Another brief banding test. I shot the GH3 in black and white completely dialed down, 1080p 50fps, 25mm Voigtländer Nokton @ 0.95f. Subjectively I'ld also say that there's less banding than on the GH2, but it's still there,

(Sorry for the shakiness etc. it was more a byproduct of testing the camera at my local shop than a proper test. Oh and make sure to download the original mov file because vimeo compression makes things a lot worse than they are.)

I'm curious if anyone is getting lines or banding in high ISO's with the GH3 in video mode, I get horrible lines/banding that honestly make my gh2 more pleasing to the eye. I have attached a file with file of 6400 ISO to make my point, of course I would probably never use 6400 but even at 3200 the lines are noticeable, any one else have this issue?

UPDATE: lol I always end up finding answers to my problems, well as it turns out, I was testing the high iso feature with a 14-42 X lens and that was causing those lines, I slapped a manual lens with no IS and no electronics and now I see how clean my 3200 setting is, so people watch out with those Panny lenses :-)

The EVF has UNITS ARE BUGS OR BAD? BETTER OR NOT THAT THE GH2 EVF?

The first reply 'hits the nail on the head.' Start with ISO 3200, then push two stops =12,800. And, the image is still under-exposed. In any normally exposed shot, this color mottling is invisible. So, this is not really an issue. I agree 100%.

NEW VIDEOS:

To my eye, GH2 is often the winner over the GH3. Why? Because GH2 just looks more cinematic to my eye. GH3 looks too "crisp" and "cold", like many Sony cameras do. Yes, GH3 has an improved ISO performance, but for me this is not a GH2 killer.

I have GH2 an GH3. GH3 is better in stills and video. I made resolution test in 24p (flowmotion vs mov50mb) and GH3 has a little cleaner resolution. But I dont use 24p or 25p because I dont like stutter and resolution pumping when moving camera. So in 50p or 60p GH3 has much much better image than GH2. Color, DR, banding, sound, handling, battery etc... are better.

There are still left some stupid things there in GH3 from GH2. Mode dial logic is frustrating. Shutter speed and iso etc. dont change when you roll the dial. So you cant do video and stills with different shutter speed or iso without changing them all the time. For example If you want shoot stills at 1/1000 and then rapidly videos at 1/50 that is not possible. Even C modes cant save shutter speed or aperture. And GH3 is supposed to be good hybrid camera.

One way is to trust red video button and hope camera uses good exposure values (usually too short shutter about 1/500). My way is to use A to stills and S for video. But S in video leeds to jumpy exposure because of aperture stepping. And why in S mode camera cant show aperture value its chooses? M+auto iso would be nice but GH3 doesnt have it. M is now useless to me because it cant hold its values if you do something else and go back to M. It is a mess if you want to use automatic exposure for video. Unless you use cameras iAuto (aka idiot auto). I dont want to use full M but I think it is the only way to get decent video. But it may leed to severe under or over exposure if I dont watch exposure very carefully or conditions change during clip. Why cant it work like a normal video camera? No jumps in exposure and no idiotic shutter speeds in automatic video.

In Canons and Nikon P A S M works independently. Why Panasonic must have their own weird Philosophy? Can anyone tell me one reason?

Why there is EV button while one of the rolls always controls EV? Why is there 8 function buttons but you can program only some of operations to them? Why cant you set iso limit in video mode? Was it too hard to programme? It would also be nice to have contrast etc. under one button. I think they was hurry to get camera to christmas market.

Viewfinder is softer in GH3 and you cannot check focus reliably. You must trust green rectangle of autofocus. Can they do some sharpening adjust in EVF? It is too very noisy in low light althougt recording is clean.

I hope that firmware update could fix theese problems. Please, Panasonic!

PAL/NTSC swichable is too must for me. I hope Vitaly can make it.

Thank you all for testing and hacking and helping.

Returning my gh3 this week after a test run.. pros: mic / headphone line-ins (the gh3 managed to run my Roland binaural earphones with very reasonable results!), a host of features, many that I never did managed to test, improved stills, very good video, slight DR range improvement a.s.o. cons: viewfinder, more "fragile" in the cold. 30 minute rec limit.

Overall: some of the improvements felt pretty slight in comparison to my expectations. Low light performance - I don´t fancy the natural grain in the camera, at least not for stills. Stills performance not AS good as I expected. Om-d felt nicer in this regard.. Very promising for the future; a hack will make this a serious tool for me and until then I will have no problems being without it.

The gh3 made me wish for good video performance in the next generation of fuji´s with interchangeable lenses since that seems exactly like what I want from a hybrid with emphasis on stills capabilities. (some might say, get a stills cam - but I want to have a great deal of both in one body)

@timfrakes it´s a PAL version, in Sweden.. 1625 usd incl VAT. Still interested? :) (the store I bought it from has it in stock and might ship you one, excl VAT - roughly the same as B&H price - still PAL though)

Yeah the GH3 viewfinder is horrible, the diopter definitly seems messed up @RRRR

I honestly could not focus with it at all, the LCD was great though. But super disappointing to have a poor evf

I think EVF stuff will be better suited for http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/5488/gh3-issues-topic/p1

here´s a test video of the gh3 with roland CS-10EM binaural earphones: in-cam levels cranked up to a maximum. No corrections for audio or video in post. Mind, this is not meant to be exciting. ;) Use headphones for listening.

I'm scared, I don't know if its my monitor, or the youtube compression or even the render you did, but I really hope is not the original footage. I see colour stripes from green to magenta that look like some kind of banding in the flat illuminated surfaces from the beginning of the video to 2:48 its very subtle but its there, I already checked in two monitors, in one is more noticeable than the other. I see it more in the GH3 footage but is there also in GH2 someone also sees this. Can you upload a link from original footage to pixel peep.

Thanks