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Official Panasonic GH3 topic, series 2
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  • driftwooddriftwood

    @AdR Nope. Its 50 shutter still.

  • rajamalikrajamalik

    @driftwood hi sir, what do u personally feel about gh3 over gh2?? many review sites made a picture that gh3 doesnt has any big changes than the gh2, is it true?? is it possible to hack gh3 to 1080p 48fps all iframes?? what about shutter can we set it to 48?? or still 50??

  • thepalaliasthepalalias

    @rajamalik I can't answer the other questions but @driftwood said that you cannot set the shutter speed to 1/48, only 1/50.

  • MihuelMihuel

    @thepalias plese don't start the flame about 1/48 shutter.it doesn't matter.There is more important problems that this.

  • adventsamadventsam

    @Mihuel, yes there are more important things, such as sorting out the euro and the unemployment issue throughout europe? But in any event, I do find it kinda incredible that if the GH3 wants to be regarded as the pinnacle of hybrids they should add the 1/48 shutter and the 48fps, but then they'd need 1/96 shutter too? It is also really frustrating that these cams will come as euro, 24/25/50 or ntsc, 24/30/60, why not all ow people to dial-in the base set, 24/25/30/60? Canon/Nikon seem to be able to manage that bit OK.

  • meemee

    for me single digit adjustable shutter speed has a definite benefit as I am in the land of neon lights, and often one or two are out of sinc with the masses of others. So being able to make fine adjustments to shutter speed would be able to help in my case as it would likely allow for a completely flicker free scene more often than not. I am actually surprised this was not a consideration earlier on for Panasonic being in the land of neon themselves.

  • mpgxsvcdmpgxsvcd

    @mee

    Can you show some examples of why you think that single digit shutter speed control is important in the GH3?

    The Rolling Shutter Affect and Frame Rate have more to do with it than single digit shutter speed control. Decreasing shutter duration will never help the Rolling Shutter Affect.

  • endotoxicendotoxic

    @mpgxsvcd he never talked about rolling shutter effect. He talked about neon light ant its HZ. 60 o 50hz, this flikering is the one that affects those aascending lines in footage. And by panasonic being neon maker by default..well is nothin to do, being to diferent parts in big company.

    1 step shutter speed sounds grate idea for me. Its more presice control of the desired perception, and look in movement. grate idea @mee It could be fixed in firmware, though i dont know if will be codec compatible. Maybe sir @driftwood can explain better.

  • driftwooddriftwood

    Personally, I feel its a great camera - a lot of people go on about everything else bar the codec. For me, looking at how this performs will show the true merits for video reproduction - and it does a bloody good job with adaptive 8x8 and 4x4 transform. High Profile level 5 offers us more power, allows larger macroblock size, better prediction and larger bitrates. Gh3 Stock is as good as hacked GH2 in my opinion but I wouldnt be able to resist playing with the 2 extra 8x8 scalers and the existing 6 4x4s to take it to another level. Until we see final firmware who knows what we can do with it... However, as good as it is, I do believe we will see a GH4 equiv from Pany quicker than we have waited for the GH3.

  • ButtButt

  • mpgxsvcdmpgxsvcd

    @endotoxic

    He never mentions the rolling shutter effect. However, he should have. I could use ANY shutter speed greater than the lights flicker duration with ANY lights if I had a global electronic shutter or a really fast rolling shutter and a fast enough frame rate.

    Just because your shutter duration matches your flicker duration doesn't mean both are synched up to start a cycle at the same time. If my Rolling Shutter camera opens the shutter in the middle of the light's cycle you could see the same issue even with the so called "ideal" shutter duration.

    Really this issue is completely misunderstood. There is absolutely no merit to using that precise of a shutter speed with these cameras.

  • mpgxsvcdmpgxsvcd

    @driftwood

    Thanks for that insight. Would it be possible to modify a GH2's firmware to do the GH3's "bloody good job with adaptive 8x8 and 4x4 transform"? Is that controlled in firmware or with hardware?

    What do you think the GH4 will offer that the GH3 doesn't? 2.7K or 4K? I can't believe the GoPro has 4K already. It isn't great 4K but it still is pretty cool to play with.

  • endotoxicendotoxic

    @mpgxsvcd what you said has logic and good basis, but then how is oftelny solved at dayli basis. I we could have those 1 setp shutter adjusments, it could be more possible to SINCRO light and shutter , also opening more doors for errors.

  • driftwooddriftwood

    @mpgxsvcd difficult to change gh2 encoder to do that even if it were possible. Would require a massive rewrite for a start - can't expect vk to attempt that. Also GH2 is built around the power of High Profile level 4.

    All we can do is see how the GH2 performs with the GH3 scaling tables albeit with only 4x4 transform. There is another variation of this using Cluster GOP12/15 released yesterday on the latest Driftwood Settings thread.

    Gh4 (if its called that) we hope will be an AVC Ultra HD interpretation with 4K.

  • mpgxsvcdmpgxsvcd

    @endotoxic

    There is a really simple fix even with a rolling shutter. Just use a really long shutter duration. If your shutter stays open for 2x the cycle of the light then no matter what the rolling shutter does you will have equal exposure across the frame.

    Now I fully understand this isn’t practical in a lot of cases. For NTSC countries that requires a 1/30th of a second shutter duration or longer. Most cameras can’t take 30 FPS video with a 1/30th shutter speed. Luckily our GH2’s can.

    Try it. Select 1/30th or 1/25th instead of 1/60th for NTSC lights. The flicker will be gone. Now the motion blur probably will not be to your liking but the lights won’t be an issue.

    Really the whole 1/(2x FPS) theory is not that precise. It is a great place to start but that is not always a hard and fast rule. It simply gives you more or less motion blur depending on whether you increase or decrease the shutter duration.

    There is absolutely no way anyone could tell the difference between the motion blur from a 1/48th shutter duration and a 1/50th shutter duration. There I said it because no one else will stick there neck out there and go against the grain.

    That is the problem with our perception of some of the new equipment that has come out lately. All it takes is one person to bring up a negative issue about the product and suddenly everyone will jump on it and make the product out to be completely defective.

    The GH3 has some issues. You will have to be aware of them but in reality they will not be the reason why your work is not praised. The strengths of the GH3 will far outweigh any of its weaknesses.

    Now that also doesn’t mean that the GH2 won’t be just as good as the GH3 for some scenarios. For 1080p @ 24 FPS video the GH2 is pretty darn amazing and a heck of a lot cheaper.

  • mpgxsvcdmpgxsvcd

    The Panasonic GH3 specs page is being constantly updated as the firmware is finalized.

    The shutter duration spec did not specify a "Bulb" mode time limit before. Now it says it goes up to Approx. 60 minutes. That is great news as the GH2 is limited to 128 seconds in Bulb mode.

    Still Images: 1/4,000 - 60 and Bulb (Approx. 60 minutes)

    Motion Images: 1/16,000 - 1/30 (NTSC), 1/16,000 - 1/25 (PAL)

    Keep an eye on the page below to see what else is updated when the firmware is finally complete.

    http://panasonic.net/avc/lumix/systemcamera/gms/gh3/specifications.html

  • zquiellzquiell

    Of cause you won't see a GH4. They will "skip" it. The next would rather be a GH5 because of tetraphobia (same as with G5 and GF5). (o;

  • joesivjoesiv

    @mgpxsvcd "He never mentions the rolling shutter effect. However, he should have. I could use ANY shutter speed greater than the lights flicker duration with ANY lights if I had a global electronic shutter or a really fast rolling shutter and a fast enough frame rate."

    Sorry if I don't understand this correctly, but how would a global shutter allow the user of any framerate above the flicker duration with any lights?

    are you suggesting that we could use 1/60th shutter in a 50hz world? Because even with a global shutter, wouldn't you get dark frames ever so often due to the synchronization?

  • thepalaliasthepalalias

    @mpgxsvcd @joesiv

    I seem to remember there was some discussion of rolling shutter in relation to flicker/frame-rate in this article and the comments. http://blog.abelcine.com/2009/04/15/the-difference-between-a-global-shutter-and-a-rolling-shutter/

  • mpgxsvcdmpgxsvcd

    There are two and only two components to prevent us from seeing the flicker from lights. First you have to read the sensor simultaneously so that different sections don't have different exposures.

    If you meet the first criteria then your frame rate must also be above the threshold where the human eye cannot detect the on and off changes of light. That is somewhere around 50 FPS or higher(Hence 50 HZ flicker in Pal countries).

    If you meet both of those things then your video will have some frames with low exposure and some with correct exposure. However, the frames will be playing so fast we won't be able to tell.

    Notice that shutter duration was never mentioned here. That is because the frame rate is so high that our eyes won't be able to detect the changing exposure.

    If you have to use a frame rate under the threshold(ie: 24 or 25 FPS) then you would have just hold the shutter open long enough so that it is guaranteed to expose throughout an entire light cycle. Even then a Global shutter or equivalent might also be necessary to prevent differences in exposure if the camera shutter and lights are not synch'd up.

    A 1/48th shutter speed would not help in any of these scenarios.

  • mpgxsvcdmpgxsvcd

    Shoot a Fluorescent light with a GH2 @ 24 FPS. Start with a 1/25th shutter duration and move all the way up to 1/250th of a second. You will see continuous dark bands form at various positions in the image once you reach a shutter duration faster than 1/120th of a second. Those bands are actually flicker. Their position will move as the shutter speed increases.

    If the GH2 had a global shutter the entire image would be dark instead of just bands. However, once the frame rate increased past 50 FPS you wouldn't be able to perceive the changes just like you can't perceive(Or most people can't) the changes with the naked eye.

  • mpgxsvcdmpgxsvcd

    So does a rolling shutter cause lights to flicker? Nope, no more than any other form of shutter.

    The light causes the flicker. However, with a rolling shutter the exposure is uneven across the frame. That makes the flicker extremely apparent even at frame rates above the threshold of our eyes noticing the difference.

  • mpgxsvcdmpgxsvcd

    Here is a video demonstrating the Rolling Shutter Flicker Effect the GH2 exhibits. A faster frame rate and a Global Shutter would eliminate this affect. That or using a very long duration shutter like at the beginning of the video will work as well.

  • TronTron

    This is a sync issue with fluorescent lights, not rolling shutter. Try shooting at 1/60 to match the 60 hz power being cycled through the lights. Limitations of fluorescent light explained: http://johnbdigital.com/lenses/fluorescent/fluorescent_lighting.php

  • MRfannyMRfanny

    @mpgxsvcd what you say makes sense

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