Red One, Canon 5D Mk II, and Panasonic Lumix GH1 Footage Comparison on Vimeo

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2. Red One, Canon 5D Mk II, and Panasonic Lumix GH1 F…

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by Birns and Sawyer

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This footage was shot for us by Byron Shah, Jason Ensler and their team and was shown at our in-house event in July. If you are interested in more of our events, please check out our website at birnsandsawyer.com . Byron is shooting more footage.........will post it when we finish.

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Héctor Camarillo 2 years ago

amazing this 3 cameras really kick asses, i think the gh1 has a much better contrast than the other 2
Birns and Sawyer 2 years ago

Thanks, Hector.
Mario Rodriguez 2 years ago

It´s clear the contrast, color, light and sharpen of the other cameras were modified with the intention of leveling the video quality and keeping the mood. 2:50 is real 5D.

I´m sure the other cameras pass the GH1 easily. Anny way the video is nice.
Héctor Camarillo 2 years ago

yep, i was just talking about the contrast in this video, not the whole camera. but anyway, the GH1 holds up pretty well with the other 2 cams. ;)
Steven Bogda 2 years ago

It does, and its only 1500 bucks!
dirtygary 2 years ago

right, but:
It doesn´t make sense to compare RED ONE and 5D + GH1 pictures in a webmovie. If you want to show the differences seriously, you need to film a Reference HD Monitor, convert that to a Quicktime or whatever and post it then.
Victor Centofanti 2 years ago

I agree, plus they are different scenes, different lighting, different lenses, and fast cuts that are not side by side. It's like saying you passed a Ferrari going 50 MPH in your Civic so your Civic is faster.
Héctor Camarillo 2 years ago

That's righ Wine guy, but nobody's saying that the GH1 or the 5d were better than the RED one. we just say that it holds up great, and it did.
Darius Januskevicius 1 year ago

RED gives movie look thats why its the best.
Mike Panganiban 2 years ago

Awesome test Marty. The GH1 surprisingly matched up pretty well!
Birns and Sawyer 2 years ago

Amazing, yes?
Will Vazquez 2 years ago

Great work. Thanks for the tests. I have a question. Have you experienced the camera dropping frames or skipping frames when filming at high ISO like 3200 or above?
Birns and Sawyer 2 years ago

Have not, but will ask around and let you know if I find out anything.
Jeff DeMaagd 2 years ago

Why would a camera have a higher tendency to drop frames at a higher ISO? Isn't it just increasing the sensor gain?

It doesn't seem like a legitimate concern to me. I'm concerned with dropped frames, this doesn't look like a reasonable cause for it.
Will Vazquez 2 years ago

Don't know why, but for some reason my Canon Mark II, as well as a ton of other folks cameras, drop frames at Auto ISO and at high ISO. I wish I could figure it out, it's driving everyone nuts, there are lots of posts about this in the forums. Maybe it's something that only affects some cameras.
It Donned On Me 2 years ago

Haven't noticed this on mine although I rarely shoot at 3200 or higher - but it could be that more noise = harder to compress and the chip drops frames if it can't keep up.
Michael Shivers 2 years ago

@Will- Drop frames- it's been documented that if the exposure changes while filming on the 5DMKII, it can cause some dropped frames. It doesn't happen all the time with exposure change, but it can happen. On mission critical takes, I simply hit the exposure lock or shoot manual and it will not drop any frames.
Will Vazquez 2 years ago

Michael, thanks for your help. The skipped frames happens in manual exposure, manual ISO of 3200 or higher, and with Nikon or Canon lenses. Have you shot at night at ISO 3200 or above? Anyone else out there? This happens regardless of what CF card is in there. I have UDMA cards and not. I know a lot of people have had this problem, just don't know if it's everyone.
Pierre PHOTO 2 years ago

If it happens at high ISO only, it might be related to the noise reduction function for high ISO. Maybe it takes too much DIGIC time for some frame. On my 500D the noise reduction at high ISO can be set by menu, maybe it's the same with the 5DMKII.
Will Vazquez 2 years ago

Pierre, good observation, however, the skipped frames occur even with all the camera's post-processing off or disabled. I'm really curious if other Mark II users have experienced this? Anyone out there.
Steve Mastellotto 2 years ago

I do not believe the higher ISO dropping frames issue is related to noise reduction just the fact that higher ISO images have more noise and therefore do not compress as easily. The video processor is just taking more time to deal with the inherent noisier images. It is the same with still images - higher ISO files are bigger because they do not compress as well.
Neil Nunez 2 years ago

Hi Will, I just got back from a shoot with the 5d mark 2 where we were doing extensive product shots on a table top consisting of a lot of left and right pans and dolly moves. I found this thread because the camera dropped frames 80-90% of the time on these moves and we never went past ISO 400. I looked up "drop out" out of frustration on that shoot. I can't believe this camera would drop frames like this on such a regular basis. The only thing I can think of that would create this problem is HEAT. Although shooting a very cold air conditioned studio we were using the Live View function constantly to check fined details. Heat coupled with the high data rates I would imagine are created in a Left to Right pan of the total screen image could cause these drop outs. But frankly, it is unacceptable that this camera does this. Now what do we do about it?
Aclara Promotions 2 years ago

Wow Neil, I was just reading the comments and saw what you and others had to say about the Canon 5D MkII's drop-outs.. I've never heard of this before, before this thread at least. I'm not an owner, but, this is not something I'd expect either. Have you heard of any other cameras doing this? Have you tried your warranty perhaps? That is unacceptable.. frightening even. I wish you the best of luck, and urge you to draw more attention to the issue, if it's not isolated. Cheers.
Felipe Tavares 1 year ago

What exactly is frame-dropping? And what exposure changer does the AE button on the 5D lock: aperture, shutter or ISO?

I did a handheld night test with the 5D once and I noticed that at automatic ISO the exposure change was practically imperceptible on the LCD monitor. But, judging from your comments, things seem to be not that nice and easy...

I'll post this test here on Vimeo as soon as I can.
Jim Atwood 2 years ago

Thank you very much for this. I've had my eye on the Panasonic Lumix GH1 and this footage is very helpful.
Birns and Sawyer 2 years ago

Thanks for checking us out!
BumKi Cho 2 years ago

Good comparison! Great shots!!
Thanks.
Birns and Sawyer 2 years ago

Thank you - Byron and Jason did an amazing job.
Ian Slessor 2 years ago

Damn.
The GH1 holds up fairly well against the awesome that is RedOne and the pretty cool of the 5D

Thanks for the comparison footage.
Birns and Sawyer 2 years ago

Appreciate your post!
Camp Comet 2 years ago

GH-1 absolutely rocks man.
Birns and Sawyer 2 years ago

So do you!
McGee Digital Media Inc. 2 years ago

Very cool.
Birns and Sawyer 2 years ago

Thanks!
julian davies 2 years ago

GH1 does very well and actually better in some shots!
Birns and Sawyer 2 years ago

Suprising, yes?
Gregory Storm 2 years ago

Hey Marty. I was there at the event. Looked great! You should have uploaded the color corrected version that doesn't show which camera was used so people would have to guess like we had to do at the event. Then a week later given us this one.

Who is this actress? I've seen her before but I don't know her name.
Birns and Sawyer 2 years ago

That would have been fun. Byon is going to shoot more footage next week - I think we should do that next time!
Regis Hervagault 2 years ago

very nice & usefull video !!! glad you did it : i was a bit anxious about getting the gh1 and not being able to intercut nicely with the 5dmk2 on a single timeline...
seems all right now if only it was in stock somewhere around here
Birns and Sawyer 2 years ago

Glad we did it too! There will be more.....
Robert Altman 2 years ago

Would have been nice to have the Nikon d90 in the mix--it often is surprisingly filmic.
Rx 2 years ago

Yes it would have been. Good camera.
Andrew Gentle 2 years ago

Hey, looks great, very helpful test.
The RED seemed to lack a little contrast in some low light shots, was that an intentional choice in colour correction to minimise noise? I found that the blacks could have been a little deeper.
Thanks for replying to all our comments!
Birns and Sawyer 2 years ago

Andrew - RED set up was intentional. I'm so glad to have comments to respond to!
moonlightsounds 2 years ago

The Red generally has more levels of information in the blacks and highlights, more levels of stop. The contrast can be simply turned up to achieve th deeper look like the 5d etc. If you have some detail in the black that you shot on the 5d that you would like to bring up, options are limited. You wont have as much as you have on the red. thats the real difference. Shooting on 5d or gh1 you have to have your exposure bang on cause there isnt any forgiveness here.
Ian-T 2 years ago

Marty thanks a lot for posting this. It's cool to see how all three cameras can cut with one another well. Though we are viewing this on the Web I would like to know how the GH-1 looked (to you) on the big screen in comparison (or in general)? Thanks again.
Birns and Sawyer 2 years ago

We thought all the cameras looked stunning on the big screen.
DSLRcinema 2 years ago

Marty, thank you for doing a proper test (shooting and color grading the different footage to all match). You wouldn't be able to tell between the three cameras. Superb!!!

Love the Ultracon 3 filter....need to get one.
Héctor Camarillo 2 years ago

is the gh1, on 1080 or 720??
Birns and Sawyer 2 years ago

1080 at 23.98; records @60fps
Jeff Butcher 2 years ago

This is great! Thank you.
Birns and Sawyer 2 years ago

Thanks for watching!
David H. Cho 2 years ago

I don't understand why the red one bokeh looks so bad at 00:36. I'm sure it has a lot to do with compression. But one question: what was your iso and white balance for those night time red shots?
Brad Halstead 2 years ago

Really interesting, nice work. If your interested, I'm running a test tomorrow with the MKII and another very high end cinema camera. I'll be uploading this in the next few weeks.....
Birns and Sawyer 2 years ago

Will keep an eye out for it.
James 2 years ago

I like the comparison, but I think it is getting ridiculous with the idea of internet video. Cinema quality is for the cinema, you don't need 3K for the internet and can hardly compare with such a low resolution.
Birns and Sawyer 2 years ago

You kind of had to be here and see it on a big screen to appreciate....
Carl Spring 2 years ago

just wandering, when you projected this at the event, did you transfer to 35mm or stay as digital projection, i am just wandering the comparison of quality for the sake of the big screen. any help would be appreciated
Jeff Wood 2 years ago

Nice song. Don't get me wrong, I love my 5Dii but you can spot the 5d shots a mile off at night. They look a little plasticy. I try to reduce this with contrast and saturation. What pic prof settings did you use?
GH1 looks pretty awsome as well, BTW
Dima Marov 2 years ago

I love Red One with Nikkors lenses and I so much love picture from Lumix GH1! Awesome!
Mike Chaney 2 years ago

I would also like to know if the GH1 was shot using 1080 or 720? Thanks for the tests BTW!
Birns and Sawyer 2 years ago

1080. Marty
Eric Kmetz 2 years ago

I think this vid helps to show that your footage quality is so heavily dependent on the lens you use. If you put a crappy piece of glass on a red...all you get is 4K of poor looking stuff.
Birns and Sawyer 2 years ago

Yes, but there were NO "crappy" lenses here.
Benjamin Dell 2 years ago

i am in love with this.
filmtriks 2 years ago

Thanks for sharing!
Nathaniel Hansen 2 years ago

digg.com/movies/Red_One_Canon_5D_Mk_II_and_Panasonic_Lumix_GH1_Footage
Matt Moses 2 years ago

You can tell the difference between the 24p and 30p. the 24p looks more pleasing, has the cadence of film. There are a few GH1 and 5DMKII shots in there that have ghost step artifacts from slowing to 24P or maybe just mishandled frame conversion. I think afew GH1 shots were at 24p and they look/match very well to the RED at this resolution, although in post you have a file that you cannot do much with vs RAW. But for certain things you actually could get away getting no-permit street footage with a GH1 and cut against RED footage... Cool!
DaVincicode 2 years ago

Thank you Marty for doing that. I was impressed by the LUMIX. But still the Canon did a real nice job. What was your conclusion? And must give credit to your two actresses and the guy singing the song! Bravo!
Birns and Sawyer 2 years ago

Thanks! You made my day.
This comment has been deleted.
Miltos Pilalitos 2 years ago

Bokeh (a lens characteristic) was never a factor for the quality of a camera.

What you should be looking for is dynamic range, noise, rolling shutter problems etc..
editman 2 years ago

That GH1 looks very clean but they all cut together easy.
Thanks for sharing.
GASP CREATIVE 2 years ago

Really cool film that show's what everyone has probably wanted. The wide shots show the most differences which could make your mind up which to use in which production. Brilliant execution thanks for putting it together.
Birns and Sawyer 2 years ago

have to thank Bryon Shah - he drove this!
John Caballero 2 years ago

Very good test. The fact is that it is not that you can intercut the footage from the 3 cameras together but that you can produce top quality footage with either camera. Obviously the Red One would give you a bit of a better choice due to the RAW codec and 4K but at the same time the GH1 and Mark ll will give you pro quality footage for many thousands of dollars less. And that sounds great to me.
CJ Wolff 2 years ago

Who is the singer on this track?
Birns and Sawyer 2 years ago

Will have to see if I can find out for you.
Mishy Lane 1 year ago

Fink finkworld.co.uk/fink/
Chris Santucci 2 years ago

Who is the actress in this piece?
Birns and Sawyer 2 years ago

Think she is a friend of the Director's - Jason Ensler
Chris Santucci 2 years ago

OK, thanks. I'll get a hold of Jason and ask him.
Andrew Blackwell 2 years ago

What lens adapter did you use with the GH1?
Birns and Sawyer 2 years ago

HOt Rod Cameras supplied the rig
Jeremy Bernatchez 2 years ago

that was fantastic! great comparisson of these 3 cameras, and it's nice to see some well shot GH1 footage...been looking at that one myself for a while.
Markus Lux 2 years ago

Nice work? Anyone knows what's the name of the song?

EDIT: the track is "Fink - This Is The Thing"
Hopper 2 years ago

As suggested on cinema5d where this has been posted I watched with a piece of paper covering up the camera used and tried to guess which camera was which shot. I was hopeless. :-) Watching in standard def (slow internet) I was surpsised how often I guessed at the shot being on the Red and it was on the GH1.

I too would be interested to know if the GH1 was at 1080 or 720.
Birns and Sawyer 2 years ago

1080- Marty
solardevice 2 years ago

Great work! I've just bought a GH1 and I'm experiencing some problems with AF: when the camera focuses on a given subject I notice that the image wobbles... :-(
marzio mirabella 2 years ago

Thanks for sharing!
Birns and Sawyer 2 years ago

Appreciate your watching
Chris Marrs Piliero 2 years ago

Awesome comparison video. Like others, I'd love to know if you shot the GH1 at 720 or 1080. Also would love to see more shots of the GH1 mixed in without an ultraprime lens to do a really good comparison. Nonetheless... great video and thanks for posting!
Birns and Sawyer 2 years ago

Lumix shot natively@ 1080 -Marty
Don Miller 2 years ago

The canon and red are set up very poorly. I don't see how this is any kind or "real world" test. Wouldn't one spend thirty seconds in the real world to correctly set exposure and white balance?
Birns and Sawyer 2 years ago

I think that the DP and DIT might disagree that this was not "real world". They came, they prepped, they conquered.
Günther Kranich 2 years ago

one word: awesome!
iamkalaniprince 2 years ago

Wow, Marty, great comparison. After a while I stopped watching the camera tags, it got to the point that I couldn't tell what was what. Terrific.

I have the 5D Mark II and am amazed by this powerful little tool everyday. 22mp stills and HD video all in a small backpack.. Perfect

I haven't seen or used the Pana, but love the company and the product line I was a big fan of the DVX when it first came out as it just seemed to have a certain "somethingness" about the image, an unseen allure that eludes me to this day.

But Red One.. This camera is amazing. I've had my eye on it since day one when everyone though Jim Jannard was dreaming a little to big and it was for the most part vaporware.

Two exciting things happened in my world within the last 2 weeks.

1. I subscribed to NetFlix with the Blu-Ray addition..
2. Rented my first Blu-Ray DVD shot on the Red One.

Can we have a little talk about this ? It was an absolute joy ! Everything about the experience was rich and dynamic. I could-not-believe the image that this camera is capable of making...

Now we've got Red "Epic" and the reasonably priced "Scarlet" hitting the market "soon". Astonishing. Jim Jannard and his team are way bigger than innovators. By allowing people access to these powerful tools they are allowing most anyone with a dream access to the same playing field as the "big guys". Now we all have the power to create and complete.

Exciting times indeed. Thanks for the great clips !
Celeste 2 years ago

What blu-ray movie are you referring to that was shot on the Red? I've seen "My Bloody Valentine 3D" which wasn't that impressive compared to other digital features I've seen that have the "film look". I've seen trailers for "The Gamer" which look pretty good (shot on the Red). I guess it all depends on post!
iamkalaniprince 2 years ago

"Knowing" with Cage. Looked amazing.
d.i.m llc 2 years ago

Nice footage but it still gets me that people are surprised by the quality of the GH1! Panasonic has been making professional audio/video equipment for so long that for them to make a DSLR from the ground up that is designed to shoot video shouldn't surprise anyone. Red One...are you kidding me? Large sensors and everything else that goes into their cameras does not=Great.

Nothing can replace the years of research & development, experience, & know how that companies like Panasonic and Canon have. A few years from now is when we will really see the likes of a GH1/Canon 5D MKII shine...or we may even see the internals of these cameras (housed) in a totally new design.
Will Shoot Photography 2 years ago

Think this footage is a good test, but a wee bit hard to compare w/out similar scenes for each. Any chance you can go for less of a finished "movie" and more of a same shot (similar lens, f/stop, shutter speed, iso, etc) for 30 sec or so w/ each camera for the next go round? It'll remove some of the confusion of how these changes affect final video...