Comments on: Panasonic GH1 user experiences

By: Jim Miesner

Jim Miesner — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 03:28:37 +0000

Awesome! I look forward to it.

By: Sami Sänpäkkilä

Sami Sänpäkkilä — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 20:06:53 +0000

Yes, 24mm definately my most used lens. Next up 50mm. I’ve only used 85 and 135 for a few selected tripod shots.

I recently bought a 12mm Noktor f1.6 m4/3 lens. I will do a review of it in a few weeks once I’ve used it more!

By: Jim Miesner

Jim Miesner — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 18:55:07 +0000

Hey Sami,

Is the 24mm your go to lens for handheld? How do the 85 and 135 do on a good tripod?

By: Manuel

Manuel — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 00:06:58 +0000

Hey Sami

Txs a lot for the whole information, what about lents? Have you tried the Sony NEX Vg10?

Best regards from Argentina

Manuel

By: Sami Sänpäkkilä | My awesome 2010!

Sami Sänpäkkilä | My awesome 2010! — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 19:28:40 +0000

[...] GH1 and later hacked it with the “GH13″ hack. You can read more about this in my GH1 user experiences blog. I’ve shot loads of paid gigs with this tiny handy very good quality camera and have done [...]

By: Sami Sänpäkkilä

Sami Sänpäkkilä — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 21:00:54 +0000

Hey Daniel,

The handles are redrock micro, everything else is off ebay from a South Korean seller whose products unfortunately are not listed anymore. It’s cheap and really really good quality and durable. I can’t recommend the redrock micro handles, they’re both started to get loose, they aren’t rigid anymore. I also wouldn’t recommend the shoulder mount from redrock, its way too big and very clumsy to attach anything to it properly.

Sami

By: Daniel Syvertsen

Daniel Syvertsen — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:31:18 +0000

Hi Saimi,

Great website. I really like your work. Is that a redrock micro rig you use for handheld work? It looks great. Does it work well with the GH1 lcd screen.

By: Sami Sänpäkkilä

Sami Sänpäkkilä — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 15:57:32 +0000

Yep, I had a look in ebay and the seller (gini.1980) isnt selling anything at the moment. A shame cause it’s a really good rig and not that expensive.

By: Jim Miesner

Jim Miesner — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 15:49:49 +0000

Thanks Sami. I will keep my eyes out, if you see it somewhere let me know.

By: Sami Sänpäkkilä

Sami Sänpäkkilä — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 18:50:18 +0000

Hi Jim,

Sorry totally missed your last comment here. Only the handles are Redrock micro. The shoulder mount thing was bought from ebay, I cant find it on ebay anymore though.

By: Jim Miesner

Jim Miesner — Wed, 19 May 2010 00:04:30 +0000

Nice rig too. Is this the micro shoulder mount? What is attached to it?

By: Jim Miesner

Jim Miesner — Tue, 18 May 2010 18:01:06 +0000

Thanks Sami,

I am going to test out my skills and see if its doable. The nice thing about the US NTSC GH1 is that it doesn’t have a record limit. Like the website, nice job.

Jim

By: Sami Sänpäkkilä

Sami Sänpäkkilä — Sun, 16 May 2010 16:52:21 +0000

Hi Jim,

Not crazy at all. Of course you need to be aware of the limitations like 30 min record limit. I shot a live gig with it recently and it turned out awesome. I would go for it!

Sami

By: Jim Miesner

Jim Miesner — Sun, 16 May 2010 13:33:32 +0000

Hi,

I’ve trying to use the gh1 foe live events like weddings. Is it doable to do live doc/events without the kit lens? Been told that would be crazy because I would lose auto focus.

Jim

By: marooka

marooka — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 00:03:08 +0000

“Taking a few steps back to get good angle”
F1.4 lens is already sold, but at least I got great wisdom which can work for almost any situation in the life.

Thank you muchly,
marooka

By: Sami Sänpäkkilä

Sami Sänpäkkilä — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 07:49:55 +0000

Yes I think that will be a good purchase. It’s true that there will be a crop factor and getting a good wide angle lens will be somewhat expensive and difficult. It’s one of the things you have to work around with by taking a few steps back :)

Sami

By: marooka

marooka — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 00:25:03 +0000

Thanks for the quick response! Ok, please let me ask you one thing very elementary.

Some people suggest me to start with bright 50mm lens also, but since the focal length will be twice as actual on every micro 4/3 cam, is it regarded as 100mm lens on GH1? If so, is 50mm lens still good for starter? Or should I look for the shorter one perhaps?

I could get used Nikon FD 50mm F1.4 lens very cheap, so I wish my question made sense to you.

yours,
marooka

By: Sami Sänpäkkilä

Sami Sänpäkkilä — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 18:32:18 +0000

Hi Marooka!

You’re absolutely to the point. You should look into bying a few old Nikon or Canon still lenses, maybe start with 20-24mm and 50mm. Honestly those are the only lenses I’ve used the past year. I could live with only two lenses. Great thing is that you can always buy more. Definately the kit lens is not worth the money if you can get a body for $500.

The footage is somewhat flexiple when it comes to color correction and with a little care you can make it look amazing! I’m always willing to answer any questions if I can :)

Good luck, and thanks for the kind words!

By: marooka

marooka — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 14:13:37 +0000

Hi Sami,
I’m about to purchasing GH1 and H4n for my personal video-making project as soon as my internship as an assistant of the assistant of the photographer (well, long story) lasts in a week. If I had not seen your performance in Ghent 4 years ago, I would never have been a film/video-art fan as I am now, so quite surprising for me that you own both gears I am going to buy after a half year long consideration.
Well, Nikon D90 seemed nice for my first decent video camera at first, but found it could only take 5 mins movie maximum so I passed. Then my pal told me that with Olympus E-P1 you can use almost any lenses from any manufacturers but it can only take 7mins HD movies as well. I know 7 minutes is long enough compared to the duration 8mm film can hold, but I really love shooting people playing music so taking entire show/performance without break is big priority for me.
Then another micro four thirds cam GH1 came up on my mind! Honestly Panasonic had been out of my sight for a long time, but you can tell this one is the beast just by glancing the specs! In Japan you can buy GH1 with 14-140mm lens at $1100 approximately, so I have been saving money by not eating lunch for a couple of months (trust me, it worked).
So I was about to buy one with zoom lens, but now I have changed my mind a bit since I read your post… looks like 14-140mm kit lens is not necessary, maybe I will just buy the body of second-hand GH1 around $500 and get some old but nice single focus lenses by the savings. Must be really fun! I was kinda guilty about buying digital cam not film camera, but watching videos shooting by you with GH1, I feel I can add some analogue-vibe to my video by the choice of lenses and discipline. Right?
In the range I can afford there’s no competition for GH1 so far, but no XLR mic input is still problematic for me (I want to connect my lovely RODE N4 to the cam!) so I’ve been thinking coupling with handy recorder. Zoom H4 or H4n is the only ones with XLR input, I guess. As Sami already mentioned, 4-track MTR function is the nice extra. Also H4n has rotatable condenser mic like SONY’s pricy PCM-D50. Amazing.
Anyways, soon as finishing my internship next week, I will buy both GH1 and H4n. I know, I still need lenses and adapter and flash and some SDHC cards and … and new PC!!! Maybe more couple of months to go for self-starving… is anybody interested in my antique iBook G4? Your tips is very valuable for budget-filmmaker like me, so please keep posted! Well, I have bunch of things to ask about your gears, but I sense myself imitating you completely (I am one of the guys purchasing AKAI Headrush E1) so will keep some things mysterious this time.
Sorry for long, dull twitting. Here, almost an hour to midnight. Encoding.mp4 files is almost done and I will run for home!

Sincerely yours,
marooka

By: Sami Sänpäkkilä

Sami Sänpäkkilä — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 11:42:27 +0000

Hi Jan!

Thanks for the comments. All the shots are just me focusing as I go right from the lens. I just bought the DFocus but haven’t used it on a shoot yet. I’ll get in touch with you!

Sami