Low light video comparison of GM1, GH2, GX1, G5, GF3

A test of the Panasonic GM1, Panasonic GH2 (hacked with Cake 2.3), Panasonic GX1 (hacked with Galaxian V1), Panasonic G5, Panasonic GF3, and Panasonic GF3 (hacked with Cake 2.3) ...

Two candles light a simple scene and I film each for about a minute and a half. The lens is the Pentax 50mm 1.4 set at f/2.0 and mounted using a simple Fotga adapter. Each camera used A prio mode with shutter speed fixed at 1/50s using flicker reduction. Iso floats on all of the cameras. The exception to this is the GH2, which does not seem to offer flicker reduction, so I went completely manual with the same aperture and shutter, and with 3200ISO set. Note that I set each of the cameras to the highest i.dynamic setting to open the shadows.

Note that the GH2 has a slightly wider angle of view owing to the multi-aspect sensor in 16:9 mode.

Quality-wise, all are surprisingly good. Some notes, though:

-- The GM1 smokes all of the rest. Surprisingly, it appears to smoke the GH2, despite using only 1/3 of the bandwidth. Note, though, that there is no real movement here, so the higher bandwidth does not really come into play.
-- The GH2 is very close in detail to the GM1. The tone curve is slightly harsher, though.
-- All of the cameras responded very differently to their i.dynamic settings.
-- The GX1 has low volume on its audio.
-- The GX1 was not focused perfectly, so it gives up a bit of clarity. My fault.
-- The G5 looks a tad noisier, but do note that the shadows are very open.
-- The dynamic range on the GH2 and G5 is a bit worse than the rest, at least where the candle light is concerned. Harsh edges and too much spill.
-- The GF3 suffers from far too much noise reduction, smearing the brush tips no matter how little NR I ask it for. Panasonic blew that one, as the sensor is otherwise pretty excellent.