Test footage from the pre-release Panasonic GH3 at Photokina

[Andrew Reid]

[media]http://vimeo.com/49944730[/media]

This week I was loaned a GH3 body for a short time at Photokna by Panasonic. This test footage was shot in 1080/25p ALL-I mode at 72Mbit, with two slow mo-sequences of Pocahontas and the juggler shot in AVCHD 1080/50p at 50Mbit.

I also had a go at grading the GH3 footage with Peter Patten of Apple.

[dbp]

Best looking test footage for the GH3 that I've seen yet. Renewed my faith in the lil' beast. The color pallette seems more pleasing than the GH2, which was always it's Achilles heel imo.

Highlights look kinda iffy. Not sure about this extended dynamic range talk. I guess we'll have to see a proper objective comparison with the GH2.

[richg101]

looks good. looks nice and flat considering the range of brights to darks I'd expect to see in a conference like this. blacks look clean, even on the vimeo playback. not good enough to make me move away from the nex 5n (especially since it just went down to £250 body only!), and i imagine not a good enough improvement over the gh2 (as you say, it is not as pleasing overall as the 2 yrs old gh2)

[andy lee]

so the verdict is ......hang onto your GH2 then !!
its a unique camera!!

[Steven Phipps]

Oh THERE S my baby mama! She s always running off to intl imaging events.

[richg101]

Could it be a lens issue? in the same way certain RF type glass just doesnt work well with the nex7's high pixel count? Could the lenses be at fault causing this problem. Was this a new lens (also at prototype stage) used to shoot this test footage? I don't want to give up on the new gh yet.

[richg101]

Maybe the heat coming from Pocahontas was screwing up the internals of the camera?

[KahL]

Very pleased w/ the skin tones for whatever picture style was being used. It's not exactly VisionColor, but very good nonetheless.
I wouldn't call it a "professional" codec though. High bitrate, yes. But 8bit 420 is still 8bit 420 and unfortunately this is the deal w/ the HDMI out :-( Not liking that, but the picture looks good thus far :-)

[PAVP]

Man those people going on about the GH2 are NUTS!!! This camera looks like it's gonna be a winner IMO. The color is much better and the highlights looks much more pleasing. Given that we haven't yet seen any footage from a production model yet nor footage that has been taken under the best circumstances and after a user has gotten to learn how to get the best possible image, this is impressive IMO. I just don't see what the naysayers are going on about. I'll have to see a lot worse footage than this to assume that the GH3 won't be the new camera for me.

[Glenn Thomas]

Quick question, does it have the 1:1 crop that was in the GH2?

[bwhitz]

[quote name='PAVP' timestamp='1348272423' post='18855']
I just don't see what the naysayers are going on about.
[/quote]

The detail is horrible and it renders textures like a 7D (everything looks plastic). The GH3 looks, unfortunately, like a disgusting leap backwards in image rendering. It's just another fake 1080p camera like the rest now. Terrible job Panasonic, terrible.

[Orangenz]

Looks great apart from that stripey shirt at the end.

[MaxAperture Films]

[quote name='bwhitz' timestamp='1348275121' post='18857']
The detail is horrible and it renders textures like a 7D (everything looks plastic). The GH3 looks, unfortunately, like a disgusting leap backwards in image rendering. It's just another fake 1080p camera like the rest now. Terrible job Panasonic, terrible.
[/quote]

Too funny... I've seen a lot of 7D footage on projects I've worked and it is mostly shit, this is not soft 7D shit. In fact it looks great considering some of the horrible ceiling lighting that abounds. The only area of concern I have is the last few frames where the guys shirt lights up with moire, that is not going to be acceptable on my shoots. If it is not just a bug specific to certain lenses they definitely need to upgrade that low pass filter or there will be alot of product returns on this model, mine included.

[PAVP]

[quote name='bwhitz' timestamp='1348275121' post='18857']
The detail is horrible and it renders textures like a 7D (everything looks plastic). The GH3 looks, unfortunately, like a disgusting leap backwards in image rendering. It's just another fake 1080p camera like the rest now. Terrible job Panasonic, terrible.
[/quote]

Until you get to shoot with a production model and adjusted settings, how can you really say all these things are definitive from this video. The things you're saying sound more like subjective personal taste than actual real objective critiques. I think too many are ready to jump on this camera and not like it. I'd have to see the 2 cameras shoot the same scene before i'd say that the GH3 definitely is a step backwards. We won't get that chance for a while yet.

[galenb]

Did anyone else notice the pulsating shirt of the guy in the background of the very last shot? Very strange looking. I hesitate calling it moire... I've never actually seen anything like that before. There's another shot I noticed something similar going on in the shadows that looks similar. I wonder if this is the result of All-i? Like, maybe since the compression happens on an individual frame bases, you can actually get wildly different results on each frame if your codec is not tuned properly?

[edit: yes, I see others noticed this too.]

[zephyrnoid]

Not bad footage considering the fixed lighting.
-Highlights blown out on the juggler's shirt
- Mixed color grading on the juggler's face? I noticed the same 'yellow' cast on the face tones of the heroine in Genesis. Is this a characteristic of this camera's CLUT ??
- Loved the slo-mo!
If Panasonic take your advice to heart and make those fixes on released firmware, price drop on the kit with the 12-35... I might be willing to overlook the potential edge detail issues. After all, they are nothing a filter can't solve.
did you shot any stills??

[zephyrnoid]

Man, I'll be so happy when a Global shutter hits these cameras!

[acmeman]

If there wasn't any moire or at least a promise to fix, I'd be considering this camera. I want to ditch my canon because I don't want moire any more aye. The footage looks nice but I'm a tad disappointed. (I've always wanted to use the word tad)

I'd happily pay more for this camera to be better considering the competition.

Nice shootin, testing of the DOF, slow mo was cool, close ups on Pocahontas to check skin tone wud have been nice ;-)

[PAVP]

From what i've seen so far the few instances of Moire don't seem to be the really bad color moire we're used to seeing. This might be something that can be dealt with. Once we nail down just what kicks the image into that moire range. It's not as rampant as many other cameras i've seen. I'm not sure my favorite older lenses would cause the GH3 to have that moire. We'll have to see when more cameras are available and more tests can be done.

[mrbrimm]

What lens was used for this footage?