Panasonic GH1
Tuesday, March 3, 2009 at 9:34PM 
As promised, Panasonic today announced the video-equipped successor to the DMC-G1, their Micro Four Thirds not-an-SLR that conspicuously lacked video. Called the DMC-GH1, it was the talk of Twitter today.
And deservedly so. As promised, it's all the juicy photography things the G1 was and more, plus HD video from a company with a terrific track record in that area that spans the high end to the proletariat. Panasonic, after all, brought 24p to the masses with the DVX100. Like Canon, they have long made terrific stills and video gear. Unlike Canon, it seems that Panasonic allows those divisions to talk to each other.
The GH1 is the first stills camera with video that reflects true attention to the video part. Remember that Panasonic not only brought us 24p DV, they also brought us HD on the desktop (even the laptop!) with their compressed-just-the-right-amount-for-today DVCPROHD format. Panasonic knows video, and that knowledge is reflected in the GH1. Its AVCHD formats are readily supported by the major video editing packages, and the press release proudly touts "a Creative Movie mode, which lets the user set the shutter speed and aperture manually to make even more impressive movies."
Manual settings. Finally, somebody swallowed the Obvious Pill.
Further evidence that Panasonic is a video company that makes a stills camera that shoots video: You can record until your card fills up. Autofocus works—the right way (smooth not fast). There's a flip-out LCD for shooting things other than your identical twin. There's a whole button just for shooting video. At any time. And it's red.
So a company well known for pioneering filmmaker-friendly camcorders and killer stills gear finally put the chocolate and the peanut butter into the awesomizer and hit frappé. What's to complain about?
Thanks for asking. First, as I said, Panasonic knows video. I don't even like to use the term video. When I first held my DVX100, I saw it as the first accessible Digital Cinema camera, not a video camera. Video is tapes and signals and pluge (pluge?) and vertical blanking. Digital cinema is pixels and fricking movies.
Panasonic's focus on capital-V video is evident in the GH1's 24p recording method. It encodes the true 1080p24 off the sensor into a 1080i60 stream, via 3:2 pulldown. That means it's recording redundant (bandwidth-wasting) information to the video file. It falls to you to remove the pulldown in post, adding numerous headaches and necessitating careful attention to avoid recompression.
AVCHD supports 1080p24—in fact, Panasonic's own HMC150 records it. Why did Panasonic force 3:2 pulldown (which is to 24p as stone tablets are to the Kindle 2) on the GH1? Maybe they were desperate to have something about their HD cameras be better than this little game changer. More on that in a bit.
Because while we're in the one-step-forward, two-steps-back department, we also have to talk about the lens. The GH1 comes with a kit lens that, like most kit lenses, goes the Microsoft route of doing everything poorly rather than doing one thing well. The LUMIX G VARIO HD 14-140mm/F4.0-5.8 ASPH./MEGA O.I.S. lens (yes, seriously) is mandatory with the GH1, and follows the kit lens mandate of being slow-as-heck in order to be lightweight, affordable, and provide a broad range of focal lengths.
Presumably we film folk are interested in the GH1 because of its big-ass sensor and the shallow depth of field that it portends. So how stoked are we going to be shooting at between f/4 and f/5.8? Not. So we'll be buying more cute little lenses and swapping them often. One step forward, two steps back.
It's funny how the badass little LX3 shows up its big brother in a few key ways. The LX3 shoots lightly-compressed 24p movies that are actually 24p. And its tiny little lens is f/2.0 at the wide end.
So the GH1 isn't perfect. What's to be excited about then?
Everything. Especially this:
The Micro Four Thirds sensor is almost as big as that of the RED One. It's nearly Super35 in size. It dwarfs the nearest prosumer video camera sensor size.
There is a camera coming this summer that has a sensor nearly as big as the RED one's, takes interchangeable lenses, and fits in the palm of your hand. It has full manual control, state-of-the art automatic features (not just face detection, face recognition), and shoots both 24p and 60p.
And it will cost less than $2,000 (rumored) with a lens.
Panasonic has the kintamas to make a stills camera that would make one think twice about buying a much more expensive HD video camera. From Panasonic.
And that is why I love them.
Remember the original (now dead) Scarlet? It's here in a couple of months, cheaper by a third, and has a bigger chip and swappable glass. If you don't mind a little compression.
Now we just gotta see some footage (uhm, I mean real footage, not this). Panasonic, if you're using those dual Venus Engine HD image processors to make that video right (downsampling rather than line-skipping or pixel-binning), you may just have made the ultimate camera for the DOF-obsessed Rebel.
Let the Subway Shorts commence!
Reader Comments (53)
Nice summation.
Man, I really want to like this camera more than I do. I think my resistance is mostly my subconcious looking for someone to convince me I'm wrong.
My favorite part of the post?
"I don't even like to use the term video..."
Really. Can we put the word "video" to rest, please?
Stu,
Consider that you'd be infinitely better off shooting this camera in PAL mode. Because it's 25p rather than 24p, which is just as "filmic" but just that hair less "juddery" than 24p...
...add to that that it is encoded as 50i, which for all practical purposues means... nothing. The frames are just frames. Sure, the lines may come in interlaced in the byte order (and I don't even know if they actually do that) but it's completely irrelevant. No stupid redundant un-pulldowning crap.
Just a thought.
/Z
Yeah, Pal is the Way to go here. Just makes more sense. Just one thing. Please make that Ting available in that gorgeous Red that the G1 ships in.
BTW, is there an easy way to get your whole Flick (about an hour) from 25p to 24p? Without loosing frames? Like only played on 24p? Which would also make the flick longer?
That's called a "slow PAL transfer," and it's how we made the first DV movies before there were 24p cameras. The first VX1000 that The Orphanage bought was PAL.
Pretty much everything shot at 25fps ia played back frame-for-frame here in NTSC land.
The headaches it causes are different than the 3:2 pulldown ones (having mostly to do with audio sync and flickering practical light sources), not necessarily preferable.
The 60fps at 720P is great but so many questions! What is the data rate of the AVCHD? Does the audio in have any level control? What's the rolling shutter like? When's the PAL version available?
What does the footage look like???
Oh, and where's the subway short?
This is an exciting development and someone might finally have made my (sorry 'our' - my wife is listening) next camera.
The specs look great, now all I need is someone to shoot some great looking footage to show what this camera is capable of.
Not sure about your price estimate of $2K, the G1 is only about $650 is the GH1 really going to cost 3 times as much!?!
This is going to replace my trusty hv20!!
Can you do 30p or 60p with it? For slowmo I mean... :)
Yeah, I also think 2k$ is a bit to high estimated. I bet it's like 1,2k$ which will be a burner.
GPSchnyder, click the image at the top of the post and scroll down. Click on Awesome Japanglish "New Creative Way." Scroll all the way down.
Bitchin' Black™, Radical Red©, and Pimp Daddy Goldƒ®.
Full HD: 1,920 x 1,080, 60i (sensor output is 24 fps) (FHD: 17 Mbps )
HD: 1,280 x 720, 60p (SH: 17 Mbps, H: 13 Mbps, L: 9 Mbps)
Not bad at all. As good as most of the camcorders out there. Only surpassed by Canon HF 11, I think.
OK, L stands for Low, H for High, SH for Stoopid High. What does FHD stand for? Full Highness Dammit?
Hey Stu,
As always, nice summation.
You know I'm completely preoccupied with metadata, and this will be the first camera to "know" what it's shooting with the built-in facial recognition.
Since it's using this data to track subjects in a moving frame and adjusting autofocus (among other things), I imagine one could derive distance-from-lens information, the beginnings of a z-depth record of, at least, the subject in a shot.
I read somewhere that the GH1 can keep track of up to six recognized faces in a shot, and users select the one they want the camera to track.
I hope Panasonic is recording that info somewhere so it can live as XML data attached to the AVCHD files.
Sure would be great to have all that very interesting and incredibly useful information follow the picture into post.
Eric, you crazy.
I'd be happy with a touch screen so I (or my AC) could sit there and tap the face I want to rack focus to.
I suck at pulling focus, but I'm an excellent face-tapper.
Yehaa, bought. ;-)
If there is no SuperChew© in the panning ;-)
HD: 1,280 x 720, 60p @ 17 Mbps equals roughly 8 Mbps @ 30p since 60p is twice as much frames. I'm not sure if this is enough data rate for 720p. I'll buy the RED one of course.
I'm in a PAL country and sometimes I miss that extra 10 fields if I want to make a slomo.
The Cineform NeoScene codec already automagically knows how to throw out the extra frames for other "24p-in-60i" offenders like the NTSC models of the Canon HV20/30, so it should also do that for GH1 footage.
There is another point why no camera builder needs to live in fear that their low-price models outclass the professional models.
Shooting a scene with a Micro Four Thirds or SLR looks stupid. The Digital Rebel does not mind, he or she might even appreciate looking like a tourist on vacation because there is not so much hassle with filming permits. Such eqipment is just below most professionals and people like wedding filmers are afraid to show their customers "toys".
Hm... there might be a market for sexy-looking empty bodies...
There are a few things that bother me with the GH1:
1. The 3:2 pulldown addition. I am using Vegas on a PC, that doesn't support pulldown removal, so a $130 Cineform utility must be purchased and process the file before editing. I have the same problem with my HV20, and honestly, I just don't want to get into the same problem with my next camera. My next camera must be better than what I have now in all counts, especially the file format. Having a shallow DoF doesn't make up for the ordeal of a pulldown removal. I just had enough of it for 2 years now...
2. 17 mbps is not enough. I want 24 mbps AVCHD for my next camera, the maximum possible for the format. I have seen side by side comparison of 17 mbps AVCHD footage and 24 mbps one, and the 24 mbps one wins every time.
3. The sample videos are way too contrasty. Now, there are some "film modes" apparently, but I have a bad feeling about all this... I am willing to bet that there won't be a way to have a "cine mode" look that can be easily color graded.
And then, there are questions about audio metering, exposure metering/zebra support, true 60i, 25p and 30p support... But these are smaller problems than the main 3 above.
Maybe in the next version of the camera... I keep telling myself the same thing about the 5D-MII: "next version will probably get it right...".
regarding 3:2, its most probable that its more targeted at a market... not us.
Anyone know if this is going to suffer from shutter wobble / cmos problems?
Not yet.
There is no Reallife Footage available till now...
Wow! Can't wait to see footage.
The 24p in a 60i wrapper helps us folks who bought 1080i TV sets over the past years. If you own a 1080i set, your player would be adding 3:2 on the fly to 24p discs.
The HV20 has the 24P 60i situation. With the HV40 you gain 24p BUT you lose your HD-DVD workflow afforded by 1080i60.
Before you get to the final stage of color correction in 24p ProRes, you have to whittle down your footage.
So rough cut in 60i. DVDSP will take HDV in a 60i wrapper and burn HD-DVD to a DVD-R without recompression, which can be played in Samsung A-30 players. I bought 2 for $35 NIB w 2 HD-DVDs/ $21 a piece late Feb 09. Compare DVD-Rs to Blu Ray blanks.
For dailies/rough cut, this is gold I tell you! A cuts only ref. movie of a 1080i60 fcp proj will import to DVD SP. Burn. The results are as good as playing hdmi out from the camera.
And no wonky compression! Finally, a format that displays what you captured !
Once you have a working edit, then you set up the batch reverse telecine and conform with 24p Pro Res files and do all your transitions/color correction/etc.
Now, AVCHD is SUPPOSED to be able to play off the WDHD TV Media player with a simple name change. But I read it on the internet. That box was supposed to play hv20 files. It doesn't without conversion. Which takes time and degrades the image.
Does http://www.dcviews.com/press/Olympus-Panasonic-MOS.htm" REL="nofollow">this mean that there won't be any rolling shutter problem?
A bit of advice please, I will most certainly be looking to buy one of these cameras (possibly 2) but I have not got a clue about lens choice. I would like a three lens set up to give me a bit of choice when shooting but really don't know what i'm looking for. I know this is like asking how long is a piece of string as the look wanted dictates the lens used. But all I am after is a starting point. A choice of three lenses which could cover a range of looks if that is possible.
Sorry for being a Noob here but I could do with the help guys.
Thanks.
"Eric, you crazy."
Perhaps.
The z-depth this is a little much, I know.
But you'll curse my name then call me a genius when you're two months into that two-camera GH1 feature edit. You have 60 hours of footage, and you're searching and searching for that one shot that had that one dude in it, but you just can't seem to find it. If only the facial recog data had been attached to the footage...Dammit, Escobar was right!
I want my all knowing robot-cam now!
While I wish the datarate were higher and pure 24p as well as faster lens, it is a tempting replacement for my HV30. In fact, as soon as the first user reports and footage are out, I probably will dump my HV30 (and K10d) along with it. It may not perfect but the D90 and MK-5ii had show stopper issues (unless you used them mostly as still with video as bonus as both are excellent still cameras)
Regarding lenses: There's this little adapter from Cameraquest for the Leica M bajonet:
http://www.cameraquest.com/adp_micro_43.htm
Which gives you access to the large market for used Leica lenses (and the quite nice and affordable Voigtländer/Cosina ones). A problem, of course, is the comparatively small 4/3 sensor, turning most lenses into tele lenses.
As with all of these cameras, the deal breaker for run-and -gun work will be the audio. If we can't control levels and input pro audio gear it just won't work. I can't always have a sound person recording double system.
This is what frustrates me the most about VDSLRs (and now this camera), the form factor is perfect for inconspicuous solo shooting but the tech isn't there to make it happen.
Where the audio is concerned, the camera has a built in stereo mic recording at 46khz which I have read gets good results, panasonic also have a mic accessory that attaches to the hot shoe and seems to use a mini jack to plaug into the camera. You can see pics of it here
http://www.letsgodigital.org/en/21655/panasonic-lumix-dmc-gh1/
there are also a few pics of the different colours being made available.
Stu, anyway to "guess" - by posting a doctored image of how shallow the DOF that sensor size @ f4.0 will look? - That is as convoluted a sentence as I can make - mimics the array of thoughts in my head.
Seems big sensor real estate at f4.0 might look like EX1 DOF.
Stu,
3 things:
1. I await Nikon and Canon's response.
2. How fast does Zacuto put out a rig for this camera.
3. When will we get Prophoto as the defacto colorspace?
Laurence
Stu,
Or should I say default colorspace on all DSLRs / hybrids.
laurence
Man, I just laugh every time i read the words 'Pull Down'...
Come to PAL land (which, if it has gone unnoticed, is most of the world outside of North America) Shoot 25p, visually identical to 24p, no pull-down, no wasted bandwidth, no conversion, no partial numbers - .98 and .97. Just straight up 25p compatible with all equipment from broadcast to DVD. 25p in, 25p in post, 25p out. And if you want 24p for a theatrical print just drop a frame - a 25-24 conversion is the easiest no fuss thing in the world.
This new Panasonic in the PAL version shoots 25p so Im wondering why all you North America guys dont just do away with pull-down crap, buy a PAL version shoot 25p and go to 24 as the last stage of your export if you want 24 for US market. Gotta be a better option than pul-down crap.
MikeJ
Feel free to laugh away, NTSC deserves it. But life in PAL land isn't quite as rosy as you paint it. Dropping a frame every second is hardly unnoticeable (and it's called 24:1 pulldown when you do it). Few productions use than technique, instead choosing to freely re-speed things between 24 and 25fps, which drives many directors crazy. It's not so fun to learn that your 2-hour PAL cut will play back at 125 minutes, or that the live music you recorded on set will be pitch-shifted slightly deeper in theaters.
For those living in a 60Hz world, shooting 25fps can cause flicker and pulsing with certain kinds of light sources.
There are ways around all of these issues, but PAL is no panacea.
"Seems big sensor real estate at f4.0 might look like EX1 DOF."
That's a great question Matt. I have been monkeying around with on-line DoF calculators, but I'm lost with the focal length comparisons since those numbers are kind of apples and oranges between an EX1's stock lens and the Micro Four Thirds values.
Any ideas on how to calculate these values?
Concerning pal/ntsc, I shoot pal 25p and generally don't need to touch it as it is going to be broadcast in 25p anyway. If I need 24p for a theatrical release I output a version from cinema tools. Seems to have no effect other than to change the frame rate so I imagine then it must be doing a 24:1 pulldown?
It seems like a pretty good workflow to me but maybe you can tell me different.
One thing ntsc definitely has over pal is a wide choice of options as to how to approach pulldown and pulldown removal. Most likely though it's because there is more of a need for it.
I'll be shooting two short films in a row over the coming months that have been funded by the film council. They are to be used as a pitch to the film council for a feature film. These will be theatrical releases that will be entered into a few film festivals.
Would be nice to know if what I'm planning on doing in cinema tools is the best way forward.
Elvis, AFAIK, Cinema Tools re-speeds PAL to 24p frame-for-frame, i.e. slow-PAL transfer, not 24:1 pulldown.
Eric, you have a Nikon D80 with kit lens right? Your sensor is only a bit bigger than that of the GH1. Take some stills at f/4 and let us know what you think.
"Eric, you have a Nikon D80 with kit lens right?"
D40 which is 23.7 x 15.5 mm
I'll give it a shot when I get back in town.
Thanks for the reply stu, i'll have to look for a different method then.
I have time to do so now though, I was originally intending to shoot using 2 sony pmw ex3 cams, now I'm waiting to see just what comes out of these gh1's as it would be a hell of a lot cheaper for me and my budget would benefit a great deal.
I just keep expecting there to be something that makes it unusable, maybe I'm just to cynical, but past experience says there has to be a deal breaker somewhere.
I hope I'm wrong though, I could seriously do with the savings to my budget.
Great summary of the camera for movie shooters.
I've been looking forward to this camera since Olympus and Panasonic announced the M4/3 standard and that part of it's goal was to optimize dslrs for shooting video.
I've got a shot here taken with an olympus 40-150mm kit lens ( four thirds ) if anyone is interested. 35mm equiv.focal length on this shot would be around 200mm. Taken at f4.5.
http://adrianfrearson.smugmug.com/photos/476329127_dBV6M-L.jpg
If you want to know more on the 4/3 lenses that will work with this, then take a look at fourthirds.org. Theres even a simulator for how the lenses will look on each camera body. This system has some really nice lenses, like the 50mm f2.
Sorry clipped post. link should be
http://adrianfrearson.smugmug.com/photos/
476329127_dBV6M-L.jpg
Looks like the amount of control over contrast, saturation, color, etc. on the GH1 will be considerable, even within the different standard settings.
http://panasonic.net/avc/lumix/systemcamera
/gms/gh1/creative.html
Lots of manual control. Gotta like that.
Jamie
(From http://www.dpreview.com/news/0903/09030315panasoniclumixdmcgh1.asp)
*Full-HD (1920 × 1080) movies are output by the image sensor at 24p (NTSC)/25p (PAL), and recorded at 60i (NTSC)/50i (PAL).
Can anybody explain in the case of PAL? So the file we get is an interlaced one? Or perhaps an "interlaced" with the fields in every frame at the same time= progressive?
Thanks!.
Pal operation is more or less the same deal, but with out a pulldown applied in camera. The image is recorded to the sensor at 50i then output to 25p. It's a simpler process than in ntsc regions. You get a straight 25 fps progressive.
as stu pointed out to me earlier, you still have a problem getting from 25p to 24p in pal regions if you need a theatrical release.
Hi Stu,
really nice posting. The big question is about dynamic range.. Since the AVCHD standard uses 8-bit depth as far as i know??
regards from Germany,
Jazzy
I love your writing style. This was a very entertaining article. Thanks for the great info.
Re: flickering light sources when shooting 25p...
Why would shooting 25p be more of a problem then shooting 24p in 60Hz countries?
Wouldn't 24p create problems with 60Hz lights just as much?
-- Xavier
is there a release date for when the GH1 will be out in stores or online for ordering?
One problem I noticed with 25p as 50i:
When played back on modern LCD home theater screens with 100Hz technology, the footage looks terribly jerky. The reason seems to be that the algorithms the processors in these screen use think it is real 50i footage and the interpolation of the intermediate frames is inappropriate.
My experience as indie filmmaker in PAL country: 24p is still the better choice!
"It's funny how the little LX3 shows up its big brother in a few key ways ... And its tiny little lens is f/2.0 at the wide end."
It looks like it beats it in numbers only - I played around with the numbers at the DOFMaster site (http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html) and got similar DOF ranges with both cameras.
Here's the same focal lengths for each camera:
LX3
5.1mm-12.8mm = 24mm-60mm 35mm equiv
GH1 (w/ 14-140 lens)
12mm-30mm = 24mm-60mm 35mm equiv
Sorry about the reposts - I had originally posted the results I got, but it's a lot more clear to look at it on the DOF site itself.
Anyway, thanks for the post - it's the best analysis I've read of the GH1 so far.