a firmware hacking project for about two months now. And just recently they hit a major breakthrough; they’ve bumped the codec recording bitrates to beyond the limitations of the stock camera.

In the case of the AVCHD codec, you can now record in 32Mbit AVCHD 1080p native 24p MTS files. For MJPEG, you can push the bitrate to 50Mbit 1080p (this thread says 70Mbit @ 1080p/30, and 720p/30 in 4:2:2 color). But right now the winner appears to be the native 24p AVCHD mode, check out these quality comparisons for examples. The MPJEG modes are also reportedly buggy when a scene contains a lot of information…the camera will stop recording. Sounds like the processor in the camera simply gets overloaded at high bitrates+complexity.

But not everyone is so jazzed about the hacked firmware…I spotted this Tweet from Philip Bloom:

“been shooting with hacked GH1 today. bit disappointed. loads of banding still.”

It remains to be seen if this project will continue to break new ground in the GH1 firmware, and what new features we’ll see down the pipeline.

At the Cine Gear 2010 booth for Mayberry Studio Products we got a demo of an interesting multi-use mount system for camera and accessory rigging. Really interesting stuff. Watch below.

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Hoodman was exhibiting in the Redrock Micro booth at Cine Gear 2010, and they showed us their HoodCrane hard-mount system for the Hoodman line of eye loupes. It’s a unique and affordable flip-down solution for hard mounting the loupe to a DSLR camera. Watch below.

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At Azden’s Cine Gear 2010 booth we checked out their full line of shotgun microphones in all shapes, sizes, and features. Watch below.

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At Cine Gear 2010, we dropped by the LightTools booth to talk about their new directional grid systems for more efficient use of large soft light sources. It’s a really sweet solution, watch below.

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Bruce Dorn of IDC was at Cine Gear this year, showing off some coming products in his line of unique DSLR support and focus systems. Watch below.

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At 8Ball Camera Support’s Cine Gear 2010 booth we got a demo of their monster camera slider system, and also a look at the new single-rail slider they are offering for smaller HD and DSLR camera systems. Watch below.

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Pro8mm was exhibiting at Cine Gear 2010, and we dropped by to chat about what they are doing in the world of small format film. Cool stuff for Super8 fans, watch below.

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At Cine Gear 2010 we stopped by the FilmTools booth to chat with (easily-distractible) Jim about their vehicle camera mount systems and a few other interesting things. It was a fun interview, watch below.

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We stopped by the Redrock Micro booth at Cine Gear 2010 to get an update from Brian Valente on the development status of the microRemote, as well as talk about the Cinema Field rig that film and television DP’s have been using lately for various DSLR video production projects. Watch below.

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Zacuto was showing off their DSLR kits at Cine Gear 2010, and we dropped in to get an update from Jens and Steve on the DSLR cage alternative they are offering, the new DSLR baseplate, and their Z-FInder updates. Steve also dropped some coy hints about a new Z-Finder option coming in the future that would be usable with existing Z-Finders. Interesting. Watch below.

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