T4i (650D) vs GH2 for video

Lol not sure what that is supposed to mean. I say ditch the gh2 its a POS and the worst camera for a short film. A canon dslr will give you that cine look at a great price. Gh2 will give you a great home movie amateur look if you want it.

Not surprised you dont like how it performs lol

Also if you are shooting a short film i say save some bucks the t4i is new and cool but video quality will not be a major improvement iver t2i and with that buy a t2i and rokinon primes for cheap and super high quality or rent cine primes if you are making a short film nothing is worse than a short that could e great but falls short due to poor image quality from cheap lenses. Rokinons are cheap because they are manual focus but the image quality the have is canon L quality. At the least get the rokinon 35 1.4 and 85 1.4

Tiny sensor
Less dynamic range
Crop factor makes it tougher to go wide angle without spending money on m43 lenses
Bit rate video is recorded at, you have to hack it to get actual quality video that still falls short of expectation

Just a few biggies for me personally. I work with video gear every day at work as i am a camera operator at a local tv station and have used tons of different cameras. Currently working with the af100 that is also micro4/3 and it just doesnt give that cine quality that everything else does. Its not about sharpness its about that look that you get. If you worry about sharpness and price of gear you will never be happy with the final result. Just saying my 2 cents

i say dont worry about price because most people rent gear being that its too expensive to own quality equipment. i just think for indie films its not worth investing in your own gear when you can ultimately have more for less when you rent. obviously you need good credit and collateral money to rent in case you break stuff but if you are confident and know how to use all the gear nothing ever breaks. for the price of a new DSLR with honestly awful quality kit lens you can rent a full frame DSLR and a small cine prime kit for a fraction of the retail price of the dslr and you can rent over a weekend at least here in atlanta for cheap. you can rent most gear for less than $100 a day per piece of gear. so you can easily get: camera, cine primes, steadicam, tripod, sliders, lights, flags, boom microphones and field recorders or go preamp on the dslr and send audio straight into camera, and probably a jib if you wanted (personally my favorite camera move). the options are limitless and would cost less than $1000 to have professional equipment that is needed to make a quality production... just dont break anything or you will pay for it lolol
Edited by Conspiracy - 6/18/12 at 6:39am

Noone softens in post lol. There is no such thing as too sharp unless over done in post. The thing about ALL dslr cameras is that they dont have very high resolution in video which means when you do a side by side test of pixel peeped samples all the cameras fall apart and it just becomes a bias guess of which looks sharper under scrutiny because in an unbias examination all the cameras are not necessarily soft in the fine details throughout a frame its just that the actual detail is not there. This is not a bad thing but it really shows the flaws of dslr cameras and no brand in particular when viewed on the big screen aka movie theater. The reason why canon is better for serious video work is because of the sensor being larger makes it more forgiving in post but not as forgiving as film of course. Having slightly more latitude in your video helps but when its just not there in the case of the gh2 you lose the natural look of the image and it looks more like a camcorder than a cinematic image produced from a professional camera. Gh2 is great for gooding around with but for a serious short film it isnt the best choice especiall if you wan to submit to a festival/contest when your film gets projected it will fall apart. If you want some serious quality you cant go wrong trying to get a refurb/used 5Dmk2 which honestly from what i have seen (all bs internet tests aside) has the best quality and resolution for a dslr and is why the pros use only that camera mostly i say mostly as there are times where a 7D is the cheaper alternative when a camera will get broken executing an important shot.

My professional advice for a serious filmmaker trying to get bang for your money and beat quality is a used 5d2 with rokinon 35 and 85 to start OR either t3i or t4i if yo like to have somethig just newer with same rokinon lenses. 1500 is a good starting budget for camera and honestly if anything just get the rokinon 35 to start and buy a tele later

Also it was not until recently that nikon had a worthwhile dslr for and that is thanks to the new d800 which if i had the money i would get one because currently its the best except for its high iso performance in video but its high iso stills are amazing

All this was typed on my iphone sorry for any seriouly awful spelling lol


Oh yea forgot to ask but how do you intend to screen your movies? Projected to a screen, youtube, mobile viewing or larger computer screen, or all or a mix? Raeson i ask is if everyone watches on a cell phone for example it doesn matter what camera you use be ause they will not see all the details on a small screen. If your only doing youtube camera still doesnt matter as much as quality lenses but if you plan on screening your movies on a large screen that is where you will really see the difference between a good camera and a cheap or lesser quality also good glass is crucial for large screen viewing as the flaws in a cheap lens will really show. A lot of factors go into chosig best camera and lenses for your movie because not every camera performs the same.
Edited by Conspiracy - 6/19/12 at 7:09am