The Panasonic GH2 has a lot of fans and we want to try to keep up with some of the GH2 news, but that’s hard with everything going on in the HDSLR world! We’ve found a couple of GH2 things you might be interested in…

First, an interesting idea – making a movie from stills shot on the GH2 in ‘burst mode’ – granted you can only get one and 2/3 seconds of film out of it, but the author of the video below claims it gives some depth in the video not seen in the GH2 video files shot at 1080. I downloaded the full size video as recommended and can’t see that much difference.

GH2 40fps burst mode: 3.8m jpeg vs 1080 jpeg vs AVCHD (1080). from Cosimo Bullo on Vimeo.

NOTE: Please don’t bother watching this with the vimeo codec. Download the h264 at 1080.

I’ve loved so many things about the GH2. The detail of the image, the really groundbreaking crop-mode, the cinema preset. But one thing we haven’t been as crazy about is the codec. It’s good but leaves something to be desired in certain kinds of environments, particularly shadows.

I’d heard about the 40fps burst mode but hadn’t seen many examples of people putting it to use, so we decided to do some tests.

Obviously 40 frames is not much to work with. In a 24fps timeline, it’s about 1 2/3 seconds of footage.

But, wow, does the result look nice to us, especially in the shadows. So, will some enterprising colleague find a way to allow for a longer burst? Panasonic, what’s the story, can you give us a few seconds more?

Second, here’s a video comparing the video result for a couple of different picture styles.

GH2 – cinema vs nostalgic in real life from Uwe Lansing on Vimeo.

All settings are the same in both modes. Some high contrast shots (sunshine) I´m gonna add soon…

720p30
Kit Lens 14-140

Second part: http://www.vimeo.com/18997478

What do you think?

Anyone out there with a GH2 wanting to do a review? Contact me please.

(cover photo credit: snap from the video)

Yes, I know that 2010 passed already – and the time for doing the “top xxx of 2010″ is over – but as a part of my thinking about what the future will bring, I was wondering what the readers really thought were the most interesting stories from last year (based on total views) and I thought you guys might want to see as well.

Top 10 2010 posts (by volume)

1. Lasers can damage your Canon HDSLR camera’s CMOS sensor
2. New Canon Rebel T2i/550D vs Canon Rebel T1i/500D and vs Canon EOS 7D
3. Stunning Canon 5D Mark II Timelapse Video
4. Rumor: Canon EOS 5D Mark III sooner than the usual 3 years?
5. Canon EOS 5D Mark II to get 24 and 25fps in a firmware update!
6. Awesome Canon EOS 5D Mark II Space Shuttle timelapse
7. Canon EOS MOVIE Plugin-E1 for Final Cut Pro now available!
8. 21st Century Road Movie – Shot with the Canon EOS 5D Mark II
9. Canon EOS 5D Mark II video from a 102 year old lens – a Blast from the past!
10. Stop motion with the Canon EOS 5D Mark II and a guy walking across the USA

So there’s no clear indication of your excitement being just pure gadget excitement or just video (and I also looked at the next 20-30 top stories) – but there are 3 timelapse posts in the top 10! We’ll continue to cover all the news – we know you’re very interested in learning digital cinema as well as knowing about the latest HDSLR gadgets and accessories. Oh, and let’s not forget rumors! You love rumors!

Going forward, please don’t be shy about contacting us about stories either – we love to pass along info about your projects and/or gear.

Have a hot 5D mk ii tip, a video, or a 5D2 product to announce? Give us a shout

Top stories of 2011 so far

And, while I was looking, I thought I’d see what the top 5 posts of this year have been so far…

1. Incredible “3D” motion from Canon Rebel T2i/550D stills
2. UPDATED: WINNER! Indie movie shot on Canon HDSLR “LIKE CRAZY” sold to Paramount for $4 million
3. Hot off the presses – new HDSLR USB Follow Focus Controller
4. An amazing Canon Rebel T2i/550D music video – “The Rebel”
5. The sun, moon, and a space station all in one AMAZING Canon EOS 5D Mark II photo

Top 5 planet5D blog pages 2010

And of course, while I’m doing analysis of what’s going thru your minds, we have to look specifically at what pages are popular on the site.

1. the main blog page
2. category 5D2
3. HDSLR news
4. category 7d
5. category rebel/T2i

So… what is most interesting to you? Have any suggestions for 2011 articles or things we aren’t covering you’d like to see more of? Sound off in the comments below!

(cover photo credit: snap from the planet5D logo)

The Canon EOS 5D Mark II (reviews) can make some pretty awesome movies and when used properly, even the stills side of the camera can make some cool stop-motion movies. This one stands out. I met Peter Cote for the first time at the NAB conference and he was part of the team that put this together. On first glance it doesn’t seem that hard to do… but after watching the behind the scenes video that Peter sent along to us, you’ll be amazed at how good this looks and how much work went into putting it together!

We (Conscious Minds Productions) and the Director, Sam Griffith, pitched the idea to Levis and they thought the idea was really cool and they provided us with free product (jeans, shirts, etc) as well as some money as a sponsorship. Everything happened very quickly. We pretty much got the green light to do the project in the first week of June and we flew out to New York on June 17. We had to do six test shoots in advance, because honestly we hadn’t fully tested the idea before bringing it to Levis. We finished in San Francisco on July 1, so it was long hours the whole way. I brought my whole editing bay into the RV so that whenever we weren’t shooting we were able to edit and assess our progress. Gaff tape was a big help there because it prevented all my hard drives and monitor from falling off the table while the RV was moving.

(Note, it looks much better in full 1080 on youtube – watch it there if you can!)

From a technical perspective it was an extremely difficult shoot. The entire project was shot using the 5D, a tripod, 24-70mm F/2.8L lens, a tape measure, and a photoshoped protractor. Measurement was very key to our success. If our measurement or my framing was not consistent then none of this would have worked. There was intense heat most of the shoot but kudos to Canon, because the camera did not overheat once. Neither did our behind the scenes camera which was a 7D.

Walk Across America - Photo by Peter Cote

The entire video was shot at 24mm, F stop stayed mostly at F/6.3 and ISO 200 (except night shots like Vegas which were F/4 at ISO 1250). I shot everything in RAW rather than JPEG because we moved so quickly that were not able to light very much or use reflectors. I wanted to make sure we had as much color space and flexibility later. Even though I could not tweak each frame individually, I could do them in batches of similar shots. Color correction was also difficult. It was hard to push anything too far in color correction because the environment changes so much, each of them has a different level of contrast. I ended up just lightly crushing the whole video, then I took small sections and gave each area its own treatment.

Walk Across America - the Rocky Mountains - by Peter Cote

It was a really incredible experience. It was such a big concept that I had my doubts when we pitched it to Levis. We learned so much along the way, but the success of the video has been really rewarding.

Behind the scenes video

And, the BTS shows some really cool insite as to how they made this one.

Peter, thank you so much for sending this in!

(Photo credit: snap from Peter Cote)

“Star Wars” filmed with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II (reviews)? Well, not really, but one of the robotic “At-At” toys from the “Star Wars” movies has been used to make a very interesting short movie – and we’ve got the behind the scenes (BTS) to show you how it was done. It always fascinates me when people get creative and are willing to spend time to make something fun like this for everyone to see – especially when they share how it was done.

There’s also an interview that we found with the “AT-AT day afternoon” creator Patrick Boivin over on CNET UK.

And for those of you who may not understand the title, there was a movie here in the USA called “Dog Day Afternoon” – and so with the robot from Star Wars being called an “At-At”, and it being used as a dog… get it?

AT-AT day afternoon from Patrick Boivin on Vimeo.

When I was a kid, there are two things I wanted badly and never got… A real dog and a Kenner AT-AT Walker.
Music by Blithe Field http://www.myspace.com/swallowoceans

and here’s the BTS

Making of AT-AT day afternoon from Patrick Boivin on Vimeo.

This is a short making of AT-AT day afternoon.
MUSIC: Blithe Field.
http://blithefield.bandcamp.com/
DRAGON STOP MOTION
http://www.dragonstopmotion.com/

If you wanna know why I used a “pink screen”, the reason is that I didn’t have a green fabric large enough for the toy.

(Photo credit: snap from the video)

Yesterday, while watching Vincent Laforet’s creativeLIVE training, someone in the chat room pointed to this demo of what picture styles can do for your Canon EOS 7D – please realize that this also goes for your Canon EOS 5D Mark II and Canon EOS-1D MKIV and Canon Rebel T2i/550D. The author has a bit of a flair which made me laugh too. Remember tho while watching that most of his examples are created in post with color grading software, but it does give you an idea of what can be done with the picture styles and if you’re making videos, you’ll want the ‘super flat’ style which has been covered here in the blog. And, don’t forget, there are tons of resources available in the planet5D wiki video guide!

How to increase the Canon 7D dynamic range (Tutorial) from Luka on Vimeo.

Tutorial on how to use picture styles to increase the dynamic range of the Canon 7D / 5DMkII.

Custom picture styles are an amazing feature that almost compensate for the lack of a raw codec for video capture on the Canon DSLRS. The default picture styles on the camera are geard towards producing nice results out of the box but are not very good if you intend to do color correction and grading in postprocessing. This tutorial shows how to use custom picture styles that produce very flat, high dynamic range footage (similar to real film cameras).

The actual picture styles have been made by other people, and here are some references:
Super Flat, Genesis Panalog and Velvia:
http://www.cinema5d.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=3401

Marvel’s Cine Style:
http://marvelsfilm.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/canon-7d-picture-style-with-cine-gamma-s-curve-free-download/

If you have problems downloading them, you can get them from here in one package (http://www.crnkovic.org/video/picture_styles.zip). I do however recommend that you get them from the original sources and read the forum posts/blog posts associated with them.

The final example footage was shot handheld (Zacuto rapid fire + zfinder) at Skogskyrkog̴rden cemetery in Stockholm. I scouted the place for a possible future shoot and the footage I shot was never meant for release Рit did however come handy in this tutorial as it was all shot using the super flat picture style.

(Photo credit: snap from the video)

Maybe many of you haven’t ever explored the menus at the very top of planet5D and I thought maybe it was time to remind you of some of the great features we have here at planet5D.

I’m starting with the planet5D Cinema. We started this back in January because I thought there were so many great mini-movies that were being done on the Canon HDSLRs that they needed to be put in one location… and I know you don’t want to spend all your valuable time weeding thru the ‘test’ videos and the ones that aren’t any good… so I only post the ones that I think are worth your time to look into.

Here’s a new video from Tom @timescapes (we were first to show off his amazing 5D2 movie last April) that I will be posting there in a few days, but here’s a sneak peek at the one he’s working on now:

Timescapes: “Death is the Road to Awe” from Tom Lowe @ Timescapes on Vimeo.

Production footage from my debut film “Southwest Light” – http://timescapes.org/blog

Sign up for updates about the film: http://timescapes.org

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/timescapes

Thank you to the sponsors of “Southwest Light” – Canon USA, Kessler Cranes, and camBLOCK. And to my intern Dustin Kukuk who helped me shoot all of this.

so, please skip on over to our Cinema site and watch a few movies (and please rate them while you’re there!).

And if you find something that isn’t there, please let me know via the contact page!

(Photo credit: snap from the video)

Philip Bloom has posted a new video he shot at the Skywalker Ranch – home of the LucasFilm crew (remember some guy named George Lucas and movies he made called “Star Wars” or something? . He has been tweeting about this movie for days and has finally been able to release it so that you and I can see it! One tweet really stood out…

“Any doubt I had of 7d/5d for filmmaking gone after seeing my work of 40ft screen a Stag theatre at Skywalker ranch”

He shot this on both the Canon EOS 5D Mark II and Canon EOS 7D. And if you go over to Vimeo, and have one of their free memberships, you can download the 1080 size!

Here’s a little snippet from his blog post – which is really really long and has a bunch of photos to go with it… consider this a little tease to get you over there to read it…

“Talking of flying, that is a big reason why I was there. Lucasfilm had just finished principle photography on “Red Tails”, a WWII film about an African American fighter squadron. They filmed this in Prague and needed to film pick ups early next year. Much of this was going to be intimate in cockpit stuff and flying shots. They shot the movie on the Sony F35 but this is a beast and utterly impractical for the cockpit stuff. Hence the Canon DSLRs. They were also looking at new ways to shoot the much anticipated “Star Wars” live action TV series. So they wanted to see how well the 7D and 5DmkII stood up with this in mind. Not necessarily shooting on these cameras but perhaps the next evolution of them.”

Skywalker Ranch from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

www.philipbloom.co.uk

Please read my blog about this here: http://philipbloom.co.uk/2009/12/12/the-tale-of-lucasfilm-skywalker-ranch-red-tails-star-wars-and-canon-dslrs/

Filmed at Skywalker ranch on the Canon 5DmkII conformed to 24p and the Canon 7D shooting native 24p.

Timelapse done using stills.

Thanks to Rick McCallum, Mike Blanchard and George Lucas.

Music is Venus by Gustav Holst

Get the large size, you’ll be blown away!

(Photo credit: snap from Philip Bloom’s video)

UPDATE: We found out how the Canon EOS 5D Mark II helmet cam was used! Please read our new story – Canon EOS 5D Mark II Helmet Cam used to promote “Terminator Salvation”!

planet5D EXCLUSIVE! Friend of planet5D, Rodney Charters (Director of Photography (DP) on the FOX TV series 24 – IMDB profile), sent us this very interesting tidbit… a Canon EOS 5D Mark II mounted on a helmet and Hollywood is standing up and taking notice. Hold on to your hat!

Rodney said: “This really interesting e-mail got to me on Friday and I am convinced that you will want to post it immediately. It was sent by my DP friend Lisa Wiegand who has just taken over as the DP on Dollhouse. By all accounts Panavision were happy to have people photograph and videotape this demonstration. It’s my sneaking suspicion that the helmet was used on Ironman, but I do not have any confirmation of that. It’s a device which allows for a very close camera point of view in any kind of fight situation where somebody is coming at you and again of course in parachute drops and the like.” (editor note: we inserted the links)

(Photo credit: snap from the video)