Shallow DOF on the GH2

With HDSLRs the talk is all about shallow depth of field and of course the ruling champion in that regard is the Canon 5D MKII, but that’s not to say you can’t get some pretty decent shallow DOF looks from some of the other popular HDSLR cameras on the market. One such camera is the Panasonic GH2. Using the Micro 4/3 sensor size, the GH2 has a sensor that is about 9 times larger than the average sensor in your common HD video camera including many professional HD camcorders. This larger sensor size, aside from improved image quality and low light capabilities, allows us to get the coveted shallow DOF look.

Like I said the Canon 5D MKII with its full frame 35mm sensor is the king of shallow DOF but don’t think for a moment that cameras like the GH2 can’t achieve a really nice DOF or Bokeh look. If you combine the techniques that have been used for years by shooters using 1/3 or 1/2.5″ sensor you can get a very shallow DOF effect that will isolate your subject in the frame and draw the viewers eye. Here is a small short done using the Panasonic GH2 and the Canon 50mm FD lens for the shallow DOF shots. There are a couple of DOF shots at the start and one in the middle.

DEMONSTRATION OF THE TECHNICOLOR CINESTYLE SETTINGS FOR CANON CAMERAS

I use my Canon DSLRs to capture both stills and video. As a still camera you always have the option of capturing you photos in the RAW form which gives you a tremendous amount of data to work with when manipulating the image. In video mode however the camera must do everything it can to reduce the amount of data it is generating in order to get as much video onto the limited space of a memory card. I know, it’s kinda hard to think of a 16 Gig or 32 gig memory card as limited but when it comes to video they are just that. With this in mind the camera does what it can to fit the video image into a small 8 bit color space. In the process of doing this a lot of information can be lost from the video image. This lost data can make it very hard to “grade” film term, for adjusting the look. So the good folks at Technicolor developed a better picture style for the Canon cameras which gets much more visual data into the video than would normally be possible. This extra data makes editing and coloring the video much easier. Here is a video I made to demonstrate how much additional data is captured when using the CineStyle profile. When you watch this you will find yourself saying “I like the look of the Standard profile best” and that’s fine but this is what you might want as an end result after you edit, not what comes right out of the camera. Here is the demonstration:

The CineStyle profile can be found here at the Technicolor web site, CineStyle Profile for Canon Cameras .