GH3 GH3 EVF problem - GH3 owners Please Read!

RatLabProductions said:
I must be in the minority here but I find the GH3 EVF no better or worse than the GH2 EVF. I have both (well had because I just sold my GH2) and I couldn't really tell the difference at all and have had no issue shooting with it for photos. I was out shooting with my kids and an old Kiron 28mm f2 which isn't that sharp and I still had no issue focusing.

It seems to me there is either a quality control issue or it is something that certain eyes pick up and others aren't bothered by it. Either way I use a carryspeed loupe for most video on the GH3 on the fantastically better LCD screen. Comparing it to a loupe on the GH2 is night and day. I like not seeing M&M sized pixels.
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Do you have astigmatism? I have it slightly and I'm wondering if you're on to something with different eyes. Having my GH3 for the past few days I can finally chime as opposed to just asking questions. This EVF sucks. It doesn't suck...It's just bad when you compare it to the GH2. I also do wonder if it is a quality control issue. To add to this discussion, no one has mentioned the size of the window of the GH3's EVF. It's smaller. To the point that the corners of the screen are cropped off, and to keep that to a minimal (and only a minimal), you have to have get your eye as close and as centered as possible to that VF. So you get this wierd, looking-through-a-keyhole effect where it's hard to see the entire screen. It's as if you can't get your eyeball close enough to see past the tiny space allowed. If you wear glasses, it makes it even worse as your distance away from the VF is increased. Comparing the window size of the GH2 to GH3 it's clear as day the difference...

Lucky for me, if I'm using the EVF, 9 times out of 10 I'm shooting in a casual, not-getting-paid kind of way. My money comes from event video work where I will use the improved OLED screen 100% of the time. The hobbyist-photographer in me is quite annoyed though.
 
+1 frustrated with the GH3 EVF mush

+1 frustrated with the GH3 EVF mush

I'm a bit late to this party, but want to add my frustration with the GH3's EVF. I went, cash in hand, to a camera store today, thinking I'd walk out with a GH3. I brought my GH2 along for comparison, and was shocked at how completely useless the GH3's EVF with focus assist is. FWIW, I appreciate many of the new GH3 features, and have seen plenty of well focused footage from this camera. However, after spending 20+ minutes with it, I just could NOT get the camera to manually focus quickly or reliably. Yes, I tweaked the diopter. The GH3 had the nice 12-25mm Lumix lens, which focused consistently and fast in auto mode. I asked the salesman his opinion of the GH3 EVF and he admitted that it is was seriously flawed and hopes Panasonic will do something about it...soon.

I realize that some shooters are using add-on magnifiers to the OLED screen for viewing, but this adds bulk, expense and interferes with some of the connections on the side. I rely on my GH2's EVF when shooting in bright light for manual focus, and I just don't understand why the GH3's EVF is so poor. My 9 year old "vintage" Canon G6 has a better focus assist than the GH3 I tested today! As a few GH3 owners claim their GH3 EVF is just as good as their GH2 EVF, maybe Panasonic has a quality control issue.

It would be great if Panasonic could resolve this with a firmware update. All those other great GH3 features are lost on me if my footage is not in focus.
 
An update to my previous post:

After reading conflicting posts about the GH3 EVF, I went to a second camera store and the GH3 EVF worked (almost) as expected. Apparently, the first GH3 I looked had its focus assist set at a smaller portion of the screen, and was incredibly blurry. I can't understand why it is sooooo blurry, even after tweaking the diopter. Anyway, the second GH3's EVF is pretty good, but not quite as sharp as my GH2. Its also a bit smaller. As the GH3's EVF has a very curved glass view piece, its important to really fine tune the diopter and look through the very center of it.

I decided to purchase the GH3, and even though the EVF is not as effective as the one on the GH2, it is acceptable. Its too bad the salesman at the first camera store wasn't more familiar with the GH3, as he lost the sale.
 
As the starter of this thread and just to reiterate my opinion, the GH3 electronic viewfinder IS SOFT. Much less resolution than the GH2 viewfinder. I'm no fan of "peaking" which interferes more than helps for my money and I never felt a need for it with the GH2 because there is so much detail available I never had a problem with it. There is a problem with poor optics in the GH3 eyepiece, which has garnered a lot of attention, but I think the big problem is more electronic in nature - the image in the viewfinder lacks the resolution necessary to get critical focus while manually focusing. Period.
 
Peaking interferes? Peaking is by far the most reliable way of checking focus on EVF's. Diopters can be out but proper peaking never is if well implemented. I've never heard a professional complain that the Peaking interfered with the shot or that they missed the shot altogether because of peaking. Plenty complain when using a camera without peaking, they play the footage back on a larger screen and the shot is soft.
 
Whats the preoccupation with peaking?? It makes it slightly easier that's all. I focussed for years with NO peaking and you know what, it is not a substitute for focussing accurately. And I agree with Rosebud, when you're following action moving across and backwards and forwards it DOES interfere. Get used to racking the focus ring and looking at the subject, otherwise get glasses, get a monitor or shoot F22. Peaking is just a tool, like a histogram. It makes me laugh when people say they're not going to get a GH3 cause it doesn't have peaking ....
 
malibudutchie said:
Whats the preoccupation with peaking?? It makes it slightly easier that's all. I focussed for years with NO peaking and you know what, it is not a substitute for focussing accurately. And I agree with Rosebud, when you're following action moving across and backwards and forwards it DOES interfere. Get used to racking the focus ring and looking at the subject, otherwise get glasses, get a monitor or shoot F22. Peaking is just a tool, like a histogram. It makes me laugh when people say they're not going to get a GH3 cause it doesn't have peaking ....
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I was just replying to the statement that "Peaking interferes with your shots". Every professional camera I have used in the last 20 years has had peaking other than the optical viewfinders on film cameras. Peaking can't substitute accurate focusing (?) but it makes it a hell of a lot easier under difficult conditions. I have perfect vision, have been a camera operator for over 20 years so know how to rack focus but the lack of peaking plus the poor quality EVF in the GH3 makes it difficult a lot of the time. I think it is a better option and more likely that Panasonic rectify the issue by adding peaking rather than having to replace every EVF's optics. The fact is the GH3's EVF is subpar but with an added feature, I wouldn't matter so much ;-)

All I'm saying here is, If you equip a camera with a great EVF then lack of peaking is less of an issue. As it stands, the GH3's EVF is not adequate and the camera could really do with peaking to make up for it.
 
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vtwiz, to be perfectly clear, i didn't make the statement: "Peaking interferes with your shots," which you place in quotes as if I did. I will say that it is a obviously a personal preference and if you like it, OK, I guess it should be an option that you can turn off.

I have worked for over 30 years in media, mostly in 16mm, but also with Umatic and Betacam SP rigs and I've never liked peaking, especially with newer color, lcd based displays that super color peaking over the image (vs professional b&w video viewfinders). Just give me a high rez image, like the GH2 or even the Sony Z7U or EX1R or Sony Alpha SLT cameras.

I think the GH3 viewfinder is very obviously soft and probably has more to do with how the signal to it is processed than the screen itself or the optics in the eyepiece. Panasonic should fix it right away. Otherwise, I really love the camera.

 
I commented earlier that the GH3 EVF design may be more problematic for eyeglass wearers, it has been for me but I've adapted to it.

However, I'm having cataract surgery (left eye early next week) so I set the diopter adjust for my right eye without eyeglasses and have started using it that way (hopefully baseline distance vision will not require any corrective eyewear after it's all done). What I've found is that it is much easier for me to position my eye "in the channel" and at just the right distance for me to see the image well. For critical focus I use the magnified assist but often can see focus well enough without.

The GH2 EVF was better, no doubt about that and Panasonic needs to take a serious look at that for future models.

Anyone have any idea what the EVF in the G6 is like?
 
I shot both of my first two GH3 pieces on Vimeo using the EVF...the snowstorm film in obviously very adverse conditions.
In any difficult shooting like that I simply use pinpoint AF with maximum screen enlargement that ensures that I've grabbed accurate focus.

We use zoom and AF to set up 95% of our shots...it's better than focus peaking (although I really would like it for manual focusing.)
Touch focus racking works perfectly with the screen.
So what's left, focus pulling - you certainly aren't going to do that with the tiny EF no matter how good it is.

Most importantly, when you can grab a great, feather weight Hoodman loupe, that form fits the screen with any common 501 plate that most of us use - for about $100 bucks, why would anyone use the EF.

Like I said, I did use it, and the images came out great, but the first thing I did after posting those shorts was call Hoodman and work with them to to get one on the GH3 (we have them on our Canons too.) $100, pops on and off with no hardware, no weight and makes the EF superfluous.
 
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The GH3 has AF, AFC and MF modes plus expanded focus at 4x and 10x, plus the choice of multiple focus points and face recognition....so do you still need peaking to focus...seriously. Unfortunately the EVF is pretty poor, but it works OK - the problem is focussing in bright light such as daylight, and focus peaking is not going to help you much there.
 
malibudutchie said:
The GH3 has AF, AFC and MF modes plus expanded focus at 4x and 10x, plus the choice of multiple focus points and face recognition....so do you still need peaking to focus...seriously. Unfortunately the EVF is pretty poor, but it works OK - the problem is focussing in bright light such as daylight, and focus peaking is not going to help you much there.
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Like most 'professionals' I don't use AF or AFC during a shot. I like to decide where my focus point is rather than let the camera decide/guess for me. I dont always focus on faces and sometimes there is more than one face in my shot so the Face Detect is useless too. Also, sometimes i like to use non Panasonic AF capable lenses such as Nikkor or Zeiss primes so any AF features the camera may have i cant use. The 4x and 10x expanded focus windows do not function during video recording so these are useless also if you need to rack focus during a take. As previously mentioned the GH3 EVF (and LCD) are pretty poor so yes, the camera seriously could do with peaking. One feature that would function in all situations and with ALL lenses would be peaking. Maybe you always shoot narrative or only use AF capable lenses and have time to set up each shot so may not need Peaking. There is no denying though that it is an extremely useful feature though.

although this thread is not about peaking, I would be more accepting of the GH3's poor monitoring issues if there was a peaking function. Peaking is easy to implement. Fixing hundreds of thousands of GH3's optics is not likely to happen.
 
Like most professionals I use MF often and a good loupe or monitor. For the thousands that don't, if the other functions I mentioned don't work for you then the addition of peaking with a crappy EVF isn't going to do it either. You still need to find focus whether peaking is there or not. If someone is running towards me at f2.8 peaking ain't going to help as much as a good EVF or loupe. And don't go underestimating the quality of AF or AFC, it's helped many a time with a quick touch of a button. There's a bit of smugness amongst some users that unless you use MF 100% of the time you don't know what you're doing. Although this is off-topic I find that the Auto functions such as exposure, focus and white balance offer a very good reference point for those not opting for manual.
 
"Peaking or not you still need to find focus", that statement doesn't make sense because Peaking helps you find focus. It tells you when a certain part of an image is in focus and helps prevent hunting.
 
vtwiz said:
"Peaking or not you still need to find focus", that statement doesn't make sense because Peaking helps you find focus. It tells you when a certain part of an image is in focus and helps prevent hunting.
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you have to physically turn the focus ring to "find focus" and that's when peaking tells you that you're there (in focus) - you can't just magically "peak" - does that make sense ? For example, if you are shooting critical DOF at f1.8 or thereabouts you have to turn the focus ring from the eyes to ears and see the peaking when you're at the correct point - you still have to find that point manually - you still have to "find focus" - true or not?
 
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Of coarse you still have to manually turn the focus ring. What I'm saying is that even with blurry EVF optics you can still nail critical focus every time if you have a peaking function showing you sharp edges graphically. It works in every situation and is lens independent unlike AF.

You might be happy with AF or using a blurry EVF..... I and a lot of other people are not so what does it matter to you that we want peaking.
 
vtwiz said:
so what does it matter to you that we want peaking.
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Because peaking won't help much when you're looking at a poorly designed GH3 LCD anywhere outside a dark room. You want to shoot shallow DOF, then invest in a good EVF like a DP4, rather than waste time waiting for GH3 peaking...or shoot F22 with a wide angle. No-one is "happy" with AF or a blurry EVF, but I'm realistic about what you get for $1200.
 
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