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GH2 Digital Sharpening removable with hack?
  • 134 Replies sorted by
  • @proaudio4 Masking tape worked fine. The contacts are pretty thick and have springs behind them, so the extra thickness won't matter.

    @Stonebat Just tried it now. The distortion correction is very noticeable, not sure about the sharpening. I only have one M4/3 lens (the kit one), which I never use. All the others are legacy cine/35mm lenses; focus by wire is the devil!
  • @Ptchaw, would love to see some before/after comparisons of the distortion correction on m4/3 lenses.
  • @Oedipax Only did a quick test, will get some shots up tomorrow :) I have a suspicion the additional sharpening with M4/3 lenses @stonebat reports is to compensate for the effect of distortion correction on the image.
  • @Ptchaw
    "I have a suspicion the additional sharpening with M4/3 lenses @stonebat reports is to compensate for the effect of distortion correction on the image. "

    Ptchaw, yes please post images with the contacts taped and not taped. This should be interesting.
    If you can, post images of the kit lens at its widest with tape on and off.

  • any news? thanks
  • Have read a lot on this but only now found this thread. Keyphrase is "edge sharpness".

    Tips I've collected from all over the place to help soften the edges in your videos:

    - Prime lenses, shoot wide open
    - Diffusion filter, Tiffen...Schneider...
    - higher ISO, some suggest between 400 and 800 (cannot confirm this yet but apparently the edges result to be softer?)
    - lower the in-camera sharpness and contrast to the lowest setting possible

    I only own a few "cheaper" lenses but using my old 50mm f/1.8 Nikkor so far seems to produce a much more softened skin/look compared to the kit lenses that come with the GH2. Have tried a diffusion filter too but I'm not yet too sure if it's any different than adding diffusion in post.

    I hear the Voigtländer f/0.95 gives the softest look so far whilst remaining an overall image clarity and sharpness, can't comment on this myself.
  • yes starstuff but my desire is to turn off artificial sharpening filter, I shoot landscapes, f8/f11 and lower iso as possible. Prime lenses at wide apertures are always softer, no matter what body you're using. Same for high iso. Open apertures are softer in a different way than the diffusor because of limited depth of field, while the diffuser diffuses the global light, similar but different effect.
  • Oh yes, I'm with you. Was merely pointing out what we can do until we have a hack solution ;-)
    If possible, that is... I read people say it's just the nature of the sensor itself, let's hope that's not true -.-
  • yes I hate these auto things...
  • JPEG file with -2 sharpness setting has sharper image than RAW file.
  • @robbie75vr,

    Have you ever considered shooting with an anamorphic lens. Mine offsets the sharpness Of my GH1(7) very well and I am using an in-camera sharpness setting of +2. I know the hacked GH2 is sharper than the hacked GH1 but I think an anamorphic lens would be a perfect solution to your problem. Also, Like @Stonebat mentioned, old manual focus primes and zooms would go a long way to solving your problem also.

    here is an example:

  • > I read people say it's just the nature of the sensor itself, let's hope that's not true

    No, definitely not. The GH2 adds major sharpening even at -2. To defeat it altogether is my no1. hope for the hack now.

    The hacked bitrates have removed a veil of blur from detailed footage, but now the sharpening is way too harsh and makes some footage look a bit 'video'. And encoding the artificial contrast wastes bitrate without buying you anything, plus doing it in post gives you more control.

    Here's an old 44mpbs test shoot (-2 cont/-2 sat/-2 sharp). The whole image looks crunchy & brittle to me - look at the extreme sharpening halos in the 1st blowup. And notice the dark halos/outlines around all bright areas in the ducks shot.

    I recently did a quick & dirty test of the interlaced mode: http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/391/25p-official-topic-aka-dont-cry-for-me-argentina/p5 . It seems to give the same resolution on static images, but sharpening appears to be disabled, that's why it looks so soft. It needs a more thorough test, but I think that interlaced is showing us what the sensor outputs without sharpening.

    @Vitaliy_Kiselev & @cbrandin, have you made any progress with film modes? Any chance we can defeat sharpening (or at least lower it)?
    sharp.png
    1901 x 1092 - 3M
    halos.png
    1781 x 876 - 174K
    ducks.png
    1920 x 1080 - 2M
  • @_gl good info, thanks! was not aware of that post. I guess I'll try some 60i myself now.
  • @starstuff please do & post your results. A test chart & tripod should nail it.
  • Sorry, I know I'm going to sound like a broken record, but often when we compare the sharpness of gh2 video, we're comparing it to "pro" video. A whole heck of a lot of pro video, dslr or otherwise, is shot with a black frost 1/8 to take away the video look (and sometimes at 1/4 or and 1/8) -- unfortunately, those filters cost $200 - $350. But I can tell you the second you put them in, excessive sharpness is gone.
  • @JDN
    Is there a cheaper filter solution? E.g. a Tiffen filter in lens size? Or does the 4x4 size of the filter make a huge difference compared to a lens sized filter?
  • There are black ProMist filters in lens size and they are as good as those in a mattebox.
  • @JDN, late reply, but look at my screenshots above again - the GH2 is applying a large amount of digital sharpening even at -2. That's the real issue.

    A lot of people are now complaining that some lenses are 'too sharp' - it's not the lenses (can a lens ever be too sharp?), it's the GH2's added digital sharpening! Using filters to avoid that isn't the answer (at least not until it's disabled).

    @starstuff, did you ever try the interlace tests?
  • yes that's what I'm asking since post #1. Too much digital sharpening, always.
  • @_gl
    not with some charts but I did test for myself. I do believe I can see an improvement in terms of digital sharpening over progressive. I'll mount it on a tripod and shoot in a bit.
  • So this is some 100% crops.
    Where Excon is enabled I cannot see much of a difference in sharpness between 60i and 24p using Excon.

    Shot on a Canon FD 28mm 2.8 at f/4. ISO is 160, SS 25. I didn't process the images, only aligned them im Photoshop, no white balancing etc.

    24p.png
    737 x 426 - 273K
    60i.png
    737 x 426 - 256K
    excon-24p.png
    737 x 426 - 290K
    excon-60i.png
    737 x 426 - 307K
  • I think that the digital sharpening is enabled only with pana lenses
  • @Elenion Exactly. This is what I've been saying all along.
  • Lets hope Vitaly find the switch, so we can use the nice features of the original lenses without the ugly sharpening. It looks so much better when done sensefully in post.
  • Thanks for the crops.
    I'm not sure how magnified those crops are, but I'm not seeing sharpening artifacts on them.

    Ian, I believe you're correct about the panny lenses.
    An interesting test would be shoot text like the above (and show magnified), but compare against one of the panasonic lenses to the Canon FD or something else.

    Also, since this does seem to be the case, it makes me wonder if there's a way to hack this and offer and on/off option?