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gh2-usage:gh2-usage-rus

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Where can I learn more and get help?
What's good about the GH2?
  • It has good quality video, made even better by Vitaliy Kiselev's hack. Please see the hacking FAQs
Is the GH2 better or worse than such-and-such camera?
  • The answer to that depends entirely on you: what you're trying to do, how you like to work, how you evaluate video quality, etc. No one can answer this question for you. Check out what's been posted to Vimeo (search for 'hacked gh2'), and do your own testing.
The GH2's video modes
  • Manual movie mode, AVCHD(1080i): AVCHD 1920 x 1080, 25 or 30 fps interlaced, FSH=16 Mbps, FH=12 Mbps
  • Manual movie mode, AVCHD(720p): AVCHD 1280 x 720, 50 or 60 fps progressive, SH=16 Mbps, H=12 Mbps
  • Manual movie mode, MJPEG: MJPEG .mov 1280 x 720, 30 fps progressive
  • High bit rate: AVCHD 1920 x 1080, 30 or 25 fps progressive, 22 (?) Mbps. The video is converted to and stored as interlaced. (Progressive Segmented Frames). HBR mode is available in Panasonic firmware version 1.1 and higher.
  • 24P cinema: AVCHD 1920 x 1080, 24 fps progressive, 24H=22 Mbps, 24L=16 Mbps
  • Variable movie mode: AVCHD 1920 x 1080, at 30, 15, 12, or 8 fps progressive with no sound. The recordings play back at 24 fps with a bit rate of 24H=22 Mbps or 24L=16 Mbps.
  • In 1080i, 720p, and HBR modes, the frame rate is determined by whether you have a PAL-country or NTSC-country camera body. With a hacked firmware image, you can switch between PAL and NTSC shooting modes. See the GH2 hacking FAQ for more info.
Camera settings for shooting video
  • Set the top dial to Creative movie mode.
  • For general shooting, use HBR or AVCHD(720p). HBR mode at 30 fps matches YouTube's and Vimeo's highest quality modes. Choose HBR when you want more detail, and 720p when you want smoother motion.
  • 24p should be reserved for people who have some special reason to shoot 24p. The lower frame rate means there's more motion judder, and you need to be careful to not pan too quickly.
  • Set the exposure mode to M (manual) or S (shutter priority).
  • Set the shutter speed to something in the 1/60 - 1/30 s range. Use a setting closer to 1/30 s in lower light. Setting the shutter speed to less than 1/60 s (or 1/50 s for PAL) when shooting 720p cuts the effective frame rate in half. Lowering the shutter speed increases motion blur, so try to hold the camera steady and don't pan too quickly.
  • Noise goes up at higher ISO settings (with minor exceptions), and dynamic range goes down. Everyone's noise tolerance is different, so just do some testing to find what your tolerance is.
  • An ISO setting of 320, 640, or 1250 may result in increased noise depending on the camera's previous setting. To avoid this, switch the camera to the ISO setting 1/3 stop higher, and then back down. (i.e., 400 to 320, or 800 to 640, or 1600 to 1250). If you turn the camera off while in ISO 320, 640, or 1250, you must repeat the ISO switching after turning the camera back on to avoid higher noise. discussion
  • Set the film mode to Standard with -1, -2, -2, -2. That is a suggested starting point. Adjust as necessary.
Extra Tele Conversion (ETC) mode
  • With ETC mode turned off, the GH2 uses a 14-megapixel (4976 x 2800 pixel) area of the image sensor covering its entire width, downsampling it to an output of 1920 x 1080 or 1280 x 720 pixels.
  • With ETC mode turned on, the camera uses a 1920 x 1080 or 1280 x 720 pixel area of the center of the image sensor, mapping each pixel 1:1 from the sensor to the output video.
  • ETC mode gives you a narrower field of view - 2.6 or 3.9 times narrower, a picture that's slightly less sharp, has less aliasing, less of a rolling shutter effect (“jello”), and is much noisier for the same ISO setting - equivalent to raising the ISO setting by 2 and 2/3 stops. discussion
Low-light shooting
  • With Auto ISO and the exposure compensation value set to +/- 0, the camera goes up to 6400. With the exposure compensation value set to the maximum, auto ISO goes up to 12,800.
  • With “Maximum ISO limit removal” set in PTool, you can manually select an ISO setting of up to 12,800.
  • For an unhacked camera, the maximum manual ISO setting is 3200.
  • Increase the exposure time to 1/30 s (or 1/25 s for 24p and 25p).
  • Use manual focus and manual exposure and increase the exposure time even more - up to 1/2 s in 24p, 1/15 s in VMM 160%, 1/12 s in VMM 200%, or 1/8 s in VMM 300%.
  • Setting the film mode to Smooth or Nostalgic, and/or reducing the contrast setting will lighten the shadows, increase dynamic range, and lower the contrast.
  • Shooting at high ISOs (above 1000 or so), it will help to use a high quality video hack, so that the noise is captured accurately instead of being discarded in the compression along with some picture detail.
  • You can use Neat Video to remove noise in post processing. discussion
Spanning
  • In AVCHD modes, the camera stops writing the video stream to the current .MTS file before the file reaches 4 GB, and continues writing the stream to a new file. If your video player or editing software doesn't know how to read spanned files, you can combine them into one large seamless file using any program that can join binary files. For example:
  • Windows command prompt:
    copy /b 00000.MTS + 00001.MTS + 00002.MTS   new_file.mts
  • UNIX/Macintosh shell:
    cat 00000.MTS 00001.MTS 00002.MTS   >new_file.mts
  • Some high bit rate PTool settings fail to span with certain memory cards: recording stops by itself before the file reaches 4 GB, as if you'd stopped the recording yourself with the button.
How to play back GH2 videos
  • Media Player Classic Home Cinema
  • VLC
How to edit GH2 videos
  • Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD - native h.264/MTS
  • Sony Vegas Pro 10 or higher - native h.264/MTS
  • Adobe Premiere CS4 - transcode to ??? . Poor native h.264/MTS support
  • Adobe Premiere CS5 & 5.5 - native h.264/MTS file support. CUDA enabled Nvidia Card enhances speed further. 64-bit system required.
  • Final Cut Pro 7 - transcode using 5DtoRGB or ??
  • Final Cut Pro X - native AVCHD: copy the Private folder in its entirety, and then File>Import From Camera>Open Archive. Or, rewrap MTS to MP4 using ClipWrap
  • Grass Valley Edius 5.51 or higher - native AVCHD
  • Grass Valley Neo 2.5 or higher - native AVCHD
How to cut/trim GH2 videos without re-encoding
  • I wouldn't trust any video trimming program completely: hang on to your source files
Lenses for the GH2
  • Any Micro Four Thirds lens, or Four Thirds lens (with an adapter) will work with the GH2. These lenses will be the only ones to support auto focusing, electronic aperture control, and image stabilization - if available on that particular lens.
  • The only lenses that will provide image stabilization are (some) Panasonic Micro Four Thirds and Four Thirds lenses.
  • Just about any lens that has manual focusing and manual aperture control can be used on the GH2 with an adapter. Look on eBay for adapters.
  • Lenses for full-frame 35-mm cameras project an image circle that is more than large enough to cover the GH2's sensor, but since the GH2's sensor is smaller than full frame 35-mm, the resulting images have a narrower field of view than if you were using the same lens a full-frame 35-mm camera - 1.8 times narrower in video mode.
  • Most C-mount lenses don't project an image circle larger enough to cover the GH2's image sensor without at least some darkness in the corners. Different C-mount lenses are meant for several different film and video formats: 8-mm, 16-mm, 1/3”, 1/2”, 2/3”, 1”, and rarely, 4/3”. To use these lenses you will probably need to do some amount of cropping, in the camera (ETC mode or 2x zoom), and/or in post processing.
  • Specific lenses:
    • The Panasonic Lumix G 14-42, 14-140, and the Lumix G X 14-42 are all good, with fast and accurate focusing and image stabilization. You really can't go wrong with these lenses.
    • The Lumix G 20-mm f/1.7 is great optically, and brings in a lot of light. But it focuses slowly, has no image stabilization, and using a wider aperture gives you shallower depth of field, which means you need to be more precise with your focusing. Super wide aperture lenses are not a cure-all for low light.
    • Wide aperture zoom lenses with stabilization are rumored to be coming from Panasonic in 2012. rumor
    • Canon FD-mount and Nikon AI/AI-s/non-Ai 50-mm f/1.4 manual lenses are popular choices.
GH2 audio recording
  • The GH2's built-in audio recording is said to be pretty good. It's semi-automatic: you choose one of four recording levels. All levels have some amount of automatic gain control and auto limiting. Use the on-screen audio meter to monitor levels in real time.
  • A 2.5-mm microphone jack accepts stereo audio and provides plug-in power for condenser microphones.
  • For the best audio, use an external audio recorder, and then sync the audio after the fact manually, or with Plural Eyes or Dual Eyes. discussion
gh2-usage/gh2-usage-rus.1330635507.txt.gz · Last modified: 2012/03/01 20:58 by kkn