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Zacuto 'Revenge of Great Camera Shootout,' featuring GH2
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  • I reckon B, H, A look best, iPhone must be D

    An excellent article and a nice wee test, looking forward to the follow up

  • The link is up for Part one - learn about the guys behind the GH2 setup at around 17 minutes in.

    http://www.zacuto.com/shootout-revenge-2012/revenge-great-camera-shootout-part-one

  • @Shian When I was at the C500 event I remember needing to ask for help to change the ISO, so don't feel bad. :) I'm told the two cameras control almost exactly the same, so I will add my comments about the C500 here. Many of the controls were very intuitive and I did like having direct access to so many parameters without having to dive into a menu. The tools you mentioned were very helpful, and as far as the RGB waveform display it really made a difference for me. Similar functionality (including the "exposure" tool) is of course offered on the RED Scarlet and Epic, though with an RGB histogram as opposed to a waveform display.

    The C500, shooting 4K to an external recorder, performed every bit as well in the highlights as the 12-stops would lead me to believe, so it is possible the encoding format is the limiting factor on the C300.

    As far as the mount, their senior rep at the event answered that as one of my questions during the public Q & A. The official position, whether anyone else agrees with it or not, is that the using an interchangeable mount would result in some reduction in image quality, no matter how minute, and that the company will not make that compromise on the camera itself. Now, they are open to offering their cinema lenses with a PL mount in the future (though I was somewhat unclear as to whether that would come in the form of an interchangeable mount or would just be a different product).

  • I can't find a dedicated C300 thread, so my experience today shooting with one, was --- a quick learning curve, granted I had a Canon rep there to help out finding things, and when I questioned my exposure out loud, she said, "...just use the waveform monitor." I think I just stood there and blinked a few times, dumbly, at her....."This thing has a waveform monitor built in?" "Yeah, just push the little 'wfm' button on the side." I almost became a canon fan...but as good as this cam is, it's not worth the asking price.... It really does produce some nice looking footage, that grades really well. But for $16,000 it oughtta. It also OUGHT to play audio during playback, which it doesn't. The controls take some getting used to, but for the most part it's a very smart design, nice and light, not too happy with the choice of lenses. (Canon supplied the lenses, all EFs) Really needs a PL mount option that is not a factory hard mount, but interchangeable. The Waveform monitor is really awesome!! Almost as awesome as False Color, easy to read, and easy to toggle on and off. Same with peaking and zebras, nice on/off toggles on the side of the cam.

    Doesn't handle highlights as well as the advertised 12 stops would lead one to believe, BUT it is better in that dept than the 5D, 7D... and, I have to admit, the GH2.

  • @Philldaagony yeah, Sony has always been that way with their flagship products.

    I'm shooting with a C300 tomorrow so we'll see what's up.

  • @driftwood @shian Very interesting indeed. Last week at the Chicago screening they mentioned they would be releasing this information as a PDF within a few days. During the screening they flashed it up on screen for a few seconds at the end, and it was near impossible to discern what each crew did during relight etc.

    It's worth noting that while the f65 was the only camera to not relight anything, the purpose of the relight was to get the best possible image out of the camera based on the DP/cinematographer's preference, meaning they could have just relit the scene because they didn't like Zacuto's master 1:1 setup. Also, Sony was the only company that didn't let Zacuto's colorist grade the footage for either the empirical or creative round. They used an offsite facility and colorist of their choosing, which kind of sucks.

    Also, I believe they mentioned during the screening that every Cinematographer exposed for the exterior, and attempted to relight the interior to match/bring up the interior in post as well. When you get a chance to see the non-grade vs graded footage of the GH2 you'll see a massive difference, as is expected.

    Still, looking at the relight time and the number of adjustment layers, I have to ask, what the hell was the c300 team doing (relight time of 1hr 24" and 27 post production layers), unless that camera was just that difficult to use in this particular setup.

  • I'll also be interested to see if they had scopes running live on the footage, rather than using each camera's in-cam meter.

  • Hi @shian, yeah this particular shootout has me intrigued -not just for us GH2 users but how they have conducted it. To my eyes they are at least trying to make a fair middle ground playing field, however, this may not really show off the ability of the big boys. Hence the all round grief this is generating...

  • Thanks, Nick @driftwood

    I like that they released a pdf of how the lighting was altered for each. Kinda shocked that the F65 was the only cam that didn't change anything from the base setup. Would have thought the Alexa could handle the DR easily from the meter readings given in the PDF. Other than the EU in that one corner which is off the scale on the shadow side, and would be hard to capture any detail there and still retain the highlights, it's really only a 9 stop DR scene. Too broad for the DSLR cams, hence the adjusted lighting, but well within the claimed 13.5 of the bigger cams, and the claimed 12 of the C300.

    On the GH2, if they shot smooth, and the median exposure is the foreground girl's face at 5.6 1/2, then everything over 11 would be really hazy, and everything at 16 and above would be pure white. On the shadow side everything under 2 would start to get murky, but you'd still have a little detail on the 1.4's before pure black. The EU on that desk/cube, would be pure black. This all depends on if they adjust the 2/3s of a stop to get her skin to 50%. if not, they'd have another 2/3 highlight room, but lose it again on the shadow side.

    I like how they compensated the room to bring up the exposure inside, pulling the scrims and ND, adding the joker, the 650, and the two 4x4s. I'm really looking forward to seeing this.

  • "If anyone who calls themselves a cinematographer considers this absurd exercise in stupidity a test they truly don't have a clue." Francis Kenny @ RED.User

    http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?79526-Just-watched-first-part-of-zacuto-shootout/page6

    Well...it's official now! We are all fucking clue-less...

  • Lol sure

  • I've heard a lot of different numbers for the dynamic range of all the various cameras, so I just used my own figure for the GH2 and I admit, I used the Red's marketed figures for the Epic since I don't have an Epic. I ended up with 8 and 1/3 stops of range for the GH2 with hack using this method (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/columns/determining-exposure.shtml). I counted what I thought were usable stops, so I'm sure you can get a higher figure with different criteria. If the Epic's usable DR is really around 11.5, then that is kind of disappointing.

    Either way, I think the GH2 has enough dynamic range for most applications if you plan on doing post correction. If you notice in the link where the Alexa and 7D's dynamic range is compared, you'll notice how fast highlights blow and how much detail the shadows retain. Protect your highlights and dig a little in the shadows if needed. The highlight blowout indicator in the GH2 + histogram is tremendously helpful for this. I think the key is to work around the GH2's shortcomings which seems to be the lesson of this shootout.

  • 7D vs Alexa

    http://nofilmschool.com/2011/01/hdslr-missing-dynamic-range/

    Right around 8 stops, the sales pitch would call this 10 stops...but 9 and 10 are completely unusable. Which is why I asked the BMD folks how they were calibrating 13.5. How many stops between 80-20? Where does 18% gray hit white and black, they couldn't tell me. So how much is marketing, and how much of it can you use?

    The GH2 has 8 and 1/3 stops - If we count those super noisy, and partially blown stops (but not fully), then the GH2 has 10.5 where you can still see a tiny bit of something there before pure black and pure white...but nothing usable. 18% gray (skin) blows out pure white at 3 to 3.3 stops over, and hits pure black at 5 - 5.3 under. (the variance is due to film modes - depending on which way the image is being pushed)

    My tests and the number of "8.3 stops" is stuff you can use between 0-100IRE. 6 stops between 7.5 and 95, and 4 between 20 and 80.

    You may say, well that just pertains to skin tone. I'm a narrative filmmaker. EVERYTHING in my world REVOLVES around skin tone. All my exposures are based on skin tone.

  • Dude, the XF must be garbage. I've never tested it. But I have tested the HVX200 vs F900 and the only real difference is detail, not DR. And The same vs. 5D and GH2.. The detail in the shadows is at first blush, way better with the DSLRs, but in terms of pure DR, not a lot of difference. I've shot on the 7D a few times, and didn't see anything close to 11 usable stops... not even close. The original RED ONE had 11, and we could not fit the DR of stuff shot on the RED ONE onto the 7D, we had to squeeze it into 8.

    The GH2 (on the average) has 3 stops above 0 and 5 and 1/3 below. This range moves around as different film modes are selected, but it never really stretches wider. Everything is a compromise. Better shadow response on NOS equals worse highlight response... and so on.

    Now I've shot stuff with the GH2 in Smooth and Nostalgic modes, that seemed to be handling a wider DR than I would normally think capable, but when I went to grade the footage, that "extra" range was complete crap...just falls apart immediately on both the high and low ends when trying to grade it, so I have given up trying to use those outer edges, it never pays off the way you want it to. I'm resigned to 6 that I can work with, readily. And 4, if I wanna do any serious grading.

    Fit everything into 4, and you can do some amazing shit in post.

  • @Shain "Don't believe me, take an F900, XD-cam or an HVX and chip chart it with a 5D and a GH2... they are all pretty much the same."

    well I don't know what charts will tell you. But I just did a shoot yesterday with 7Ds and XF300's. The XF footage was almost unusable at how horrible the latitude was. Blows-out at about half the threshold of a 7D. You couldn't even see the sky on the XF footage, while the 7D rendered it perfect, clouds and all.

    So maybe when measured, the DSLR images "technically" only has 6-8 stops of information. But the 7D really exposes like 11-12 stops.

    "It is a myth that DSLRs have a significantly greater DR than any other standard HD video camera."

    No, I think that this is a myth. DSLR have much higher exposing latitude. Again, when looking at charts and "recorded information", maybe not. But in terms of how much "light" you can expose for while shooting... DSLRs really have the advantage. HVX's, EX's, XF's all blow out so much faster, and have much worse shadow detail, than any DSLR I've shot with.

    We may be taking about two different things here. DR and Exposure Range are two different things. If you're saying that DSLRs only have 5-6 stops in terms of how much manipulation and recorded information you have in post, then yea, that sounds about right. But if you're talking about how many stops you can actually expose for when shooting, then 5-6 is worse than a iphone. DSLRs are all around 10-11 stops here. Not 10-11 stops of workable range, but 10-11 stops of exposing range.

    Say what you will about Zacuto, but I have no reason to dispute them. And this chart really seems the most legit to me out of anything else...

    http://www.academyart.edu/export/sites/marketing/webcheckout/images/latitude.png

  • @mintcheerios Well said, well said I made those same observations long time ago. We have plenty to work with using the GH2 8bit 4:2:0 is good enough, just have to learn how to make it shine..

  • Shouldn't this community be happy that it's even considered? If we all bothered what guitars and amps our music hero's used and argued about it ... hats off to taking a codec and camera, by you, far beyond it's original use.

  • @danyell Yeah, I remember seeing that and wondering how they measured. It just did not reflect my experience with the cameras that the gap between the RED and 7D was only 1 stop.

  • I don't think there will be chart in this years test, so we will have to see when it comes out.

  • @thepalalias and @kholi, lets say it is 2 stops compared to the 1.5 from the zacuto test, but not the 6 stop I made reference from. I base it from some test I have seen from provideocoalition and now the zacuto 2011 test.

    http://www.personal-view.com/talks/uploads/FileUpload/ee/1f710f6d505171964b288d498ed158.jpg

  • @shian Well said, Shian. The difference I notice between the some of the other older cameras and GH2 is not the dynamic range, but the detail contained within that dynamic range. The compression artifacts and noise do a lot more to compromise it in some of the older cameras and is not uncommon for the camera to "blend away" some of the detail close to the highlights or shadows in certain shots, even if the camera can sometimes capture them (or for it to be so noisy that the detail gets lost in noise reduction anyway).

    While the GH2 improved on that, the RED cameras provided consistently usable visual information within the dynamic range the sensor offered and I did not have to keep a close eye on it to watch for errata the way I do with the GH2 under very specific conditions.

    As I said, I unfortunately did not have time to do the scientific tests I had planned, but my subjective reaction to the dynamic range gap was "a lot". :)

  • well, because I have tested it, and am still testing it across film modes and hacks, let me tell you. The GH2 has a full range of 8 and 1/3 stops, only 6 of them are effective stops, and only 4 stops of detail between 80IRE and 20IRE regardless of film mode. Not even close to the RED.

    No DSLR at the moment. not even the 5D has a larger DR... they are all about the same. which is a 5.6 to 6 stop effective range. It is a myth that DSLRs have a significantly greater DR than any other standard HD video camera. Don't believe me, take an F900, XD-cam or an HVX and chip chart it with a 5D and a GH2... they are all pretty much the same.

    And to be perfectly clear, since some people don't understand what dynamic range actually is - Dynamic Range is the exposure range (in stops) across a single exposure from pure white 100IRE to pure black 0IRE. There is a REASON your in-cam EV meter only goes to +3 and -3.

    EDIT - the 6 stops of effective range refer to the 6 stops between 95IRE and 7.5IRE (broadcast)

  • @kholi For most scenes, it doesn't make a lot of sense to use HDRX. But it can be helpful on some of them - I used it to keep detail in the sky while I exposed for a backlit performer in shadow in a scene that used only natural light once. :)

  • GH2's useable DR is around 9 to 9.5 stops.

    Epic's useable DR is around 11.5 stops @ 5K FF

    So yeah, it's a good two up.

    HDRx is a rarity, no sense in counting it.