Hi. We just finished our first short film "Rose Wagner" where we used a GH3. I was positively surprised on how the camera performed and especially on how the footage grades. This is my first shortfilm so I am by no means a professional. Below a list of things which I would consider the top 5 both positive and negative

Positive - Overall camera built quality + software quality (didn't crash a single time, didn't overheat) - HDMI out => eventhough it seems to be interlaced it was great for waveform monitoring on scopebox. Also recorded some dolly shot raw. - Picture quality in 50MBit IPB (was shooting everything in Natural -5, -5, -2, -5) - Footage grades really really good (at least with this settings) - Battery life

Negative - Mini HDMI => was huge work to always detach the HDMI protector (Zacuto) to change battery - Horizontal moves (e.g. dolly => sideways) in 24p (couldn't use a single), jittering. RAW was much better. - Some moire, but it was due to some bad clothing choices.

Attached some framegrabes and the link to the trailer. Movie will be available soon.

I've been using the GH3 for about 6 months now and I'm very impressed with it. Coming from a PD-150 / Z5 background I've found the GH3 to have better image quality, it's less intrusive, and has the option for creative lens choices. I've made a list of the good and bad things about the camera:

Good points

• Small + lightweight but big enough to grip firmly and carry with one hand.
• Amazing battery life, especially with the additional battery grip. Never had to worry about the power running out.
• Good responsive touchscreen with useful additions like an indication of how level the camera is. Having it flip out is great for low level shots and almost all slider shots.
• Timelapse - saves kit having it inbuit and also you can playback the timelapse afterwards. Two features I've found very important and my Canon friends are very jealous of!
• High quality video recording. I've settled on 1080p50 at 50mbit and the quality is excellent. The noise is OK even at higher ISO levels.
• Lots of settings to configure the camera how you want it.
• Well made - feels solid in your hand and confident taking it to extreme places in extreme weather.

Bad points

• OLED viewfinder is blurry round the edges, though I rarely use it as I wear glasses, and the back screen is fine for me.
• The back screen doesn't match what the recorded video is like. Often the recorded video seems over exposed compared to what I'm seeing on the screen at the time. I have played around with the screen settings without being able to get it completely accurate.
• No focus peaking. This really is a big disappointment and drawback. Focusing the SLR Magic 0.95 25mm is incredibly difficult without any focus aides.
• When you press the record button to stop recording it actually takes a second off the end of the video you've recorded. Took me a while to get used to counting a couple of seconds before I stopped recording.
• HDMI - doesn't output the frame rate you set it until you press record. I've used the GH3 for live IMAG work and this was the workround I had to use. When its not recording the frame rate over HDMI seemed stuttery / below 20fps, and totally unusable for IMAG work.

Overall I'm very happy with the camera. People are amazed at the quality of the image (and that's from geeks through to your average bod), so I can certainly recommend it.

Some videos made using the GH3:

Hi All. I was lucky enough to get one of the first GH3s and posted a couple quick test clips of how well the AF worked on the Lumix 14-140. I've had the GH3 for almost 9 months now, and I just have to say I am a very satisfied customer. I had a (hacked) GH1 for several years before the GH3. For stills, I only shoot raw, and even with careful raw processing, any still or video from the GH1 at ISO 1600 got pretty awful. And the #1 complaint I had with the GH1 was how it would create visible ugly banding in clear blue skies. I live near the ocean, so, blue skies on the horizon are often part of my scenes. I'm happy to say I've never seen banding in the GH3 in over 9 months.

I've placed a lot of videos on Vimeo. None of them are professional (I'm just a dad capturing some scenes from his daughter's childhood. But..even not being a pro: I'm getting very pleasing results.

Here's a couple examples.

This was shot inside and out of the Monterey Aquarium. It's a little long, but once inside the aquarium you see some clips with great color from the Lumix 20 mm.

This was a recent clip that actually displays some nice bokeh (from using the Lumix 100-300 mm, and my new acquisition, the Oly 45 mm)

There's millions of other much better results out there with the GH3, but...I just wanted to say as a stills camera and as a video camera it is far far better than my Hacked GH1 (which I love, but gave to a good friend).

Also, I tend to compress the videos I render quite a bit so that they will play well enough in our home wireless network. I don't compress them nearly as much a Vimeo, so, you can download better renditions of the clips from Vimeo, but...to save disk space and save bandwidth, I don't encode with a fixed bitrae of 50 Mbs (which is what I always shoot with). I've settled on a variable vit rate with Target=14 and Peak=24 Mbs. This looks much better than the Vimeo encode, and is 'good enough' for our 1080p TV.

So, bottom line: I couldn't be happier with my GH3.

I'm loving the 1080 60fps on the GH3 and have been using it on a lot of projects. Here is a short film I recently made that I used it a lot for.

@Vitaliy_Kiselev any word on a hack upgrade for the GH3? Somewhere on this forum? Thanks!

@timfrakes Great to know I'm not alone! But I haven't acquired the legacy lenses-purchase syndrome yet. Maybe once I save again, who knows? :p

Ever since I bought the GH3, back in January, as a birthday self-present, I have been taking pictures every week in the streets of Bangkok, where I currently reside, and in other places of Thailand. Before that, I never considered photography too seriously; I was more interested in video (I studied filmmaking), so when I had the money to buy my first serious camera, I needed something that could shoot good video and stills as a second thought.

However, what has happened is that I have been shooting stills much more than video these months, so much that I have created a blog to show my advances and experiences. I have learned how to use the camera through practice, and I definitely see an improvement over the months. All I can say is, this camera is a terrific tool for stills. We all know how good it is for video but GH3 happens to be also a very capable stills camera, even though many tend to forget or ignore that fact.

In my last photo session, I was invited to shoot a Thai traditional wedding. It was a friend's wedding, and there was no money involved, so it was all amateur and enthusiast, but I enjoyed a lot that day, and I will just share a few tips that I learned that day with the rest. For more details, you can see the whole post in my blog.

I had 2 lenses with me, the Lumix G Vario 12-35mm and the Olympus M. Zuiko 45mm; I had never attended a Thai wedding before, so I had no idea about the stages and rituals of the ceremony, nor where I should be and what was going to happen next, so I had to be ready for anything. Speed was the key. I knew I would probably miss shoots being at the wrong place at the wrong moment, but that couldn't be avoided, so I tried to have my eyes wide open and shoot as much as I could. The wedding was held at a porch in front of the house, a bit dark, and I had nothing but my camera with me (not even a tripod), so I chose to use the Olympus lens, as it was faster, f1.8, and I needed as much light as I could. I think it was the right choice.

True, I missed some wide and group shots due to being limited to a short telephoto lens, but I gained more light and, not less important, shallower depth of field. This was essential to get nice portraits, though I overdid it a bit, and now I'm aware that I should have shot more with the lens stopped down a bit, specially in the group or couple pictures, as most of the times the pics had only one of them in sharp focus, while the other was unfocused.

I shot in aperture priority mode most of the times, sometimes in program mode, and I trusted the autofocus almost in every shoot. The camera behaved admirably in both regards, focusing fast and accurately most of the times in the place I wanted, and the white balance, which I set to auto, was quite correct always. I needed speed over precision, so I didn't shoot much manual. All the pics were shot in raw and have been graded later with lightroom.

All in all, it was a nice day, and should I have the chance to repeat it again, I will probably change just one thing: I will use my new lens, the Lumix G Vario 35-100, for the wider reach plus nice bokeh at the longer end for the portraits.

http://gonzalobroto.blogspot.com/2013/08/my-first-thai-wedding-part-i-ceremony.html

Thx for the answer, I ordered the camera this morning, will see how it goes. :)

Hi, I"m looking for a replacement for my 550d which will have a main purpose on a steadicam during weddings but will be used for other projects either handheld or on a tripod.

As a wedding shooter I should say that high iso handling would be on top of my list and I know my options are limited here where the 5DIII is king of the hill, together with the 6d in the lower 3000 euro price range. But the 5D is too pricey and the 6d is a moire hell which I would like to see an improvement in as well over my 550d's.

I already know the gh3 is capable to produce stunningly sharp and colourful video but I"m desperately looking at some low light, high iso comparison videos between a gh3 and a t2i, t3i type of camera, even a 7d would be great as the videoperformance is the same. I am not expecting a world of difference but would be very happy when I get clean enough footage at 3200 iso, at that iso the video from the 550d looks horrible with very clear grain in shadow area's.

It is actually only one part of a weddingday that gives me issues and it's the first dance, most of the time it is very dark and I have a f2.8 lens on the canon (don't want a faster lens on the steadicam as it would be virtually impossible to maintain focus, f2.8 is workable. In that case I use the technicolour cinestyle preset which makes a big difference and push up to 3200 iso just to get the shot. The problem is also that the 550d doesn't have a sharp image at high iso and if you then apply neatvideo to get rid of the grain too much fine detail is destroyed after processing the footage. I was hoping the gh3 would be much easier to use neatvideo on as you have much more resolution to start with.

Is there anyone here that has access to a gh3 and a first gen canon dslr like the t2i? I"d like to know how much more usable 3200 iso is on the gh3 compared to the t2i. Thx

Btw, this is a very informative thread, great that so many people share info.

Any update on what settings people are using for the best image out of the GH3? I really liked the flat looking footage from StanlyManly2's video above.

Also does anyone know if the GH2 got framerate options when VK hacked it? I have the NTSC version of the GH3 and am using it pretty much solely for 60p footage (I live in a PAL country but I needed a camera that could do slow motion for a sporting event and it wasn't out in AUS yet).

Not particularly bothered by no 25p since I plan on getting a BMPCC and keeping the GH3 for slow motion but I wouldn't mind having it as an option.

At the moment I am still trying to nail down the best settings for the best picture straight out of camera.. But it seems pretty much everyone is using something slightly different.

I have a question about sharpness, contrast, saturation.

I understand many people reduce -5,-5,-5, so as to reduce in-camera processing as much as possible. Can anyone confirm that using -5 settings in fact has the least amount of in-camera processing?

Is it possible that after a certain point (-3, -2) etc, that the camera starts adding softness, actively de-saturating, or reducing contrast. My question is what setting will give the optimal results from the camera, with the least amount of in-camera processing.

I recently bought the GH3, after having great success with the GH2, and I have to say I am disappointed with it out of the box... I did some side by side shots against my GH2 with Moon T5 and the GH2's footage is just as good, if not superior. From what I've read, the 50mbps is a superior setting on the GH3 than the 70mpbs all-i? How is that even possible. Also, I've read that .MOV is far superior to the AVCHD (if this is true, it's understandable)... I get that the situation is more complicated than that, but is there a good resource for learning about the GH3, and how to set it up properly to maximize the currently 'accepted' best video settings for NTSC 60fps and 30fps? I was hoping EOS HD would put a guide out, since he was a huge help to me with learning the GH2, but I don't think one is going to happen... Most of his recent work is surrounding the Canon 5D Mk III raw footage.

Also, I've read that people with editing skills prefer a flat profile with sharpness turned down, however I am relatively new to video editing and do not have the skill set for lots of post-shot editing. Any settings advice for someone who wants very little post work?

Any advice is welcomed.

Just wondering if anyone uses AvCHD 50p 28mbps for weddings? Or is MOV the best all round setting.