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GH3 user reviews and opinions
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  • @Tron @jfilmmaker I've had the Leica 25mm f/1.4 for over a year with my GH2 and used it some now with my GH3. Excellent lens, very sharp and rich colors. And in low light, it definitely performs well. I now use the Voigtlander 25mm with my GH3 and one of the reasons I switched over is that it is a pain to manual focus with the Leica 25mm. You certainly could use the AFC/AFS with the Leica but IME, it hasn't been that reliable. Plus the Voigtlander has a slightly, more creamy and softer look around its edges and the colors are not as vibrant so the image quality is definitely different compared to the Leica. Hope that helps.

  • @SuperSet Auto focusing issues still exist on Panny 25mm when used with GH3? How would Voigt do with shooting buildings, street traffic, etc.?

    @Tron thanks for input... Tough decisions....

  • @jfilmmaker Hey man, I've found the GH3 to have pretty good AF but it does still hunt. Since I now run a shoulder rig, I prefer to just manual focus now. I haven't done many building shots with the Voigtlander but could post some sample video later this week, if you'd like. I have seen some moire when filming people that wear patterned shirts or sweaters.

  • @Manu4Vendetta The only GH2 footage I have online that's w/the 25mm PL is in the start of a demo reel here... shot 1, 2 and 4 -

    Those were shot mostly wide open, probably not the best examples but I liked 'em at the time. There's something special about the way the Leica renders an image. And there's no vignetting on the GH3, whereas it seemed to vignette noticeably on the GH2 wide open. The vignette elimination may be a combination of the increased crop and in camera lens correction, not completely sure.

    @SuperSet I'm going to run some focus tracking tests, but I like lumix lenses for those times when I shoot event coverage and I run in AF-S mode and just roll the cam and then half press the shutter on each subject I isolate. I've found it to be accurate thus far and it saves me the time of having to punch in the magnification to manually focus (that is also tough when people are moving around).

  • @SuperSet Is there a follow focus that's compatible with the Voigtlander? On the GH3, is the viewfinder good enough to determine sharp focus? I'm trying to figure out how feasible rack focuses' are with the Voigtlander. Thx!

    @Tron You have any Moiré issues as well with the lens on patterned shirts, etc.? How would you rate cinematic-type rack focuses on the GH3 ala autofocus, touch screen? Thx!

  • @jfilmmaker I'm using the follow focus that came with my shoulder rig, the Fancierstudio one, and it does work although not perfectly. For manual focus, I always use the Assist Manual Focus (the zoom feature) as I find it difficult to do without it.

  • also tested various settings in Custom mode (up to +5 NR) but no difference

  • Hi Vitalyi, I've been shooting tests with my brand new GH-3.....and I must say....there is a surprising level of noise in shadow areas, even at highest bit rate of 72 mbits/sec in H264. In fact the Vitalyi-hacked GH-1 produces CLEANER video than the factory GH-3 does!! I hope that your hack of the GH-3 will be able to address the noise issue (just made a $10 donation towards the effort) None of these noise problems were mentioned in Philip Bloom's initial review (of GH-3 prototype). It gets worse: shooting a daytime exterior of a mini-mall, the dark green awning of Starbucks was buzzing like crazy.....forced me to add noise reduction. (Shot without pushing gain, i.e. at 200 ASA and plenty of stop) The camera absolutely struggles in low light situation when you push the gain past 800ASA....image just falls apart. By the way I noticed no difference in image quality between high bit rate AVCHD and high bit rate H264 (.mov). I bought the GH-3 primarily for its theoretical 60p capability (apply 40% speed setting to 60p shoot mode to achieve slow mo) , but the bit rate goes down to roughly 20 mbits/sec max. It's an extrapolated slow mo sort of like a low rent Varicam, but it'll do for the budget. Looking forward to hear from other GH-3 users re their experiences.

  • @LenserRanchoMirage You're too close for missiles switch to guns. [50M]

  • So does the GH2 still shoot 50mb at 1080 60p?

  • The GH2's never shot 1080/60p AFAIK, just 720/60p.

  • Sorry I meant the GH3.

  • @vas907, yes GH3 does record in 1080 60p at 50mbps

  • Although the GH-3 is pretty much out of my price range right now, I've been following developments closely.

    As I imagine we all have.

    From what I've been able to gather, getting good video is just a matter of learning what settings the camera likes best.

    Although I'm willing to grant that it may not be perfect, I don't expect perfection.

    And believe the bias here is so strongly in favor of the GH-2, the new camera may have a lot to live up to.

    As to me, it seems that with the two fast zooms, and ultimately improved auto focus, this is a dangerous weapon.

    Heretofore I've been shooting my GH-2 with primes, and a Small HD.

    Even with my tired old eyes, I've been able to focus reasonably well.

    Although when I went back through the footage of one of my shoots, I'm am literally begging for a focus.

    "Please," I pleaded.

    God know what the model thought!

    So.

    With the two fast zooms, one can apparently with reasonable confidence, shoot away.

    I like this idea.

    In the meantime, I've ordered the Nokton 25 to match my 17.5.

    Recently, I told a beautiful model that I wanted to "fill the screen with... your eyes... your lips."

    Vis a vis the model, this may or may not pay off.

    But the Nokton 25mm f 0.95 will allow me to do this.

    With indoor, available light.

    RBD

  • Amazon just shipped my GH3 out few days ago excited to start shooting some projects with it. For me having 1080 60p, weather sealing, and a normal mic jack is worth the price alone. Everything else is just a bonus. We shoot alot of slo mo footage for TV work and always had to up res 720p footage and you can tell the quality difference cutting hacked GH2 1080 24p footage with 720p in HD broadcast. We also do alot of green screen work and it would have been nice to have uncompressed 4-2-2 hdmi out but hopefully avfirmware update later on we can have this.

  • Did this for myself to get a better idea of what each of the GH3 scene modes actually did, just chucked it on youtube thought it may (or may not!) be useful for anyone else looking at the same seing as I'd just spent a while doing it, helped me get my head around it better if nothing else :). 5 secs of the same scene in same lighting settings in video then I ran though them again a screen shotted with vegas pro scopes up from 50sec in.

    Mark

  • That's awesome... thanks for the scene reference, Mark.

  • GH2 flowmotion vs GH3 50IBP:

    • same lens (both Olympus OM 28mm f3.5 @f3.5)
    • both STANDARD picture profile 0,0,0,-2/-5
    • WB 6500K

    here is how both cameras render colors out of the box. The GH3 clearly shows a magenta tint :-)

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  • @Alex I have a calibrated IPS monitor, and I'd say the GH2 has a green tint, while the GH3 looks much more neutral.

  • @Alex

    Sry, but the GH2s footage is green as poison. Check this with vectorscope.

  • same setup. Here is only the red channel with saturation cranked all the way up. The GH3 has a much smoother red channel.

    • yes, the GH2 is green -

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  • standard is not good for the GH2 - which we all know

  • but is it any better for the GH3? what choice of picture modes would be best for a comparison? I think the settings I picked are quite good to compare against each other ...

  • @Alex Yes, GH3 looks greenish but the GH2 also normally has lot of magneta tint. I assume that LPowell did something to correct it a bit in the FM, that patch has been impressively configurated until the last detail. I remember the colors of the GH2 were touch different in the firmware 1.0 but I don't remember how.....maybe it would be worth it checking some old patches.

  • GH3 looks greenish???