Burning Crow Pictures

The last couple of days I have noticed a couple of videos posted from the GH1 that have had high ISO settings and yet looked pretty good. The highest ISO setting the GH1 has for its HD video mode is 1600 ISO. I decided to do a comparison test of the 3 different B&W modes to see how they hold up to the highest ISO with low light. The surprising thing in this test is that there was very little noise which was not what I expected. I chose the B&W modes because I was having a discussion with one of the DVXuser forum members on which they thought looked more like grainy film. I stated that at 1600 you should get a grainy look to it but I decided to put it to the test. After the test it wasn’t that grainy at all and immediately my ideas started to flow about a B&W picture with minimal lighting. It was shot at 720p 60p with 1/125 shutter. I was surprised how much light the camera picked up at that shutter speed but that was because of the high ISO. I will be putting it through some more testing but already I’m seeing some potential. And this was the stock lens which was pretty slow at f5.3. It is only an f4 Zoom lens so a fast prime would only make things better.

Panasonic GH1
720p 60p @ 1/125 shutter conformed to 23.98fps
1600 ISO @ f5.3 Stock Lens set to 35mm (70mm equivalent)
Light source one medium window about 8 feet away indirect.
Black & White Film Modes
Standard: Contrast +2; Sharpness -2; Noise Reduction -2
Dynamic: Contrast +2; Sharpness -2; Noise Reduction -2
Smooth: Contrast 0; Sharpness -2; Noise Reduction -2