GH3 Best Video Settings

maddog15

@feha Yes I've read about that lens. Was wondering if you could post some screen grabs of footage shot with your GH3 and the Voigtländer Nokton 25mm f/0.95 lens? I for one would love to see how it shoots. Looks like an amazing lens to say the least.

Henry

@flablo I like the image tone. Are those frame grabs from video?

feha

With Voigtländer Nokton 25mm f/0.95 i never had a low light noise problem even shooting 50mbps/50p MOV ...

flablo

@maddog15 I see your points. Anyway I have to say I'm quite happy with my GH3. The dynamic range improvement is crucial for me, and I really discovered the pleasure of using a "serious" lens when I bought the 35-100 2.8. Yes it costs as much as the GH3 (but consider that the two together cost as much as a Mark III body only) but it is so sharp and smooth. Did you ever try it or the 12-35 or the Leica 25 1.4? Wait for the 20 mm which afaik is also a good lens. I'm attaching a screenshot from the shoot I did 2 days ago (with the 35-100), which I'm working on. I think it looks pretty damn good. And guess what? After all this talk by mistake I left the record settings on MP4! Ah ah!

maddog15

@flablo and @peternap Well this just bites ass. I guess I had higher hopes for the GH3 with the "capability to shoot 72Mb/s all Intra" addition. The irony here is I/we have spent $1300 to shoot AVCHD at the same level of the stock "HBR" setting of the GH2. (Yes, I'd now like some cheese with my whine.)

Don't get me wrong I do love all the other (well needed) features of the GH3. But when it comes down to it, "What does the image look like?" The gh3 has two very critical strikes against it in this regard. 1. The well known soft and blurry EVF. Makes critical focus frustrating to say the least. But the main point #2. The amature looking big blotchy noise in the final image at low light.

I've aquired the Lumix 20mm that should be here Wednesday. Hopefully this will be the best settings adjustment I could try with lower light shooting.

flablo

@maddog15 yes, but on mine it's 24Mbps, not 28Mbps (I guess it's because I'm PAL 25 fps, not NTSC 30 fps). Yes hacked GH2 noise is finer and better (hacks usually push around at least 40Mbps), and 72Mbps All-I seems to be acknowledged as quite bad. From what I've seen AVCHD looks smoother and more GH2-like (but with less banding) while MOV looks harsher and more contrasty/punchy. I'd use AVCHD for low light and MOV for other situations. Until we have a hack, for me the only reasons to choose GH3 over GH2 are 50fps, dynamic range and added features (earphones, battery life, double jog wheel, ...)

peternap

@maddog15 That's pretty accurate. If you look hard at Driftwood's better settings, the noise is there but looks more like fine film grain.

maddog15

@ flabo Is the MTS file the AVCHD 28Mb/s setting on the GH3? Looking at your files it's dawned on me that it's not just the noise...it's really the kind of noise. Only two weeks into owning a GH3 - to my eyes the GH3's noise tends to be "big and blotchy" as apposed to the GH2's small "grain" like noise. Is that an accurate description to you? (and anyone else)

maddog15

screen grabs

maddog15

Here's screen grabs from the GH2/GH3 Multi-cam test. Gotta get prime focus wide angle lens I know but this noise on the GH3's footage is pretty bad.

Sph1nxster

@Flablo We film predominately in aperture priority mode which only goes as low as 1/60 when filming at 50p. Even at 1/60 we can still do some nice slowmos.

However when filming in better light the camera will ramp up the shutter speed much higher so we don't normally worry about it.

Sometimes we move to manual mode to dial in a 1/50 shutter for when the DJ turns on his weird lighting system. Even then, the footage still looks great. I know about the double shutter speed to fps rule but I have to say I am pleased with 50p at 1/60

flablo

@Sph1nxster I guess using MOV with Panny lens in low light is suicide, but I too noticed that in other situations it does have a very nice film-like grain. I also found out that the jitter/strobe on pans happens at 1/50, while at 1/60 the problem is gone. Btw, do you always shoot at 1/100 with 50p, or just when you know you will make a slowmo?

Sph1nxster

@flablo cookies always appreciated!

I was determined to use the MOV codec when I got the GH3 but I couldn't ignore the fact that AVCHD was just way cleaner and far more usable.

In the right conditions the MOV codec can look awesome.... Really detailed and filmic IMO. But not for run and gun low light stuff IMO.

flablo · Screen shot 2013-05-29 at 23.51.30.png

With "levels from hell" applied in photoshop

flablo · Screen shot 2013-05-29 at 23.43.24.png

Here is one I just did, see names on windows to know who's who f 5.6 s 600 ISO1600, Panasonic Leica 25mm 1.4

flablo

@manstok yes, I noticed too, don't know why because I took the shots one after the other. WB was untouched for sure, maybe I changed the shutter by mistake(?) Anyway I think that doesn't compromise the noise test

manstok

@maddog15 I used after effects and graded both exactly the same to push the noise.

@flablo the exposure and WB in your images look different, agreed the second image looks better

labalbi

So...what codec are you guys using for low light situations ?

flablo · Screen shot 2013-05-29 at 22.56.37.png

@vicharris of course with more light you have less underexposed area, but you can't presume you will never deal with an image with an underexposed area, even with faster glass. It is like saying "don't shoot dark scenes, just shoot daylight" (I'm exaggerating of course), it doesn't solve the codec issue we are discussing in this thread, in my opinion.

I'm posting 2 shots, mov and AVCHD. The latter seems objectively better (less harsh) to me

maddog15

@vicharris I'm with you on your last post. Even after quickly testing with the 50mm f1.2 prime lens I have - noise was washed away a bit more with the increase of that beautiful incoming light to the sensor.

maddog15

@Sph1nxster Yes I've really become partial to All Intra recording. Edits wonderfully also. After hacking my GH2 with Moon T5 from Driftwood I doubt I'll go back to Long GOP's like DREWnet V8. In fact I'll probably leave Moon as my GH2's resident firmware. Absolutely beautiful footage and grades well.

That's to other thing about my GH3's footage. (very limited experience at this point as I just bought the camera) But grading in post can quickly reveal artifacts, crushed blacks and noise. Very tricky. But like I said I'm assuming a lot of "user error" at this point until I've lived and worked with the camera for a few weeks.

vicharris

@flabo How does faster glass not solve the problem of underexposed images when you shooting with slow glass? I thought that's exactly what that's supposed to accomplish? If someone lets in 4 times the amount of light, is that not going to properly expose the areas that were underexposed before? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here!

maddog15

@manstok Nice test. Huge difference in my eyes also.

Granted neither is "usable" but I'm assuming you pushed it to reveal the noise for the purposes of the test? And just to confirm you did no adjustments to the images per Photoshop, Lightroom etc? These are straight screen grabs from your movie files?

Thanks for posting the images

manstok

I see much finer noise structure with 50pMOV recording vs 50pAVCHD, see attached pictures (iso1600). I think that is important as it is pleasing to the eye.

!The image names are swapt!

flablo

did other tests and AVCHD is incredibly better than MOV. Furthermore, shooting at 50p also eliminates the jitter/stutter problem associated with pans which has always bothered me! And bitrate is the same. And it is 50p so has "incorporated slow-mo". @Sph1nxster I should buy you some cookies

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