GH2 settings

[Flubbs]

hi, i picked up my S800 just the other day and so far am very happy with the way it flies, freaked myself out a little bit when i just let go of the sticks in gps to see what would happen and it stopped dead with a huge reverse pitch moment which had me thinking i was going home with a box of bits, but no, the phantom would still drift considerably but the s800 evo just stops dead, brill. anyway i digress. and altitude hold...excellent,

im not so happy with the GH2. ive upgraded to firmware 1.1 but not hacked it yet... bit nervous of hacking as its not mine what settings do you guys use most commonly, i was flying in 1080 and was getting all sorts of moire patterning in the detail in the trees and the grass, im going to try 720P 60 next time then just render in FCP, but with manual apperture to give a good DOF f8 ish and manual shutter, ive seen over 1/125 recommended, the lens is a 25mm prime panasonic would like something wider say a 20mm any thoughts suggestions would be gratefully accepted and appreciated. thansk steve

 

[Benjamin Kenobi]

Hey mate. I use the Flowmotion 2.2 hack. Hacks are relatively easy to do. Just follow the instructions and all good. Read about it a bit first because it seems strange when you haven't done it before. You can always go back to stock firmware. Personalview is the website with all the hacks. A hack is simply a settings configuration file, not sure why we use the term hack, sounds way scarier than it is.

I use the 20mm lens with good results. If you're using the HDMI for video link then you won't be able to film in 720p anyway as the GH2 is slightly annoying in that when a powered on HDMI cable is plugged in it defaults to 1080. I use HBR mode almost exclusively as you have the most latitude in post processing.

Here's an example video with no editing done. Flat image (I use smooth with everything at -2, except NR):

Cool?

 

[Flubbs]

very cool... on the camera, ive got it set on HBR and all manual, does that sound like a good plan, i found the autofocus had problems the other day, grey, lots of detail in trees etc. so im going to go infinity on the lens with high shutter to keep the detail and high fstop on the lens but auto iso to keep the exposure.... hoping for some good weather to get out again but this time with the laptop and play on site..

 

[Benjamin Kenobi]

Hey mate. I would go manual on all the settings. I set everything myself as you don't really want things changing whilst in the air. My ideal settings are something like shutter speed 200, F9 and up, ISO 160. White balance depending on the day but ideally sunlight.

I use the single shot focus, so I get up in the air, start recording and it focuses once at the beginning. Of course you need remote triggering for that to work. F stop is your friend for getting lots in focus (depth of field). I think F9 gives 1-1000ft in focus with a 20mm lens etc. There's an online calculator somewhere.

Naturally this time of year in the UK you'll probably need to slow the shutter a bit. I don't like to go less than 100 as I don't want motion blur. You could go down as low as 50 if desperate.

This is all personal preference and many people use different criteria.

Cool?

 

[Flubbs]

nice one thanks mate, just need some good weather to fly in now, ordered a whole load of EC5 connectors and balance lead extensions so I can build my field box how i want it, maybe looking at a medium ish pelicase to put charger and batteries in with the balance board in the lid, then i can fly all day and gt to grips with it all btw loved the need for speed film, that guy is pushing a massive gear.

 

[Benjamin Kenobi]

That gear was so big he couldn't turn left more than a few degrees, he called it the Zoolander effect.

This was the final video:

 

[Quinton]

Hey mate. I would go manual on all the settings. I set everything myself as you don't really want things changing whilst in the air. My ideal settings are something like shutter speed 200, F9 and up, ISO 160. White balance depending on the day but ideally sunlight.

I use the single shot focus, so I get up in the air, start recording and it focuses once at the beginning. Of course you need remote triggering for that to work. F stop is your friend for getting lots in focus (depth of field). I think F9 gives 1-1000ft in focus with a 20mm lens etc. There's an online calculator somewhere.

Naturally this time of year in the UK you'll probably need to slow the shutter a bit. I don't like to go less than 100 as I don't want motion blur. You could go down as low as 50 if desperate.

This is all personal preference and many people use different criteria.

Cool?

Am I missing something here?
I know I can not say what settings works and what doesn't work, as I am still trying to get a camera in the air, as I have not yet got a good working gimbal, but the whole point of making video/film is to get "motion blur" IE always shoot at 1/50 (1/48) shutter speed hence the need for ND filters.

As for focusing, to get it right you need to learn about "hyperfocal distance", it is used for landscape photography.
You cant just focus on something and hope everything is sharp, you need to set it correctly.
As an example looking at the GH2 if your focal length is 14mm and you set your aperture to say f9 then its hyperfocal distance is 4.8ft which means everything between 2.4ft to infinity will be in focus. (Hope thats right as GH2 has a crop factor of 2 which means your 14mm is really a 28mm compared to full frame)

All this works on the ground, so I am assuming that it all still applies in the air too..please someone correct me if this is not the case.

 

[Benjamin Kenobi]

I personally don't want motion blur for aerial stuff. Your aircraft is moving whilst panning and tilting and the subject is often moving too. It is of course a personal preference. You don't focus in air and hope everything is in focus, you focus on the subject. 99% of the time you'll be using infinity anyway, but sometimes your subjects are up close and your not worried about the background being in focus.

Each to their own.

 

[Quinton]

I'm not trying to say what is wrong and what is right, I just know some fundamental rules that is needed when shooting video with a camera.
Ill give you a quick example explaining this theory.
Just wondering who shot the video above?
Take a look at just before 7 mins onwards..now I would imagine that was filmed with a high shutter speed, as it does not look natural.
You can see the spokes, also look at the markings going by on the road..there is no "motion blur" its very staccato like, you would prob never notice it until it is pointed out.

If anyone is interested in reading about shutter speed and what we use the following lik is a good explanation..
http://tylerginter.tumblr.com/post/11480534977/180-degree-shutter-learn-it-live-it-love-it

Wether it applies to aerial work I have yet to find out, and look forward to the next few weeks to find out.

 

[Benjamin Kenobi]

The bicycle video was filmed with a RED Epic. Couldn't say what settings they were using. I love the look of it. Kind of hyper real, like that Judge Dredd movie. I know people like to just use the settings that everybody has been using for many years but settings are there to be experimented with, they are not set in stone. You set them for the look you want to give. A video about a cyclist wanting to go really fast might want that fast look to capture the experience of the adrenaline flowing through his veins speeding up his reactions etc.

Just saying....

 

[Quinton]

If they had a RED Epic then they probably knew what they were doing and what look they wanted
Yes rules are there to be broken, but they still keep to the same kind of ratios, like parts of Saving Private Ryan, Gladiator, even the Hobbit were all shot with different rates.

The 24fps 1/48 shutter speed is what everyone has been used to over the decades as its what has always been used, and is why its called most "cinema like".
I watched the hobbit 3D last year the 48fps version, and found it really hard to get used to at the start, but later on it was a lot easier to get immersed in it.
Usually I hate 3D films as it seems blurry to me, but not so when it was shot at a higher frame rate.

Anyhow like you said its all a personal preference.
What I would say to others though is get the app for Hyperfocal Distance, theres one called "field tools" for the iphone/android.
Using infinity focus is not the best way to do things, especially with newer lenses, as they are not calibrated for infinity and don't have hard stops.

And autofocus is only as smart as the camera (autofocus is meant to do 1 thing, if your camera even has it and that is focus on the closest moving thing it finds) so best to not learn to rely on it.

Give hyperfocal distance a go, and you will be really surprised how much sharper things will look at any distance, it may look blurry in your viewfinder but will look much better when yo actually look through the footage.
It was much easier when lenses had proper distance markings on them, instead of the crap ones they have on them these days.

 

[Benjamin Kenobi]

Yeah, I have that problem with the 14mm lens, no bloody markings on it. It just spins around and around! I'll have a go with the field tools app, it's about time I broadened my horizons a bit. Not sure why I said infinity, I don't even see the focus it's using on the ground! Just point and shoot.

Cheerio! :nevreness:

 

[iceman]

I use the 20mm lens with good results. If you're using the HDMI for video link then you won't be able to film in 720p anyway as the GH2 is slightly annoying in that when a powered on HDMI cable is plugged in it defaults to 1080. I use HBR mode

How are you monitoring your video feed? as you have pointed out the GH2 will revert to default settings with HDMI pluged in making the hack useless.

 

[Benjamin Kenobi]

It doesn't revert to default settings. You just can't record in 720p. High Bit Rate mode still records at 100MB/s unlike the stock settings which is 24MB/s. You can't render a hack useless because its the core settings that have been hacked.

 

[Flubbs]

Hi, have read all the above, thanks, I've opted for the GH3, one main reason, is there was one to hand..

that said after some playing we went for .MOV at 50Mbps 50P, we found that this gave better results than the AVCHD at 50i, also we were in aperture priority, because we assumed that the shutter would be fixed and the camera would adjust ISO to give correct exposure... Is this not the case? Does it perform as a standard SLR and adjust the Shutter? Off to read the manual.

i do agree with quinton though I would prefer to and will mostly use manual focus than trust to the AFC setting on the camera, likewise given that everything in the frame is moving, in one form or another, either through camera movement on the. Platform, the platform moving, or both and the subject moving, or all three, if you threw in zooming into that equation, well... I shudder to think. But as a good friend of mine and head cameraman once said, "your eyes don't zoom mate", I think too much motion blur would detract from the shots that you can get with what is effectively a very cost effective techno crane. I'm still playing too, although I can play indoors, (noisy) need some winter sunshine,


another question, has anyone used a SD card extender, the camera sits quite close to the gimbal on the right by the sd card door, I have fitted a man frotto tripod clamp and plate but don't want to use it unless I have to, so thought about an extension cable to make changing cards easier to ingest into fcp......

 

[Quinton]

Progressive will always be better than interlaced. Aperture priority is exactly as it says..
You set what aperture you want, and the camera will adjust itself shutter speed and ISO if its in Auto ISO.
Cameras are quite complex processors these days, but then again, they are also very stupid simple things. They adjust 3 things (triangle) which always tries to get correct exposure, problem is that when anything changes in 1 of these 3 things, you will notice the change..all its really doing is letting in more or less light.

Just taking the sunny 16 rule mentioned above to keep it simple..
On a sunny day at f16 and ISO 100 then the shutter speed would also be 1/100 of a second (You will have quite a nicely exposed setting)
Its quite simple.

Now if you want to shoot at 1/50th Shutter speed on a sunny day with ISO 100 (You have just let more light in) then you just have to let less light hit the sensor, so you need to close your aperture a stop (1 of the 3 triangle things)..so its exactly the same thing to get a proper exposure.
Make it F22, ... you don't want to be shooting at F22 though, this is why we need ND Filters to shoot video in the sun.. you need to make it darker to allow you open your aperture.
Once you understand this, camera settings are not as hard as you think they are.
Each stop is quite a big step, this is why its best to keep it in manual, as you will see flickering if the camera is trying to adjust for you all the time.
Hope I make a bit of sense ..also hope I got everything the right way round.

 

[Zaidy]

I have to say, I am loving this thread. I have been having some issues with the nex 7 in manual mode, it all seem to make sense now! Thanks gents

 

[wearypanda]

This is certainly a useful thread. Thanks Quinton for helping to make this stuff more understandable. I have a few points to add.

My understanding is that it works best to have the shutter speed set at the same or double the frame rate. So, if you are shooting a 30fps you should set the shutter speed at 30 or 60. I shoot at 25fps for PAL and normally set shutter speed at 50.

I find that using entirely manual settings works best. I set the cam with a shutter speed of 50 and then adjust the ISO to get a aperture in the mid range of f/8 or f/11. This range seems to be the sweet spot giving good image quality and plenty of depth of field so that everything is in focus. On a bright day a ND filter certainly comes in very handy. However, if you are using a Zenmuse this is balance for a cam without filter and the weight of the filter can be enough to put the gimbal out of balance. Having a relatively slow lens can be a big advantage on a sunny day!

Back to the GH2. I use one a GH2 with Flowmotion 2.2 installed, just like Benjamin. This camera does automatically switch from 720p to 1080i when the HDMI cable is plugged in. The recorded video is also changed. However, using the High Bitrate setting (HBR), the GH2 records using something called a Progressive Segmented Frame. This is a progressive format which is 'wrapped' so that it appears interlaced. Good video editors understand this and deal with the format as progressive. There is a good Wiki article about PSF here. So, if you use a GH2, whether hacked or not, and need video downlink, then you should use the HBR setting at either 30fps (NTSC) or 25fps (PAL).

 

[jfro]

Hey mate. I use the Flowmotion 2.2 hack. Hacks are relatively easy to do. Just follow the instructions and all good. Read about it a bit first because it seems strange when you haven't done it before. You can always go back to stock firmware. Personalview is the website with all the hacks. A hack is simply a settings configuration file, not sure why we use the term hack, sounds way scarier than it is.

I use the 20mm lens with good results. If you're using the HDMI for video link then you won't be able to film in 720p anyway as the GH2 is slightly annoying in that when a powered on HDMI cable is plugged in it defaults to 1080. I use HBR mode almost exclusively as you have the most latitude in post processing.

Here's an example video with no editing done. Flat image (I use smooth with everything at -2, except NR):

Cool?

Nice footage. The hacked GH2 is still 1 great camera. I have a couple gh2's and 1 gh3. I find the gh3 to be a crap shoot some times as it has some moire issues. Just 1 more gottcha when shooting... 60p 1080 is it's main benefit IMO plus maybe a tad better in low light.

The gh2 hacks have been wonderful. I use about 3-4 of them depending on what I'm doing. I use flow motion a fair amount. I've been toying with trying one of the extreme high bit rate hacks in the air sometime. I have to really look hard to see the difference some times, so many times I just stick with the flow motion or sometimes sanity (if I'm shooting lots of footage).

Ben, have you every used any of Driftwood's high bit rate hacks on your aerials? If so, did you find much difference?

Again, good looking aerials.

 

[Quinton]

This is certainly a useful thread. Thanks Quinton for helping to make this stuff more understandable. I have a few points to add.

My understanding is that it works best to have the shutter speed set at the same or double the frame rate. So, if you are shooting a 30fps you should set the shutter speed at 30 or 60. I shoot at 25fps for PAL and normally set shutter speed at 50.

I find that using entirely manual settings works best. I set the cam with a shutter speed of 50 and then adjust the ISO to get a aperture in the mid range of f/8 or f/11. This range seems to be the sweet spot giving good image quality and plenty of depth of field so that everything is in focus. On a bright day a ND filter certainly comes in very handy. However, if you are using a Zenmuse this is balance for a cam without filter and the weight of the filter can be enough to put the gimbal out of balance. Having a relatively slow lens can be a big advantage on a sunny day!

.

If your shooting at 25 fps then its generally best to shoot with a shutter speed of 1/50..this is where the 180 degrees shutter comes into it, you generally double it.
If you want slow motion and you are shooting at 50 or 60fps then again you set your shutter speed to 1/100 or 1/120 (1/125)
If you cant use an ND filter, then you wont notice a big difference if you keep to these same ratios you can always double the shutter speed.

On the GH2 it is actually very important for you to decide what that ISO should be, as the camera is pretty bad at higher ISOs.
This is why I recommend ND filters so you have FULL control over the settings
Each camera also has its best ISO setting, based on the amount of noise in the picture.
GH2 Best ISO is 160, 5D is also 160, Canon C100 is 800 etc, its not always its lowest ISO, so you should always try and find your cameras best ISO base rate, and stick with multiples of that.
Pixel Peepers are always doing tests on cameras, and they should be relatively easy to find.

So if your camera is in control of any of the settings, you can see why it may not be a good idea, take control of the camera.
If you are interested in the GH2 base rate, this link may be a good read if you can take it in..
http://www.laesieworks.com/digicom/panasonic-lumix-gh2-noise.html