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Official Panasonic GH3 topic
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  • @mpgxsvcd, I think that the other aspects of how data is processed will also have a huge effect on the image. Surely Sony and Pany have different image processors. There will some similarities, but I think there can be differences based on everything else in the system besides the Sensor.

    So far the Moire/Aliasing doesn't seem to be present in every instance that you'd expect. Perhaps as some have suggested it is a symptom of the Lumix lenses and maybe it's not an issue when using other glass that isn't corrected for or as sharp as some of the Lumix lenses. We need more testing to see what the final verdict is on that.

  • Yes looking at the shot I am thinking the same thing. It could be a very sharp less and perhaps some Panasonic processing that we see with there lens. It does look a lot like Sony Nikon d600 moire. That is, not coloured moire like we use to see with the Canon but just a monochrome wave like moire.

  • Moire and aliasing seems to be far less obvious or present in videos which obviously have turned down sharpening. It also seems to be the difference between a video look or a cinematic one, so it shoudn´t be a problem unless you want to shoot with a video look.

    With the gh2, there can be problems (most notably with certain very high contrast patterns) with some lenses and no problems with others, and not always in a linear fashion. It wasn´t as simple as panny lenses producing it while others didn´t. (always, that is) Different encoder settings worked it differently, too.

    I´m suspecting a bit and trial and error testing to find out when the problems occurs with the gh3.. if hacked, I think this is a possible area of improvement, too. If the encoder tables are to blame, that is.

    For instance (to back up my reasoning above) if you pixel peep the Genesis video, you´ll find some very clear aliasing in the scene with the guy on the bed, shot from above (I´d guess it´s with the slr magic 12mm as it looks like it was shot wide open - it could also be the 12-35 but I wouldn´t bet on it). I´d also guess this was shot maybe at 720p50 intra.. or 50p @50mpbs. Maybe the amount of information / lack of bandwith makes certain parts of the image go into fallback mode (to coarser encoder), leading to moire and aliasing?

  • When it comes to the current discussiom about GH3 vs GH2, I am tempted to paraphrase (by their mid-90s names) Notorius B.I.G. and Puff Daddy.

    "Mo money, moire problems."

    When it comes to the moire, I feel that Panasonic have a fighting chance of correcting whatever issues may be present before the camera is released, but the truth is that we have insufficient data to know whether it really is more of a problem than the GH2 at this point.

    @RatLabProductions I switch cameras around a bit so I will take a swing at that question.

    The GH2 sensors strengths were:

    • Crop factor desirability and flexibility compared to many other M43 offerings.
    • Video downsampling/rescaling quality.
    • Video side effects of the downsampling/rescaling included better moire handling, detail preservation and resolution than competing DSLRs at the time of release (and for a long time after).
    • Great ETC option for telephot shots (though noise could be better).
    • Framerate: better than some, worse than others but definitely a plus for many U.S. customers with 24P approach at time of release.

    Weaknesses:

    • Dynamic range.
    • Banding.
    • Incosistent shadow handling.
    • ISO (in terms of low ISO noise in particular - ISO range was better tahn initially expected).
    • Rolling shutter.

    Now the market is far more competitive now than when the GH2 was released so people are expecting new things. But the GH2 was (and is) one of the best video offerings in the price range.

    How the GH3 compares in terms of strengths and weaknesses (for instance if it turns out to handle moire more poorly than the GH2 or if it handles it better) could be what makes the difference for some potential customers, more so than new features like 1080 60P.

    Oh and here is a list specific to the hacked GH2.

    Video Pros:

    • Unusually high quality options for the codec.
    • Lots of GOP choices.
    • Customizable bitrates (including unusually high ones for practically every mode on the camera).
    • ISOs from 160-12,800.
    • Great I-frame only support with unusually good noise structure preservation.

    If you want to really see a lot of what the GH2 does right and also where it falls short, a fair comparison is the C300. The two cameras have more in common (sensor-wise) than a lot of other pairs, even though they are different sizes. But the C300 has the edge in several areas and I cannot think of many IQ areas where the situation is reversed.

  • Contrary to many here, I have very little hope that we will see any changes to the final camera. The thing is that almost everytime I saw such situation about changes in camera from hardware specification and image quality, the final version was exactly the same than the announcement. How many time have I seen people saying, no it is only beta, not final version, you will see brand Xor Y can, cannot, will not and in the end it was the same thing that we saw from the launch or some leeks one month before delivery.

  • @danyyel I hear you and understand what you mean, but the BMDCC is a good example of how things got better (and some of the SLR Magic lenses have been spoken of as improving similarly by certain members of their beta team).

    There may not be the highest chance that Firmware changes will fix it before release, but there is still a real possibility.

  • Has anyone asked the Panasonic reps. about any possible future firmware upgrade to avc-ultra (avc pro)? supposedly most models after nab should have such upgrade in 2013. That would open the door for a lot of possibilities..

  • @Vitaliy_Kiselev Since Inoue is a "senior engineering planner" at Panasonic what you say about him not knowing if the GH3 HDMI is 4:2:0 is not likely.

    As for the sensor...he said "no comment". If it was made by Panasonic and not from Sony (or someone else) why would he/they be so reluctant to say so?

  • @fix It is on the list of question from PV Photokina team. You can check what they got back.

  • Ops sorry obviously didn't check ;) thanks for the info thepalalias.

  • @thepalalias unfortunately those two example are from small to medium company that are entering there respective market with new product that can only sell buy being hyper competitive or unique in there respective market. Now we are talking about some of the biggest corporation that have whole line of product etc. So they will listen but to a certain extend.

    For me Pana looked at the success of the OMD, hailed a a very good photo camera, looked at the video and thought that it was a good compromise in terms of video/photo camera. Looked at how much it would cost them to do the r&d of a chip that could equal that, if it was possible for them even to do that in terms of DR and low noise and thought that for the market they were aiming at it was good enough. It might not sound good because of the romanticism that has developped arround the gh2 and the hack community, but

  • only VK can help this camera sell, otherwise I can not see any strong points, today we have so many tested patches for gh2,

    as much we know about GH3 is more and more disappointing

    long live GH2 and VK crew, make a donation I will

  • @danyyel Like I said earlier, I am not disputing the probability of it shipping with firmware in similar form. I am simply saying that the more the company hears about how important it is to fix the firmware, and the greater the sense of an effect on the sale they feel it will have, the more likely they are to address it.

    The biggest factor will be the cost of firmware development vs the potential sales volume they believe they will gain or lose based on adding it.

  • Yeah I'm leaving Canon because of their molasses slow trickle down technology philosophy. I've been really liking the hacked gh2 despite it's flaws (low ISO shadow noise, no audio out, no good low light zoom lenses till now) I had hoped the gh3 would be the last straw to get me to sell all our Canon gear and switch. But from all the interviews I've read, it looks like more of the same molasses slow trickle down that's got me ready to sell all my Canon gear. I'm thinking the BMCC will be my next camera. if only it had I.S. on ef-s lenses there'd b no doubt. Or maybe Samsung will come out of left field with a killer video optimised Android dslr. Since they don't have a pro market to protect as far as I know. Also, I find it really obnoxious how the reps from Panasonic can't embrace the hacker community that made their gh camera a player in the dslr video market in the 1st place! If I have to hear one more panny rep say they DON'T RECOMMEND HACKING YOUR GH CAMERA, how's about they do their GOD DAMN jobs so the hacking community doesn't have to DO IT FOR THEM!!!! :) Jayson youtube.com/AWDEfilms

  • any info about dynamic range of GH3 ?

    anyway as all of us I was very looking forward to the GH3, I was oriented to the BMCC but when I heard GH3 was coming out soon, hey, I put the BMCC idea in a box. Now that I still see 420, more aliasing and overall not that good IQ, I changed my mind again and back in love with the BMCC, in my opinion the best IQ out there near the DSLR price range...

    I saw there are about 1k reply in this topic so it's a bit hard with my very limited time to search info, excuse me if I ask few question maybe asked dozens time already, reply if you want, skip to next post if you don't.

    • Aliasing, is that definitive or the final product can be different ?
    • 420, same question as above.
    • Are there other bad sides of this camera that I missed ?

    Thanks

  • @robbie75vr

    • Aliasing could potentially be improved by the time the camera releases. Many people here feel it is unlikely, but essentially no one feels that it is futile to voice how important this aliasing/moire issue is for many of us.
    • Multiple people at the company have said it will ship with 4:2:0 for both HDMI out and the internal codec.

    The primary complaints at the moment are that the sensor is no long multi-aspect-ratio (like the GH1 and GH2 were) so we are getting a 2.1 crop instead of a 1.86 one like on the previous one. And there is concern that we may have more moire than before.

    Most of the other things relate to things that have not been improved, rather than things that have gotten worse, so they are less of an issue. For instance, people are wondering whether the All-I Frame encoding is working well (some people have suggested that the test footage shows the 50 mpbs and even the lower rate AVCHD footage on the camera doing better). But the I-Frame one remains to be seen.

    Compared to the original GH2 the I-frame issue seems odd, but compared to the hacked GH2, there is a great deal of wondering whether a hacked GH2 will outperform a factory GH3.

    However, many people are optimistic about the hacked GH3 performance (especially since Panasonic confirmed UHS-I support for the camera).

  • @thepalalias

    thanks man, so the best is just to wait the release and some real footage before making decisions... (as usual)

  • @robbie75vr I would say even more so than usual, but yes. :)

  • From what I have seen, were basically a getting a GH2 but with most likely 10.5+ stops of DR, superior colour, superior low light (the 3 BIG things that did not impress on GH2) NATIVE 25p, 1080p50/60, half decent codec options out the box, superior build quality, OLED screen/EVF, improved banding/gradiation, a headphone socket, -5 contrast, proppa HDMI monitoring and so on and so on.

    And it cost $1300, how much is an inferior 5D3? or C100? Isnt that exactly what we wanted if not more? So far I have seen a little aliasing (the key word is little), it has no 422 via HDMI (how many would really use that?) an its 2.XX crop (most people thought GH2 was 2x crop anyway) and there is no focus peaking (which I bet no1 was expecting until it was heavily rumoured).

    @diffusion33 'on crop factor, most video users are well aware of this' Yes most on this forum, as this is mainly a GH2 community, dip your toe elsewhere an I bet there is confusion as to what it is. GH2 is just about THEE best bang for buck camera in the world, GH3 never had a sniff at keeping everyone happy.

  • When I looked at the spec. and price of GH3, I feel like more interested in G5. If G5 actually uses the same multi-aspect sensor as GH2 uses and it support 1080p/60/50. I think it has potential to achieve the same quality as GH3 video does when a hacked firmware is available. Still I hope there is some way to active the multi-aspect function of G5. I really love this function. If so, I would more like to upgrade my GH2 to G5 not GH3.

  • @Jizzjones i couldn't disagree more with your statement on crop factor, most video users are well aware of this and focus peaking as been a feature desire by many since GH1/GH2 days... I think the rumor sties got us excited about focus peaking and 4:2:2..... and feel like these guys have a lot to answer for!!! Also no one can blame us for been pissed at panasonic lack of transparency with the release of the GH3 and and the major changes that they implemented on the new GH3 effectivly making the GH3 and OMD on steroids, all in all it's not a bad thing but they could've made a killer camera and have left us feeling a bit meh!! And now people are considering their options which i don't blame them for. I myself have not invested massively in 4/3 and it makes me think i might go sony or nikon as i also shoot a lot of photos. I'm in no way desperate and love my GH2 Thx to VK and the whole community here a PV that provide tremendous insight, info, tips.... I'll wait and see what the GH3 puts out and make my decission only then. In the mean time i hope the people at pana are seeing this and are reconsidering on firmware. Even if it delayed the camera being release somewhat it probably would be better in the long run.

  • Maybe this conversation should be moved to the pana complaints and we can bombard them with our issues instead of venting our frustrations here!!! Anyone got an e-mail address?

  • Maybe it's time to open a thread just for complainers so that the rest of us who've already pre-ordered can get on with the business of developing this camera. Reading through paragraphs of people rehashing the same BS and hang wringing about how they're somehow getting screwed by something they haven't even bought that exists in a format they're not even invested in is just ridiculous. Just go buy a goddamned Sony for the peaking (because you obviously won't pay the extra $200 for a monitor w/peaking feature) and leave the rest of us in peace.

  • @diffusion33

    I'm with you. Originally I was seriously considering this cam but now I'm looking at the options. I am very disappointed with the lack of a multi-aspect sensor, annoyed by the 2.1 crop factor, and not completely thrilled with any of the sample videos or photos I've seen. Not like I'd be losing my GH2 or anything if I got that Nex 9 that is someday sopposed to come. And if a hack ever comes around I'll have a nex 9 to sell.

    EDIT: Never mind, I am back on board. forgot the weather proofing and those constant aperture zooms.

  • If memory serves me right, the GH3 1080p50 matrix is exactly the same as the High Profile level 4.2 G5 matrix. And true, that both cameras share the same venus engine. Here's the link to the G5 matrix info http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/3936/official-panasonic-g5-topic#Item_88. Earlier in this thread I mentined the 108p50 matrix of the GH3.

    Its pretty difficult for me to do stuff in Chile regarding research until I get back late wknd/early next week. Therefore I offer my thanks for the great work the p-v guys at Photokina have done for us all and I apologise that I cannot go deeper with info until then.

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