Best DSLR with HD Video? latest technology

haha nice advise i guess for next year at 2012 we will see by this specification but right know just Full HD by Autofocus at 24 and some 30 fps

like Nikon D3100 and DNikon

even if you are primarily a video shooter and are used to tracking manual focus? I find most still photog friends of mine with no video experience are the ones who find difficulty tracking manual focus. I want to go HD these days but do not want to spend lots of do re mi on a video cam... I was hoping to buy the Canon 7D???

Perrone, it depends upon the nature of the editing that the casual user wishes to do: for basic, simple editing where only start and end points of AVCHD clips are set and then the trimmed clips are joined and made into a "movie", even a modest computer can achieve that with the software that is shipped with some cameras and camcorders. The finished AVCHD "movie" can be uploaded to YT if it is less than 10 minutes long and no more than 2GB in size (or now to vimeo,) burnt to disc or even written back to a memory card and played back on a HDTV. That may not be a rude surprise?

That is quite true. Though I guess I call that cutting or trimming and not "editing" but your point is well taken.

Very true, but a skilful cameraman can shoot a single "take" and that clip, possibly lasting several minutes, correctly focused/exposed and with good audio may not be boring, especially if the intended audience for a home movie is family and friends. Sometimes editing may simply be used to cut out bad camera work, adjust exposure/colour/framing and add or replace audio. Good camera work and audio recording is the key and only very good cutting can overcome the problems of sloppily shot footage.

An older computer, with the correct software installed, may only play a 25 or 30fps AVCHD clip, or joined clips, at 10fps but that video will look OK and be perfectly acceptable for preview purposes. However, as you say, for editing "full blown movies" plenty of RAM etc. is required - even by a casual user.

agreed. since I have been shooting 16X9 with my new Sony XD cam at work... I am thinking and shooting more like cinema. Subject doing all the movement. Only making subtle camera moves when applicable.

I was very impressed by the one we used to shoot our movie last month. I am in the middle of color grading the film now, and though the latitude on them isn't great, they held the images well and got some good color. It won't replace my EX1, but on a narrative shoot where I had the time, I'd gladly use it again.

Yes, along with the inability to record pro audio, and a codec bit rate that isn't up to pro standards. If you want a bargain in the VDSLR field and don't need pro results, it's not a bad choice. But if your recorded video has to stand up to pro specs, you need to look elsewhere.

Typical statement from the canon cult. The reality is, the GH1 has solved much of the rolling shutter issue, compared to cameras like the 5D and other Canon and Nikon DSLRS. Further, the audio is as professional as on any DSLR and most video cameras in this range.

Not to mention, unlike the Canons the GH1 has focusing while shooting, exposure controls, a silent autofocus motor, etc etc.

Its a DSLR actually built for video.

The canons are still picture cameras with video tacked on, thus they have to drop half the sensor information every frame, only taking every other pixel, they cannot property encode the video, and so they picked a very high bitrate codec. The GH1 produces better image quality per bit than the canon and as a result, the codec delivers better images at a lower bitrate.

This has caused a bunch of confusion amongst the people who learned to shoot during the days of tape. Since all tape codecs were fixed rate, higher quality meant running the tape faster and thus a higher bitrate.

They have no concept of the existence of codec efficiency or even the factors necessary to encode video in realtime with modern codecs.

So, to them, they just compare bit rates and decide that the GH1 is "not professional" (and of course, everything with the canon name is professional, don't you know!)

Liza,

I realize that you are trying to be helpful with your posts, but frankly more often than not, you're facts are simply wrong and it's confusing to people looking for help. You are not a professional shooter nor a movie maker which is clear from your posts. It is also clear that you really, REALLY like your GH1 and that's cool. It's the right tool for some people, but not for everyone. Other than recommending the Xacti (which you also own) the GH1 is the only camera you recommend to ANY user on this board and anyone looking for advice would do well to watch that pattern of behavior from you. Now, on to your points:

1. The "Canon Cult" comment. Totally unnecessary. I don't own a Canon and don't want to, but have shot with them. You own a GH1 and it's the only camera you ever recommend. Who's behavior is more cult-like?

2. The GH1 has less rolling shutter and skew issues because it has a smaller sensor than either of the Canons. Panasonic has not magically solved the issue. Their current $10k CMOS professional camera suffers the same problems. There is no magic fix.

3. The audio is just as professional as other DSLRs and video cameras in this price range. Exactly. Not professional at all.

4. You keep claiming that you cannot change focus or iris on the Canon's while shooting. This is in fact incorrect, and I have done it. Not only that but I have video that shows otherwise, so please stop offering this incorrect information.

5. A silent autofocus motor is terrific for shooting a kids soccer match. But has no place on a professional camera. No one uses autofocus for professional filmmaking.

6. You claim the GH1 is a DSLR actually built for video while the Canon's are not. To a degree this is true. What is also true is that the GH1 is not built for professional video, and is seriously deficient in that regard.

7. The Canon cameras have a bitrate that ensures professional results. The GH1 does not. Really it's as simple as that. The codec is not really different between then, just the bit rates. Saying that the GH1 delivers better images at a lower bitrate is patently false and proven over and over again in any professional camera test anyone would care to read. Again, complete misinformation.

8. Not sure who the "they" are you refer to, but you do realize the GH1 was built by Panasonic? Who developed and still sell numerous tape-based cameras?

I will offer this. People are well aware that the DSLRs are being used on movie sets, and in television. By people who get paid a LOT of money to choose the best cameras for the job. Please point me to any TV network, Cable network, or any released feature film that has used a GH1 during production. Any. If this camera, as you proclaim, is truly delivering a better picture than the 5D, then this should be simple. People making hundreds of thousands of dollars to evaluate and bring these cameras into production would surely have looked at them. So I'll wait patiently for your answer.

Perrone--

I understand that some government agency trained you and that you are giving your "advice" based on this training. I won't attempt to compete with you in setting up and shooting anything. For me, shooting is a hobby.

However, my profession is as a software engineer, specifically with video. I have extensive experience in video engineering, and while I've worked in embedded environments (eg: CPUS inside a device, like a camera) I don't work for any device manufacturer.

Not that any of this is relevant, except that you made numerous false statements about me in your response as an attempt to, apparently discredit me.

Rolling Shutter and Skew-- these effects are a result of the rate at which you can read data off of the sensor. It has absolutely nothing to do with sensor size, as you stated, but with the number of data channels going to the pixels on the sensor. The more pixels you can read in parallel the faster you can caputure the whole frame and the less time the camera has to move during the capture process.

This a basic engineering factor, and by designing a sensor specifically for movie making, Panasonic has greatly improved the skew and rolling shutter issue on the GH1. The Canon sensors were designed for still photogoraphy.

You use this word "professional" as if it was some objective value that you can pass judgement on. This is another marker of the canon cult (along with dishonestly characterizing the opposition.) By the definition of the word, the Canon and Panasonic cameras are both used in professional contexts every day.

I'm sorry to hear that you believe that Rack Focus and Focus Tracking are "not professional" but again, this is part of your attempt to use the word professional as some sort of magical barrier you can throw up against any camera you don't like.

The bottom line is, these are useful features, yes, for professionals.

Regarding Bitrates, your statements are flat out false. Agains this is because you're relaying on your training, not on an understanding of the engineering.

H.264 provides for a wide variety of methods of feature extraction. These methods can involve very large searches thru the pixels of the frame or over a fair number of frames forward and backward. This takes CPU horsepower, which the canon lacks. This is because Video was a tacked on feature. The GH1 includes two CPUs, and thus is able to offer a more efficient codec.

Frankly, your position is based on the assumption that codecs are a fixed rate compression method. (In both cases they are actually variable) and not only that-- the assumption that because they use as compatible encoding format, that the compression mechanism is exactly as efficient between them.

Thus, when you say that its "patently false" that a lower bitrate can offer a better image quality, you are asserting your belief as if it were a fact, based only on your shoddy training.

This is one of the problems in the film industry. Its exhibited also by the reluctance to move from film to digital capture. All the "professionals" have their training, and their training is based on "rules of thumb" that were accurate at one point in time (like "run the tape faster and you get better video quality-- the rule that Perrone uses to claim that higher bitrate means higher quality).

But technology has advanced in the past 40 years. Quite a bit, in fact. One of the areas where its advanced the most is in software and cpu architecutres.

This means that rather than being a simple mechanical device, cameras are now fairly sophisticate computers.

And thus all these "facts" and absolutests statements from "professionals" like Perrone would be correctly understood to be lies, if one understood the technology behind them.

Unfortunately, the people who are seeking their advice are even more ignorant, and so the snide, denigrating tone Perrone uses towards me has more sway than the arguments of someone who actually understands the technology.

I don’t think we can say one is better than the other.

For example for the Panasonic you get the focusing, the tiny size that’s easier to hold, the articulating screen and the fact that it’s far more capable to attach any lens you want, and a far better 720 60p mode even though the bit rate is far less. You can get accurate results using the viewfinder unlike the Canon. On top of all that, the camera wont heat up if your shooting in 720 60p for long periods unlike the Canon.

As far as the Canon is concerned, it’ll give you more DOF control, it has a much easier to work with 24p mode. Live output to a TV which is much, much better at determining what the quality is going to look on a conventional screen especially if it‘s a Movie. Up until around an ISO of 500, the low light quality is almost the same but much over that, the the 7D has a clear edge.

For me without question the GH1 is much better because I mostly shoot in 720 60p mode in run and gun situations and it wouldn’t take long for a 7D to be destroyed. For others who shoots mostly in near total darkness or needs an external output, the Canon is the only logical choice assuming you’re not using 720 60p.

For some people who shoot in mostly places that has good lighting and want's everything to be a focus, something like the HMC40 is far better than both of them. It has effects because it’s a MOS camera but not nearly as bad as the 7D and the GH1 and because it has B frames, it’s codec is much more robust than those 2. It also has an XLR adapter that’s purchased seperately to hook up XLR mics natively into the camera all for around $2260.

I think it’s wrong for people to only be recommending a GH1 or a 7D because they are not for everybody and some people’s projects has been ruined because they were told that it's good for everything.

Wow! I almost forgot about that.

There is no time limit in NTSC versions of the GH1 and a few PAL versions depending on the country.

That's another benefit that most GH1 cameras has over the 7D.

Here's a professional (and Canon fan) that chose GH1 over 7D for broadcast...
dvxuser.com/V6/showpost.php?p=1795042

This is true, and all the DSLR cameras and the RED system have large chips. Which stymies me as to why people keep recommending 1/3" cameras over them as being "professional". Their idea of "professional" doesn't jibe with the physics of photography.

I think the size of the chip is not nearly as important in some cases as the ability of the camera. I have an HMC80 and a T1i. Both shoot about the same quality video. The T1i offer shallow depth of field so I use it when I need that feature. The rest of the time I use a 1/4" chip camera because it has the features I need to make professional videos. By professional I mean industry standard sound and video quality for a given job. A professional is a term used to define the quality of work. It's not nearly as subjective as many on this topic think.

The size of the chip only matters if all other things are equal. I would love to have a Red One. I don't have the budget. I do have a DSLR and a entry level professional camera. To be honest I think the DSLR is overused and adapted to many situations that a Video Camera is much better suited for. Action scenes for instance are very difficult to pull off with a DSLR. I have seen it done but it's difficult. Matchmoving with footage from a DSLR in an action scene is one reason I have a Video camera.

As for the bit rate issue. The higher bit rate is only better if it means more information is captured. A codec that uses a lot of overhead could capture less useful information than a lower bit rate codec.

Then you have to determine what is being removed? Is one codec removing more color to achieve it's efficient bit rate? Unless there truly is a big difference in codec overhead more compression equal less data and lower quality no matter how you want to spin the technical buzz words.

No worries. You'll have no further problems from me.

I wonder if that will be considered good enough. I mean, even though it comes from a full-time professional cameraman, someone who teaches videography, someone who is a beta-tester for Panasonic.. and STILL says that none of these cameras is as sharp as a $900 video camera, and the 7D is the superior tool for making movies with a DSLR...

Well, what does it matter really. Everyone has their opinion...

The GH1 clearly won that review. Its unfortunate that soe many "professionals" who "teach videography" are still stuck in the 1980s in terms of their understanding of codecs.

You look at a resolution chart of the 7D and the GH1 side by side and the image quality from the GH1 is dramatically better. They both have aliasing, but as he notes, the GH1 doesn't give you the funky colors that have ruined so much 5D footage out there.

I think you missed his point entirely. The 7D and the GH1 are limited by their hardware, codecs, and many other factors. You give up a lot using a DSLR. The codec is really not that important when you have artifacts in your video that make it impossible to use for things like Matchmoving.

The codec is almost not even a concern when I buy a camera and I understand them quite well. I think a wider view of this discussion is needed. The codec used by these cameras is the last thing in a long line of hardware that that effects the image data. The fact that a professional Video camera can produce better picture quality than a DSLR should make this obvious. You can use the most efficient codec in the world with a junk light capturing system and produce garbage. Your system is only as good as the weakest link.

You claim he does no understand codecs yet he clearly established in the first paragraph that he understands them quite well. Video camera's are better at video than DSLR's. The DSLR does not have the same hardware, software, or ability as a video camera and you should not expect that it would since it's a fraction of the cost. I believe he made that point very clear up front.

I personally don't care what the spec's are on a camera or how much better the spec's say a picture should be. I care what it looks like. Even then picture quality is a very small piece of making a quality video.

A couple of the nice features of the GH1 address the issues you bring up. For instance it has facial tracking and object tracking for focus. So your actor should stay in focus even if they move around the scene. And the 20mm "normal" f1.7 should give you the shallow depth of field you might be seeking for those kinds of shots. Or you can have a car or object you tell the camera to focus on stay in focus as it moves towards or away from the camera... so sort of a built in focus puller.

The camera was built for video start to finsih- so there are two CPUS to produce better compresion per bit than the cameras where video is just tacked on.

For some people live HDMI is critical for monitoring, but I think these are people shooting on a set. For those shooting in the field the articulated LCD display is a killer feature of the GH1. (And I am stymed as to why the hell other manufactures haven't put these on their cameras? I think one of the nikons has it, but that's it.)

You talked about the need to rig-- and this is true if you're shooting the kind of situation where you're bringing lights in on a truck. The GH1 was desgined for more of a rebel shooting style. True, the formfactor is not quite a good as other camera types for shooting, but it is a small light camera that can be held with one hand if you want. IT doesn't have a big piece of heavy glass pentaprism, or a big moving mirror..... it also has much smaller lenses which means less glass in the lens.

Then again, if you want a lot of glass, you can get an adapter to put just about any lens ever made on the GH1. This means your old manual focus lenses can still be used, and setting up the camera with a bunch of good primes is really a lot less expensive than buying brand new lenses.

So, your criticisms are true about the Canons and particularly about shooting in certain types of situations. But for on the go shooting, either indie or amateur filmmaking like many of the people who post to video, the GH1 has addressed most of the issues successfully.

The GH1 is a Digital Single Lens Reflex Camera. To say that it was built specifically for video is ridiculous. The HVX200 was built specifically for Video. The HMC150 was built specifically for video. The HMC80, HMC40 both built for video. They will even take a still photo really well but that does not mean they were built specifically for photo.

Manual focus is mandatory for any professional video. Yes I used the Professional term again. Professionals control their own focus for many reasons. Automatic focus looking like automatic focus being one of those reasons. The DSLR is a good choice for "certain kinds" of shots. I can tell you from experience it is by no means capable of rebel video shooting without being rigged. At a minimum you need a shoulder mount adapter or a Fig Rig. You can obtain great results this way. You can also buy a truly purpose build video camera with better quality video for the same investment giving you both a DSRL and a dedicated video camera.

There are so many things that a professional video camera can do that a DSLR can't. A DSLR can provide shallow depth of field basically. I own both for a reason. To say the GH1 in every post solves every problem is based in a lack of experience with video. Sure it could do a good job but it's a specialty or beginners tool for most.

Liza, it would be great to see you doing all those acrobatics with a GH1 hanging on the end of a $20 monopod :) I find that even a shot where a tripod is tilted and moved up or down on two legs, with the camera kept level, can be really tricky unless one has really steady hands. 4M2.

OH, yeah, and I always do it all in a single take!

I started off using a cheap tripod an then moved to a cheap monopod. Hardest part was not so much the hands but the stickiness of the tilt function of that tripod head (Which wasn't a real "video" head as it was made before camcorders existed.)

And of course using wide angle lenses helps.

The weight of the camera can also help: put a XH-A1 on an inexpensive tripod head and I find that smooth pans and tilts are not difficult: put a lightweight camcorder or dslr on the same head and smooth movement becomes far more difficult. Even with a fluid Manfrotto head smooth movement can be difficult when using lightweight equipment...all in a single take, of course :)

Canon 7D
Panasonic AF100
Sony FS100

Lots of choices out there now.

I think you need to do more research. I prefer using the 7D for video over the 5D. I need less light to get what I want. I don't really care for the GH2, but that's me. However, I think there is some new hack for the GH2 that makes it a lot better for video. I don't really keep up with it.

Given the choice between shooting the 5D or the 7D for video, I'll take the 7D every time.