@longjohnsilver, @astro Exactly what I was talking about when I said trade-offs. Let's say that this is a Sony sensor (still doubt this heavily) but why would they move to a sony sensor to begin with? Maybe their own sensor designs just weren't quiet enough and in order to get the low banding/noise that we were bitching about before, they felt they had to move to another manufacturer, but at the cost of moire/aliasing and lack of MAR (another thing I highly doubt)? This forum has been spoiled with the hack and now wants an Alexa for 800$! I remember when just getting 44mbit from the GH1 was going to "revolutionize" everything we knew about DSLR video. Now we want focus peaking, 422(or better), virtually perfect video even under starlight, and whatever else someone thinks they should have. Hell, I want a blowjob port on the side of the camera! Why can't panny put that in there too? Isn't that something they can fix in the beta firmware too????

No matter what you say but I downloaded the original 1600 iso video sample posted by @AKED and the noise is nearly ZERO compared to my hacked GH2.

I wish I could use 1600 ISO on my GH2 underwater shots!

guys, what some of you are doing is seriously overdramatizing things and prematurally dismissing what seems to be quite an improved camera (dr, noise, build, etc.) having only seen one promo-video (PB) and a couple of few second clips (everything shot on a pre-production camera with a 0.4 firmware...)

@Atro I think you're dead on. The practical shooters here are scratching their heads thinking... eh! What gives, look at all these improvements, how can you be complaining!?

Then there's slightly impractical people like us, that thrive off the image alone. We could care less if it's made of cheap plastic, with odd noise / iso issues, banding etc. If it's got the image... we will make it work. I agree that the GH2 has a certain magic to it that hasn't been easy to find in other cameras. For some, they could care less. For others, it's a god-send because we see an innate cinematic quality in the GH2 that's hard to come by unless you have a very fat wallet.

You put it well I think, that if you've got the time and energy to set up shots properly with good lighting... then the GH2 will produce an image that simply can't be matched unless you've got 15k or more to spend. Although now with the BMCC, that's finally starting to change.

@aria I kind of have to blame panasonic for creating this tempest in a teapot. I look at panasonic's strategy for camera release compared to nikon's. Panasonic launch's one of the most anticipated cameras of the year by showing up with a handful of units, some more complete than others, but all running beta software. They say they'll start shipping by the end of the year, but we all know what that means.

Nikon on the other hand announces the d600 and starts shipping almost immediately. If panasonic was more organized and presented an actual complete product and shipped it promptly, there wouldn't be 1000 messages of speculation and anxiety.

@Vitaliy_Kiselev

Thanks Vitaliy... I am anxious to see what proves to be real vs. unfounded in the end.

@GH2UW You do realize that most of the variables you mentioned do not apply to the footage Dieter and the rest of the PV team at Photokina put up already, right? It has not been edited, nor transcoded or re-compressed if you just download the original files from the Vimeo site (which they considerately made available).

Now the differing GH3s at the show presents more of a variable.

@Astrp @Kazuo You guys are making me think back to the 90s, and when I was dreaming of being able to afford a good radiosity renderer but made due with mid-level software to render things for months at a time. Then I had my mind blown by the first screens from Final Fantasy:The Spirits Within. Say what you will about the box office receipts, but they changed the "face" of computer animation with that movie.

Anyway, I am very much willing to wait and see how the GH3 handles when it launches - to systematicaly put it through its paces. But there are some areas I will be looking at very intently to see whether I want one or not - and thanks to the MAR issue, I honestly cannot see myself on a GH3 shoot without a GH2 as well for acces to the crop I have grown accustomed to, etc.

@Nino_Ilacqua

Barry Green is pragmatic and talks a lot of sense from his own perspective (which should be expected to differ from others here), but we're not talking about a $5000 camcorder vs. a $1000 consumer model. Rather some folks who are trying to judge a bunch of unlit footage shot with preproduction firmware as evidence of a conspiracy or epic failure. I just don't see it. My GH2 looks like shit when I shoot unlit scenes too, in fact the noise looks like crap compared to the grain-like noise I see in the GH3 at higher ISO's.

I'm also glad to see that banding appears to have been fixed on the new model, that was the biggest pebble in my shoe with the GH2. Adding grain in an effort to defeat it often erased any detail advantage the hack may have provided and also extended the length of my rendering times dramatically. It will also be nice to run a camera that doesn't require I change ISO in a predetermined sequence or else face completely botched footage. Personally I am not looking for a religious experience when I pick up a camera, I just want a quality image with the least amount of workflow challenges. The GH2 is really great when all the stars line up, but there are plenty of things about it that I am looking forward to forgetting about.

@GH2UW Yep there is a lot of truth in what you say about evaluating for yourself, but the Vimeo complaint (many say that) I dont really buy, this clip for example (I know its only 720P...I have 1080P clips that look as good as this) Anyway it looks far better than any of the GH3 clips I have seen so far.

Pause it around 15 sec on...thats a great look (to my eyes) this look is quite unique to the GH2, I guess its now gone...maybe not, probably that's why Coppala liked it, its not just clarity (although it has that in spades) or DR or 4x4 matrixes or any of the other technical details, its a look, and I see it over and over with the GH2. But I havent seen it yet...not once with the GH3 and its not Vimeos fault. No matter how clever the engineers are at Panasonic or Sony, they may not be artists, thats another talent, so they only can make something thats technically good, has better luminance and so on...all good stuff, but somehow uninspiring.

That said I hope I am wrong, and will be happy to eat my words.

@kholi

Yep I read your posts...agreed!! Definitely...100%

To upgrade to GH3 or stay with GH2?

I see it this way: I bought my GH2 last year and like with other purchases (software, even cars).. I may well find I choose to skip one version and then leapfrog to the next; in this case, a hypothetical GH4.

I find myself thinking the way we did with Australian built Holden cars. There was a new model every year. The new body style came out one year; often with a few bugs. The following year, there was only a subtle body change but they got everything right under the bonnet.

Now, will the GH3 turn out to be like the new-body-style 1963 EJ? Or more of a rock-solid, different tail-lights, 1964 EH?

@Tron

Your posts seem to me me those of Barry Green when people complained about AF100...

@Astro

I wouldn't worry too much about how other people's video looks (particularly when it's uploaded to Vimeo). There is no real alternative to waiting for a GH3 (buy or borrow) and evaluating it yourself.

There are so many variables for settings, acquisition, editing and uploading that making a decision based on how someone else shot and edited their GH3 material is basically meaningless. For me anyway.

I'm getting one asap...and intend to test the crap out of it relative to my GH2's (different hack settings). Then I'll know if it's a worthwhile upgrade or not.