Tuesday, May 14, 2013

GH2 or GH3

So I borrowed Libby's GH2 camera to shoot over the weekend. I thought that perhaps the video noise would be better on the GH2 over my GH1. I do think and sometimes believe that this is true. We've been careful about avoiding low-contrast low-light situations in the GH1 but I really never saw the horizontal banding on the GH2 that we'd see with the GH1.
So having done further research on the GH2 vs the GH3 it seems there's a bit of a notion that the GH2, yes the 2, is the better camera in many respects. Not exclusively though.
Which is interesting. It seems to me that the low-light performance of the GH3 is better than the GH2 (and therefore the GH1).
The only thing I really wished were different about the GH2 is that with the GH1 I can flip between manual and auto-focus with a fairly easy flip of a switch during a shot. This is not really the case with the GH2 as the switch is harder to flip whilst shooting.
Both the GH2 and the GH3 shoot natively in 24p. This means I'm not fighting with the deinterlacing/reverse-telecine issues I have with the GH1. That's super pleasant actually.
It's a tad annoying that Panasonic keeps changing the battery size with each camera. Here's a good comparison review.
I feel like we're going to need to get a Black Magic 4K camera just because we need something with a global shutter. That's $4000.
The GH3 is only $1200.


The killer app on it may in fact be that you can use the Wi-Fi feature to get a tablet to see through the lens. We haven't had video tap in ages. Everyone on set just trusts that I've somehow shot something worthwhile. And, you know, mostly they do trust. It's just nice to be able to see through the lens.
Maybe I'll have more thoughts on cameras. Maybe I won't.

6 comments:

Kangas said...

Looking at the 4K myself, but the Pocket Camera seems pretty great too, and at under 1K is an easy buy...I still can't find a great answer about the best adapter to use my EF lenses though...I'm not buying a camera I can't use my thousands of dollars of lenses on...(another reason for the 4K, since it apparently has an EF mount version)

Andrew Bellware said...

The global shutter is what attracts me the most to the 4K.
The Pocket is a 4/3rds mount? Isn't it? It should have mounts for EF... I think...

Kangas said...

Yeah, the pocket is micro 4/3rds--everything says there will be adapters for EF, but I can't find anything but super cheap, possibly bad adapters.

Andrew Bellware said...

Oh. Do you need the electronics to work? I use the older FD lenses which are manual and stupid and have no electronics. Although they do look nice.

Kangas said...

No, I have a couple of lenses for my t2i that are manual, so that's not a big deal. But I'm frightened of cheap adapters that make it really hard to remove the lens(had a Nikon one of these for my t2i) or anything else that might possibly damage my lenses...

I'd rather pay an extra $100 to get an adapter made for the camera...

Andrew Bellware said...

I have a cheap adapter for my MF lenses that I got off of eBay (I think) to go onto my GH1.
It's just a machined piece of metal. I dunno, it's always worked just fine.
Now that I'm thinking about it I may have gotten it from Adorama or some such. In any case, it was cheap and it just works.