Invested in one of these babies recently. As a Nikon shooter it’s not cool to have a separate body for video, of course, but the Nikon offerings in this area right now aint great and going to Canon isn’t an option either (mainly in financial terms).  I was also itching after a lighter system to take into the mountains for a couple of reasons, firstly for less uphill pain since I’m getting old, and, secondly, to have less weight on my back for the descents so I can actually enjoy the riding more. Okay, there’s gonna be days when I’ll want the Nikon performance and superior IQ of the lenses (14-24mm!) but I think there are many other times when I can live without it. Slightly less IQ, particularly at higher ISO’s, in return for more riding enjoyment and general mobility. Don’t get me wrong, when I get paid to do stills, I’ll grab the Nikon gear first, but when it’s my own time lightness is going to win.

One of the things that also got me hooked on the GH1 was the Nikon F mount adapter, thus allowing the use of my D-type primes. I chose the Vögtlander one, it’s a bit cheaper than the Novoflex and still great quality. In the pic, lenses from left to right are: 35mm f/2, 20mm f/2.8, 14-140 f/4-5.6 Lumix, 50mm f/1.8, 85mm f/1.8.  All the primes are great glass and have the manual aperture ring, so perfect for vid and shallow DOF. Not so good for autofocus tracking and linearly closing the aperture, but for now, that’s what the kit 14-140mm is for. Camera metering still works just fine. In the coming months I can see the 7-14mm f/4 on the horizon, since it looks sweet too.  Apparently there’s also a 8mm fisheye getting developed.

Here’s a short clip from the Nikon lenses, it’s me riding so the action is mega-lame, but you get the idea.  Edited in FCP since Premier was so freaking painful it’s unbelievable. Light was shit, but, hey, not really seen any decent light for a week now.

Goofing about from Big Col on Vimeo.

The AVCHD files off the GH1 are a little problematic. I chose to film in AVCHD 720p 16:9 50fps then convert the clips to MOV files using VoltaicHD, which seems to do a pretty good job. Import these into FCP, cut then export with QuickTime format in h.264 codec plus a little quality compression. Relatively painless. Gonna be more soon, once the Spring time light hits the air…

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