How to hack your Panasonic GH2

bradley / December 5, 2011 / No comments

The hack for the Panasonic GH2 has been around for a while and has opened up so much of the potential hidden away inside this camera. It’s capable of some outstanding results and with the latests software allows filming up to ISO 12800 if you need it. It’s actually useable especially if you shoot in black and white.

It’s not all that difficult to hack the firmware and can be done in a few simple steps with minimum risk. Just make sure you have a fully charged battery and don’t try it with the mains adaptor incase you have a power failure!

You will need to download some software from the links below:

Use this link: www.gh1-hack.info/wiki/PToolSoftware

Download the ptool file and the Panasonic firmware and place the two in the same folder. (Mac users can use Wine to run Ptool)
Use this link: www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/953/gh2-patch-vault#Item_4

Download a preset file. There are many to choose from! For simplicity try the 4th post down by mpgxsvcd. Or, use what I’ve used which comes from the 8th post down by sohus. If you download his zip file and move all the .ini settings files to the same folder as the ptool software you will have the same options that I’ve got in the video. I recommend using Setting A or B to start with and experiment with the others if you wish.

Now watch the video:

 

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Category: Film and Video, Tutorials /

New Michael Watts video now online!

bradley / October 22, 2011 / No comments

Last weekend during the nice sunny autumn weather I went down to Brighton to film a short track with the excellent guitarist Michael Watts. I’ve worked with him before on several of his compositions and have filmed and recorded him playing live. As the weather was so good we decided to try something outside up on the south downs just north of Brighton.

You can see the results below:

It was filmed using two Panasonic GH cameras (A GH1 and GH2). Both have been hacked to film at a much higher bit rate than the standard camera can manage. The audio was recorded using a pair of Beyerdynamic MC930 microphones running into a Motu traveller connect to a macbook pro running Logic. Several foam windshields were used to try to minimise wind noise.

The final video was edited in Adobe Premiere Pro and colour graded using Magic Bullet Looks.

Thanks for watching!

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Category: Film and Video, Recording and Production /

Grace Saif performing ‘Decode’ by Paramore

bradley / October 20, 2011 / No comments

I was going through my past music projects this morning and came across a cover version of ‘Decode’ by Paramore that I produced for the singer Grace Saif. This was done about a year and a half ago and I don’t recall ever posting about it on my blog. She’s a great singer from the town of Crawley, West Sussex (www.myspace.com/gracesaif)

So, here is the song:

Decode Final v2 by bradleysteenkamp

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Category: Recording and Production /

Photographs from the british wildlife center

bradley / October 7, 2011 / No comments

During the fantastic weather last week I had the opportunity to attend a photography day at the british wildlife centre near Lingfield in Surrey. It’s a great place to view british wildlife such as red squirrels, foxes, badgers, barn owls etc. The photography days are excellent as they allow access to many of the enclosures which means you can get behind those dreaded fences!

This was one of my first opportunities photographing wildlife in a more serious environment and I was very pleased with the results. As expected I was the only Olympus DSLR user (took my e510 and e620 with me) but for wildlife they are great cameras due to the 2x crop factor. My main lens was the 50-200 f2.8-3.5 which is a 100-400 full frame equivalent. For a few closer shots I used my 14-54 f2.8-3.5.

You can view some of the images below which will link through to my smugmug account:

 

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Category: Uncategorized /

Latest wedding shoot!

bradley / September 23, 2011 / No comments

I’ve just completed the editing process of 800 images taken at a wedding two weeks ago on the beautiful island of Guernsey. My wife and I were hired to shoot the wedding of a friends sister. This gave us a great opportunity to spend a few days on the island, a place I highly recommend to anyone to visit. We took four cameras with us, a Panasonic GH1, GH2 and Olympus e510 and e620. Some might say theses are unusual cameras for a wedding shoot! For me it’s really about the lenses. We used the following: Panasonic 20mm f1.7, Olympus 14-54 f2.8-3.5 and 50-200 f2.8-3.5. These are all great lenses and perfect for this type of photography. The 20mm f1.7 was used by my wife for almost all of the pre wedding preparation shots, it’s a perfect lens for available light photography. I stuck with the Olympus cameras and found the 50-200 f2.8-3.5 to be ideal for the indoor church shots. The wide maximum aperture of f2.8 (which maintains from 50mm to about 95mm) lets in enough light to be able to shoot at iso 1600 or below inside a church without using flash (often not permitted during the ceremony). Please have a look at some of the images below:

Here are a few of our random photos taken while exploring the island:

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Category: Photography /

Willow Media

bradley / September 20, 2011 / No comments

After working mainly on my own as a freelancer for the last few years my wife (Amelia) and I decided to launch our video, audio and photography production business under the name Willow Media. The name was inspired by the name of our house: Willow Cottage.

We’ve mostly recently completed a wedding photography project on the island of Guernsey (channel islands). Some of the images can be viewed in the gallery below. If you are anyone you know happens to be looking for two professional but affordable wedding photographer then please get in touch! We are based in West Sussex, near Horsham, Crawley and Brighton but are more than happy to travel.

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Category: Photography /
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