@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

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.

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.

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.

@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.

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.

@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.

@flablo: "But I suspect this might be also caused (or at least worsened) by using Panny lenses. I had better results using Nikon glass."

@Sph1nxster: "I find that colours are very accurate when using the Pansonic and Olympus lenses. When I put on any manual glass, faces seem to turn very pastel like and it is very easy to make people look ill."

Two people, two opinions! :-) I guess there is no one clear answer!

wgtwo, therefore the gh3 will remain practically the one and the only digital camera without hacks? that rip-off! i don't have 3000$ for GH4!

Hack is in progress, but progress seems exceedingly slow. The GH4 is just around the corner, so I don't really have too much hope in it anymore.

On paper, performance is better, but many people think the GH3 renders colour a lot worse than the GH2 (pretty much what this thread is all about). Personally, I think it's better.

@matt_gh2 Yep the BMPCC looks incredible. (Check out Drew's DREWnetwork on YouTube if you haven't already.) Sorry off topic. GH3 still has me though. 30 and 60 fps, in camera playback and delete files etc. I think I am going to go to 0 on saturation though. Checkout 5thwall's comments above. Great info.

@maddog15 I'm using GH2 but on someone's recommendation I switched from all -2, to all -2 with a 0 for saturation...and damn if the colors weren't more accurate. Have you tried 0 on saturation, as well as various setting choices? Best of luck with finding optimal settings. Worst case scenario you could sell GH3 and go for something else like Pocket Cinema.