Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH1

Motion (8.80)

The motion on the Panasonic GH1 was quite good, although it varied drastically depending on what shooting mode was used. The camera’s full HD mode will probably be the one used by most people as it captures 1920 × 1080 HD video using the AVCHD codec—just like a traditional HD camcorder. When recording full HD video with the GH1, the camera captures the footage at 60i, but it’s outputted at 24 frames per second (24p). This is the same method used by Panasonic’s Digital Cinema Mode and Canon’s 24p and 30p options on its consumer camcorders. This is something that sets the GH1 apart from the Canon T1i and Nikon D5000, both of which record with natively progressive frame rates. The results between native and non-native24p modes aren’t very different, although compatibility issues could arise in the editing process.

The Panasonic GH1’s full HD mode was fairly choppy and had quite a bit of trailing. Still, the motion was better than what we saw with the Nikon D5000 and Canon T1i. We noticed less artifacting on the GH1 and the video had minimal interference. The biggest problem was with blurring, which we noticed more when we watched the video on a computer than on our HD Television. For smoother motion and less blur, we found the lower resolution AVCHD modes looked much better. These modes only record at 1280 × 720, however, so they’re not capturing full HD video, but they record using a 60p frame rate. This 60 frames per second footage is incredibly smooth, looks natural, and captures motion very well.

Recording with MJPEG compression on the GH1 produced entirely different results than AVCHD. All the MJPEG settings record using a 30p frame rate, which produced very smooth, quick motion. In fact, the motion was much quicker than we expected to see from 30p, especially when we compared it to the Nikon D5000 (also records at 30p with MJPEG). There was more artifacting in the GH1’s MJPEG footage, but the motion itself looked quite good—and it is very easy for a computer to handle and edit. More on how CamcorderInfo tests motion.

The GH1 didn’t have the horrendous rolling shutter that plagued the Canon T1i and Nikon D5000. We noticed a bit of a jiggling problem when we panned very quickly with the camera, but it was nowhere near what we saw with the other video-capable DSLRs.

The Canon T1i offers a strange frame rate for its 1920 × 1080 recording. It captures video at 20 frames per second, which is quite slow, and you can definitely notice its speed lagging in our motion test. The camera can do 30 frames per second, but only with a lower video resolution of 1280 × 720. We’re disappointed that Canon didn’t offer a 24p mode in any of its recording settings. Even though the Canon T1i’s motion looks good by some accounts (it has very little blur and artifacting), the speed of its 20p frame rate is just too slow.

The Nikon D5000 probably has the worst motion of the video-capable DSLRs we’ve tested. Its MJPEG codec produces quite a bit of artifacting and the motion looks very choppy even though it is 30p. The camera also produced a lot of interference, especially in the black and white pinwheel on our testing footage. Straight lines came out jagged and artifacting is prominent in our RGB pinwheel as well.

Even with the improvements introduced by the Panasonic GH1, it isn’t capable of matching the motion on the HDC-HS300 (an HD camcorder from Panasonic). The HDC-HS300 records full HD video with a 60i frame rate. The interlaced frame rate does produce some blur and trailing, but the motion is much smoother than any video-capable DSLR is capable of at a 1920 × 1080 resolution.

Click here to view a higher quality version Click here to view a higher quality version Click here to view a higher quality version Click here to view a higher quality version More...

Video Sharpness (10.97)

Recording full HD video with the Panasonic GH1, we measured a horizontal sharpness of 750 line widths per picture height (lw/ph). The camera’s vertical resolution came in at 650 lw/ph. These are the same results we got with the HDC-HS300, which isn’t all that surprising considering bot models are manufactured by Panasonic. The Canon T1i pulled out a slightly higher sharpness score when we used its 1920 × 1080 video resolution setting. Keep in mind, however, that the T1i can only record at 20 frames per second when shooting full HD.

The Nikon D5000 is a step behind the rest of the models here because it shoots at a maximum resolution of 1280 × 720. This lower resolution is still HD, but it isn’t full HD. This means the camera really can’t capture the level of sharpness or detail that the other products are capable of. More on how CamcorderInfo tests video sharpness.

Low Light Sensitivity (2.77)

The Panasonic GH1 didn’t have very good low light sensitivity, although its results were better than the Canon T1i. The camera needed 17 lux of light to reach 50 IRE on our waveform monitor—an amount that’s nearly double what the Panasonic HDC-HS300 needed. In the camera’s 60p record mode (720/60p) it needed even more light, 36 lux, to reach 50 IRE. Testing the 720/30p record mode, which uses the MJPEG codec instead of AVCHD, 31 lux of light was needed. All of these scores aren’t very good, although the 17 lux performance at 24p isn’t awful.

We expected a better low light sensitivity performance coming from the GH1, mainly because the HS300 did so well with this test, but also because it is a DSLR with a huge CMOS sensor. Still, we’ve noticed a number DSLR cameras struggling with low light sensitivity. The Canon T1i had a pitiful 26 lux performance in both its 20p and 30p record modes. The Nikon D5000 is the best video-capable DSLR we’ve tested so far when it comes to low light sensitivity. It required only 11 lux (shooting at 24p) to produce 50 IRE. Unfortunately, we have yet to see a DSLR camera that really blows the consumer camcorder competition out of the water on this test.