Addding a mini cam to your gear ??? A comparision of GH2 and TA1.
 

Coming off of Philip's thread of doing a multicam shoot with a bunch of minicams, I ordered a Panasonic TA1 in bright red, to play around with. My GH2 arrived on Tuesday, and Weds the TA1 showed up. For giggles and grins I wanted to see if they might be even somewhat close so put this clips together. Yesterday I tried doing some handheld and panning, the TA1 doesn't pan worth a darn. That footage wasn't close enough to being shot similarly, so I scrapped it to try this on a tripod.

Both cams are at "out of the box" settings of shooting 1080i. The GH2 has the 14-42 kits lens, the TA1 doesn't have any lens option. The only settings changed from factory are the clocks are set to time and the zoom levels to try and get similar footage.

Time of day 1:00 PM.
Shot outdoors in bright daylight.
Both cams shot off of same tripod.
Cost of GH2 w/lens $888.
Cost of TA1 $85.

I have a GH2 and love it. I'm already getting ready to buy another one. They make shooting on a "camera" a joy instead of a challenge.

So far I am really liking this GH2 too. What I have been wondering about for some time, could one of these minicams function for cutaways or an "escape hatch" should something go wrong with the "real" cam during a shoot?

The problem I see is the recording limit - 29m 59s unless you can get to the camera's every 30 minutes to press record again.

I guess you could set it up for a low shot at the front of the isle to catch the bride but you couldn't set it up at the back to catch her leave unless the ceremony is 29m.

what about mounting one in the bridal car to catch some footage?

I think that time limitation is limited to those sent to the UK. Mine has none that I know of, and that is here in the US.

Your idea of sticking it in the limo..... Dude...that idea seriously ROCKS !!!! :-)

actually. I think they all have the 30 minute limitation...it's a hardware heat issue

The GH2 does not suffer from overheating like other cameras. It also does not have a record time limit. The only limit is the size of your SD card. It's a very versital camera for weddings and events.

My GH2 purchased in the UK has a recording limit of 29:59 minutes. It also does 24/25/50fps but not 30/60fps.

It shoots some nice looking video but in comparison to the Canon 5DII or 7D it feels like a cheap little plastic toy in my hands. The system allows for some nice features like continuous AF & OIS but sadly the only lenses that support this are not great in low light e.g. the 14-42 kit lens is F3.5-5.6. I can use some lovely old Canon FD lenses with an adaptor but they are of course manual only & also weigh more than the camera & hence make it unbalanced being so nose heavy. I won't be selling my Canon 5DII anytime soon.

That's a drag about the UK version. Isn't there a law about continuous recording limits over there? Is that a security thing?

Everything I have read about it, if it can record 30 minutes or more it is a camcorder and taxed at a higher rate. The GH1s had the same issue, unless it was hackable and you fixed the limitations with the hack.

Ironically the extra tax isn't very much as the EU customs duty on a camcorder is 4.9% while it is 0% for a stills camera. By way of comparison VAT (sales tax) is 20-25% depending on the country. So the retail price in the UK would only be about £30 more if it could record clips over 30 minutes in length.

It's not in the same class as in the past when specific European models of DV camcorders without Firewire input were produced because otherwise they were classed as VCRs with an import duty of 14.9%.

the specs I got from the B&H website and the panasonic website gave me the limitation - can you PLEASE check - cause if it's just limited to card size, I'm ordering a few of them (we are talking about the TA1 here - not the GH1)

If the size is close to the iphone I wonder if you could use the new iphone steadicam for it?

if there's no time limitation I think it would be worth throwing a few around the church - angle on brides / grooms parents, low angle in the isle for approaching bride - same at the back for departing bride.

it's extra footage to cope with but you might get a nice tear from the MOB or a great shot of the flowergirl etc.

and what about a mini video booth? whack it in a frame and stick it to the wall - okay maybe that's a bit much

Paul I lit this one up and just let it run. I went dark on the screen sometime later which I assumed meant it quit recording. I pulled out the clip and dropped it in Premiere it lasts exactly 29 minutes 59 seconds and 24 frames. The clip size was 2.6 gig and I was set at 1080p/30. On the good side there still was plenty of battery left if you have the chance to close and restart, it should get you quite a lot of footage.

I guess I stand corrected though, there obviously is a limit on these too.

bugger - I was getting excited! - still, no reason it wouldn't work for some things though, I think I'll get one anyway.

I know for most of the Sony P&S cams, 29 minutes is quoted as max clip length - you can always stop and restart as the cutoff point aproaches, losing only a couple seconds, way less than a tape change...