@lumixmaxgh3 The vanilla GH2 shot at very low bitrates, hence the hack was a big step up. GH3 all but solved this issue, so a hack for that won't be quite as huge a leap forward.

For me PAL/NTSC is most wanted feature of coming hack. Unlock raw is utophy but rising bitrate is good especially for intra and I think long gop mov benefits too.

@nobbystylus

You do sharpening in camera (SH -1, NR 0). What lenses you use. I have found that with Panasonic lenses sharpening thickens fine detail and creates halos around high contrast areas. And NR is too better in post.

I shoot with pana lenses natural (SH -5, NR -5, contr -5, col 0). Contrast -5 for better dyn range and with high contrast plasma screen it is not flat or dull. Skin tone is good also. With normal LCD it may be different story.

I wanted to respond to the recent flurry of posts regarding color on the GH3 and comparing it to the GH2. I performed extensive tests with controlled lighting between the GH2 and GH3, attempting to match them. My findings are similar to some others in that the GH3 requires that it be white balanced in order to get the best look possible. If not, skin tones begin to appear more flat. I find this to be a default in the GH3 as the GH2 is much more forgiving in this respect.

Comparing 0,0,0,0 modes between both cameras, I can say that pure red is very close. Green and magenta are pretty different. Perhaps the "pinky" tone of the GH3 is because of the difference in magenta.

Regarding lenses, I am not finding any significant difference between lenses when shooting on the GH3. Again, the issue here is about white balancing first. So, if you have a lens with a yellow-ish cast, white balancing first should alleviate that.

Since there is effectively no true flat mode on the GH3 and no current way to shoot raw, then you have to decide what look you want baked in when shooting. That look could be a "flatter" look. But it is still a baked in look.

And finally, regarding the overall differences between the GH2 and GH3, I agree with others that the GH3 has much better features than the GH2 and make it a value on set. That said, the image coming out of it is not as sharp and does not produce what seems to be a "range of colors" that are as "pleasing to the eye" as the GH2.

For me, it really comes down to skin tones and sharpness and the GH2 just kind of beats the GH3 in those areas. HOWEVER, I found that when I shot with the GH3 on it's own and did NOT compare it to the GH2, I was generally pleased with the results (assuming I white balanced, of course).

The summary here is this - for shooting interviews or any shots with lots of skin tones, try your best to white balance or set the camera to auto WB (say you're just getting lots of daylight B-Roll shots). Setting the cam to just "5600" in a lit room will not produce pleasing results.

If shooting next to a GH2, make sure you white balance off the same source, preferably a gray card. Also shoot a color chart on both cams if possible. Last, give yourself some extra time in post to match the shots. Use this opportunity to match the GH3 to the GH2. You'll get your skin tones back minus the sharpness.

Fast and very effective small trick if you want pleasing skin tones with the GH3.

Shoot at 0,0,-5,-5

Saturate, boost the mid tones, and blur a little bit.

The codec is robust enough to get the details in the mids without adding much noise, try it for yourself.

A1 = No CC A2 = CC

Notice how the blur affects the leaves to the left of the face and cleans the noise of the darker side of the face.

Skin tones caused me a lot of headache when color grading my shortmovie "Rose Wagner" entirely shot on the GH3, but after hours of tweaking with FCPX scopes I got good results. Have to agree with @yak that the codec is very robust. I used Natural -5 -5 -2 -5 and was really impressed on how it grades. Below a link to a really short "making of" which has some examples of non-graded vs graded shots.

@superset Yes, contrast and sharpness at 0. I found that when the contrast is at -5, you get more room in the highlights and shadows but you loose in the midtones (fleshtones included) @Chris74 Nice aggressive grading, looks good, good skin tones, I'm still convinced there's no way to get the skintones right when grading softly at -5.

Here's the motion created "LUT" I made myself, with curve and saturation (no blur) when shooting at 0 contrast. https://mega.co.nz/#!0xZzAAoI!YsqDYnqkXy-H2WpvmrEomkytmrBXW0HfmUkDlNUV_sQ Include file key

Put the file in or create path: User>Videos>Motions Templates>Effects>Neutre.moef

@yak Thanks for the compliment. I agree that if you go for the -5 then you need to grade agressive. But that's what I love :)

It has really gone unnoticed that @Vesku discovered that setting HDR, which needs to have non-RAW setting to Picture Quality, does something when recording movies. Nowhere in the manual is it explained that HDR works in movie recording, nor what it does during movie recording. This is indeed an interesting discovery of the GH3 and warrants some experimentation. I have done some experiments and it does look like some sort of HDR is done with each frame. I don't know if this HDR is worth doing for cinematic movies, but it warrants further investigation by the community, IMHO. I am finding that under some conditions it does a fantastic job of increasing dynamic range... Al

Even before any hacks it may be worth understanding what it can do combined with Picture Styles. Contrast adjustments, etc. It may behave differently with mp4, mov, etc... Al

I have a BMPCC also and I can assure you that the "flat" footage coming out of it is literally another planet, in terms of what you can pull out of it in post. And I'm speaking of ProRes, not even raw. In cases where no "special" grading is needed, on the GH3 I guess it's better to try to bake the look directly into the footage as much as possible, without trying to make it so flat and hoping to add everything in post. Now if only the LCD image wouldn't look like an animated GIF, that would be easier to obtain ... :)

@jdude Thanks so much!

@Chris74 Very very nice!