@jonpais AND @yak ...

So I've been in professional imaging for nearly 40 years. In me younger days, it was (within the pro portrait crowd) Hasselblad or Mamiya RB67. The acrimony at times was so absurd as to be humorous in a sort of snarky way ... a pox on both-houses look at things, perhaps? (Hassy lenses were sharper with a titch more contrast but for large enlargements the much larger negs of the RB's made for sharper prints ... BARELY ... mostly seen with a loupe. Why castigate each other over those small differences?)

In digital for portrait photogs it's been a 3-way mashup ... Canon, Nikon, or the "snobby" hold-outs in film. but note ... it doesn't make any difference now between Hassy & RB users still shooting film ... they're together against the World.

You two have different eyeballs and from a couple of the comments your monitors are probably not identical either. You have slightly different approaches but not as far apart as it seems to both of you, compared to what else I see and hear about. Laugh at your wonderful human uniquenesses, sip your favorite beverages, and enjoy perhaps teasing each other a bit. It's those differences that make live worth chasing after ...

@yak abysmal? I'm curious: exactly what is meant by 'me holding the cam or you..'? that you don't like the skin tones in the shots I shared? Actually, even in the four latest screen grabs I just posted (page 30 of this thread), if you look carefully, you'll see two Western faces, and they have quite a pleasing rendition to my eyes, and that's without any color correction applied. Abysmal means appalling, which I think is quite a strong word: if the skin tones were green; if people looked like martians; or if I were shooting in daylight and subjects appeared like they were shot under fluorescent light, I might agree. But that's simply not the case.

Had a good laugh at the way @jonpais considers I'm spreading conspiracy theories. Naw, just from human experience ... and having been through the pro-side of Nikon still cameras ... and so many other products where engineers determine what the problem is and the best solution ... and don't really want to talk about their internal decisions ... and the "user base" doesn't necessarily agree with the engineers.

Such as ... the Nikon D3's twin "user banks", each with four options you could make. One bank for certain kinds of settings, the other for a different set. Sounded amazing. A bit confusing, but amazing.

Why the two banks? One sort of "settings" and one sort of "shooting" ... but an interesting set of choices for what's included in each. Kinda hard to figure out why but ok, just use it, right?

One leetle problem with the utilization ... you couldn't lock either bank or any of each banks four presets you could create. You could set them, name them ... but not lock that down. SO ... invoke a bank/preset, start shooting. Change ANY setting on your camera, and you've just reset that bank/preset. Permanently.

The lack of a lock made them worthless to use. I tried & gave up. The only pros I know that actually used them for a while kept a flash-card with their banks on it in their case. Every flippin' time they pulled the cam out, they'd re-load their banks from the cards. Stupidly implemented great idea.

Now ... would the Nikon engineers listen to their users? Nope ... in fact, just mentioning that in a meeting with the engineers would get them angered, yelling at the pro they'd brought in to advise them that he clearly was incapable of understanding the true brilliance of their work, and they'd leave. To the point of cancelling the relationship with the pro they'd brought in to advise them on how the users would like that camera set-up.

In any industry there are many accounts of the wisdom of the engineers vs. the wishes of the users. So ... just putting my knowledge of human nature and engineers vs. users relational issues, the intriguing case of the pink plasticene skin of the GH3 (which is not common to many other cameras Panny or otherwise) and also a quote I saw a year back or so from Panny about their approach to adjusting the in-cam processing to handle that all-important detail of facial recognition and handling of human skin ... a general blah-de-blah comment but an extensive one of blah-de-blah ... well, it seems a reasonable assumption to me that there were some design choices in this specific camera that led to what we've then had to clean up.

Calling that a "conspiracy theory" ... now that's a howl. Is it any kind of claim I'm making about knowing things or being prescient or able to mind read through several thousand miles of separation and language barriers? Of course not. Nor is it any more conspiracy than discussing why they left say zebra or focus-peaking off the GH3 while clearly prepping them for inclusion in other cameras released about the same time. Panny's never given a detailed response from their engineers on that one, either ... but again, it was a design consideration & decision.

Neil

@maddog15 no hard feelings. & I'll accept somewhere between 'quick' and 'arduous' ;

Okay guys, I don't want to battle it out with you, but: #1. Is anyone here saying it's worth shooting at iso800 for a tiny bit of added DR (provided there is enough light to shoot at a lower iso) when noise noticeably increases? #2 As for AVCHD vs MOV, I said the difference was all in grading. In fact, I would never edit AVCHD files directly. Also, the implementation of the codec varies from camera to camera, manufacturer to manufacturer. I see the transcoded GM1 AVCHD files as no better or worse than the GH3's MOV container #3 if you checked out the post office clip I shared here a little while back, you'd see many Western faces. #4 I won't deny the GH3 magenta issue, just saying in my experience, a quick pass in post is usually all it takes to correct. #5 I object to rNeil's unverified conspiracy theories

@flablo in case you haven't noticed, most of the manufacturers are Asian!

@jonpais The great thing about this forum is it's about personal opinions based off of personal research. Some eyes are more advanced than others. After quite a few months of exhausting personal test's and broadcast jobs - it is my opinion that rNeil isn't spreading falsehoods. This is his opinion. This real issue is the way the GH3 translates color and texture of "white" skin. In my humble but very educated opinion, It's bad...period. It's been the biggest complaint about the GH3 on this thread alone. That can't be circumstantial. Can you get good skin? Yes. But, I've edited footage from 6 different cameras (from the GH2 to the RED Epic) in the last 8 months and the GH3 footage is always the "problem child" in post. It's especially notable or proven when I've done multi cam shoots with the same lighting on set for both cameras. That said the GH3 footage still needs work than other footage in post.

@flablo Ditto your comments.

I hate to break the news, but the best iso to shoot at is the one that produces the least noise, which is iso 200. you just might get 1/2 stop better DR with some settings, but if the image suffers (less color saturation, creeping dots moving around the frame, etc.), it's best to shoot at 200. I haven't found any reason why AVCHD should be inherently better than MOV files, except that in the past, MOV files could be imported directly into the NLE, whereas AVCHD USED TO HAVE to be transcoded. Also, the file structure - when I shot with a TM900, for example, I got all kinds of extra files I had to discard. But that isn't true for the GM1, which CAN be imported directly into FCP now and produces beautiful looking images. The only reason to choose one over the other might be bit rate - often the MOV files offer a higher bit rate, which in and of itself DOES NOT produce a more beautiful looking image, but may be easier to grade than your low bit rate AVCHD files.

Hi All, I've been following this thread, here's a couple of rough clips from a promo I'm putting together for some friends. -5 sharp and -5 NR rest at 0 natural ISO 400 underexposed the skin slightly using at the internal GH3 meter. I just do this for a hobby, I thought I was getting closer with skin detail and tone I was just interested if others thought the same, I've been guilty of making it look very plastic in the past I've realised so was trying something different :)

@rNeil Thanks for the feedback. And yes, if it weren't for Premiere Pro's wonderful secondary color correction and isolation abilities... I'd probably be the proud owner of a BMPCC. Just knowing, "I can fix it in post", is what's kept me from loosing my mind and patience with this fatal flaw in the GH3's "engineering." Glad to hear your take on the GH4's hopeful capabilities and upgrades. I'm saving for it as we speak - but the money is not exactly earmarked for the GH4 just yet.

aha, ok, maybe it is because zuiko lenses are compatible to autofocus and stuff like this, with my c-mount that the only way is to be full manual is like I said, somewhere here in PV I read it and test it also. It needs, manual lenses

@joethepro the iDynamic brings the same amount of noise as if you boost mids in post, anyway, if you want to use it and keep it on, you have to use any lens except panasonic lenses. With panasonic lenses it does exactly what you say, it's on only in high contrast scenes.

ok, mov has more noise cause the image is a bit sharper, I just saw it, it is clear in my "raw" iso test but you can see it also in youtube in the two thin parallel curved lines in the edge of the body of bass, in mov the space between them is clear and in avchd you have to imagine there is space between them, it is big difference in my "uncompressed" video. I still prefer the color in avchd but mov is sharp