These cameras I have either used myself or been involved in a project were they were used.
Panasonic Lumix GH1
- Interchangeable Lense (Micro Four Thirds)
- Very small and light-weight (meaning mounting it somewhere, e.g. on the hood of a car, with something like a Guerilla Pod and some Gaffer Tape is very easy and doesn’t require much space)
- You can adjust shutter speed, aperture, ISO, focussing manually
- Produces great quality video when used right (has weaknesses in low light), even better when used with the firmware hack
- Its 50p/60p modes allow nice slow motion effects (good for action sequences)
- High-quality movable viewfinder which serves well as a poor man’s field monitor, e.g. when using with stabilizer rigs or simply when checking the shot while standing in front of the camera (imagine a shot inside of a car, you might not even be able to get your head behind the camera)
- Very cheap (used ca. 300$ on ebay body only)
- Connector for external microphone although with auto gain but in many situations this is good enough
Panasonic Lumix GH2
All the same as above but
- Better quality with suboptimal light (also increasable to incredible levels using the firmware hack)
- You can use an external HDMI monitor while filming (which is simply more convenient for checking focus and having other people, e.g. the director, check the shot while filming)
- Microphone connector gain can be adjusted (more control over sound)
- A feature called Extra Tele Conversion which is more or less a digital zoom with no quality loss explained very well here. I find it interesting but haven’t had a situation in one of my projects where it was needed. Currently the top application I can think of is filming wild animals from a large distance or paparazzi-style filming ;-).
- More expensive (used >500$ on ebay body only)
I own them both and I am very happy with them.
- Very good image quality even in low light
- It is a beast in size and weight compared to the GH1/GH2. I think that is a disadvantage, however minor, most of the time because in some cases it means you need stronger equipment to mount it (e.g. to the hood of a car) compared to a lightweight camera as the Panasonics. However some people (especially guys with big hands) prefer to have a larger camera in their hands. I personally think this is rarely relevant as for filming you usually use some kind of rig or tripod.
- More expensive (>1500$ used body only)
- Lenses are typically more expensive than for the Panasonics
- All of the above but better image quality
- Probably some more improvements vs. the Mark II
- More expensive (about 2800$ new, probably not many used available)
I don’t want to get into religious debates about which camera is better. The web is full of that. From the few first-hand impressions I got, I would say the Canon 5Ds are probably the cameras with the better overall image quality (probably only visible to most people only in shots in low light) but for the price difference between the Panasonics and Canons (including some lenses) you can easily buy a basic lighting equipment and good microphone and a number of other things. So if money is tight and you want to make films for fun and festivals, I would go with a GH1 or GH2. On the other hand, you will probably be able to sell a Canon in good condition for a good price if you quit filming or move on to another camera, so it may not be that much of a risk if spending the money does not hurt.
