GH3 I just got a GH3! Excited!!! Which settings are the best?

Jaime Valles

Jaime Valles

Veteran
Howdy, folks!

It's been a while since I've been around these parts. I bought a GH3, and it just arrived. Woo hoo! Love the build of the camera, and can't wait to shoot with this puppy.

I'm looking for the absolute best image quality in 1080p 24p. I have the super-fast 64GB Sandisk Extreme Pro 95MB/s SDXC card, so speed and capacity won't be an issue. I've been searching the forums for the best settings for shooting indie films but haven't found much, though it's entirely possible I didn't look hard enough. And, of course, I'll be doing my own testing to see what I prefer, because I'm sure it's all a matter of personal preference. I just wanted to see if there was a consensus amongst the pixel-peepers here as to the best quality settings available. Let me know.

Looking forward to sharing lots of stuff with you all! :cheesy:
 
Sweet! I've been using Natural -5,-4,-1,-5 to get the flattest image possible, although it'd be awesome if Panasonic offered a 'Flat' profile out-of-the-box.
Enjoy it, man.
 
SuperSet said:
Sweet! I've been using Natural -5,-4,-1,-5 to get the flattest image possible, although it'd be awesome if Panasonic offered a 'Flat' profile out-of-the-box.
Enjoy it, man.
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Cool. Thanks! Any thoughts as to using the INTRA settings vs the long-GOP?
 
The general consensus is that the INTRA bit rates are not high enough to match the quality of the 50 Mbps long GOP. But....if you have a scene with lots of motion going on the INTRA frame might be the best choice for that particular use.
 
Hmm... Interesting. So the 75Mbps is really only best for high motion work, whereas the 50Mbps long GOP works best for more static shots? That's good to know. I never would have thought of that. Has anyone put up side by side stills of both?
 
I've been using the 50Mbps too. There's quite a few threads on Personal View about the inadequate All-I on the GH3, although I couldn't really tell the difference in post.
 
There's a lot of great info on Personal View, but for the life of me I can't figure out how to navigate that site! It's an absolute mess of user design. Or maybe I just need to have lunch... ;)
 
You're right Personal View is a mess...lol. I use the links on the right side to find topics I'm interested in. You click on those and it will bring you to the latest discussion in a particular topic. Back to the 50 GOP vs All I debate - All I is not as efficient as the 50 Mbps GOP so to match the quality on Intra frame it would need to be probably 100 Mbps at least. The 72 Mbps is kind of low for Intra frame.
 
Jaime Valles said:
So the 75Mbps is really only best for high motion work, whereas the 50Mbps long GOP works best for more static shots?
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You've got it backwards.

ALL-I mode at 71 Mbps is great for static shots, but runs out of data bandwidth when the camera or your subject moves around.

50 Mbps h.264 mode is great for everything, from static to high-motion shots. After testing the two modes, I shoot everything in the 50 Mbps mode.

When the GH3 gets hacked, there's a chance the data rate of the ALL-I mode could be doubled or tripled which could make the ALL-I mode the highest performance mode.
 
TheDingo said:
You've got it backwards.

ALL-I mode at 71 Mbps is great for static shots, but runs out of data bandwidth when the camera or your subject moves around.

50 Mbps h.264 mode is great for everything, from static to high-motion shots. After testing the two modes, I shoot everything in the 50 Mbps mode.

When the GH3 gets hacked, there's a chance the data rate of the ALL-I mode could be doubled or tripled which could make the ALL-I mode the highest performance mode.
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Ah! I see. Thanks. 71Mbps for static/non moving shots and 50Mbps for high motion stuff. Good to know.
 
As far as adusting picture quality goes, what settings users set for contrast, sharpness and color saturation are rather meaningless without knowing the editing system they are using and how they adjust settings during color correction. But the general consensus seems to be, the flatter the image profile, the more there is to work with when editing. I think more important even than the picture quality adjustments is knowing how the exposure meter works. If your clips are overexposed, it's going to be difficult to get a good looking image, however much you try to correct for it in post. And I find that the meter consistently overexposes by around 2/3 stop. I've only just begun testing of the camera, and I hope to post some screen grabs of some shots along with the settings used, alongside the color corrected images with the settings in FCPX (sharpness, saturation, etc).
 
jonpais said:
If your clips are overexposed, it's going to be difficult to get a good looking image, however much you try to correct for it in post.
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So always expose for the hilights you want to keep, as you can always open up the darker areas in post with gamma correction.
 
I recommend shooting 1/3 stop under exposed (the OLED shows things darker then they are in post). I've had to pull down mid-tones a lot in projects.
 
I've experimented with a range of settings over time.
From the beginning, after test shooting, we established Natural as the best base setting for the most "organic" (read less video) look.

Whatever I've tried, -5, -5, -2, -5 is simply the best "negative" I've found for grading.
And to prove that you get your best images with the GH3 in post, with solid grading, we did a test recently.

Let me back up a bit.
There's been a lot footage posted using Standard 0,0,0,0 and Vivid with boosted sharpening and a number of people really like it.
THat's cool. There are no rules in creative. Taste is personal.

But in terms of getting the best that the camera can deliver - those settings are whack.
OK , there, I've said it. <g>

So we set up quick, simple scene in bright, outdoor light mounted a GH3 w/ 45mm Oly 1.8 on a tripod and shot a series of clips.
I didn't bother with Vivid anything because...well, you know.
But I replicated other common "wow that looks so punchy and colorful" settings as well as a couple of subtle tweaks I've liked in some situations.
Then I shot it -5, -5, -2, -5

Now, I usually use these things to grade (not necessarily all three together, but often I do), FilmConvert, Magic Bullet Looks, and the FCPX color board.
For this I used FilmConvert, which I use as an "LUT" kind of first grade on all the GH3 footage and usually but not always dial it back a little...maybe 60 - 70%
Then I used basic 2.5 sharpening in FCPX with some gamma adjustments and saturation to taste.

The amount of image detail, shadow detail and highlight roll-off and natural color - the things that can make for a really nice, filmic image - of the graded -5 -5 -2 -5 clip was simply better in every respect than what initially looks to some people, sharp, rich imagery.

Once you let the GH3 push that contrast and sharpening on an image, you can't get it off or back.
If you try and sharpen 0 sharpened footage you get junk.
If you sharpen -5 sharpened footage in post, you get back a much more detailed image which you can control as needed.
Step and repeat with Contrast and NR.
Color, I think has a bit more latitude, but I really like -2 with these settings.
 
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In response to shooting 50mb IBP vs 72mb All-Intra, I much prefer the 50mb IBP - I seem to get moire on the All-Intra setting as opposed to no moire whatsoever on the 50mb IBP. I also have the sharpness all the way down as others have mentioned.
 
Even with the sharpness off where it should be, you'll get moire on some fine detail depending on your focal length/distance.
But so will a lot of cameras...and you'll see a lot of moire on national broadcasts too, depending on the conversion and circumstances.

I've gone pretty much moire free in most GH3 shoots, but I got it on a TV spot a couple of weeks ago during a jib move up an actor wearing a polo shirt.
It's definitely a fine detail thing, hardly a deal breaker for such a great little camera.

And yeah, 50MB is a very solid little codec that grades really well for 4:2:0, 8 bit
 
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thanks, Jimagine - I've only made a few slapdash tests so far, so I can't speak with any authority on the matter. But when I shot with sharpness set at -4, it took far more than setting the slider at 2.5 in FCP to "restore" the sharpness (to the factory set sharpness), and since you're shooting at -5, this tells me you really don't like oversharpened images at all. I tried a few shots using vivid myself and found the results so repugnant, I lost all interest in seeing how it looked with the settings turned down - the objectionable look would only return when I corrected in post. Anyhow, I find a discussion of camera settings much more meaningful in the context of color grading. Just one question - is that -2 NR or -2 Color Saturation? Thanks!
 
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