gotcha. I've seen others post full scale ones, and I think p-view scales them down automatically, but shows them full size if you click on the picture . . . I think . . .

I'm a very satisfied GH2 owner. I have absolutely no experience with any RED products. Haven't even seen one in real life.

That said, I'm sure the RED is a superior camera, pretty obviously so in any number of objective technical measurements and specifications. Higher resolution, greater bit depth, uncompressed RAW capture. Sure, most of that will not be readily apparent to casual viewers (and even a few experts) in the final product for the majority of shots. And by that measure, some people will say that it's not worth the huge price premium over the $700 GH2.

But that's missing the point. We've gotten to the point in technology where the camera is no longer the most important limiting factor in getting great cinematic images. But most of the other factors (lighting, camera movements, audio, a full complement of talented crew, quality actors, makeup, locations, etc.) are still there and make a big difference to the final product that's often readily apparent to even the most uninformed of viewers. And doing all this stuff consistently right generally costs a lot of money.

So if you're on a production that's spending hundreds of thousands of dollars (or more) on all this other stuff, what's the point of saving ten grand on the camera? Sure, you could walk onto the set of some high budget production and substitute out their RED or whatever with a GH2 and still get a good looking result that most audiences would be perfectly satisfied with, but the operators and post-production will have to work harder with the compromised ergonomics and more limited margin for error, and in some areas quality will suffer (however perceptibly), and you'll probably spend more money in terms of extra shooting/post-production time to work with the GH2 than you would have saved by not buying or renting a pro camera. For this type of production, the price premium of a RED is a drop in the production budget bucket, and well worth the relatively minor additional investment.

Cameras like the GH2 are great for those of us with low or no budgets, because we can get in the same league as the pros in terms of image capture ability for so little money, letting us spend more of our limited budgets (and a lot of sweat equity) on improvising/approximating the other stuff without the camera holding us back.

No need for a flame war.

@David_Cole Hi, yes most people like myself have been posting uncompressed png for different test to show images, because if else it is too difficult to make any proper assessments during all those comparison between bitrate etc.

like chase jarvis said, "the best camera is the one with you". So RED people dont get mad that people are getting excited over the GH2 getting close to the quality the RED produces. They're just happy that they have something good enough that fits their budget for making films. GH2 people, dont get so mad when RED users say it doesnt come close to what the RED's can do, because they are right. The GH2 doesnt come close in more technical aspects. But lets all get together on this, they are tools for creating films. GH2 will produce great images with certain required walk arounds and the REDs will always perform amazing. Its all about what pleases the user, the budget, workflow and audience. Then again it is all about the AUDIENCE. They wont care what it was shot with, they will care about the message of the film. The beauty and what not. You rarely hear anyone coming out of a theatre saying, "this movie rocks cuz it was shot on RED" or "This movie sucks cuz it was shot on DV cam". Scenes in 28Days Later were shot with an XL-2. Did you hear anyone say the movie was shit cuz of that? NO. So dont hate on each other over specs. Embrace the passion from both sides. Specs are specs. The AUDIENCE will always judge in the end. Film making isnt a gear showdown. Its a passion and an artform. It doesnt matter what you use. SO STOP.

@JMZ

I'm glad you agree friend!

@RED OWNERS HERE

Look at Spielberg. He's still shooting with film. He does because he's used to it, he doesnt want to change formats or workflows, and because people watch his movies because of the storytelling. No one cares what kind of film stock he uses and what not. Its his passion and stories people love.

Dont hate on GH2 users and the camera itself, because this website was made by Vitaly and users here are producing patches to help people. Shitting on GH2 users because you have better cameras is like saying Vitaly and Driftwood and @David_Cole 's efforts are useless. This is a family website. I joined because I wanted to see people produce amazing things with their GH2s. If your happy with your RED and dont like the GH2, then dont bother posting here. This is a place for the admiration, development and friendship between GH2 users. Dont rain on our parade simply because we're happy we have a tool that can produce quality that is up to our standards that will support our skills in cinematography and story telling. So enough negativity and put this gear showdown on the side.

@GH2 PEEPS

Dont hate on RED either. Make your films, stick to whats best for you at the moment. Dont go into the trend where newer/more expensive is better. Stick to what you know and create magic with it. Dont get so defensive. RED is RED. Its a top notch film making tool. There will always be something better than what you have, but it doesn't matter if you dont need it at all.

Does anyone here have an ikonoskop? http://www.ikonoskop.com/dii/ It would be nice to see some footage from that compared to the GH2.

@whoopteedoobuckaroo - You can download some of the A-Cam footage and grade it yourself. http://www.ikonoskop.com/dii/footage/

Unfortunately I can't afford the camera but the global shutter and the form factor sure would be nice to have.

This GH2 vs........... is getting really really old. It's a TOOL people a T.O.O.L.!! It can never replace CREATIVITY. You can have the best tool but still don't know how to use it. Master you tool and be the jedi master of it. Let the tools speak for it self, go out there and shoot something!! Thanks you.

I'm a GH2 fanboy. At one point I was literally considering get married to my silver body GH2. Image wise, GH2 isn't that far from the big boys. It can stand next to them on a good day. But I think where the GH2 dies is in post. That's the limiting factor, the 4k, big color space, that stuff matters. My dos centavos.

@David_Cole I can't see any difference other then the greenish tint of the GH2. I'm I crazy?

Hmm... the uploaded PNGs really don't help making the comparison. The conversion from 16 to 8 bit steps on the Scarlet color pretty bad. Maybe it's Photoshop's quantizer?

All good fun, thanks for posting David... The limitations of colour are inherent on the GH2 in the sky but other than that it holds up pretty well. Other DSLRs like the 5D Mk II and Sony NEX 5N deal with shadows better and allow flatter picture profiles but nothing else DSLR-wise comes close to the cleanness and resolution of the GH2's image at 1080p.

I'm interested to see how they compare on dynamic range and low light now.

All the info is good to have. I'm under no illusions the Scarlet is the better camera, but it is great to see with my own eyes how they compare and in what areas the GH3 can improve on most... In my view, dynamic range, compression of lows (shadows) and colour banding over subtle gradation.

@David_Cole Thanks David, footage tests look great. The GH2 footage seems to have been removed.

Edit: at least the footage was up a few minutes ago. Now the post has disappeared.

@EOSHD

I don't think we'll see a 10-bit version of the GH line-up in the near future, or better profile manipulation. Maybe if they bring out a pro-GH camera, it's a possibility, but it'll certainly cost more.

I have high hopes for the AF series though, as it's been completely displaced by the FS100 and needs to compete.

@David_Cole, both videos are private on vimeo. could you make it public or password protected so we can see it full screen? thank you.

@David_Cole, thank you.

Display this video in 1080p

Also done.

@David_Cole, hi David and thank you for the effort. If you could just put some uncompressed png frame grab. So that we don't suffer from vimeo compression. Again thank you for the effort.

did you downscale the scarlet footage?

REDCINE-X PRO does that on export from the native REDRAW.

very hard to discern any difference

It's rare to see an ungraded RED file in the wild. REDRAW is intended to be processed. Some of the color science actually acts on the RAW data before the debayer. There is SO much latitude to manipulate the Scarlet image, it's scary. You can get from RAW to stunning with a few tweaks.

@David_Cole What lenses did you use with each camera in this shot?

Motion in Scarlet is amazing. But I am really pleased with how motion looks in GH2

I've been playing with redcineX and it does give a world of possibilities. You basically need to develop the image from it's raw state. Like using the unsharp in a raw photo in photoshop, for example, to bring out the true detail captured by the sensor. A downscale after that step would better reveal it's power. But Gh2 for all that it has baked in looks stunning.

Well, basically what the GH2 is outputting is like pretty high quality jpegs. (vs medium - low quality jpegs from other dslrs + the variable dimension of time and what that entails). I don't think anyone will dispute the differences in handling jpegs / raw in post.

The next step for dslrs where video is an important component is to output a clean, high quality signal (which can be recorded externally), and Nikon's d4 is an indication of that..

It's going to be interesting to see how quickly others follow suit..

So, we've established that both cameras freaking rock. I think we all already knew that anyway :-)

Thanks @David_Cole for your efforts.

PS: how much did your man shit himself when them kids nearly ripped his canopy up? :-)