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GH3 Best Video Settings
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  • One other thing I'll add is that most projects are web delivered. I'm not super interested in amassing huge amounts of data so even if there was a super stable ALL-I hack, if it was over 100mbs, I probably wouldn't be that interested.

  • @Montwood41 I really love my GH3. Stock firmware and all. Took a while coming to that conclusion having shot with my hacked GH2 for a year and with beautiful results with Moon T5. With the GH3 I shoot all MOV (50Mb/s). I feel you've got so much more room to push and pull in post vs it's AVCHD (28Mb/s). Never been a big AVCHD fan to begin with. Though we're only talking about an 8 bit camera I've been quite happy with its dynamic range, color and clarity. (Skin tones have been the biggest battle)


    Had a terrifying but wonderful supprise happen today. Was shooting a family members wedding in 1080 60p. Some how I screwed up an accidentally set the mode on MP4 60p. After 3 hours of shooting I realized what I had done. My stomach nearly came up my throat and out my mouth! Never even done tests with MP4 modes. Why would you right?! Anyway, I loaded the MP4 footage as soon as I got home (only looking with one eye open) expecting the worst. Beautiful... Amazingly clean, detailed and dynamic. To top it off, the MP4 scenes are the only ones I've not had to do major CC or grading! Skin tones... Gorgeous. Learning something new every day about this amazing camera.

  • @maddog15 glad that worked out for you! What is the bit rate of the mp4 files?

  • @5thwall Luckily the higher MP4 28Mb/s. I'll post a couple screen grabs in a bit.

  • The "Oh my god the camera's been on MP4 mode for 3 hours" shoot. No CC or grading.

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  • @maddog15 phew! looks good. now to test to see if there's any difference between mp4 and mov!

  • I shot this week a wedding with second operator in 70d and one gopro, my settings in several lighting conditions and my -2 saturation and -5 contrast are almost the same with gopro that chooses always automatically what to do :P

  • @5thwall. Yeah I really got lucky. First wedding I've ever shot. Got a whole new respect for the folks who do this for a living. Still not done a lot of cc with the mp4 files but so far zero complaints. Plus Pemiere pro really likes the smaller file sizes for play back after a change has been made.

  • Dynamic range test with MP4 footage. Quite a bit of information there waiting to be pulled out/up. Even areas that seem close to crushed at first glance reveal a surprising amount of details when lifted in post. I'm very happy to see how much I was able to color correct, balance color and exposure for a silhouette shot. Though it may not look like it in the screen grab the sunset was really bright. Makes me wonder how much more information would be there had I set the contrast profile to -5 vs -2. Damn...oh well. Lens: 20mm f1.7 pancake.

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  • Well done @maddog15, thanks for taking the time to share your findings on this cam. It's still less than a year old, but seems like old new for some already with so much other pickings.

  • @maddog15 That sunset shot with the man and woman looks great. Have you used GH3 for anything narrative/movie focused? I'm curious what people are achieving with GH3 for movie look.

  • This is Natural -2 -5 0 -5 50p, Nikon lenses on Speed Booster M43. White balanced 2 stops toward magenta and 1 stop toward yellow.

  • @matt_gh2 and @griplimited Thanks to you both. For the most part I'm trying for a cinematic look with everything I do regardless of the project. The only limitation is often.... me. That said, talking heads and documentary work often dictate a different style. eg: A cinematic look for an interview would most likely be inappropriate or just flat out wrong. The attached vid, music composition and scenes, were initially for tests but will be part of a documentary I'm working on.


    I'm doing a shoot at the ad agency i work for now and the crew I've chosen is using the Canon Mark II and III. Compared to the GH3's footage it's often close. Sometimes the GH3 looks better. Lots of variables in that analysis though.


    As far as the GH3 goes I have to be honest. Even though I've personally invested in the M4/3 system, I'm still a bit in denial regarding its small but albeit powerful sensor! It's as if i still don't want to admit how technology is changing, getting better and I also need to change. Old thoughts and perceptions need to go out the window if I'm going to evolve, grow and move forward with the technology. That's hard to do sometimes. The real elephant in the room is money. If I, or anyone else, has a "professional problem" with the GH3 or other M4/3 systems I can just buy a....Red Epic. I don't have the money to buy a Red anything. So I guess it's inspiring and sometimes quite humbling see what folks on this forum are able to achieve with more "limited resources."

  • @flablo That's really nice. You getting the slow mo by shooting 60fps and slowing in post or are you using the in-camera frame rate adjustment?

  • @maddog15 that's shot at 50p and interpreted as 25p in Premiere. Never used in-camera frame rate adjustment. Could it give it a shot ...

  • @flablo that's really nice colours look great.

  • thanks Umii. Panny lenses are good but I have realized that they can lead to more color dullness. Also the manual balance towards magenta seems to do really good for skin tones

  • Just got GH3 and am using a kit 14-140mm lens and shooting in blazing sun here in Colorado. Can't say I can see much difference compared to my Gh2 (Cluster X moon T7) rig. A little disappointed and wondering if I made a mistake. Highlights appear to be blown out more and footage is not as sharp. I do think the skin tones are better though and audio monitoring is fantastic but seeing as we don't have an XLR input still cripples. Overall I'm not as excited as I expected to be think perhaps C100 is the only way to go for serious doc work. Then I realize I don't have the lolly to buy one and folks make perfectly good docs with 7Ds and the like! Guess we are spoilt with the picture of the hacked GH2! I did have all the settings turned down and was using the 70Mbps intra 24p codec. Perhaps I'll try some of the settings talked about in this thread as well as the 50Mbps codec. Also I swear the ELF is worse than the GH2, the screen has a big green shift when not viewed straight on and I don't see a good way to focus, christ even my tm700 has focus peaking. GH3 for sale, anyone!

  • @AfricaGH2 I did the same thing when I first got my GH3. I shot in 72Mb/s All Intra assuming that higher bit rate is obviously better right? I mean my GH2 with Moon T5 is All Intra and it's footage is great. Work in Interframe 50Mb/s for a while. Through my research I've learned that it's the "visual equivolate" of 100Mb/s All Intra. I was really having buyers remorse for a while also. But I worked with the camera and got to know it. It's not a GH2 with a "3" on the body. I Found it's strengths and worked with those. Found it's weaknesses and work around them. Even if a camera was near perfect I think I could find SOMETHING about it that I'm just not happy with. That said the one valid issue with the GH3 is the damn EVF. Hands down the EVF absolutely sucks, pathetic, "what the hell where they thinking"...period. Some don't see the problem. I envy them because it's night and day when compared to the GH2's EVF in my opinion.

    Check out the attached "in progress" wedding vid. shot 40% with MOV 50Mb/s and BY MISTAKE 60% MP4 28Mb/s. The ending reception scenes absolutely suck i know this. Two big overhead gymnasium spot lights and that's it. But the pre-wedding and wedding ceremony stuff i felt worked well.

  • The 28Mbps 60/50fps seems much better than the 20Mbps 30/25 mode? I shoot one for funeral (used only on one scene) and the quality is definitely as as good as the one shown here or the 50Mbps .Mov

  • @maddog15 All looks great to me. I'm sure client is happy as hell. Well done.

  • @matt_gh2. Thank you. Unfortunately this was family...yikes. Sometimes worse than clients.... They know where you live and you have to see them on the holidays at least. X^D

  • @flablo do you always adjust your balance toward magenta/red for skin? What profile and sub-settings are you using lately? I was in the all at -5 for a while bit since then I have been pulling contrast and saturation back up to -3 or -2. This seems to be a sweet spot for maintaining information while not sacrificing a flatter cinema look in post.

  • @maddog15 no, first time I tried after following this post http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/8113/speedbooster-gh2-with-cc30m-sensor-mod-fishing-trip-/p1 and pchristoph method. Not sure whether dialing the correction in camera is the same as using the real filter (would like to try the filter as well). Have a look here http://www.fourseasonshd.com/cgi-bin/csvsearch.pl?db=db1&tp=tp4&search=bluelight01. Also GH2 and GH3 are different beasts, but it looks to me that it does good for skin tones, and in general to remove that color cast that results in dull colors. But it could be due to the Nikon lenses. There are so many variables, aargh! I went to -2 contrast instead of -5 because it looked too bad for skin tones. Also I'm experimenting with Vibrant, which some say is the mode which introduces less in-camera correction in the end (!). What do you mean exactly with "profile and sub-settings"? If you mean AVCHD or MOV, I tend to use MOV if possible, but avoid it for low light since it looks so harsh and terrible. Also I suspect it gives more strobing/jittering motion problems.

  • @flablo Oh Sorry.,... Example-- MOV 50Mb/s ....Color Profile: Standard.... Sub-settings: -3, -2, -3, -2