"THE PATCH" - for GH2 Hack - Developed by APEFOS
I have been a lurker in the world of hacked GH2 for close to 3 years now. I've been studying the drewnetwork approach to Hacked GH2, filling notebooks with notes. It's all been theoretical, though. I've owned GH2 cameras for a few years now and I've never hacked them. Back in late 2011, as a camera noob, I decided to get to know how to use a stock camera first. Also, I didn't have any projects or deadlines or proper motivation to get me off my butt and get hacking. I was worried about working with big file sizes too. I didn't have a proper editing machine before about a month ago. Bla... Bla... Bla. There's so much I'd like to say right now, but I'm going to try and restrain myself.
I never would have guessed that after having Drew as my unofficial Hacked GH2 mentor for so long that I would have tried anything other than a Nick Driftwood hack first. I found @apefos by accident and I started reading his various posts. I was intimidated, so I kept trying to read enough background info so that I could comprehend him. I shot my first big project ever this weekend. A wedding. I had my wife's 6D with a 50mm 1.8, and 2 vanilla GH2s with Nikkor AI primes. I was devastated when I started trying to match them and saw how much the Canon put my stock GH2s to shame with depth of field, color vibrance and low-light performance. I was starting to re-think years of research. So, I finally bit the bullet and hacked my GH2. I used the latest iteration of "The End" as my first hack ever.
I was so blown away by the difference in performance that it prompted me to stop everything and jump on to this forum. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!! Thank you to @Vitaliy_Kiselev @driftwood @LPowell and of course to @apefos. I'm unemployed right now and I've never made a penny off with video or photo work, but I am going to find a way to contribute to this forum. Perhaps I can sell one of my kidneys. Thank you to the PV community!
@apefos It is!
I am lazy to work more for this patch. my tests shows that it is already good to me.
Just a final word: I did more shoots to confirm if the image has mud or macroblocking, in high and low iso, and in good and low light, and I could not see significant problems.
So better thing to do is to trust in your own tests instead of other peoples tests. Do your tests yourself.
What do we want from our gh2?
This is a photocamera, not a telescope. The Gh2 is sharp, but not that sharp.
If a client ask me for a video, I don't want a noisy, flickering, artifacted product to show.
If I shot an interview, I don't want a stop in camera while working. I don't want to use unstable patches.
I need both, good quality Hbr and 24P modes.
I need a trusted color palette. This is a difficult issue, where the gh2 seems not to be so good as a full frame photocamera.
Thank you for your time and effort sorry about my english
I tried quite a few of these settings but didn't like the overall image. Although some scenes had less noise it was at the expense of detail and image quality. When shooting high ISO the image was unuseable like most gh2 footage above 800 ISO. I personally use my gh2 as a backup camera but perfer it sometimes under perfect conditions. it is far from use able under poor conditions. I tested your hack along side another gh2 on my cameras previous hack only in 60p 720p through all picture styles and found that although the picture has less noise the image is still so bad above 800 iso and not really improved in the gh2 sweet spot at 320iso. If you want better dynamic range and lowlightperformance I think the dual ISO hack is the only option but, nothing is better than proper lighting tho
@apefos Well thank you for the patch work you did and enjoy your time away!
@Manicd it seems to be another problem, not focus. the image from the end seems to be recompressed a lot, some shadow raised also. in my tests i cannot see the same level of compression and macroblocking in dark areas. but maybe I am wrong, who knows. Maybe my settings are no good for iso low iso...
the important thing is: there is nothing else for me to do. i did my best, now is time for people to test and choose.
it is time for me to be away again...
@apefos My testing was not correct. Each patch I loaded reset the 14-42 lens focus. I had to manually focus for each patch. I thought I could get good enough results but there is too much difference in the clips to be useful for true comparisons.
I have a 50mm canon FD that will keep the same focus between each patch loaded.
@Manicd no problem, maybe my development is bad, sometimes we need to recognize a fail... the goal of your tests is to show the truth, this is important for the PV members to chose a patch. I did my best, I see no more things to do, but it is no good, unless the test is not well done, but it seems you did it correctly.
@apefos All my video is now considered invalid. I found good evidence that my manual focus with the 14-42 was not good enough. There is small different in focus between some of the patches I recorded. It's easy to see with full screen image of each clip but I pay too much attention to pixels instead of the entire image. So the clips I uploaded cannot be used. Sorry.
I have a 50mm canon FD that I will use now but will take awhile to test again. I will start by first comparing Moon T8 and The End to see if worth continuing the tests.
@Manicd I saw your first video test again, in another monitor, Samsung. This monitor shows better the dark areas. To my eyes Sanity X is the best image, then comes Canis, Moon T8, Intravenus v2. Strange thing, but The End is the worst for me. In my real world shots I like it so much, but in this test it is the worst.
@Manicd thanks for the iso bug advice. I did a read in the topics about it and I learned how to set the isos correctly. Now iso 320 is looking wonderful, to my eyes the image from iso 320 is ok straight from camera, no need denoise and already have a beautiful grain and gradients.
Waiting to see your tests which are very helpful. Take the time you need, no hurry, so your conclusions can be ok.
I am using Smooth as the film mode, with contrast 0, sharpness -1, saturation -1, noise reduction -2. It raises shadows a little compared to Cinema film mode. Just to say my preferences and taste... Share yours if you want.
Contrast sometimes I lower it to -2, Sharpness is giving me a good balance between sharp and less aliasing in -1, saturation is just my taste, noise reduction -2 shows better the sensor texture, in my tests I found that increase noise reduction in camera muds some areas.
@apefos yes I will probably post to vimeo once I have an good comparison clip. If I find a good method for youtube I will do that as well.
Also the iso noise bug has a topic made about it in this forum somewhere. 320 iso is still okay in your patch, or any patch. The problem is when you switch from 160 to 320, the 320 will now have worse noise than even 640. Simple fix is always go from higher iso to lower before recording. Switching from 640 to 320 will make 320 look good again. My problem was I forgot about all this when testing all the patches. I had already finished half of them when I remembered and decided to keep testing anyways, with the iso bug being recorded. So what I am saying is your patch should have no problem at 320 iso, unless other people forget about iso bug switch but that affects all GH2 and patches.
And I have good news! I am still testing but right now I see more detail in The End than any other patch... Moon T8 is close but not 100% match and even takes more post editing to show extra detail. The End shows more detail straight from camera. Still testing to comfirm these results. I will update The End topic when I confirm this.
@Manicd Uploading in 1080 to youtube and vimeo can be similar results, maybe vimeo has a higher datarate in their compression, but I am not sure about this. The upload you did to file sharing is much better to perceive quality, datarate will always be higher this way, we can download the rendered file, less compression for the tests. Vimeo is a community more to indie film/video makers, so uploading to vimeo and add the video to GH2 channels and groups is good idea also. You decide.
To make things more easy for people to find the final version and avoid mistakes and confusions, I created a new topic for the "The End" patch which is the final version, with full description.
http://personal-view.com/talks/discussion/12645/the-end-patch-for-gh2-hack
if you test previous versions post here, if you test "the end" final version, please post there.
Hi,
Great to know that there's a new patch for the GH2 going on. Thanks for this!
I couldn't find any info about GOP (it's 1, 3 ,etc...). I usually use Moon (GOP 1) or Valkyrie 444 (GOP 3) for pro work. Sorry if this was also answered before, but what's the main difference between this patch and i.e. Moon, Valkyrie, Flowmotion...? Low-light, colours, etc...
I'll try this patch. I love my GH2, except going above iso 1600 with no light :)
@producer I can't find nothing else to do... Now it is time to see the tests.
@apefos: The only thing I miss in your brilliant patches is a higher sharpness. Much higher sharpness!
Hey what's up @apefos I see you still @ work on the patches. I recently sold one of my GH2's and my other one was sent-out for some repairs. Soon as I get it back gonna be testing away that's for sure keep up the great work.
I agree about a personal view. (Unless their personal view is clearly wrong, then I will tell that person :)
The 320 iso bug appears to affect all patches equally. So if any iso bug shows at 2500, it will be equal problem but some patches maybe worse than others. We shall see. I have not started to edit clips yet. I eat all food in house instead, much better use of time.
Does vimeo have better compression that youtube? When I finish all iso's edits I want to upload easy to watch video. Maybe start a new company for best video quality on the internet. There is already Divx player which can play very high quality h264 and h265 in browser but not everyone has or will install divx or similar plugin, which is needed to play those videos. For youtube, vimeo, and other sites you can just play video (most people already have adobe flash installed or html5 ability).
Maybe it will be better we show the tests and allow people to do their own conclusions instead of say what we like most, this way all people will feel free to do their choices, because all patches can be good for different purposes and for each people taste. Instead of find better, it is more useful we consider different options, better will always be a "personal-view".
about high iso, from iso 160 to 2000 I see no flickering, flickering starts in iso 2500.
strange thing: iso 2500 is showing more flickering than 3200 in my tests, I do not know if this is a iso bug. I perceived in my tests iso 3200 shows less flickering than 2500, strange thing. If 3200 is ok I think the patch is ok, but I can be wrong. I even like 6400 more than 2500. 6400 after denoise is better in terms of flickering compared to 2500 in my tests.
I only recorded 160, 320(had iso bug, no good), 640, 1250, 2500, 6400, 12800. If there is no clear choice of patch from this testing, I will redo using different test subject and with wider range of iso's.
At first I can tell the differences between all patches but after awhile my eyes and brain could no longer see. I spend too much time editing and staring at each clip...
Edit: I look again with fresh eyes. Is still hard to tell, even watching in editor before any transcoding. The End CLD does look good though. I will start editing the higher iso's soon.
@apefos Thank you for providing a detailed description of your patch development. It was above & beyond what I was expecting. Now it's time for me to do some testing.
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