Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH3 review

VIDEO

The best thing about the GH2 was its video mode. It delivered sharper 1080p footage with less moiré interference than Canon and Nikon’s SLRs, along with low image noise, a choice of automatic, priority and manual exposure modes and silky smooth autofocus, amply assisted by the touchscreen autofocus control. An unofficial hack gave bit rates to up to 176Mbit/s for immaculate picture quality in fast-moving scenes where lower bit rates would lead to compression artefacts. With this rare combination of talents, the GH2 has gained a cult status among independent filmmakers.

The GH3 is even better, and without having to resort to hacks. 1080p shooting at 50fps has been added to the GH2’s 24p, 25p and 50i options. It can record in slow or fast motion – from 40% to 300% – with playback at 24fps. It can shoot in AVCHD format at 24Mbit/s, but it’s also possible to record 24p, 25p and 50p QuickTime AVC clips at 50Mbit/s.

Last but not least, 1080-24p, 1080-25p and 720-50p are available at 72Mbit/s using an all-intra codec. This means each frame is described from scratch rather than by updating the previous frame, as the other codecs do, so even the most frenetic scenes are captured with no perceptible compression artefacts, to our eyes at least. We also found that the QuickTime modes delivered even sharper details than the AVCHD modes. The resulting files are enormous, but the camera can span multiple 4GB files for uninterrupted recording for up to 30 minutes.

Audio artefacts can be just as big a problem, but the GH3 avoids this with lenses that autofocus silently and the ability to adjust exposure settings via the touchscreen. Changing the ISO or shutter speed caused visible jumps in the exposure, but aperture changes were smooth. There are 3.5in microphone and headphone sockets, plus audio metering and the ability to adjust the volume while recording. The lack of a mains power input is a concern for long video shoots, though. We’d have also liked something akin to Sony’s focus peaking mode, which highlights areas of sharp focus and is extremely useful for focusing manually while recording. Still, we were able to focus reasonably confidently using the viewfinder.