GH3 user reviews and opinions

clyde_t

here are some sharpness tests. my conclusion is that sharpness at -3 was optimal in this situation. i looked at a lot of footage on a large LED screen with the display sharpness at 0 and what i see coming out of the GH3 is a too much sharpening at a setting of 0.

this last one matches what i saw with my eyeballs better. less contrast, less saturation. probably would dial saturation back up a notch.

jimagine

"@jimagine, man that video looked great!!! It actually made me smile sitting in my den on a gloomy night here in Georgia. I must say that 20mm 1.7 looks crisp as HECK!"

Yes it is sharp and ridiculously light with the camera. I'm not used to a camera this small and light but we got them to fly around just in these type of circumstances Because I was snowshoeing and handholding with a PVC shoulder mount I actually had to use the little EVF and AFS for those shots.

den15_de

clyde_t, please let us to download the original footage on Vimeo, that realy can make possible to analyse the settings!

Tron

Thanks for the comparison Clyde. I run with contrast at -5 and sharpness at 0 most of the time. I keep the sharpness neutral because the image detail seems to soften a little as the contrast is reduced. I'll try dropping the sharpening a little to see how it compares when working with contrasty color grades in post.

clyde_t

@Tron- I saw a lot of rolling/ropy edges in some other footage i shot with sharpness at 0. i'll post them but i have to export them from mov first.

@den15_de yes i will enable download, but i also have the same tests using all-Intra mov and i plan to upload those to google drive or dropbox and share them.

christianhubbard

I don't think you need to, we've pretty much ruled out intra as a viable option

clyde_t

@christianhubbard- seems pretty viable to me. what problems have there been? it decodes great for me and Avid plays it through AMA just fine.

jimagine

Remember, keeping sharpening at Zero is like adding 5 steps of sharpening. It's not real resolution, just a lot of in camera edge detail which looks pretty unrealistic and not at all filmic. Our most recent tests with Natural, -4, -4, -2, -5 are grading very well and show very natural colors and skin tones.

FilmingArt

@jimagine

Remember that lens '20mm Panasonic' is a very sharp lens that communicates with these cameras to natural add sharpening. While those settings make sense for Panasonic lenses it is not the same for other ones.

clyde_t

@jimagine- tried your Natural -4, -4, -2, -5 setting back-to-back with Std -3, -3, -2, 0 i agree it looks very nice. i think i like the -4 sharpness better than the -3. your color is probably giving a better rendition than the standard setting i tried, which is a bit punchier. i'm curious to know more about your choice of -5 NR. what is it doing for you?

jimagine

Well, "0" on the GH3 is adding a lot of in-camera sharpening no matter what lens is on the camera. The generally accepted approach is to handle sharpening in post with a better processor and more subtle control. It's how we shoot all our cameras no matter what lens is on them.

jimagine

Dialing down NR to -5 will give the most detailed image coming out of the camera. Again, if there's a need for noised reduction it can be done with much better tools in post.

jimagine

We're still testing settings, looking to get the most DR and natural loo out of the camera to match other rigs in post. So far, 50MB .mov, Natural, -4, -4, -2, -5 have been great to pull a solid color correction either in FCPX or Magic Bullet. There's a lot more latitude than a Canon DSLR for instance.

clyde_t

thanks! have you seen noise problems in all-intra footage? because it looks good to me and the low-overhead to decode it makes the workflow easier, so far, from what i've tried.

i completely agree that 0 sharpening is adding a lot of sharpening. it's seems like a silly place to default, more of a consumer-level setting, the way my TV was out-of-the-box.

c

SuperSet

@jimagine Thanks for the tests and results. I'm definitely going to try those settings when I get back from vacation. One note though is that I think you did your tests with the Lumix lenses correct? I've found them to be sharp out of the box and I only mention that because I use the Voigtlander 25mm which is a softer lens already so it may affect the settings somewhat.

jimagine

You're right about the 20mm being very sharp. I's the first MFT lens I've used. My shelf is filled with Canon L glass, as well as Nikon AIS primes and lenses like the Sigma 50mm 1.4 which is as sharp as a full frame lens gets - even sharper than my Canon L 1.2.

My point is that if the Lumix is somehow sharper than my best glass, I'd still set the camera up the same way and just add a bit more sharpening in post if necessary.

jimagine

"thanks! have you seen noise problems in all-intra footage? because it looks good to me and the low-overhead to decode it makes the workflow easier, so far, from what i've tried."

Yes and from everyone that I know that's tested it, the All-I concept is a fail. AVCHD gives a cleaner image than 72MB (probably due to the compression masking artifacts.) 50mb .mov seems to be the sweet spot.

stoney

Yes it's been known that sharpness setting 0 does add sharpening.

The settings range should have been from 0 to 10 to avoid confusion. But it is what it is.

Some said the lowest setting does add sharpening, too. That's not a bad thing.

SuperSet

Small tangent - Like everyone, I've settled on .MOV 50Mbps 60p/24p for the best results. However, when I briefly switched to AVCHD to see what the results looked like, the resulting MTS only turned up to be 720x480 resolution? I'm thinking I didn't set something right in the menus but was wondering if anyone else saw this?

jimagine

Agree, right now I'm working with -4 -4 contrast and sharpening to see how it holds up as a base image, and I'm liking it. And it isn't about pixel peeping or obsessing over details. This is a new creative tool and it's so great that a place like this has people testing and interacting in real time as we sort the best settings out.

Of course the best settings are, like all things creative, ultimately subjective. But a lot of us work from a common standard whether it's an F3, 5D, RED or GH - a wide DR negative that allows us to pull a great grade in post.

But there's also nothing wrong with establishing a look that you love in camera and shooting with that all day long. Sometimes the latter is better depending on your schedule.

Tron

"Well, "0" on the GH3 is adding a lot of in-camera sharpening no matter what lens is on the camera. The generally accepted approach is to handle sharpening in post with a better processor and more subtle control. It's how we shoot all our cameras no matter what lens is on them."

@jimagine I see no sharpening artifacts on the GH3 at the 0 setting, and I don't even see any artifacts after adding 25% sharpening in post. Your personal opinion on what constitutes a good image does not equate to a known fact, especially considering the fact everyone shoots with different lenses that affect the final image differently. If you want to get a Panasonic engineer on this message board to corroborate your beliefs, I'm certainly willing to listen to supportive technobabble, otherwise I will relegate these types of opinions to the GH pixel peepers mythology file. It is entirely possible that -5 is artificially softening the image on the GH3 which will actually result in sharpening artifacts developing to a greater extent when added in post.

scaper

Beautifully shot and edited footage, Jim. Have you compared the 50 mbps MOV files from the GH3 with any of the GH2 "hacks"?

clyde_t

@Tron I disagree that -5 is 'artificially' softening the image. all of these digital imagers have birefringent optical low-pass (blurring) filters in front of the pixel wells. that is where the softening initially comes from. the sharpening setting uses a digital filter to recover the image detail while minimizing moiré. i'll bet that if the sharpening had an on/off setting it would be softer than the value @ -5.

clyde_t

also- i do see sharpening artifacts at the 0 setting. i see edge rolling and ropiness. when i get to -3 or -4 it looks better to me.

clyde_t

i have to agree that the 50mbit setting is looking better than the all-I setting, in general. it seems to average-out the noise a bit. the difference is not as great in bright lighting conditions, however. when the hack-masters dig into this i bet we'll have usable options under varied lighting conditions. has anyone done a high NR setting test with all-I mode?

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