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GH2 Color Banding Bashing
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  • Excuse me to "come after the battle"… I just discovered the banding problem yesterday, filming the sunset from my balcony with my GH2 and discovering big banding when it come to dark marine blue. I cross tested today my GH2 beside my Canon xf300, that's day and night… No banding on the canon, perhaps it's the 422 50mb bitrate? (I heard that GH2 is only 420), perhaps the canon's MPEG-2 codec versus pana's AVCHD?
    I agree that GH2 is still fantastic for the price, the pocket size and the open-minded lens kit, but is good to know what are the limitation and for what it's the perfect tool.
    Thank you for the interesting discussion.
  • I have noticed this problem on the unhacked GH2. I shot this a week after I got my camera. You can clearly see the banding @0:10 when I rack focus on the basketball - crazy banding. This is untouched footage, captured as ProRes 4:2:2HQ in FCP. No color correction or adjustments of any kind.



    The color banding, I think, stems from a few issues.

    1) 8-Bit and 10Bit 4:2:2 have always yielded color banding for me regardless of acquisition format and equipment.

    2) 4:2:0 color space of the GH2.

    3) bitrate.

    I'll have to see how much this changes after I apply the hack, but right now, it is seriously making me rethink my GH2 (which I love) as a Feature Film camera.

  • Damn I suffered from banding for the first time with my GH2 too - didn't even realise on set. Guess it was caused through the dimly lit location.

    A graded version can be seen here:

    password: atnt

    Shot with the 1.1 firmware update, HBR 25p, at ISO 800 mainly.

  • Just to add it was exported with 5DtoRGB with ProRes 4444 - ITU-R BT .601 - 1.8 (Flatter).

    Nikon 50mm f/1.2 AI-S lens mainly used, some with Nikon 24mm f/2.8 used.