Wow is all I can say.
 

I shot with my GH1 (wedding) today. It was an informal affair, and there was no church involved. After the fiasco of my first wedding, the footage looks great from this one.

I only had a 20mm to use and I shot getting ready stuff and the ceremony at the reception hall. I am SO psyched about these cameras now.

They are non-stop work. I find the auto focus almost useless. It changes too much, not worth the trouble. But the results are so worth it.

There is so much to learn with changing depth of field via exposure settings, etc., and more, but I am pretty happy camper this evening.

Re: Wow is all I can say.
 

Hey Jeff, it's good to see you were earning a living today. ;-) Are you using a monitor for most of your shooting? I also shoot with an EX1R in addition to my GH2 and like the greater control over focus that I get with a monitor. That was one thing that bothered me about a lot of DSLR footage when the Canons came out. In fairness to the shooters, its tough to precisely control the focus using a 3" screen without peaking.

Re: Wow is all I can say.
 

Jim, I do not yet have a monitor, I'm looking seriously at the Sony 5", had concerns about it being too small, but Kirk in the monitor forum says he's liking his just fine.

What say you? Will 5" be worth it?

As far as focus, I had a lot of latitude today, it was extremely slow paced, and I had lots of time to fiddle, so I was able to get focused pretty much, but it was only 4 hours of shooting. After awhile the LCD just wears you down.

Re: Wow is all I can say.
 

I guess everyone has their own idea about the optimum monitor size. I did some comparisons with friends' monitors and decided on the Marshall 7". If you can take a look at various sizes you can make up your own mind about what suits you best. This is definitely not a 'one size fits all' issue.

Re: Wow is all I can say.
 

Jim, some monitors change aspect ratios after hitting record, and have other little idiosyncracies...anything like that with yours? Is your monitor the $399 version, or a higher end model?

Re: Wow is all I can say.
 

This the one I bought Marshall Electronics V-LCD70XP-HDMI 7" LCD V-LCD70XP-HDMI It has peaking and false color exposure assist. I wouldn't have a monitor without these features. They are enormously helpful. It can also be set to a 1:1 pixel mode which is effectively a zoom. The peaking function still work when in 1:1 pixel mode which gives very precise focus control. There are four programmable function keys which make it fast and easy to switch modes.

There are a variety of battery adapters for it. I bought the one for the Sony batteries because I have several of them. I also bought the hood for use with outdoor weddings.

The aspect ratio can be preset. I set it to 16:9 and it doesn't change when shooting.

Re: Wow is all I can say.
 

Welcome to the club Jeff. I agree these things are amazing if you can get around with the limitations.

I just did a comparison between my new GH1 and a Canon Fd 50mm F1.8 and my trusty Panasonic HMC-40. I was only eye balling this in the cameras and have not shot any comparisons yet but the GH1 at ISO 100 was equal in brightness to my HMC-40 at 24db of gain. That is pretty darn huge my friends. That means I can shoot super clean video compared to super grainy from my HMC-40 at 24db or push beyond what my HMC-40 could even handle at max gain. It's just too bad nobody can make a decent zoom lens for DSLR's. The great thing about all of this is that I know the GH2 is even better at low light. I have seen the GH2 pushed to ISO 3200 with decent results. That completely spanks my HMC-40. My next step is to now get the Pancake 20mm lens so I have a lens that is a bit more flexible compared to the 50mm.

Re: Wow is all I can say.
 

I've shot at least 15-20 weddings using HV-30, using it as backup, for interviews, etc., as long as you have enough light, it's fine, and in fact can be darn nice. The sensor is less than 1/2 inch in size, so there's no way it can compete with a larger sensor and faster glass.

For indoor low light work, the GH1/2s are great, with the right lenses are terrific. I'm going to use three for church weddings, different focal lengths on each camera, and that should cover things. I'm thinking 20mm, 50mm, and 85mm or 100mm, haven't decided yet. The 14-140 may work with a higher ISO, but then the footage won't likely match too well with the prime lenses, but I'll find out after I have my gh2 and lens back from the repair shop. Lot's of things to try out with it!

Re: Wow is all I can say.
 

Jeff i find the AF good on my GH2 as long as it locks on to start i have not had problems, one question why did you use your GH1 instead of the GH2.

Re: Wow is all I can say.
 

not much point in a monitor for the GH1 - no vision while recording.

I've been using them for weddings for nearly a year now and they are terrific!

Re: Wow is all I can say.
 

Paul, thank for your post, that is important information, and quite disappointing.

While I am planning to use the monitor on the GH2, I won't have it for a couple of weeks, but my monitor will be here Wednesday, so I would have tried and wondered what the heck?

Jeff H

Re: Wow is all I can say.
 

Jim, thanks for your feedback on the Marshall. It looks to be feature rich. It is also out of my budget, so that makes my choice simple!

Re: Wow is all I can say.
 

I do feel that lenses faster than 1.8 are great for the best quality in a low light wedding enviroment. Based on my limted experience and seeing what others are using at weddings, f/1.4 is a great place to be. For controlled situations, or when it's not too dark, 2.8 would fine as well, but much slower and I think it becomes dicey and the problem could become getting footage to match,

Re: Wow is all I can say.
 

This gives me some insight into what I'll be facing soon . . . This Spring I'm shooting several weddings with 2 HMC40's and 1 or 2 GH1's. I've set up a few test shots in my home using both cameras to get an idea about how they'll mix, but I won't really know until I shoot with them in the highly uncontrolled environment of the wedding/reception.

It's too bad I just don't feel comfortable using a GH1 as my main front camera. I aim to be as unobtrusive as possible, and need the zoom control/capability that the HMC40 has.

Re: Wow is all I can say.
 

You were mentioning that the auto focus changes too much. Are you using continuous auto focus or single auto focus?
Single only changes when you change it. I found the AFC pretty useless unless you where trying to follow something that is always moving, I guess it would be good if I wanted to get video of my dog. he's always moving. Although he does sleep a lot though.