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Posts Tagged ‘Aperture And Shutter Speed’

Panasonic DMC GH1 12MP Four Thirds Interchangeable Lens Camera with 1080p HD Video

With the GH1, shooting incredible photos is only part of the fun. You can also shoot beautiful, richly detailed movies in Full HD at 24 frames per second, or smooth HD movies at 60 frames per second in AVCHD format with continuous auto focus.The GH1 gives you more creative freedom. It lets you adjust the aperture and shutter speed any way you like when shooting movies. Aperture control is convenient when there are several subjects at different distances and you want them each to stand out. Changing the shutter speed brings special effects to movies, which is especially effective when shooting fast-moving subjects. Creative movie mode gives you a wider range of expression to explore, and lets you shoot movies with full manual control.The GH1 also comes with the high-quality stereo sound of Dolby Digital Stereo Creator, the global standard for superior audio recording. The stereo microphone on the upper body records dynamic, true-to life stereo sounds that bring out all the power of your HD movies.

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars Good stills… but not ready for prime-time 1080P
With the GH1, Panasonic has succeeded in creating a digital “SLR” for people with tiny hands. The camera looks and feels in perfect proportion if you’re a third grader or a very, very tiny adult. As a 6′ 2″ male, with average sized hands, it’s very hard to pick-up or handle the GH1 without inadvertently pressing a button.

As a director/cinematographer who primarily works in TV, I purchased the GH1 to shoot inconspicuous “B-Roll”. We use larger cameras and multi-person crews to shoot in controlled situations, such as studios or planned locations. However, it’s not unusual to need quick, available-light cutaways. For example, actors crossing a busy street with lots of out-of-focus pedestrians walking by. On a recent shoot in Washington DC, I needed to grab a 1080P cutaway of our actors walking near the steps of the US Capitol building. A quick and easy shot with the GH1, a very paperwork intensive and costly cutaway though normal channels.

My comments that follow relate to my personal GH1 camera, serial # WE9HB0014xx

The camera takes very good quality stills, but my comments relate to the camera’s ability to shoot 24P 1080 HD video.

Here’s what I like about the GH1’s video capabilities…

The Panasonic’s Micro 4-3 is an excellent sized imager. It yields a depth-of-field that’s almost like academy aperture 35mm motion picture film (with the top & bottom cut off to yield a 16 x 9 image.) It’s a good, practical size compromise and more than twice as big as 2/3″.

The 14mm-140mm lens that’s included with the camera is very sharp, but it’s only an F4 (wide) to F5.6 (telephoto.) If you’re shooting quality indoor or low-light cinematography, you’ll want “bigger glass.”

What’s great about the physical size of the sensor & mount is that almost any lens can be easily adapted to the GH1. Without the space normally occupied by a mirror box, the flange distance between the lens mount and imager is shorter than any other 35mm SLR or 35mm movie camera. Ebay has many vendors who sell inexpensive adapters to allow Nikon, Canon, Arriflex, Minolta, Olympus… virtually any lens, including some C-mount models, to be adapted to the GH1 without any loss in image quality or F-stop. Remember that adapted lenses need to have manual iris and manual focus control.

As far as I know, this camera is the only one of its kind to incorporate a very high quality electronic viewfinder in addition to a good quality, articulating LCD screen. On all the Nikon and Canon D-SLR models, once you switch to the “liveview” or movie mode, the mirror flips up and only the LCD on the rear of the camera is usable. LCD’s are hard to see in bright daylight, especially for critical focusing. No matter what you’ve read in other reviews, the electronic viewfinder in the GH1 is very good and very sharp.

Battery life on the GH1 is amazing. I’ve walked all over Pittsburgh shooting scenes and never had to change the battery. The manual indicates less than 3 watts of power usage with the LCD active.

The GH1 does a pretty decent job of down-scaling the 12 MP imager to the 2.2 MP that are required for the 1080 HD format. There’s a little problem with aliasing on vertical or diagonal lines, but it’s not bad. Overall the color quality and ability to handle contrast and lighting extremes is very good.

Three things I hate about the GH1’s HD video capabilities:

1. The camera has a very, very poor implementation of the AVCHD codec. Panasonic in one of the owners of AVCHD, so there’s no excuse for this. The camera inserts an “I” frame or key frame into the encoded video stream every 15 frames. If you have a locked down shot, you will see a slight change in the video twice every second. Static things like grass or other fine detail areas will appear to slightly twitch. It’s visible but not as apparent in hand-held or scenes with camera motion.

2. The VBR (variable bit rate) encoding simply cannot deal with rapid motion. A quick pan such as following a passing car will yield very digitized looking motion with tons of artifacts. To overcome items #1 & #2, you literally have to compose shots that have some motion, but not too much motion.

3. Panasonic has elected to incorporate some form of digital noise reduction into the video signal path to minimize or eliminate grain or noise before encoding. Another huge problem… If you’re shooting a scene with areas of minimal contrast or detail, the camera will simply blur that area together to form a continuous blur of color. This reduces the work load of the encoder, but yields a very “consumer quality” video signal. This effect only happens in low-contrast areas. A static scene of a forrest with reveal that the dark brown or gray of tree trunks have little or no detail. Similarly colored dark bricks on a building will be just a big soft patch of dark red. Imagine having low resolution in certain areas of your scene. You can not turn this noise reduction “blending” effect off.

I wish that some excited reviewer had commented on these three video problems before I decided to purchase the camera. Hopefully, Panasonic is working to fix or minimize the problems with the AVCHD codec and video noise reduction as a future firmware update. Some blogs are organizing email campaigns to plead with Panasonic to address the pathetic AVCHD encoding and other video problems.

Please note that I am very familiar with the AVCHD encoding used in Canon’s older HF-10, HF-11 and newer HF-S10 and other inexpensive cameras. At the same 17mb/s data rate, I’ve never seen the problems indicated above. Possibly the Panasonic AVCHD encoder was jeopardized by having to encode in multiple formats. Also, the AVCHD format allows for 23.976fps video, not just 29.97fps. It’s a lot easier and cleaner to encode true 24P (23.976) than a 29.97 interlaced signal with 3-2 pulldown.

Other video related “things” that I wish I knew before purchase…

I was surprised to find out that autofocus only works with Panasonic brand lenses. I purchased the expensive, extremely sharp, Olympus Zuiko 14mm-35mm F2 lens and Panasonic’s DMW-MA1 4/3 to micro 4/3 adapter. The camera can control this $2,000 lens’ iris, but despite all the gold contacts in the adapter, no autofocus. One slight plus is that the GH1 will digitally zoom into the imager for easy manual focus whenever you turn the lens focus ring. (This focus assist effect does not happen when you’re recording.)

The stereo mic connector, which doubles as the remote control jack, is 3/32″ of an inch, not the usual 1/8″. Like the other DSLR’s there is no method to monitor your audio recording in any way. No headphone jack and no LCD audio level indication. When using an external mic, always check any important shot for audio before you move on to another scene. I was pleasantly surprised that the GH1 does a respectable job of controlling audio levels from an external mic without pumping or other audible compression effects. It’s acceptable audio for B-Roll cutaway footage.

The GH1 will not output a signal on the HDMI connector or analog component connector while recording or setting up a shot.

The GH1 adjusts its iris in 1/3 f-stop steps. If you’re using auto iris when shooting video, a pan from light to dark will yield distinct steps in brightness as the lens opens. When shooting video on the GH1, I manually set my desired ASA (ISO) speed setting and set the shutter to 1/50. There is a button to the immediate left of the video record button that locks the iris until the button is pressed again. This is great when shooting rapid fire cutaways in changing light situations.

The addition of HD video is what creates the huge demand and back log for cameras like the GH1, Canon 7D and others. If only manufacturers would wake up and concentrate on a camera’s video and audio capabilities and quality instead of thinking of video as secondary to still photography. Until that time they make great “home video” or “web video” recordings.

1 Star Camera Defective after 2 weeks of use, Panasonic no help
First, I will be fair to the GH1 camera. Coming from a 1DSMKIII and 5D, the little GH1 was easy to get used to design-wise, and I felt the quality of the pictures were very good at lower ISOs. The kit lens actually looks sharper at wider focal lengths then my Canon 24-70 2.8 L, though the tele side is pretty soft. You can carry this thing around and not even feel it. But it is not built like a professional camera, even a semi-pro one. I’ve owned mine for 1 day shy of two weeks and already the i-bolt (don’t know the real name) that is physically attached to cameras side where the camera strap is supposed to connect to popped off. This is a major problem as it happened while the camera was around my neck. Luckily I felt the camera slip and was able to catch it before it fell. Others might be less fortunate if this problem turns out to be a design or manufacturing defect because in addition to the potential for the camera to drop off your neck at any moment, the connector that attaches to the i-bolt inside the camera is now off floating around inside the body somewhere… if its metal and it connects with a circuit board this could get ugly.

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I hope this does not happen to anyone else.

5 Stars Best camera ever…..
I was hesistant about dropping this much money on a camera…I backpack around the world a lot…and previously I had been using a Nikon D40 and a Canon HF100 Camcorder. I don’t need to tell you how annoying it is to have to carry two things when you are hosteling and travelling light. I sold both on ebay…because I knew I wanted to try something different.

After trying out the Canon T1i and the Olympus EP PEN and the Panasonic Lumix ZS3, I’ve decided on the GH1. This camera is amazing! I’ve never had an articulating LCD screen before…I don’t think I can ever go back to life without one. It makes shooting so easy. One of the reasons why I sent the T1i back was because I wasn’t happy with the HD video. I was beginning to think no all-in-one was going to meet my standards in terms of picture and video quality. The camcorders take crappy stills and the other DSLRs, sub $1500, took crappy, crippled or mono only video. The kit lens suits my needs perfectly…I’m just a regular person not an amateur or what not…but after buying the GH1 I think I might become one. The camera really makes it easy to get great shots and video. The Electronic View Finder is great too by the way! I don’t understand where the complaints are coming from.

Pros

Video is phenomenal!

Excellent image quality

Kit lens seems sufficient for everyday users

Compared to SLRs this thing is small!

Con

Not as fast as other entry DSLRs on frames per sec

Price

At the end of the day…the GH1s strength is because it blends video and picture quality into a small portable size. If size isn’t an issue for you or you don’t want camcorder-type video features there are other cheaper options for you!

2 Stars Image Quality Not Good
Everything about this camera spec-wise is very attractive. I really like the size, the range of the lens, the versatility of the video, etc., but when it came right down to it, the image quality and performance of the camera/lens combo for still images was pretty bad, especialy indoors. First, the lens is quite slow. Combine this with a very weak flash, and you have a lot of trouble getting a properly exposed picture indoors. Wehn you use auto ISO, the camera stubbornly keeps the ISO at 100. The camera always selects a slow shutter speed (1/30 or 1/40) instead of upping the ISO. If you are content to use all manual settings, it is posible to get a well-exposed indoor shot, but with the auto modes, forget about it. Outdoors the image quality is pretty good, but nowhere near the quality from a standard sized DSLR like a D90.

So after using the camera for a couple weeks, I sold it. Even thought the D90 is considerably bigger, the small size of the GH1 is not worth the trade-offs to me.

5 Stars My favorite camera yet.
I’m the guy who gets a new digital camera every year. I’ve owned Nikon, Canon, Panasonic, Leica, Olympus and Sony. At the end of the day when you compare all of the trade off’s; picture quality, HD video, size, usefullness and expandability, the GH1 is by far the best.

My first D-SLR was the Nikon D70. I loved the camera but decided that I missed a lot of shots because the camera was too big to carry and it was sitting at home. As a result, I has a string of smaller top end cameras including the Leica D-Lux 2 (a great camera). What was missing was the opportunity to shoot great video that rivals my digital camcorder and expandability.

My GH1 amswers all of these wishes. The GH1 takes incredible, well saturated photos but also takes among the best HD video i’ve seen, all in a very compact body. The best part is that you can change out the kit lens with a pancake lens from Panasonic or Olympus and have an (almost) pocketable, SLR-like, high end camera.

Don’t believe the things that you read about AVCHD being a subpar codec. If you use the right conversion software, like Cineform’s Neoscene ([...] your video will look spectacular. In fact, I also own the Sony EX1 which is a professional broadcast quality camera and I can tell you that the GH1 looks every bit as good in most situations.

The integration of the video into the camera is also exceptional. You can shoot in all the sames modes, with all the same buttons and functions that you are used to using to take photos in video mode as well. It’s a great design! I have really come to be a big fan of Panasonic digital cameras recently (including the Leica consumer cameras which they also produce). I like the rich and vibrant colors much better than other brands and truly enjoy shooting with the camera.

This is not to say that next year when something newer and better comes along that my GH1 won’t find it’s way to eBay, but for now it’s definitely found a home!

Buy/More Info

Nikon GP 1 GPS Unit for Nikon Digital SLR Cameras

Correlation between pictures and maps is supported by GPS function in conjunction with ViewNX version 1.2 software (no-charge download available Autumn 2008) and my Picturetown. Manual advance and rewind Double exposure capability Center-weight metering helps you select the proper aperture and shutter speed Integrated Hot-Shoe for adding any manual electronic flash Manual ISO selection from ISO 25 to 3200 Uses All Nikkor or compatible lenses Manual exposure and manual focus Includes Battery, Case and Strap Uses 2 SR44 or LR44 batteries

User Ratings and Reviews

2 Stars Functional Geotagging – at a Price!
I bought my Nikon D-90 camera 8 months ago as my first digital SLR purchase. I was thrilled when the GP-1 attachment was released, and soon purchased it for geotagging fun. On the very first trip we took it on, we ended up spending 45 minutes sitting outside a cafe waiting for it to pick up a satellite signal. Keep in mind that this was an open plaza on a sunny day. Finally we gave up and started walking around taking pictures. About three blocks away it finally picked up a signal, so we walked back along our route taking duplicate pictures with the GPS data.

Annoying, but not insurmountable. Fast forward to our most recent trip, when we took the D-90 and GP-1 out of our carry-on bag only to find that the D-90 would no longer recognize or power the GP-1. A diagnosis revealed that the GP-1 cable which stuck out at a 90 degree angle had gotten jostled and damaged the GPS port on my camera. Many phone calls to Nikon later, I was told that any repairs to the GPS port on our camera would not be covered under warranty. My local camera repair shop is now charging $285 (more than the original purchase price of the GP-1) to repair the GPS port in my D-90 that was damaged by the GP-1 cable. This is extremely poor design on Nikon’s part, and needs to be recalled or included in the warranty coverage.

I do enjoy geotagging the pictures from my D-90, but will try to find a brace to prevent tugs on the GP-1 cable from damaging the D-90’s port. Failing that, I can expect to pay further installments of $285 as the price of using the GP-1.

1 Star Major Disappointment
This product simply did not function. I used the GPS-1 on a 15 day motorcycle trip around the NW United States and the unit found the location only once. The unit was used in extremely open areas and was given 30 minutes to register the location with no success. I would not recommend the product. Matter of fact, I have return my unit for a refund.

5 Stars Nikon GPS
Like most Nikon gear this unit is built well and works great. I have had two other cheaper off brand GPSs fail on my D300. With the Nikon name this GPS is a bit overpriced, but will last forever.

4 Stars Rugged GPS for Nikon cameras
I’ve owned two other GPS units for my D300, and although it has a few issues, the Nikon GP1 is far and away the best.

First and foremost, it’s rugged and high quality. I don’t think I’m rough on my equipment, but I went through two other (non-Nikon) units in under a year. So far the Nikon is holding up well.

The GP-1 does take a while to acquire satellites…I’d say for me it’s typically around 15 seconds. Sometimes it works indoors, sometimes it doesn’t. I don’t notice a big difference in this regard between the Nikon and other brands I’ve tried. But unlike one of my other (non-Nikon) GPS units, I never get false signals – if the coordinates are recorded, they are correct.

I tend to keep the GP-1 mounted to my camera strap (I like the Crumpler – the GPS fits on it well) and I tend to leave it connected all the time. I tend not to turn the camera on and off between shots, and as others have pointed out, it does drain the battery at a good clip. I use the MB-D10 battery grip with my D300…it has a larger battery and this helps a lot. I tend to get about 1200 pictures per charge with the GPS on (but the flash typically off).

Only other complaint is that the GP-1 creates a little contention for the 10-pin port on the camera. Sometimes I use a Nikon MC-36 (remote control) whilch also requires the 10-pin connector, and it would be nice if there were a built-in way to chain the devices together. Yes, I’ve seen various “Y” adapters, but I haven’t had luck with them – they tend to create an unwieldy tangle of wires that I’m always catching things on. I guess I’m also wondering why Nikon doesn’t just build GPS into the camera itself, as they do with one of their point-and-shoots. Hopefully the next design.

Recommended.

4 Stars Typical of previous ratings
As most reviews have previously stated, slow sync at start-up, doesn’t work well in covered areas – including trees. But once connected to satellites, works like a charm.

Buy/More Info