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Driftwood Quantum X Settings, Series 1: v3b Rocket - v4b Orion - v5 β Pictoris
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  • hmmm, something must be wrong. i thought i had it set right...set up the gh2 with orion v4, but im getting 40mb files for 10 second clips...it should be much larger files right? took 8 clips...still says i have 44 minutes left on an 8gb card. i know you cant depend on the counter but i was figuring on 8 minutes or less on the card with orion settings...ideas?

  • @bullet2 I guess you didn't save the right settings on the firmware. 44' left isn't possible with this settings.. sounds like stock firmware settings. I would suggest to do all the process again..

  • In response to @stray and his post about revisiting Profiles; one thing that has been concerning me about these new high bit-rate patches (and there's not a hint of an ungrateful attitude here - I'm loving the GH2's evolution as a cinema powerhouse), has been the amount of noise added in the shadow area's, or slightly underexposed areas of the shots.

    I don't pretend to understand the complexities going on here, but it seems to me like the camera is trying to pull out as much information for the shot as possible, and is some situations adding unnecessary noise. I tried a bunch of different profiles in order to counteract this phenomenon, and did some pixel peeping (which I'm usually not a huge fan of), and was pretty surprised with the results.

    I used the 3 profiles that I use the most often; Smooth, and Cinema, and also used Standard in order to have somewhat of a baseline. Then I compared the 0, 0, 0, 0 settings with -2, -2, -2, -2 settings. Theres still a lot of testing to be done, but I thought the grabs at 200% were pretty telling.

    My initial impression is that 'Cinema' at 0, 0, 0, 0 has the least noise (to be expected given the increase in contrast) - and that Smooth 0, 0, 0, 0 has some odd pixelation going on in the shadows. Smooth at -2 for all settings has the least banding in the highlights.

    The Scene.png
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    1. Standard.png
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    2. Smooth.png
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    3. Smooth -2 all.png
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    4. Cinema.png
    1440 x 1080 - 725K
    5. Cinema -2 all.png
    1440 x 1080 - 770K
  • Excellent work Driftwood. Here are a few grabs from a shoot today (had to use Rocket V2 due to time constraints, didn't have time to load up the new patch). The first was ran through 5DtoRGB and slightly corrected in FCPX (shot taken from the preview window inside the app). The second is the raw MTS through VLC.

    Sadly we didn't have any time to setup lights, so it almost looks like green screen (and the overhead flos gave a bit of tint I'm still working with.). There's a fair amount of noise in the wall area, but it's very fine, and a denoiser pass would probably clean it up.

    Canon FD 24mm 2.8

    Screen Shot 2012-02-28 at 9.16.16 PM.png
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    Screen Shot 2012-02-28 at 9.19.33 PM.png
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  • @magnus387 Thanks for the analysis and framegrabs.

    Hey, why the 1440x1080 grabs?

  • @proaudio4 ; no particular reason other than a cluttered desktop, and the fact that the rest of the image was not important. (using shift-command 4, on my mac)

  • It's funny that there is so much discussion about noise. Look at any film and in low light you will have some sort of noise/grain. It's only really recently that we've been spoilt by very good sensors producing incredible noise free images in low or little light. And if noise really bothers you then use Neat Video. It is truly brilliant what it can do. Even with stuff shot I the ISO no go zone.

    I really like the grain we are getting in shadows. Before unexposed areas were muddy weren't they and now that is gone. fine detail is retained superbly. I have footage of a painted wall and the rollermarks are completely visible. Incredible! I am using Orion and I can't believe what I am looking at. The shadows do hold detail now and you can pull out the shadows with fill in post which wasn't an option before. I am assuming too that this will work very well with sky gradation as the noise actually helps mask the 8bit colour space.

    Just over the past few days I have found that I am using Cine and Smooth all set to -2 apart from colour. I use Smooth indoors as it lifts shadows and Cine outside as it tends to limit hilight blow out. But the great thing is consistency. Just to be able to know that you can play with the image after is great.

    fantastic times to be a GH2 owner.

  • Agreed, What important is the low level fine detail is rendered in in all its glory. Since noise is fine detail, it is what it is. Light up and record low ISO as possible. There was earlier discussion pre 3.64d and Orion 4b days to consider "some" noise to help with banding. Based on intial impressions of 3.64d and Orion 4b, this may now not be needed.

  • To be honest, I'm being overly picky about the noise, and got a well deserved slap from the girlfriend when I repeatedly asked if she noticed it.

  • @Hallvalla I really like the shot at :37 in your filmeo.

  • OMG!!!! Orion IS AMAZING! :D check out a quick test shoot I did. Grading it was a breeze! I barely retouched it. Check it out! :D :D :D Super thanks to Nick Driftwood and Vitaly!! :D amazing work!!! keep it up! I feel like I never want to touch another camera ever!!

  • First quick edit from Quantum Rocket v2... smooth profile -2,-2,-2,-2, panny 14-140mm, transcend class 10 30mb/s.

    Like the hack settings, but what I shot indoors seems to hold up better than the outdoor stuff for some reason. I also strangely got a few corrupt frames during shooting...you may notice the second shot of the beaver skips slightly as a I cleaned up the dropped frames by cutting them out and pasting in adjacent frames....

    dropped frames on solid state...that seems weird to me...I'm used to dropped frames in HDV.

  • @driftwood, I down loaded SpanMyBitchUp in the last few days. Did not have time to put the settings in the camera just yet. I will probably have a little time this weekend. Might be able to test it out. However, I looked at the settings and found that the "Video Bitrate FH/H" was at 5,000,000 (5mbs). Is it intended this way?

    Thanks.

  • @Dusty42 FH/H is a Trick mode demo on SpanMyBitchUp.

  • @stanlymanly2 Love the clip. But where are all the people. Looks like the Walking Dead. Just need a wrecked car here and there and you'd be good to go.

  • @DevonH That second screen shot is amazing. Detail is insane for this camera

  • @rsquires true that! should have tried to put some 3D burning cars and zombies in there! :p except im no visual effects guy. cloverdale is where a lot of smallville was shot and it does have a small town feel to it like the town in the walking dead. i loooove the quality Quantum Orion provides! just amazing and mouth watering!

  • @mrengine Dropouts could be to card issue. What type card? reformat card. Try it again.

  • Hey, this is a repost of a video that I put up but it is in HD now. It is all hand held but there are some good shots to show the power of this camera.

  • @leejb4 That looks even better, especially on youtube full HD.

  • this seems like a great hack. I am new on this site. I have looked and installed the different versions. Can someone tell me if it allows now full manual control in video (with regards to aperture/Shutter combination)? I am still trying to over ride the annoying automatic compensation that kicks in when light changes. thanks for your insights.

  • Wow. This just keeps getting better day by day. Thank you Vitaly and driftwood and all other testers for pushing the boundaries. There's so much new progress that it's almost hard to stay caught up. I shot this little test on Quantum v9b and just thought i'd share. Can't wait to try out the X patches

  • @driftwood @leejb4

    I have same kind of problem with v2. But when i look the file with Steamphrser, it looked ok. In winmediaplayer and premier still skip frames. So i try vlc and file looked OK. After that i convert file to Prores and it was just ok no dropped frames. I also first think that it was my Trancend class 10 card, pany 14 - 140. And strange incam play did not drop any frames so now i have my doupts. Also now i have v3b what i have not tested prperly yet.

  • @itscehris: So you've just shot your first couple of videos on your new GF-2 and are wondering why they look nothing like the example you posted. The good news is that your camera is completely capable of shooting that level of quality (or much better, in fact). The bad news is that it's not simply a matter of installing the right "hack" for your camera and pushing the red button. As @danyyyel noted, the professional look in that video is all about the lighting, the make-up, and the model, as well as some editing and probably some color-correction and other post-processing. The camera model and firmware hack settings are only a minor factor in comparison. There's plenty of information on this site (in the FAQs, and on a couple of "beginner" threads) to get you started with installing custom firmware on the camera, but (at a minimum) you'll also need to do some reading up on lighting technique to start getting results like this. Good lighting doesn't need to be expensive (although it's a lot easier if you've got some money to spend on equipment), but it does take a lot of practice and study.

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