@jonpais frankly I believe that the only one spreading false information here is you. MOV and AVHCD are quite different, not just in terms of bitrate and file handling (everyone knows how it works here, no need to explain). Also All-I MOV is a lot different than not-All-I, in the GH3. Please take the time to read previous posts before picking on people who, as far as I have the chance to see here, showed plenty of skill and dedication

@rNeil @maadog15 maybe it's stupid or it's been already discussed, but did we take in account that Panasonic is an asian company and most of the MFT market is asian? The majority of people I read from who said there was no skin tone issue were showing videos with asian people ... and of course asian skin tone is generally different from caucasian skin tone ...

@jonpais #1 Not me. I do everything I can to shoot a well exposed ISO 200 shot with the GH3. That said I get great results up to 800 ISO - but that's the limit unless I'm doing something that supposed to have a raw look to it. Problem for me is that high ISO on the GH3 doesn't produce a nice cinematic grain. Just looks more like the onset of blotchy noise or small artifacting. So unfortunately pushing the GH3's ISO higher doesn't yield the same nostalgic, moody grain results that other camera systems might. (BTW: I'm in the process of editing a job where the footage was originally shot on 35mm film then transcoded to ProRes HQ files. It's "noisy" yes. But with a beautifully rich cinematic grain. Nice.) #2 I've actually edited "raw" AVCHD files and achieved wonderful results in Premiere Pro. NOTE to PP users: I found the trick is importing the "private" file directly into PP's bin using the "import files" menu. Dragging the footage from the desktop into the bin (which i did frequently since I'm on a Mac) apparently looses some of the multitudes of information buried within the folders and files of the Private folder. That said, working with all the associated files within files of the Private folder is a pain in the a**. So now I just use ClipWrap and rewrap AVCHD files as single ProRes HQ files. Very tidy. #3 Good looking faces. Very nice. #4 I object to your using the word "Quick" in point 4 above. Replace that word with "Arduous".... and I would completely agree with you! #5 The way you've redefined your objection on this one made be laugh. Good one. Worded like a passionate pro...with a sense of humor. That's what it's all about. IMHO :)

@jonpais :)

@jonpais To my liking GH3 skin reproduction is abysmal, graded or not, well lit or not. Me holding the cam or you... If you like the results it's a good thing, I wish I did...

@yak and if your position is that no matter how well the subject is lighted, no matter what settings one uses, no matter how brilliant a colorist one is, one simply cannot get a pleasing result from the camera, then I'm afraid the two of us have nothing more to say to one another.

@rNeil - the importance of calibrated monitors cannot be overstated (not to say they don't have calibrated monitors). The difference between even monitors from the same manufacturer amazes me. Even after calibration, there are notable differences. An example would be the two monitors I have. The Acer 243W(?) is a very old monitor (5+ years) that has a CFL backlight and only is potentially capable of sRGB calibration (98% gamut). My Dell 2413 Ultrasharp uses LED backlighting and is Adobe RGB capable (set to sRGB gamut in monitor), though I only have it calibrated to sRGB (102% gamut) because sRGB is the standard (foundation) for almost all viewing we use (web, NTSC, rec 709, etc.). Both were calibrated the same day using the same software and i1DisplayPro.

Even though these two monitors are calibrated to the same standard, with the same white point and brightness, the overall contrast of the Dell is noticably better than the Acer. The colors are very similar, though there are noticable (if very slight) differences between the two, especially in the blues.

Oh, my point. Even slight differences between "calibrated" monitors can make a pic/vid look different. If they aren't calibrated (with good, proven software and sensor), the variation can be pretty large. Most people don't notice it unless they have a dual (or more) monitor setup. I use my Dell for color correction/grading if only because I figure (i.e. hope/pray) it is actually closer to the standard than the old Acer since it is actually made for that purpose.

Anyway, I, personally, have not noticed an objectional color cast or texture to skin tones with my GH3 and monitors(both). Perhaps there is some variation in the sensors that cause some cameras to perform worse than others? An interesting experiment to try.

Scott

At least when you have the monitors calibrated, they are in the same ballpark... :)

My eyes don't even have the same color balance.

Picture Profile: Natural (-5,-4,0,-4)

Normally I use all setting at -5 but I noticed that when I have lots of underexposed areas and hard backlights I need a bit more saturation to avoid losing colours on the shadows. Graded with Film Convert and Colorista

I realize this will appear a bit rambling, but this is the edited version... :) In many ways, this is a kind of summary/replay of the discussions a few pages back regarding optimal settings, with MY reasoning/understanding thrown in. I just didn't really understand the "why" behind the comments, being a noob and all.

I've been playing around and taking some video outside over the last few months and, like many, have been kind of disappointed with the "color recoverability" (probably wrong term) of the GH3. Now before everyone jumps on me for this, let me explain.

Since I got my GH3 (almost exclusively for home videos) I've been playing with different settings and trying to learn how to get the most out of a camera like this. My previous camera (still have it as I'm still transferring old tapes) was a Sony HVR-Z1U HDV camcorder. By comparison, with the Z1U what was recorded was what you got. With the GH3, I have a lot more flexibility.

So I started learning about video and kept seeing that the "good" cameras for video always produced video that was really flat and dull out of the camera, but during processing would "come alive" with some color correction and grading. I was amazed. So I started trying to shoot everything as flat as I could with the GH3 (Natural, -5, -5, -5, -5) thinking I would be able to do the same.

Unfortunately, once I started processing these videos in Premiere Pro CC, there were limitations that I've been trying to ignore, but wouldn't go away. I realize that some of them could probably be addressed by using SpeedGrade or Resolve, but, for home videos and similar, that is just way more work than it is worth... I'm not a colorist. And even then, I question that the results would be as impressive.

So I've been trying to understand WHY I'm having trouble bringing back flat video out of the GH3, when it appears to be relatively easy with "higher end" cameras. And I think I've figured it out.

While I may be overstating the obvious for those of you who are professionals, I'm just trying to see if my understanding is close to correct. Here goes...

The higher end cameras don't produce video as nice (IMO) as the GH3 straight out of the camera (with just about any settings). However, their video can be brought back to the point where they CAN look better than the video on the GH3. I guess this is why all pros keep going on about "latitude".

These higher end cameras have a number of advantages that give them this ability. From my perspective they are dynamic range (sensor), bit rate, bit depth (e.g. 8 or 10-bit), color encoding (e.g. 420 or 422), and codec (I could well be missing some). While they are somewhat inter-related, it seems only two are directly responsible for the GH3's limitations and are not resolvable with things like external recorders (or sensor limited).

Because of the GH3's 420 8-bit recording/output (SD card or HDMI), it will NEVER have the latitude that the higher end cameras have. So from what I can see, it becomes even more important to get it as close to "right" out of the camera (for the look you are trying to achieve) than these higher end cameras... without a hack that will give us access to higher end recording. EPIPHANY ALERT! :)

I say this because the GH3 appears to only have about 1/3 or less of the latitude of higher end cameras due to its 420 8-bit recording (I haven't scientifically tested this, so it could be a bit higher or much lower). So we can only recover about 1/3 of the information that a higher end camera can. Due to this, we need to have the camera set close to how we want it so we can do the final color correction/grade and get our "perfect look".

Based on this, here are my thoughts on in camera settings (especially since photos and videos appear to share the settings):

Photo Style: I'm going to have to do a lot of experimentation here to see what looks best to MY eyes. I really don't know what I'm going to select here. Especially in light of discussion regarding skin tone earlier in this thread.

Contrast: I think I'm going to end up a bit higher than -5 on this one, though below 0. My reasoning here is partially based on EOSHD.com's review of the GH3 where they found -5 left some "muddy" shadow tones. Though, theoretically, a negative value here (up to the -5) should allow for increased shadow detail recovery and apparent dynamic range. Though I may get more benefit by adding some exposure compensation for an "exposure to the right" (ETTR) approach at the risk of blowing out some highlight detail (my current preference).

Sharpness: I think that this will stay at -5. However, I will need to do some experimenting to see if -5 really just doesn't add any sharpness (or minimizes what is added) or actually actively softens the video. This can affect the amount of aliasing and moire that can be see in addition to the visibility of noise.

Saturation: Like many here (though I didn't understand it before), I think that I will be setting this much closer to 0 than I have been in the past, though probably not above 0. I just haven't been able to bring the saturation back in post at -5. Not to mention that it seems to be easier to reduce saturation than to increase it without strange color artifacts.

Noise reduction: I am likely to keep this at or close to -5. I say this for two reasons. First, noise reduction will almost always reduce detail. Because of this, I would rather have the detail and associated noise and adjust it afterward to my liking (in Premiere or using Neat) than to not have it and have no way to recover the real detail (sharpening doesn't add/recover detail). Second, with products like Neat, there are far better (if more computationally expensive) methods to control noise than what is available in the GH3. Though I may increase it depending on if I don't want to do much/any noise reduction in post (i.e. how lazy I am and the video's importance).

Anyway, am I nuts? Or am I finally beginning to understand the limitations of the GH3?

I also may try transcoding to ProRes (DNxHD?) 422 10-bit to see if that helps at all in post. My poor hard drives! :)

@surfculture very nice test. strangely, I liked all of the results (especially the film convert, for a stylized look), except for the color corrected ones, which looked kind of yellowish to my eyes (but again, I'm watching on a MBP Retina, not a calibrated monitor)