I totally agree with @bwhitz. Today's world of filmmaking is totally PUNK ROCK all over again - its levelling the playing field if youve got something to say and people wanting to see it. Famous quote from a British punk band in '77 called The Desperate Bicycles, "It was easy, it was cheap, GO AND DO IT!"

And rather like the Internet was in the early days - when the balloon began to heatup - we are now in the realm of great possibilities in the digital realm of filmmaking.

Digital cinematography IS within reach of everyone who has a good story to tell and with the explosion of digital cinemas around the world (which I think is over 50% install base now) its a bit easier to get film distribution if you have a good movie to show. The graders rendered every cameras output out to tifs before creating 2k comped files for the theatrical showing. The reason being that a large proportion of the theatres around the world still only support 2k including many of the screening rooms they were showing 'Revenge' in. Also it levelled the playing field.

In the early part of the last century no sound and poor b/w footage never stopped the masses showing up in droves at the theatre.

Digital cinematography is DIGITAL cinematography - you can't call it film - all these cameras in this test ARE digital. What is Digital? The fact that the GH2 crew had to use extra lighting just shows you that you can make something look good without hiring in expensive cameras - this shouldn't be scorned - rather applauded. Learn the craft of lighting. Learn the craft of grading. Learn the essentials now with the tools youve got. But essentially, tell us a good story.

@JRD

There's a bit of contradiction here, as always in the movie business. It's no secret that "powerful cinematography and storytelling" typically requires a lot of money, quite apart from the choice of camera, and anyone with a lot of money would be nuts to use any of the cheaper cameras featured in the test.

Powerful cinematography does not require allot of money... not any more. It's all about your personal talent and eye now. That's the point of this test. But I do agree, some stories, on the whole, do take allot of money. But if you're indie, why would you be writing (or pick) a script like this?

If you're shooting a Hollywood feature, yea, you'd probably just shoot Alexa or something just for the sake of reliability. But that's not the point of these cheaper small cameras. The point is, they're paving way for entirely new methods of productions and work-flows. I like to do all my cinematography myself (wouldn't have it any other way) while directing. This is difficult with the bigger cinema cameras, and nearly impossible with film. BUT... When I throw my GH2 on a little glidcam 1000, it's like it's not even there. It's like having a directors viewfinder that you actually film with. Amazing! And also, with the quicker set-up times, it feels like we're never shooting and always in rehearsal mode... which I believe leads to much more natural performances. I was almost about to pull the trigger on a Scarlet, but realized it would just slow down my workflow and not really offer that much more in perceived image quality. I'd also most likely have to get a dedicated operator, DP, and DIT... lame. Also, since I'm always shooting on my little glidecam I'd have to step up to the 3000 and get a vest/arm... but then I wouldn't be able to move as fast and have to get another dedicated operator for the vest. Now a little scene that looked like it cost $20k, would actually cost, well... $20k. I'm starting to see why everyone hates DSLRs and small cameras... they threaten ALLOT of jobs.

But, if you're looking to do things differently, there are HUGE advantages to having viewfinder sized cameras that take nearly hollywood quality 2k video. Find them, and use them to your advantage. Don't try to make your movies "the hollywood way". Because without millions of dollars, you're going to fail. They designed the system to work that way... this is not a secret. :) To hell with it and "professionalism". Make your own system! Having an entire industry abiding to just one filmmaking production model is stupid... and just plain bad for innovation and experimentation.

@thepalalias I agree with this totally D and then G were the two worst images in my books. I would be surprised if the GH2 was one of those, they both had edge artifacts and aliasing that looked like a lower resolution pushed up to 1080P. I personally have never seen an image like this come out of the GH2...I would have sold mine by now if this was the case. I did agree with Krostadt tho that B was a pretty digital looking image, the edge detail of the men in it did not look that good against the windows light, but apart from that it was quite clean. Cheers

Well, I thought G had the worst overall look. Although it was just a very quick first pass and scribbled on a notepad.

I marked out of a VERY subjective 10. Marks were put down for either softness, lack of detail/detail smearing, video look (edge sharpness, micro contrast, overall look). I think it was difficult to mark for for DR and noise as they were all pretty even in that respect, although I think some detail was smeared due to this. All highly subjective.

I aslo didn't try to identify a single camera at all.

8/10: A 7/10: C, F 6/10: E, H 5/10: D, B 4/10: I 3/10: G

My 2p's worth anyway. Nice little test.

I didn't have a lot of time to spend watching it carefully, but what struck me is that, while all of them were subtly different, all of them looked pretty good. And the bottom line, is, if you know what you're doing, and can fit the scene into the cam's DR, you can make almost any camera look good.

I'll post my picks when i have time to watch more closely. But just blowing through it I liked G and A the most, if i remember correctly.

@kronstadt interesting... we're chuckling here at Driftwood Mansions! Your last point is great.

I can't believe so many people liked camera B. It just screams "Hey, I'm Digital - I show Life as plastic", as do most other Canons. I watched the footages in Part1 over and over again and kept telling myself: "Forget about definition and resolution and dynamic range and all that technical jargon. Instead, focus on Which footages FEEL good?", "Which one feels cinematic?" My final results were: G, F, C, I, A (not necessarily in that order). I think G was the GH2. E was okey as well. D was definitely the iPhone (no follow-focusing capabilities). While putting GH2 and even iPhone next to such big guys as Alexa, Epic, C300, F65 etc is very empowering and encouraging, the point of this shootout, I think, is to deliver a simple message: the technology is already here and at almost accessible prices, the question is, have you got the talent to deliver powerful cinematography and storytelling.

When does the Blu-Ray come out?

@driftwood

Half the planet already knows who the secret director is. Everyone's already told their friends. lol

And F, H, and E for me, with C a distant last. Everything else is kinda ugly.

I didn't read a thing here until I saw the shootout for myself, so I can say i honestly had no idea which camera was which, and I wasn't trying to figure it out! I wasn't trying to find the gh2 amidst all the other cameras so I could just praise it for holding up, and you shouldn't either! just pick what looks best. :)

Anyway, my top 3 (in order) were B, F, and H.

everything else looked the same except for the one that was obviously the iphone, though i dont remember which one that was specifically.

@driftwood You are right - the FOV said the exact opposite about H. H is one of the widest and I was writing quickly. :)

Here are some of my thoughts on first part of the opening, before the door opens when the camera is still at a high angle.

• D and G shot (or were graded to deliver) a visibly much lower resolution than the other cameras. This can be seen in the zebra pattern on the woman in yellow's top, as well as in the tile pattern near the bottom. F had a lot more resolution than D and G but still seemed like it might have less than the others. B did fine in most areas but does more poorly than F in the detail work near the upper left corner of the frame. NOTE: D and G also did poorly in the upper left corner.

• When it comes to the yellow contents of the vase with flowers, B and E look almost as if they had additional sharpening applied or something compared to the others. Not entirely sure what caused the look, but the contours are more sharply defined - which could either be good or bad depending on the context.

• A, F, I, H and G have a noticeably redder tinge to the right curtain than B, F, C, D.

And thoughts on the section when the guest first opens the door:

• D and G show much lower resolution on the leaves outside as well, as compared to the other cameras. The consistency of this issue throughout the shot leads me to believe that it is not just a question of approach, but an actual reflection of the camera sensor resolution.

Nice little show.. My ancient macbook leveled the field even more to the point where only the iphone was discernible (drastically lower resolution). Every shot was choppy, so no sense of motion whatsoever. I even had a hard time saying which I preferred as they where so much alike.. I recall one of the shots having very annoying light glare in the actors faces and wether that was a makeup issue or lighting; impossible to tell. On this computer, that is.

One thing which I thought about; the limited amount of time for this might have made it more difficult for cameras where the image isn't nice "out of the box", in other words footage that is meant to be processed a lot further. When I say limited amount of time, I mean – 1.5hrs for lighting and another 1.5hrs for coloring can be plenty, however – (and this part is unclear) - if you do not know the set up in advance and have no clear objective with the particular setup (other than to render it nicely) it becomes such a technical shoot. And this could be seen from all DoPs wish to retain the window imagery. Adjust accordingly. Now, take the Alexa for instance, it's image straight out of the box is really pleasing to the eye, bending it in post is a joy. I haven't tried the f65 to know if that is similar - but the gh2 does generally look very good "out of the box".

My theory from all of this is that, cameras aimed for heavy post work (not saying this cannot be done with alexa, f65) may have suffered a bit in this test; maybe more work had to be done just to get them to look like the actual scene.