Manual is not fully Manual
 

I wanted to try and get a special effect of blurring while in the Manual mode. If you take your camera and put it in the Manual mode and after setting your f-stop, change the shutter speed to 1 second you should get a blurry video. This can be nice with a lock down camera and people or cars moving to get a blur effect. To try this you would have to be inside or shoot at night.
However what I am getting shows no blur and the video looks normal, it looks just fine, in fact by being at 1 second I am able to film in dark scenes but no blur (only the LCD is blurry). I am wondering if the camera compensates somehow and will still give normal video, but if it does I am not sure what it does. At first I thought it went back to something like a shutter minimum of 1/25 but the meter still says 1 second and I am able to shoot in very low light.
Interesting.

Re: Manual is not fully Manual
 

It should work. Be sure the exposure and focus are in manual mode. You can do time lapse with the GH2 without intervalometers.

Re: Manual is not fully Manual
 

Jim, as Waldi has told me, the M mode with the GH2 is not true Manual. You need the Manual Movie mode, is that what you are using?

Re: Manual is not fully Manual
 

Yes that is what I am using

Re: Manual is not fully Manual
 

Something is not in manual mode, then, Jim. Wonder if it is your ISO? If you haven't locked it off that might be the cause. That has happened to me.

Simply putting a cap on how the ISO will go will not work for full manual, I think you need to lock it off to prevent hunting, or wait, it might be if you are not in manual focus? I think it was Jim S that said anything left in auto mode will cause something like you are experiencing.

I don't know, I'll be shooting today with my gh1 and I'll play with it and see.

Please post if you figure it out! It happened to me weeks ago, but I've forgotten how I stopped it, I do believe it was the ISO.

Re: Manual is not fully Manual
 

It's not about exposure, it's about the shutter speed. You shouldn't be able to have a shutter speed of 1 sec. And hit playback and have smooth video. I have the ISO locked at 400 but it's really not a factor in this setting. Maybe it's just smooth in the LCD monitor but not when I drop it into a timeline. I will have to check.

Re: Manual is not fully Manual
 

Jim,

You're correct, "M" on the Mode Dial doesn't give us full manual control. Seems we must be in Creative Motion Picture mode (Manual Movie Mode or 24P Cinema) for full manual. The slowest shutter speeds in these modes (with my lenses) seems to be 1/25.

I discovered this when experimenting with different ISO in low light. No matter what ISO is selected when the Mode Dial is set to M, S or A, ISO reverts to Auto when the record button is pressed.

The last two footnotes on page 90 of the operating manual hints at manual not being exactly what we might expect.

Good luck.

Re: Manual is not fully Manual
 

I was just trying to get a blur effect on night traffic like you can get with a still camera set at 1/2 or 1 second. Guess you can't do it in the video mode. No matter what shutter speed you set it at, it seems to compensate so the video comes out without any blurring but it still leaves the shutter speed at what you set it.. Darn, I was hoping to get some streaking effects.
The good thing I found was that if you set the shutter to 1 second in Manual, you can shoot in very low light and not have to push the ISO too far and the video comes out fine.

Re: Manual is not fully Manual
 

Jim, I already misunderstood your original post, but I'm going to try again, probably wrong here.

Shutter speed for movies, as I know it should be like 15, 30, 40, 50, 60. The shutter speed of 1sec sounds like it's for still photos, and it sound like your in manual mode, not creative movie mode, but I must be wrong.

If you set the shutter to a low value, say 15, it should do exactly as you wish. What am I misunderstanding here? 1 sec should be a shutter speed for still mode.

Re: Manual is not fully Manual
 

Yeah I was experimenting here to get some blurring effect. As you say it works fine in the still mode but I can't seem to be able to do it in the video mode. In the Creative Mode you can not go below 1/25 shutter speed but in manual you can. But I just wanted to go below 1/50 shutter speed to get some effects.
I seem to remember when I was using the canon 7D I could got to a very fast shutter speed to get a strobe effect in video, I never tried a slow shutter speed with the 7D to see if I could get streaking effect.
I don't have it anymore so I tried it with the GH2. No big deal, just experimenting.

Re: Manual is not fully Manual
 

With a manual focus lens or setting an AF lens to MF mode you could shoot video as slow as 1/2sec in video mode with the GH2. I just aimed my GH2 with Voigtländer Nokton 25mm f/0.95 set to 3200 iso , 1/2 sec and F0.95 in a dark room and it showed an image I could not see with my eyes.

Re: Manual is not fully Manual
 

This is a dark room? Looks like you shot it outside. You got the effect I was trying to get. You say it needs to be in manual focus to achieve the streaking?
You know this could be a good little trick.
Being able to shoot wide open, and not having to go past ISO 3200 to keep the noise down, just by going to a much lower shutter speed and still getting very usable video in very low light situations....as long as you don't pan fast or zoom.

Re: Manual is not fully Manual
 

Darn I can't get it to work after trying with both exposure and focus in manual. Have the shutter speed at 1 second. Must be doing something wrong, am not getting time lapse.

Re: Manual is not fully Manual
 

Good find Joe,

Tried it with my Lumix lenses and works great.

Re: Manual is not fully Manual
 

I've only got a GH1 but from what everyone here is saying it behaves very similarly. To be shooting fully manual video you need to be in "Creative Movie Mode." "Manual" mode is only fully manual for stills and will still have automatic exposure for video.

In "Creative Movie Mode," shooting FULL HD (25p on my PAL GH1) the shutter will not go below 1/30.

However, in 720p mode the shutter will go below 1/30 and you can shoot with the motion-blur strobe look you are looking for.