Shooting high quality video from Panasonic micro four thirds (m4/3, uFT) bodies … Part 3 – Sunny day test of auto exposure (AE) and movement

Here, I use fast and slow motion to give you a feel for how the three lower end cameras look with their video juxtaposed across the frame. The audio is all Sony royalty free music, so you don’t have to listen to me blather at all :-)

The insect flying at half speed gives some indication that there is a small advantage to shooting the G6 at 60p with a 180 degree shutter at 1/120s versus the others at 30p with a 180 degree shutter at 1/60s. Using a 180 degree shutter gives us exactly the kind of motion blur that we have been trained to expect through viewing of countless movies. So it is important to maintain that look for normal footage. Obviously a faster shutter looks great for “Zombie movement” effects with staccato movement, but it is not something to use just because you could not find another way to get the exposure.

Anyway, I got it to work here and I quite like the smoothness of the insect’s flight with the G5. You will probably have to backtrack and watch each part of the frame separately to see the difference. I will probably have to figure out an even better test to make it easier to see … but for now this will do.

Shooting high quality video from Panasonic micro four thirds (m4/3, uFT) bodies … Part 2 – Video Log 4 Showing the four bodies and discussing the patches

Well, I tried my hand at video blogging again. Not sure how successful this was, but there is quite a bit of info in this video regarding the patches I am trying out and how well they work for video outdoors. Trying to match the focal lengths was a real bear and I could only get them close. Still, it worked out all right.

I built a cheap rig to be able to run them together, pointing at about the same spot …

You can see that I shot the GF3 (left most) with the Olympus 45mm 1.8, which of course fixes the 45mm focal length in stone for this test. The second from left os the GH2, which is sporting the 14-140, set at 45mm. The next camera is the G5, which has the 45-175 mounted. And finally the GX1 with the Pentax 50mm 1.4 set at f/8 – the only manual lens in the test and one of the better performers.

The patches I used were:

• GF3 – Cake 2.3, whose bandwidth averaged about 49mbps at 30p, which should be approximately triple stock.
• GH3 – Cake 2.3, whose bandwidth averaged about 65mbps at 24p, almost 4x stock.
• G5 – stock, whose bandwidth averaged about 28mbps at 60p.
• GX1 – Galaxian V1, whose bandwidth average about 35mbps, approximately double stock.

So some nice figures here, and it shows in the footage. I don’t get quite the video quality I wanted from this test (I do later on in part 3,) but this test discusses sound as well, and I show how panning looks when mixed down to 30p for the Internet.

Speaking of audio, I used the patch mechanism (see Vitaliy Kiselev’s amazing work here: http://www.personal-view.com/ and please contribute if you use the patches) to improve my audio as well and find that it makes a small difference. The audio settings for each camera are:

• GF3 at 384 kbps mono
• GH2 at 448 kbps stereo
• G5 at 192 kbps stereo
• GX1 at 384 kbps stereo

I use a TASCAM DR05 with a Giant Squid lavalier mic for the early part of the video log, but after that I switch between each camera’s audio as its video is presented and at times I mix them all together. So you can get a real feel for how you might like to handle the audio in your own videos. I have never liked the idea of adding a shotgun mic to the camera, but I might try that one day. For my own blogging, having the TASCAM in a pocket with the Giant Squid attached to my shirt provides more freedom of movement, so that is my way for now.

And lastly, the actual video

Light pollution causes cancer?

Yes, it does. Strong links are now shown between escalating light pollution and breast and prostate cancer.

Did you know that many people have never really laid eyes on the Milky Way, our home Galaxy? I have, but it has been years since I have really seen it and each time I do, I am shocked at its inherent beauty. Up until about 100 years ago, everyone could see it easily. Progress is making us more insular and slowly eating away at our health.

By the way, LED lights present a new threat. They emit more light in the blue spectrum, which is very easily scattered by our atmosphere, and that is causing serious disruptions in our circadian rhythms … one step forward (lower energy costs) two steps back (newly discovered health effects.)

http://darksky.org/

A voice of reason … wow …

http://www.upworthy.com/congressman-responds-like-real-human-person-would-after-getting-an-absurd-letter-from-his-coworkers-8?c=ufb1

From one Member of Congress to his colleagues … nice

Yuk Yuk’s Comedy Club

Karen and I popped into the Yuk Yuk’s on Elgin Street in downtown Ottawa on Thursday the 11’th … our main goal was to see Angelo Tsarouchas, the headliner this week and next. Karen has met Angelo and wanted to see his act. Of course, we got a bonus of two other acts that were very good too.

fuji f770exr  400iso  f/4.7  1/10

MCing was John Cullen.

fuji f770exr  1600iso  f/5.8  1/60

His act was pretty good, although he did spend a lot of time trying to worm info out of a group of pretty young women that were a wedding party with bride, bride’s maids and friends. They were feeling frisky as the wedding was only two days away on Saturday.

He came up again just before Angelo and this time he really rocked the joint. Lots of belly laughs. Very good second act for him.

In between John and Angelo was Mike Harrison.

He seemed very shy, spending a lot of time tucking himself into the curtains at the back of the very small stage. I had a lot of trouble capturing images of him as he was constantly obscured by curtains. But this next one is pretty good.

Mike told a lot of funny stories and was very self-deprecating, playing off his braying laugh and his nerdy looks and history. He did very well with the ladies and had us laughing rather a lot. A good act for sure.

And finally, it was Angelo’s time. He is an imposing dude, easily dominating the stage and likely intimidating the front row quite a bit. He also moves around the stage much more than the other guys, indicating a deep comfort with performing live.

His act was long and very funny. I enjoyed his mix of funny anecdotes and true life stories. A well crafted way of expressing his life in an amusing way.

All told, I highly recommend this trio. Go check them out. The price is very low for the quality of the entertainment (less than 30 bucks for 2.) You won’t regret it.

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A note on the photography: I normally shoot quite prolifically and only post the sharp images. But by the time I had the camera set up for the lighting, it was showing a single red bar, indicating imminent death. I was able to shoot only 7 images in total of these three and you are seeing 6 of them. So you get what you get :-)

The F770 handed the lighting well, and I could have managed a much better performance with an opportunity to shoot until I had the perfect balance of ISO and exposure, but that was not to be. I did not bother filming anything with so little power available.

And to think that I almost walked out of the house with the GX1 … what a dick move leaving it at home

And the storms rolled through …

Yesterday was a real mixed bag of weather across the region. In the early evening, we saw warning signs that there might be some excitement later on …

And sure enough, we were not disappointed later on as a few small storm cells moved through quickly and gave us some spectacular lightning strikes and downpours. Today is a beautiful sunny day … maybe summer is again rebooting