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Official Panasonic GH3 topic
  • 1288 Replies sorted by
  • The cam looks great, look at that huge list of improvements few posts above! I am sure it will tick many boxes with many people. I will not be buying it, as my upgrade cycles are very slow, and honestly, nothing revolutionary here, which is just common sense for a traditional company like Panny. I will be buying a Panasonic product soon though, the 14mm pancake to use with my GF2 :) If my GH2 breaks, I'll get another one, works really well for me and it will last me for some time to come. If blackmagic made a BMCC with a MFT sensor, that would be great, but in best case that is some 2 years off so... A lot can happen. I am not "switching to an HD 4:2:0 8-bit, I have had that since 2005, and latitude aside, GH2 still rocks in right hands.

    I am pretty sure my next cam will be RAW, and I'll be able to store and edit the footage by then without headaches. I will probably be using the same lenses as well :) or maybe complementing them with a more "modern looking" manual set like Samyangs or, the way things are going Voigtlanders or SLR Magic. Maybe I'd get the GH3 if my GH2 went AWOL and the GH3 was hacked and at the same price point... But I take care of my stuff so unlikely.

    Just my 2 cents, I really like the cam and there is something for everyone (admit it some juicy things). But I don't really like owning equipment - the lenses are good, because it's better to have a good set of FDs than renting whatever (prostituted) glass and being held responsible for it. GH2, however, costs very little (as does GH3) and all your team can have one and be ready to get to work right away. Otherwise, I am sure it is pretty much the same everywhere - here in Barcelona Alexa is 600-950€ a day and Red 1 is a few hundred to rent. If the client or the agency insist, you get that and use it. Most times shooting RAW is easier as all you have to worry about is exposure (although the lighting freelance guys here can suck real bad). Spanish clients can be so possesive and want the footage "to go" right away.

    Just my point of view - I have an iPhone 4, 2 years ago I thought that phone was cool since it had an insanely high screen resolution. Then came 4S, and now the iPhone5. All I did is get a plastic protector, so my iPhone 4 can last me another 2 years until something I NEED comes out. Like @Vitaly said some weeks ago, I also think pretty soon serious features will become standard like RAW, 4K etc. You will get that when the manufacturers feel they have no other option, and it is only the question who will be the first to undercut the others.

    All this may seem offtopic, but it is actually how I think all the time - do I need this, is this a waste etc.

    And something else I must share - an aquaintaince of mine bought his first SLR today. A Canon 600D or whatever. OK, who buys a camera on the Photokina opening day - probably will be 20% less next week. When I mentioned this, He went online to see what Photokina is and was already depressed with the purchase because it is not full frame. :) I'll bet you he'll be getting an FF for Christmas, as the stock lens will be disappointing :)

    This is how Canon makes money. Panny is just too sophisticated for these people who think they need an archaic camera with a MIRROR in it and a lens that looks like a scythe to be "pro". And so is Blackmagic. RED were right on money to make every screw look like it is taken out of an ICBM and mega-military. Same with Tilta from China. People are scared and need something intimidating. So it was good to see the GH3 buffed up and all serious today! Panny might have been screwing us with their 5-year plan, but then someone took note and gave them a run for their money! Any Panny pro video announcements? I'd love to see that! 4:2:2, 10-bit and 4:4:4 12-bit RAW "is clearly what differentiates us"..... save it!

  • After looking at "genesis" today on a big screen, I must say it does look pretty good..

  • All professional cameras store meta data. Look at the red. Each frame is still just a still image. There would be no difference in recording timecode, audio or meta data in the video file.

  • @Kholi, what's wrong with All-I and in particular this cameras rendition of All-I? Without knowing how much improved the front end processing is, I don't think it's gonna be easy to really say how good this All-I mode will end up being.

    I can't wait for there to be more real world tests so we can know for sure just what this camera can do. I'm convinced we likely haven't seen the best from this camera yet. I'm very excited to see that Pany gave us more adjustment range in settings, which was high on my list of new features. IT seems to me that with a wider range we're likely to see a lot of difference in the look of footage from this camera. With the GH2 we really didn't have as much control over the look.

  • The first all-Intra 72Mbps 1080p25 file I've examined has the following properties:

    1. High 5.0 profile, 8-bit 4:2:0 color depth.
    2. Each Intra frame contains about 3Mbytes data
    3. Both 8x8 and 4x4 quant matrices used in each I-frame

    The all-Intra H.264 encoder uses 8x8 macroblocks to encode smooth, low-detail areas without noticeable banding or posterization. It uses 4x4 macroblocks to encode sharp edges and highly-detailed areas. The GH3 doesn't appear to lower its bitrate much with low-detail scenery, it looks like it's configured to encode at the highest quality it can within its 72Mbps bitrate. I suspect highly detailed scenes will force the encoder to use mostly 4x4 macroblocks, which would make it operate more like the GH2 AVCHD encoder hacked with a GOP-1 patch. In that case, the GH3's fixed 72Mbps bitrate may not be enough to maintain the highest possible image quality.

  • @Aria

    Well, so far none of the footage looks inspiring. And, yeah, we can say that it's web compressed but I've seen plenty enough web compressed footage, and a decent compression job with GH2 footage still turns out what feels like a much more resilient image.

    I'm not knocking the camera early, it just looks like it's going to come down to this community again to make it happen, or an external recorder to ProRes. Combined with more DR/flexibility it should be good.

    @plasmasmp

    It does have a very slight Sony edge, right? The motion doesn't look Sony, but there's like a hint of that there. So weird.

  • The funny guys are the ones who want RAW on a FF with photo lenses so they can make "art" of the sesame seed bun in the mcdonalds while badly recorded audio "narrates":) Enter your narration here (should include at least 5 instances of "like" in a sentence to qualify). I can see GH3 being a great tool out of the box - these products are not about "magic" they are efficient and very, very good!

  • Weird that you guys don't think it looks sharp. The genesis 1080p download is razor sharp in most places, IMO. Some of the outdoor wides on the cat video aren't, but it looks like an exposure or diffraction issue, to me.

  • @plasmasmp Don't know, I saw a lot of ugly blow out highlight in this video. I now feel that the video look a bit like af100 footage.

  • @kellar42

    Not to me, honestly. I'm not being overly critical, but it all looked super soft. Just look at GH2 footage floating around and compare it, and heck just to be that guy... go and check out Jon Carr's Magic Cam footage... the argument will be 2.5K, but that's not enough to resolve an actual 1080 anyway.

    I'm not being harsh, it just seems like there's work to be done for those that want the GH2: Extended Version that we were looking for. Can't get it all for nothing!

  • I think it's unrealistic to expect 13 stops type of DR. I was expecting about 11 stops. Some of the early reports is that it handles low light better. Perhaps they still don't have great highlight handling. IMO as long as I can expose for the highlights and they give me much improved lows then i'm good. As long as there's enough latitude to bring up the image in post and have a solid clean image then that's realistic to me. We'll have to wait and see just how far this image can be tweaked in camera and pushed in post.

  • The Genesis 1080p download is outstanding, watch it the bigger screen the better, VERY sharp and more VERY filmic.

  • @kellar42 it is how I look at most of my footage. 70% is taken away before we can even see it (Spain rocks, so they can blame the tech team if they don't like it- try to get a re-shoot LOL) Sharp is never the reason. Banding is never the reason. Crane movement is always commended, BUT someone's daughter walked into the frame too late as she was too busy... with other things. That is why this cam will not do me good. The footage needs to be smashing to laugh all the douchebags away right off the bat!

  • @allenswrench i understand you 100%. RAW is the FUTURE or even the present with BMCC. @RRRR @Jizzyjones i have download bloom's upload and watched it on 32" HD TV and blew me away.

    BUT STILL: is GH3 good enough to upgrade (and spend 1500€) from hacked GH2?

  • I am really excited about the wide dynamic range. there should be a comparison to gh2. i will try one tomorrow. :)

  • It seems to me that once you learn the camera, not much different than any other camera, there shouldn't be a lot of bad footage being shot for someone to critique. Surely we haven't seen any footage that suggests this camera isn't capable of producing good image quality. Heck we don't even know what settings were used to do the "Genesis" video.

    This camera has far more range of settings than the GH1 or GH2 so there's a lot that can go wrong in terms of sharpness, contrast etc. Especially if you're using a lot of different lenses as they did in the "Genesis" video. I think that's likely part of the inconsistency of the image in the video. Plus the lack of familiarity with the camera in general.

    There has to be a lot of range of difference between the look of the SLRMagic 12mm, Oly 14-35 f2 and the Pany 12-35mm f2.8. Not to mention all the other factors. I'm trying to read some of the clues here and I saw enough image clues in certain scenes to tell that there's a lot of good qualities to this cameras image if what I saw was any indication of the possibilities. It's gonna take much more time and experimentation to find the sweet spot of the GH3.

  • @mlysbakken i know, i know...but i have no time to watch it...:-(((( but nooow heheh !!!

  • @MovieArmada I will be using GH2 for a long time, since I don't want to wait for the BMCC or buy zillion of terrabytes of disks. It's great but it is not practical yet. How do I retain all the footage? Forget it. BMCC might be the first cheapo RAW camera, but it will probably be remembered as a first cheap DNxHD and 10 bit camera! Ironic!

  • @allenswrench True. But still if you are shooting a good planned fiction, RAW will give you some much room in the PP. Off course ProRes and DNxHD are a great options. @Aria we use DSLR because they are Small, versatile and CHEAP, this guys make a 4 minute movie with 30K of lens budget in it! That kind of kills it no?

  • I did not see any mention of HDR in Video, though.

  • Hi, I love that it's gh cameras are more of an evolution [sorta] rather than a revolution. Really, Arri was always that way, inching ahead and producing failsafe cameras.

    Red - the revolution came along, just like a holy new ford passenger car, re-designed from the ground up, filmed rising up out of the lake for a tv ad... Red's great camera, nice images, but holy! can you get into technical hot water on location!

    With the little gh2, I've always felt confident on a job, because everything works as advertised. Having a second or third body around is easy. Hats off to panasonic for listening and doing their best to produce a great new updated product that people will like. I hope I can get one asap. I just wonder where I should order from.

    Thanks to the folks who made the effort to go to the trade show and to the filmmakers and photogs who tested the camera. (even if it was promotional material).

  • @Kholi I agree, looks soft.

  • @danyyyel

    By the way, i think that DR is improved in the black tones, i don't find highlight handling to be very good in pampuri's video.

  • @kholi I hear ya, and would never suspect you of a less than rational response to any of these cameras. There is just something in bits of that Genesis 1080p that I really like. Perhaps I have not analyzed GH2 clips at full res downloads lately. Perhaps this camera can be hacked as well. Time will tell.

    I'm a big BMC fan, as well, but would only go for the MTF lens mount which seems aways off. Plus it's more than twice the price and the storage yadda yadda...

  • @kholi yeah i feel the same thing, BMC its a great camera but it will force you to spend some extra bucks to pimp it up, even in Post. But its a RAW - ProRes - DNxHD camera. And it just amazes me how a small player can come up with a camera like that and all this big players can't... or won't... @Vitaliy_Kiselev should look into that camera :) Still i don't think i will ever sell my "old" GH2 VK pimped :)

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