My Gh1 had some loose card slot door. Gh2 is not loosen yet, but I'm sure it will. The loosen card slot door is something that Panasonic should improve!!!

Finally got to get my hands on one yesterday, and will be continuing to play with it for the next three weeks or so. Feels good in the hands, tough, but not crazily heavier or bigger than the GH2. Using a 12-35 and an LA7200 I have to say, I like the file. Right off the camera it feels damn good, sharp and rich...DR and color seem to be in the plus columns. I'm loving my Moon5 hacked GH2 and I think the image is so close that I would use either interchangeably. This gives the GH3 a slight advantage due to build, and I think there are a few low-light or mixed light situations when it might draw ahead. These are initial impressions, you understand.

I find the screen to be EXCELLENT, and the EVF so so as others have mentioned. I have never been able to use my GH2 EVF well, either, so it's not a biggie for me. The big thing is Varavon needs to put out a tough GH3 Loupe YESTERDAY. I can imagine a really solid package with a loupe fit for the GH3 screen and I lust after such a combo for my jungle adventures.

These X lenses are no slouches either, as I'll mention elsewhere...

Just curious if anyone is adjusting the white balance adjustment grid or keeping it centred (0 adjustment)?

Sorry, I need help. I made a documentary film with the GH3 in .mov 50mbs, all was ok. So I just begin to realize a second film and my .mov in 50mbs are MPEG4!!!! I all try to change this situation. But nothing change : .mov are MPEG4 in Final Cut Pro X. I repeat that all was ok in the first film.

Please HELP!

Thanks a lot.

A screen capture from a network pilot I just DP'd. The GH3 is set to STD profile, 0'd out across the board, 50mbps IPB, WB 3400K, ISO 400. Lens is a Nikon 55mm f 1.2 and this is shot at a 2/2.8 split. No Color Correction on this, no filtration.

I'm posting this because there have been some concerns on skin tones with the GH3, however I can't see any.

I confirm that ALL-I is noisier than IPB!

I took two samples on M video: 1080p 25 fps, ISO 6400, f/8, 1/400 sec, standard profile, NR set to -5

You can download the samples here: http://we.tl/aiJZbgrwOA

Hi,

I just bought two Gh3's this week for video shooting. This is my first contact with m4/3 ever so I hope I will be as objective as possible.

Handling:

It feels OK-is in the hand, I preferred it a little bit bigger but is is acceptable. The buttons are pretty well placed and easy to navigate except the f1 button which is hard to operate with one hand. I very much like the rec button position but I strongly dislike that I have to be very persisted and careful in pressing it. It happened to many times already that I thought I preset the record button but in fact I didn't start the recording. This is nasty, especially on live events when I don't need or want to care for this little aspect. I like the articulated Oled screen, but it has a little bit of a green tilt to my both Gh3's. But I resolved this problem very quick from the menus I dialed one point red and blue and it is perfect. The viewfinder was perfectly color calibrated but I must watch strait in it, if I angle my view I see blurry. The finish and weather sealing may be professional on the paper but compared to our Nikon D600's look and feel cheep and I don't have the courage and take pictures in rain with GH3 and 12-35mm lens.

Functions and operation:

It has a lot of functions, man can say to many, but there are never to may in fact. I very much like the FN buttons but the only problem is that not all functions are accessible in iAuto. Way do I need i Auto? Well because the camera is stupid, I never seen something as limiting as this. Manual video is possible but heck, on live events I need convenience and I don't want to set everything manually. GH3 on manual video function dos not allow for Auto ISO, and if I use A functions (this is what I used mostly with Nikon cameras) I can not get 1/25 second shutter speed only 1/50 second (I use 25 fps). This is very annoying. The only way I can do it is via S or M. But with M there are to many parameters to set and to little time (for live events), and S is not good for video, the aperture is not fluent so I get exposure in steps as with the other DSLR's. So the only function I can use is iAuto for live events. No problem, it works better than my Panasonic SD750 3D camera but I can not set almost anything, not even the color profiles. and here I mention, I can activate EX Tele via menu, but if I put it on a FN button it is not accessible (very stupid). Also I wand the sound level on a FN button and slow motion functions, but thy are not configurable. And also I can not use AE look on iAuto, very annoying and stupid. I think this silly limitations are made to differentiate GH3 from the top of the line video cameras, or I don't know way...

The camera menus are also very stupid, in every menu there are to many important functions that man must use for video shooting and can not program them on FN buttons and when you need them you have to dig trough a lot to find them.

I think I criticized this camera a little bit to much but the good part is the image quality.

Image quality:

The picture quality is very fine on RAW file, better than my fiend's Nikon D300s and a little bit worse than Nikon D7000. I can use the camera until ISO 6400 and on emergency ISO 12800; the ISO 25.000 is good only on paper or for WB work.

The high ISO jpg is terrible, I never seen something as bad, all the images above ISO 800 display strange artifacts, I think this is due to strong NR an sharpness applied to them.

The video quality is very good. I like the incredible detail captured in Full HD, the DR is good, but not that grate compared to our Nikon D600. The moire is very well controlled, and I only encounter it when I filmed the computer screen, on real life situations I never seen it so far. In comparison, D600 is full of moire and aliasing which can be seen in all shooting conditions with a lot of DOF. I also had a Nikon D5100 which was grate at it's time, but had a lot of moire, and I really mean a lot of moire and very big video limitations, but was cheep and with good colors and DR. Man that camera had a moire, unbelievable, I can not even describe it with words how bad is was when it was there. D600 is a saint in comparison and GH3 is perfect in this regard (LOL). so NO I don not find moire such a big problem with GH3 as other insinuated.

Details are unbelievable on Gh3, DR is decent, noise is low until ISO 1600, acceptable at 3200 and for emergency 6400 can be cleaned in post production, but better be avoided if it is possible. Colors are good, but not grate. Compared to Canon cameras are very good, compared to Nikon cameras are not so good in my opinion. And in good light with AWB I clearly see a magenta tilt.

The sound quality is something to dream about, it is so good, miles ahead of any DSLR I ever use, comparable to a pro camera, even it is only trough a jack. The only complain and yes there is one, is that there is no auto gain control. No that i ever used auto gain on any of my past DSLR's but it wold have been nice to complement the upstanding sound quality of the camera.

• EX Tele function works grate, is a very nice function.
• Slow and fast motion settings are also outstanding, they work as expected.
• 50 fps is superb.
• These are very big pluses for the camera.

I like the default color profiles on the camera, for example neutral with 0 settings works best for me, I tested every increment of contrast, saturation, NR and sharpness, and I like the0 settings most. I tried the -5 sharpness and then applied in post, but I got so similar results to the 0 setting that I abandoned the -5 idea. The only setting which I will use from time to time is NR set to -5, it dos an acceptable job on 0 but can be cleaned very well in post if desired if set to -5.

Until now, I'm pleased with the camera, not trilled, but pleased. If I was to chose between GH3 and other DSLR, I don't know what to say, maybe the new D7100 can be a rival. In my opinion Canon "sucks". Worst color ever, and resolution is disastrous in comparison. Nikon is OK but has a lot of limitations, but grate image quality, especially colors and DR, but until D5200 a lot of moire and aliasing is present. Sony is out of the question. BMC can be an alternative but for live evens is slow to operate and on Prorez I don't know if it has any advantage over GH3.

I miss the focus peeking, this feature is very needed, and a shame that it was omitted, but the good news is that zebras can be replaced with highlight blinkies, which can be used in video mode. This is nice for cheeking exposure.

The AF and AE works grate in video mode with 12-35mm f/2,8, almost as good as on a dedicated video camera.

So if I have to chose once again I would go for it once again. I made tests compared to our Nikon D600 and when I have time I will edit them and upload to vimeo.

I hope with this short review I could be of use to others, because there is not very mush real info on the web right now about GH3, there is info, but not useful info as far as I was concerned.

Please excuse my language, I'm not a native English speaker.

Best regards to you all.

FWIW, I just called Panasonic to ask if the DMW-LVF2 viewfinder made for the GX1 would work on the GH3, and they said no. It is my favorite viewfinder of the G1, GH1, GX1 and GH3. I use nothing but MF, and although the view through the GH3 EVF definitely leaves something to be desired, I haven't had any problem focusing with it, and I am typically photographing birds where I need to be able to see sharp focus on their eyes. For those of you not yet old enough to have progressive lenses in your glasses, the view through the GH3 viewfinder is very similar in that you have to move your head to see everything; the view is only clear though the center of what you're looking at.
On another note, I grabbed some RAW photos in the middle of shooting MPEG 720p video and was disappointed to see that both the audio and video have slight breaks at the points I grabbed the photos.
All that said, because I mainly use this camera for continuous stills shooting, because of the higher frame rate and many more shots before the buffer fills, as well as the much improved noise handling at higher ISOs in RAW, I am getting shots I never would have gotten with my GX1.

My serial starts with WE3AA.

On another note, does anyone know how to get into service maual to see shutter count?

GH-3 @ 6400 ASA noisy but usable in doco setting. No fixed pattern noise which was really objectionable on GH-1 around 1000 ASA. GH-3 @ 3200 ASA not too bad so I'm pretty happy with that.

My evf ends in serial no 1044. It is not the colour cast but I find it more difficult to nail focus particularly on wides. It is as if the pixels become visible and make it difficult to focus. I do not think it is atrocious it is just in my experience not as good as the GH2 evf for my eyes.