Upgraded GH1 to GH3 (1 Viewer)

I received my pre-ordered GH3 last week. I bought it to replace the GH1 which I have had for almost three years. I was looking to improve AF speed and low light performance.

I am happy with the GH1 pictures but I find the speed of the GH1 AF slow and what is even more frustrating is the occasional inability of the camera to find focus. This happens both with the 100-300 and the 45mm Macro. The performance in low light is also not great. I limit the GH1 ISO to 1600 and this sometimes results in missed shots or poor quality shots of birds in undergrowth.

So the first shots with the GH3 were to assess the AF and ISO performance.

AF performance (meets expectations)

For birds I almost always use the one area AF set to the smallest square and aim at the birds eye. Using this setting the GH3 is fast and accurate. The speed is almost instantaneous. The GH3 also has an additional setting over the GH1 called pinpoint AF. This is a crosshair sight that finds the focus point through any amount of branches. Sample images in the thumbnails. This is a great feature.

ISO performance (not as good as I had hoped)

The GH2 outperforms the GH1 by about 2 stops. At ISO 3200 the noise is about the same as the GH1 at ISO 1000 or 1200. The GH3 has relatively clean images up to about ISO 2500. I noticed that the high ISO images have much better colour detail and are in general brigther than the GH1 images. Perhaps the real ISO on the GH1 was actually lower. The in camera JPEG is cleaner than the Silkypix RAW file but I didn't spend any time on noise reduction (ISO 3200 image of black phase gray squirrel).

I also noticed it handles shade and highlights better than the GH1. It will be nice to try macros of yellow flowers. The GH1 had real trouble with highlights on yellow petals.

ISO 12800 on the GH3 is unuseable (for me anyway) and similar to ISO 3200 on the GH1 which I never used. The menu for selecting the ISO is much improved and setting the max ISO limit is much easier.

General
The camera has a very good solid feel. The camera is almost virtually silent when the electronic shutter is turned on. Although max ISO is 1600 with the elecrtronic shutter turned on.

Full size and additional photos available at
http://rustyblades.smugmug.com/Natu...mance/27008248_rMdqgD#!i=2264632365&k=nvdfBwB

Weather hasn't allowed test of birds in flight. Will try that over the coming weeks.

Paul

Paul, thanks for sharing.

I am using my GH2 up to iso 3200, but for an image at that high iso to be worth while it takes quite a bit of work for me to get an acceptable balance of noise and details. Usually I have to use a specialized noise reduction program (I use noiseware) after the raw conversion (but then it does look better than the OOC jpg).

Niels

njlarsen said:

Paul, thanks for sharing.

I am using my GH2 up to iso 3200, but for an image at that high iso to be worth while it takes quite a bit of work for me to get an acceptable balance of noise and details. Usually I have to use a specialized noise reduction program (I use noiseware) after the raw conversion (but then it does look better than the OOC jpg).

Niels

Click to expand...

Thanks Niels.

I'm glad the AF is a big improvement over the GH1, and the addition of pin point focusing was a pleasane surprise as I hadn't seen it mentioned in reviews. I maintain a photo life list and it's always frustrating when you lose an opportunity at a new bird or end up with a less than satisfactory photo due to slow response of the AF. With some of the rarer birds another opportunity may not present itself for a long time or worse, if travelling, you may never get another opportunity again.

Paul
photo life list, http://rustyblades.smugmug.com/Natu...World/15414769_8c3shM#!i=1507528991&k=K7tW4Sq

njlarsen said:

Paul, thanks for sharing.

I am using my GH2 up to iso 3200, but for an image at that high iso to be worth while it takes quite a bit of work for me to get an acceptable balance of noise and details. Usually I have to use a specialized noise reduction program (I use noiseware) after the raw conversion (but then it does look better than the OOC jpg).

Niels

Click to expand...

I had another chance to get out and get a few more shots today. The weather was a typical overcast gray day for this time of the year but not overly dark. A good day for testing the high ISO for noise and colour. The previous photos were taken on a sunny day.

I have to admit I may have been a little hasty with my initial impression on the camera's high ISO performance. Perhaps because the light was uniform, I found the colours this time around were very good all the way to ISO 5000 with no noticeable noise but there was a very slight loss of detail. Based on the previous outing I had capped the high ISO at 6400, but only got a couple of shots at that setting and they were still quite acceptable. I'll have to return later this week with the cap at 12800.

I also took advantage of the SilkyPix Pro 5 for Panasonic upgrade offer ($45) that was sent out over the weekend. I noticed an improvement in noise processing, especially older GH1 RAW files. That improvement plus HDR and dodging capability convinced me to buy the upgrade.

A bit of an aside but I noticed that the default settings of the current version of SilkyPix 3.1 that came with the GH3 and the Pro 5 version both produce almost the exact same quality image as the in camera JPEG. This was not the case with the GH1 SilkyPix version.

I've posted some of the images I shot today at my smumug gallery for anyone that is interested.

http://rustyblades.smugmug.com/Natu...mance/27008248_rMdqgD#!i=2278051105&k=hVM9w9v

Paul

Those iso5000 shots look extremely impressive to my eyes! I do realize that they are probably downsized compared to originals, but I could not get those results at 3200 with my GH2

Niels

njlarsen said:

Those iso5000 shots look extremely impressive to my eyes! I do realize that they are probably downsized compared to originals, but I could not get those results at 3200 with my GH2

Niels

Click to expand...

Niels,

I uploaded the files at the original size. If you want to see the full size file, double click the large image and then select O for the size. It loads up fairly quickly.

The RAW files are in the 17-18 MB range, in camera JPEGS about 8 to 9 MB. SilkyPix JPEGS 10 to 15 MB. Scary! Our first home computer had a 20MB hard disk.

This also points out the need for a fast card. I have a 16GB and a 32GB Sandisk Extreme. Will probably get a faster card to use as the primary card after the holidays. I always shoot RAW only, to speed the write to card. I wanted to satisfy myself that SilkyPix could deliver images equivalent to those produced by the Venus engine. It seems to do that at the default settings.

Paul

Thanks Paul,
I overlooked the option of changing size once I had clicked on the image. I am still impressed!

Niels

DXOMark (http://www.dxomark.com) just published their test of the GH-3. I ran a comparison to the Olympus OM-D EM-5 (which I recently purchased) and the scores for both the GH-3 and the OM-D are virtually identical. There are certainly other factors to consider, but image quality appears similar for these two. I do prefer the ergonomics of the Panasonic cameras (I have a GH-2 and a G-1) but I like the in-body image stabilization of they Olympus.

Mark in a different thread linked to a GH3 review I was not familiar with: http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/digital-cameras/1296622/panasonic-lumix-dmc-gh3

From page 1:

Buy it with the new 12-35mm f/2.8 weather-sealed lens and it will set you back £1,995 including VAT. That's more than the magnificent Nikon D600 costs with its kit lens. Is the GH3, with a sensor that's just a quarter the size (by surface area), really able to compete? The answer is an emphatic yes.

Click to expand...

Niels