Panasonic GH3 Specs Supposedly Leaked! "Wide Dynamic Range" sensor/Fastest Auto Focus.

Hopefully this thing doesn't get any heating issues at all just like the GH1 and GH2 and I've never had 1 issue and I shoot like crazy sometimes. Still, it's rumored to be a little bigger so it might not be bad even though it might be more weather-sealed. We'll see.
The encoder really have to be much better than the GH2's to have only 72MBPS in the Intra recording setting. When it comes to the GH2, an Intra hack with 100Mbps is considered a low setting and the high settings are over 150Mbps. As for the Inter bit rate, 50Mbps does sound decent. Hopefully this thing gets hacked soon to unlock the true potential. With the better memory cards that are out their, this might have potential to have bit rates of much higher than 200Mbps and still be extremely reliable. I just hope Panasonic wont try to lock the the firmware as best as they can. It's true that codec quality isn't the only thing that determines the overall picture quality and at least it looks like everything else about the GH3 will be better like when it comes to Dynamic range, low light capabilities, etc regardless if it gets hacked or not.

Imagine the publicity this camera would get if it was 10 bit and 422 sampling from electronics to codec. I'll keep dreaming. I shot a bunch of scenery footage in the Azores, Portugal recently with my hacked GH2 and if it was 10 bits with 422 sampling, that would have been awesome. I know that seams very far-fetched but then again, having an XLR attachment is also far fetched.

I think the companies are aware that hacks are a selling point and. for all we know, might have something to do with the leaked info that leads to the hacks...

The GH3 sounds exciting. We might also be looking forward to cheap GH2 sales soon, the way Canon is blowing out the T3i's now with low prices and free lenses...

MTyson: Thanks for the info, I have a GH3 arriving next week, can't wait, just need to look at lens selections. Not sure if I would call the Nikon D7000 or Canon 7D, full Pro cameras, more like Semi-Pro. As now most of the Pro cameras are going full frame. But the new GH3 has been compared to the new Nikon D800 with some pretty amazing results on the video end of course, still image quality goes to the shooter and the D800. With that being said the still images I have seen coming from the GH3 look impressive. I am currently shooting stills with a Nikon D7000 and a Olympus OM-D with very good results it will be nice to see how the GH3 preforms in this area as well.

I will be extremely surprised if the GH3 has official 50 Mbit/s AVC encoder. On the other hand, consumer Panasonic camcorders got 1080p60 @ 28 Mbit/s two years ago, while the AC90 that has this recording mode was released just a month ago. Who knows. If the GH3 indeed has Long-G it will kill all other DSLRs.

Nevertheless, I would prefer clean 4:2:0 video without visible macroblocking to buggy 4:2:2. I had bad experience with ugly macroblocking in 1080p60 mode on the SD600, so I hope that Panasonic licked out their encoder this time. The GH series has a long history of crappy factory encoding, it has survived only because of the hacks.

24p/30p @ 72 Mbit/s intra is good. 60p @ 50 Mbit/s interframe is good. I wonder is it 8-bit or 10-bit, and 4:2:0 or 4:2:2.

$1300 for body only? Expensive for my needs. But the sample videos look good even after Vimeo re-encoding.

Although both the GH3 and the AC90 are using a more advanced compression scheme than prior cameras according to people in Personal-view.com, they are still 8 bit cameras from front end to codec. Once the GH3 gets fully hacked, things can start to look interesting with the new compression schemes although unfortunately it's not entirely better than the GH2 since it's being reported that although the GH3 gains better low light abilities and possibly more dynamic range, it has slightly more moire and aliasing than the GH2. Still, the GH3 ads 1080 60p which is a huge plus since the GH3's"real" resolution is higher than 720 so even if the GH2 is slightly higher res in 24p, in 60p, the GH3 should be higher res since in the 60p mode of the GH2 it's capped at 720p. Unfortunately it seams like Panasonic wanted to give people an incentive to get the GH3 by not having 1080 60p in the GH2. As some of you know, the AF100 eventually received 1080 60p just like the AC160 so it might not have been that hard to implement in in the GH2 unless they were worried about heating issues than that's a different story.

We'll probably see AVC Ultra capable cameras later this year but it'll most likely be in camcorders at least $3,000 and up if that happens. The lowest AVC Ultra codec is 10 bit 422 called "AVC-LongG". You can choose a bit rate as low as 25Mbps so the codec must really be very advanced.

It's a disturbing trend seeing how the GH1, GH2 and GH3 have been very hard to find initially in the US. Heck, it's still hard to find the GH3 today in January. Still, in my case, I had no issue getting both the GH1 and the GH2 when it first came out and the reason for that is because I used a local authorized dealer. Yes places such as Amazon and B&H are huge and gets tons and tons of stock compared to smaller places but you might be able to find a place that has has a better ratio of people wanting to buy it verses stock levels. Just making up numbers for example purposes. Amazon could have a stock of say 100 cameras that just came in and the people waiting to buy it could be 1,000 so about 10% are able to get their camera while a smaller store that has received say 10 probably has only 20 people waiting to buy it. It also helps to pre-order. Speaking of low stock levels in the US, I'm sure Panasonic lost a ton of sales to the 7D because of that so I'm sure their would have been more positive publicity for the GH1 if it wasn't for the stock issue. Perhaps Panasonic thought it would be like the Nintendo Wii thinking that if they limit the stock, it might get more people to be interested in the GH1. That's a joke.

I wish I could have gotten the GH3 but I figured that since I already have the GH2 which does what I need and an SD600 that was lacking on so many features that I needed such as view finder, native 24p, etc. I was better off spending money on a camcorder that has the features I needed which ends up being the AC90. Never mind the fact that the money could have went toward the very nice Panasonic 12-35mm lens for my GH2 but unfortunately it's not easy to get all the toys that I wanted. Things were different back then when I choose to get the GH1 instead of paying a little bit more and get the HMC40 which was also brand new. At that time, it was the fact that I was also into photography that finally made me decide on the GH1 but I still had second thoughts afterwards.
Edited by Paulo Teixeira - 1/4/13 at 11:04pm

The GH3's All-I setting looks like ass, according to end users on Personal-View.com and from videos posted. The 72 Mbps rate Panasonic assigned that Intra setting is too starved. The 50 Mbps, long-GOP, MOV mode, as of right now, seems the best. The developers of the GH2 hack do believe that the GH3 will need to be hacked to have the camera fully reach its potential, and may have a better foundation for said hack given its more advanced compression codecs. The moire, aliasing, and extra softness may be hardware related and not "fixable" due to the use of a Sony sensor and its poorer image subsampling performance, and not an improved in-house Panasonic multi-aspect type. Panasonic must not have wanted to have the GH3 compete with their pro cinema cameras. The GH2 was certainly seen as a fluke and the engineers were probably told by higher-ups that they didn't want a repeat of that "mistake."

It still has an image shift between the preview and the recording modes. An error that was not fixed.

One bright spot: supposedly, the HDMI output is not locked at 1080i with a crippled signal as with the GH2, but clean 1080p (but still only 8 bit). I don't know if the frame rates and resolution being output match the in-camera settings or not. Ex: you set the camera to record 1080p/24 and that's what is sent via the HDMI output.

All video enabled cameras, regardless of price, should have global shutters, NLE friendly capture codecs (not end-user delivery codecs like H.264 and H.265), at least 10 bit 4:2:2, usable timecode, and RAW video enabled video outputs. With the state of advanced software and hardware, these should be standard features.
Edited by Dan Hitchman - 1/5/13 at 8:35am

Paulo:

Kenmore Camera had GH3 in stock and he is getting more. I just got mine today, but once again I think Panasonic is missing the boat selling these, as it is a great all around Camera. I been shooting some good video with it today and comparing it to a couple of camcorders I have and it is impressive on both stills and video. As far as it needing to be hacked, that never was a problem for me with my GH2 which I sold last week. I just need to look at some better lenses now. I am open to suggestion on lenses a good all around lens for video and stills or one that does video and one that does stills better.

Lots of good lens advice can be found on this forum: http://www.mu-43.com/index.php?pageid=active And you can search the forum using "GH3 lens" and "GH3 lenses" as your search words. 12-35mm is the premier short zoom, but costly, 14-45 is nearly as good and far cheaper, 14-140 longer zoom is decent and moderately priced, then there are primes like the Panny 14mm, & 25mm and the 20mm (but the 20mm is noisy when used for video)

That's a really good summary of native Panasonic lenses, thank you. I have the 14-140, would like one of the new fast zooms, but can't afford them. My 'poor man's alternative' is fast old 4/3 zooms with a $100 MA1 adapter. For the price of one new 12-35 f2.8, you can get a used Oly 14-54 and a used Oly 50-200 (both f2.8-3.5s).

I bought a used Oly 11-22 f2.8-3.5 on eBay for less than $400. A great lens for not a lot of money.

Best,

Bill
Edited by brunerww - 1/9/13 at 6:30am

Yes, the 12-35mm lens is definitely a good recommendation for anyone who's able to afford it. That's a specialty lens.Big difference between that lens and the 14-45 since it has better glass, it's faster, wider and the aperture is nearly constant. I was planning on getting it in the past but the price kept scarring me away and now that I just got the AC90, I'm not going to be getting that lens anytime soon. Sorry GH2!! A big recommendation for anybody is the 20mm and it's true that the auto focusing really isn't anything to be excited about when it come to video but if you're using it manually, it's a killer lens and also very sharp. That lens came out around late 2010 and even to this day, it's not uncommon to see it being sold out in the big retailers. When it's being highly praised all over the place, I guess that's why it's hard to keep it in stock sometimes. I still wish it had better video auto focusing. It's also a very tiny lens. Perhaps the Panasonic Leica have better auto focusing for video. It's also an extremely sharp lens but you're talking $500 for that one.

Thanks guys for the heads up. Paulo, the Panasonic 20mm was the first lens I bought! Very nice as you just need to use your feet for zooming! Not sure what route I am going to go yet, but it's nice to see the newer 12-35mm drop in price, I would love to get that lens. In fact I am debating selling my Nikon Gear to get a few of these better lenses and the good thing is I can use them on both my GH3 and OMD. I been such a diehard Nikon
fan its very hard to let which will be most likely my last DSLR camera, so I might just keep it and get a converter for my Panasonic GH3 and OMD. Currently I just have the standard 12-50mm lens that came with the OM-D 5 which is decent. Thanks again!