GH2 settings

Benjamin Kenobi

Benjamin Kenobi

Easy? You call that easy?
Such a great thread this turned out to be!

I'm slightly jealous of people with the GH3, I would love some 50p action!

It seems that I use the same settings as you Quinton, which gives me hope. I tend to stick with ISO160, above 400 you notice the noise and over 800 it sucks.

Continuous auto focus doesn't work with the hacks, or any of the auto settings to be honest. I did try them when I first got the camera in the air but the autofocus would stop working after a few minutes. The hack pages say to use full manual control so I've stuck with that. Single shot focus works well, I just focus on the horizon. And you're quite right, the settings aren't nearly as complicated as they first seem.

I honestly have hardly used a shutter speed below 100 even though I'm shooting at 25fps. There have only been a few occasions, like flying inside under incandescent lighting, where I've had to go to a shutter of 50. Alas I can't post the indoor part of that shoot yet as the branding is visible for the place I filmed. It was a horse doing dressage inside whilst I flew through some flags hanging from the ceiling. I was a bit scared as it was a tight space but the footage was great!

And apart from using SanityX once, I stick to Flowmotion. Such good results with it I have no immediate need to change. Although Apocalypse Now is supposed to be very good. HorizonAP have been using it with good results.

Have fun!
 

jfro

jfro

Aerial Fun
Quinton said:
On the GH2 it is actually very important for you to decide what that ISO should be, as the camera is pretty bad at higher ISOs.
This is why I recommend ND filters so you have FULL control over the settings
Each camera also has its best ISO setting, based on the amount of noise in the picture.
GH2 Best ISO is 160, 5D is also 160, Canon C100 is 800 etc, its not always its lowest ISO, so you should always try and find your cameras best ISO base rate, and stick with multiples of that.
l
Click to expand...

On the GH2, I think the ISO sweet spot is 160. However, as far as I know, they never fixed the ISO bug which can sometimes add noise to your image. When you go to change your ISO, the iso's listed on the top lines are the native ones, 160, 320, 640 etc... (I'm going from memory) are the ISO's that can have induce some extra noise. The work around is to always to always have it one or two levels above, and then move it to what you want. Example, if you want 160, set it first to 320 and then move it down to 160.

I use 200 or 400 alot. Often, I shoot by myself with lights, mic's, and many times 2 cameras. I don't have time to worry about the ISO, so I just set it to 200 or 400. That way, if we have a break, scheduled or not, I can just turn the camera's back on and shoot. I have been burned on that bug.

Ben, I bought the GH3 when it first came out thinking it would get hacked. If I didn't need the 60 fps @ 1080, I might not have bought it or at least waited 6+ months till it went on sale. It's much more affordable now that it's being discounted. It matches fine with my gh2's, but I have been burned a few times with the extra moire. I often shoot with my gh2's instead of the gh3. Just sort of depends on what I'm doing. It's a great compromise for out and about shooting where video is important, but you might want to grab some stills. Battery life is about 3x that of the gh2's.

On my MR, for 60p in the air, I do use the gh3. It's 1/4lb heavier, so that's a very small factor. The gh3 is a tad better in low light, water proofing, quality of photo's for AP, and does let you set up auto triggering. With disc space so cheap, I just have it shoot every second or two and then toss out 95% of what I shoot, although I don't use it much yet.
 

Q

Quinton

Active Member
It is a great time for cameras.
As a lightweight camera for flying I am actually going to consider the Panasonic GM1 in the new year.

If you dont mind 24Mbps output, it is supposed to have the same sensor as the yet to be announced GH4, and does 60p (Sorry 60i after looking at the Panasonic site, some sites are wrong)
They say the sensor gives a better image than the GH3 at a fraction of the cost/weight.

Even time lapse and wireless, it gets better.
Would like to find that out for myself though.
 
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F

Flubbs

Member
this is great, thanks guys, im very lucky to be able to try both the GH2 and the GH3, havent actually paid out for one yet, so will wait for the new year sales, the 3 actually balances better on my gimbal and even have SD card access with out taking the camera off after an afternoon of playing. cant wait for some good weather to get out there and play. best thing is that between you all you confirmed what i was thinking, manual all the way, as you say, the less you let the box control the better. The 50P is nice as long as everything is 50P, we use a lot of 50i as well so sticking to 50i for some stuff, the .MOV is good, nice and easy straight to fcp, no log and transfer, to do straight to the timeline

Ben, that dressage shoots sounds mad, horses? did you use the 800 or the little one??
 

Zaidy

Zaidy

Member
A question at a slight tangent !! Sorry
Guys when you use an ND filter, do you have to rebalance your gimbal assuming you are using a Z15 ??
Thanks
 

Benjamin Kenobi

Benjamin Kenobi

Easy? You call that easy?
Yeah, you need to rebalance. Even a Zenmuse can produce crap images if it's unbalanced.

I used the S800 for the dressage shoot. Horses didn't even blink. Very well trained. Was really noisey flying inside though, I didn't like it. I'm gonna stick one of those shots in my showreel, I can't resist.

Cheers!
 

Zaidy

Zaidy

Member
Benjamin Kenobi said:
Yeah, you need to rebalance. Even a Zenmuse can produce crap images if it's unbalanced.

I used the S800 for the dressage shoot. Horses didn't even blink. Very well trained. Was really noisey flying inside though, I didn't like it. I'm gonna stick one of those shots in my showreel, I can't resist.

Cheers!
Click to expand...

Thanks you that Ben.. the next question would be how difficult would it be balance a Z15? maybe start another thread !

Great footage Ben.
 

Benjamin Kenobi

Benjamin Kenobi

Easy? You call that easy?
Easy(ish). Just unscrew the four little screws underneath and slide the camera back a bit until the gimbal holds position (unpowered) in any direction. You should be able to get it perfect. You can move other little bits around too I think. Just do a little at a time and remember what you've changed incase you make it worse.
 


Q

Quinton

Active Member
Benjamin Kenobi said:
Easy(ish). Just unscrew the four little screws underneath and slide the camera back a bit until the gimbal holds position (unpowered) in any direction. You should be able to get it perfect. You can move other little bits around too I think. Just do a little at a time and remember what you've changed incase you make it worse.
Click to expand...

I just ordered the 5D Zenmuse, (Just needed something to work now!) hope there is a bit of moving in that also, although I seen in the Redbull video that they had an ND filter on it, so will wait and see.
I'm away to hide now before Mombasflash throws some bricks at me for using such a heavy setup with such a crappy camera :)
 



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