GH3 Best Video Settings

maddog15

@liammatador Of course your eyes have to be the final judge but I'd start with the Natural profile. (Natural is a slightly less contrasty than standard so you're less likely to loose details in your blacks.) That said - set to Natural with all sub settings at "0" you should get a decent "video" look, color and contrast with no post production.

Ditto @rNeil about White Balance setting.

yak

This camera is so frustrating...

It has very good dynamic range, but you can't see it straight out of the camera... The highlight rolloff is abysmal, the mids are compressed and the lower mids are crushed. Luckily the codec is strong enough to pull this all back.

There is no in camera settings to avoid these issues without loosing DR.

I would like to ask you guys, the luminance curves you use looks like to get the most out of Nat -5. If only there was a way to create your own in camera curve like canon.

flablo

@yak +1, was thinking the exact same thing right now. Some day ago I made some interviews, made on the fly with little time and preparation. Basically we used ambient lighting + 1 LED panel and round white/silver diffuser to control light for what was possible. We mainly bounced the LED on white walls and used the round panel to add some fill to faces. It wasn't optimal but looked decent. I used mainly a Nikon 20mm 2.8 with a SpeedBooster. When I edited the footage I got really depressed: there was really nothing I could apparently do (in little time within Premiere) to get rid of the extreme flatness and plastic look of the skin tones. There was no LUT or Filmconvert to fix this. The images didn't came out so bad in the end, but they were so dull...

The one thing I learned: with the GH3 use a visible fill light. If you don't have a fill light available, keep the shadows and don't just bounce the key light, otherwise you will get the flattest unusable image possible.

yak

@flablo

Yeah, you need good contrast on skin otherwise your dead.

Do you have a screen capture of this case?

flablo

skip the motion graphics at the beginning. As I said, it is decent (except audio) but it looks dull and shot with a camcorder. The guy with glasses just sent us the clip he made by himself, it was made with a compact Canon

maddog15

@flablo @yak Man I hate to admit it but I agree. I've fought it for a long time and tried to be optimistic but this is the true weakness of the GH3. Obtaining a decent color rendition, natural skin tone and texture is absolutley irritating.....way too often. I think it's safe to say that there's been a ton of work, on this thread alone, focused on figuring out the GH3's flat color rendition issue. I firmly believe that one of the biggest problems resides in the Red cannel. Many (@yak and @flablo for example) have exhausted many angles with hours of tests, research, LUT's, custom WB, etc. etc. I understand that we're talking about an 8 bit 4:2:0 camera. BUT... I'm baffled by a few multi-cam interviews I've shot recently. (My GH2 hacked with Moon T5 as B Cam.) The bottom line is it takes me about 3 minutes to get the GH2 footage where I want it. I've spent 30 minutes tweaking the GH3 footage - of the same scene - and I'm often just "not there" yet. When I randomly search You Tube I can tell right away when someone's shot with the GH3. The GH3 does have a "signature skin look".....and that's not a good thing. I've come believe that the GH3 is kinda like a "perfect storm" camera. Many conditions and variables have to be just right - no wiggle room - and you will obtain a pro shot. But then again those are basic challenging physics of all cinematography and photography.

All that said, what I do like about this whole experience is how much bunch of determined people have pushed and challenged a camera's abilities and possibilities. In my humble opinion: Doesn't matter what kind of camera you use. It's about knowing the camera's strengths and using those. It's about knowing the camera's weaknesses and working around those.

Sorry for the ramble and thanks for listening.

flablo

@maddog15 totally agree. I'm happy about the camera, I've used it in lots of jobs and will use for even more. Cost, ex tele, battery life, and other factors, are totally saving my day. I too have become able to tell a video shot with the GH3 :) I'm going to try to explore the Vivid mode is search of hope. Guess the only way is sacrifice some dynamic range in favor of contrast. If you look the first short GENESIS made on the GH3, it only works when there is more contrast and apparently less DR. I'm curious about the GH4 essentially for this aspect, rather than the 4K capabilities. This guy https://vimeo.com/kidzrevil makes videos which I were surprised discovering were made with the GH3. But his post workflow is pretty intense! Worth having a look anyway.

yak

@maddog15 @flablo

I can feel this camera is a beast, great features and everything... there is just something off. Like maddog15 said it's too easy to point out GH3 shot movies when I'm on vimeo even just looking at the thumbnails.

rNeil

I still think that "something off" is that the engineers decided "we" would want a particular look to skin, and built into the processor routines a section that "reads" skin tone and makes a smallish "correction" to the data therein ... lowering contrast and changing color slightly. As it seems to be ONLY skin on which the blame thing does this.

I'm used to Nikon's engineers boosting red saturation because they KNOW we like red. Nothing in-cam that can "cure" this, but a profile say with a passport-checker filed in Lightroom or making your own pre-set to both slightly desaturate and darken reds with a very slight red-tint change towards magenta restores reds to a usable status. They've done it for years, though the wife's D600 finally has less of this than our others, up through my D3.

So ... @flablo ... best wishes on trying out the "vivid" settings, and I trust you'll post what you find. Most of my shooting is under "controlled" situations so if you do find something interesting it won't be a problem to apply it.

yak

@maddog15 Your comment about skin tones and how you can easily spot gh3's videos got me thinking. I tried to put as much contrast as I could in the mids within the codec limits, flattened as much as I could the shadows and highlights... so the gh3 would not look like a gh3 skin wise... Applied this settings before grading. The result is interesting, does not look gh3 ish to me...

3 Clips, ungraded versions follows. Nat -5. The grade is a bit aggressive to test if it could be pushed a bit with breaking. Sorry for the red dots, it's from LUT utility I have not yet paid for until I do want I want with it. Because I grade using a LUT I make with a very powerfull but cheap photo editing app.

SuperSet

@yak I thought this is what your 'skins v3 cube' LUT attempted to do.

maddog15

@yak You are right. The first set doesn't have the stereotypical GH3 look. It has a very "video" look as apposed to cinema but I get what you were trying to accomplish. Nice test and good info. Thanks for posting!

flablo

@yak very interesting and doesn't look GH3. How did you exactly make the grade, if I may ask?

flablo

I tried something. A bit extreme here but goes in the right direction IMHO. Involves keying out skintones in Colorista II. Then adding Filmconvert 2 to the whole thing

CarlosMorillo

I've been fairly happy with the skin tones I've been getting out of the GH3. I use the standard profile and bring sharpness and noise reduction all the way down and leave everything else alone. Don't really bother with grading as the results I've been getting right out of the camera are pretty good.

flablo

@CarlosMorillo you're right, that's good. I'm suspecting we got caught by our own "flatness hype". Maybe a good practice could be: use -5 settings when you don't shoot skin tones, use 0 when you do?

flablo

Don't mean to flood this thread, but after a few test, basically I'm sold: I will use flat settings only for non-skin or to get a particular effect with skin (the effect we all know, and sometimes may be desirable). Will stay with settings at 0 (except NR and Sharpness) for "ordinary" shooting involving people. Will prefer working with lenses with less contrast than Panasonics for this

CarlosMorillo

Yeah I'm not a fan of shooting flat with an 8 bit codec unless the cam has a LOG profile that comes with it like a C-300 where you shoot in C-LOG.

maddog15

@flablo "Flatness Hype". What a great term. Yep... I'm guilty. I think I've learned the GH3 doesn't play that game well. @CarlosMorillo good advise on "0" for color and sat. I'm going to do the same on my next two interviews. @flablo Please flood the thread. I've learned much from your tests.

OBgene

'0'for colour and sat on which profile?

flablo

@OBgene probably Natural, but I wanna test Vivid as well. There is more than someone who says that despite the contrasty look it is the cleanest mode in terms of noise

yak

@superset

Touching the red brightness was only part of the solution...it helps a lot but there still is a problem in the mids. I want to find a way to have great looking skins while grading flat... I like flat.

yak

This is what I am trying to achieve... Only manage to touch skins and mids... not completely satisfied yet.

Using @flablo screen cap...

SuperSet

@yak Thanks for the follow-up. If you end up with an updated LUT, please do share. :)

yak

This is another test grade, (Red hue adjustment + Mid tone contrast adjustment) + 50% Film convert

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7lvIPUp6rE_QmN1OWtTVlFuVkE/edit?usp=sharing

Better when downloaded

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories

Tags in Topic

Top Posters