GH3 Comparison GH2 - GH3 Photo/Stills side

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donjohannes

Member
I assume there are a number of people out there that have upgraded from the GH2 to the GH3.
How would you judge their respective capabilities on the photo/stills side - especially under low light (image processing, noise)? Night skys? Is the GH3 a big improvement in that department?

Background:
I'm heading out for a 14 month journey (on foot) and will be shooting some (footage that is). The main task of the cameras is going to be video. The stills are mainly for timelapses.
I already own two GH2s. Both would come (fortunately they are rather light). The lenses that would come with me: oly 12mm f2; Panny 35-100mm. This way I have a backup and in the best case never have to change lenses.

Now:
If the quality difference on the stills side (especially in low light) is large enough I might replace one GH2 with a GH3.

GH3 Advantages:
- weather sealing. But how good is that really? Anyone done long trips through the desert? I have a DiCaPac that seals the camera completely and allows shooting in the rain, under water and I suppose sand storms :-)
- wi-fi (sure would be nice for setting up a self-shoot via the mobile - if that actually works as advertised)

GH3 Disadvantages:
- money to be shelled out
- get and carry plenty of additional spare batteries and different charger-adapters (for the solar panel)

Johannes
 
I just finished a 1 month shoot with both cameras... I haven't analyzed the footage yet in post to tell the difference in quality. I love the idea of shooting in 1080p60 and having audio but also having the ability to slow it down 40% in post w/o frame blending.

One GH3 battery also lasts me about as long as 3 GH2 batteries for filming or stills. So you won't need as many batteries. I've never used more than 2 batteries even in a full day of filming. But there's lots of turning the camera off inbetween shots... but comparably, I'd burn through about 5 GH2 batteries.
 
It is done. I ordered it. I forgot about the "battery lasting" argument. Good point. And when I finally found a mobile usb charger so as to be able to hook it up with my solar panel, I said deal.

Cheers
Johannes
 
Not to mention the GH3 has a built in timelapse feature, so you won't need extra attatchments taking up space.
 
@omikron I get what you trying to say, but technically you are "slowing down by 60%" not "slowing down by 40%" when you set your playback rate to 0.40x. :)

Looking forward to your comparison after you look more at the results of your month of shooting.
 
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I didn't know about the Timelapse... between that, the 60P, the headphone jack, and the battery life - I'd call that a huge step up even if the Image Quality was unchanged from the GH2.
 
@DPStewart Well it's more complicated than that. :) On the one hand there is the addition of uncompressed audio recording (the GH2 only used AC-3 compression) and on the other there is the loss of the multi-aspect sensor and the modified FOV that goes along with that (which is either a plus or a minus depending on whether you are more concerned about wide-angle or telephoto framing).

And then there are the debates about image quality, etc. and how the GH2 with certain hacked settings sometimes outperforms the un-hacked GH3. You can like it better or wose, but I don't think anyone is claiming the image quality is unchanged for the GH3. :)
 
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