Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

I have the etc mode assigned to fn1, when I want to use it I first place the camera in stdby, then I press the fn1 button and the etc menu appears, then I tap the lcd screen to activate the etc mode and I half press the shutter button to confirm.
You do know etc mode doesn't work in 50p? I found out only last week.

I slowly am getting to speed with the gh3, used it during a fashion show yesterday and had to do some behind the scenes, shot handheld with the 12-35 f2.8 lens and saw the results on my pc yesterday evening, the footage looks very stable and I only used a varavon loupe, I still find it difficult to set correct exposure, I have the histogram on all the time but I do miss the extra zebra's my ea50 gives me, with that cam my exposure is spot on all the time, with the gh3, like my 550d, it's a bit more a guessing game. I know you can make overexposed parts flash but that's really distracting and also not that precise.

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

I didn't realise that ETC doesn't work in 50p mode on the GH3 as it works OK on the G6 (which I own). I also have an Olympus OM-D & have one of the function buttons allocated to ETC & that allows me to toggle ETC on & off with one push of the button. The extra step on the G6/GH3 of needing to access the menu to select ETC off/on is irritating.

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

Nigel
Are you saying in the stop mode you can actually toggle the "effect" Off and On? Or that you get two boxes to choose from and have to do one more step and select one? That's what I see. And it does not work either way.

Am I supposed to be On in he main menu with the ETC? That's how I have been trying, but also I (think) with it Off as well. That so far is the only place I can change it. ???

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

Ron, I have to do the extra step. It's my OM-D that I can just toggle on/off. On the G6 there is the option for ETC when taking stills but as this uses the central portion of the sensor it only works if you have the camera set to take less than full resolution JPEGs which seems a bit pointless. I don't see why you would ever want to shoot less than full resolution stills.

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

Yesterday I almost had a heartattack, the day before the wedding I performed a format on my cf card through the camera menu system and the next day started filming, no problems, at a certain moment I had the camera in standby and when I wanted to shoot and when I looked at the viewfinder I couldn't see a live view but the format screen was opened with "delete all data from the memory card?" selected and luckily 'no" was highlighted. (it defaults to "no" when you open that screen.)

What happened? When the camera was in standby I accidentally pressed the "menu set" button (small button in the scroll wheel) twice with the palm of my hand while holding the camera. Because I had formatted the card the format option screen opened as that was where I left it at the day before and the second press of that button went to the actual format choice.

Lesson learned is to now leave the menu in a screen that has no destructive options but it is another example that the button layout on the GH3, just like on the G6 which I own as well is pretty bad because I have been activating the menu screen several times by accident, never had this kind of behavior with my 550d.

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

I am getting to dislike the GH3 a little more with every shoot I undertake. Really, Really fed up with thinking I am recording, only to find out the camera is still in standby mode because of the disappearing info on screen leading you to have to press the 'REC' button twice (once to bring the screen info back and then again to start recording)

Come on Panasonic, sort this out please!

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

How is that? Even after most info disappears the most critical part, the recording info, is still visible on my screen, I get a red blinking dot and the time it has been recording and the time remaining and that doesn't dissapear.

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

I have finally gotten into the the double click habit. Now I have to remember not to do that with my other cameras!

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

You could always buy a shutter release cable. I have Panasonic's own rather expensive one but prefer to use a cheapo version I got via Amazon UK for about a tenner (£10).

Ron

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

Great video, did you use the 550D or the GH3 ?

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

It was not one of my videos :) Mine can be seen in below link, the video I was referring to is from Igor.

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

John is correct. When the display info disappears, pressing the record button once does not start recording and you will miss the shot. That press brings the displays back. Pressing it a second time starts recording. If you get into the habit of pressing twice, you can also miss recording if the displays were still on for the first press because then recording will start e.g. displays on, recording starts. So the second press will actually stop recording and you will miss the shot.

It's an egregious error to anyone with human factors skills and reflects poorly on Panasonic development acumen.

I missed some great footage in Africa learning this lesson. I disable the record button and use the shutter button with the camera in Movie mode instead. That button works properly. YMMV

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

I actually use both shutter and rec button to start or stop recording but I still don't get how you can miss a shot, yes, you have to press twice to start recording but if it is recording you always do get the info on screen so if there is no info visible at all there is also no recording going on or do you mean something else?

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

Why does Panny even have the seperate record button ??
The shutter release button does it all without having to go through the display on/ press once, display off/press twice routine. I never use the record button and havn't missed a shot yet. Seems a dumb option (for Panny), when the natural instinct is to use shutter release.

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

I can't understand why they haven't fixed this with a firmware update to at least get the dedicated rec button function like it should, but anyways, by using the shutter button there is no issue at all, you press it once and it activates the record mode, you even can get a beep sound when it does and when all info disappears on screen the rec button is still flashing and the counter is still running so I don't understand why people keep missing a shot thinking it's recording when it's not.

To get all info back on screen I also press the shutterbutton slightly, it's annoying most info disappears and when I started using this camera it was quite a shock but after some time of use I start to get used to it and actually find it better to have all clutter removed from screen when I"m recording so I can concentrate on what's going on. I only keep an eye on the rec button to assure it's recording and I press the shutter button a bit in from time to time to confirm other settings.

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

I use a pistol grip with a trigger plugged into the camera's remote port, and the "double click" trick is required there as well. I rely on the big flashing red dot to tell me when I am recording (or not).

I don't think I've ever used the red "movie" button in 3 years of owning GH1/2/3 cameras. It's an artifact of a bygone era, as far as I am concerned.

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

I agree about the display - you are left with a flashing record light and a timer - the screen is clear - beautiful.....except I would like the audio meters left up. During interviews in loud environments I find I am constantly triggering the display to check audio, but that's about it.

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

You miss the shot when the thing you wanted to film is in the past because you were busy pressing the button twice. There are other scenarios that are similar such as you think you pressed the button before the displays turned off but you just missed it. It takes second for the camera to show the blinking red dot and after you wait to see it not blink, the moment is gone.

Recording should be a highly reliable and simple operation that does not require a lot of cognitive load on the brain. Ditto the displays turning off. You should be focussed on the creative aspect of what you are doing not on operating the display every 10 seconds so you can keep an eye on the settings for what's happening in front of the lens and as Chris pointed out, visually monitoring audio. The GH3 designers did poorly with these ergonomics. Panasonic won't fix if they feel users give them a pass and are selling cameras anyway. Public criticism holds their feet to the fire.

The shutter release button does not do everything as asserted here. The dedicated record button lets you start video recording when your camera is in one of the photo modes. It's one of the first features shooters wanted when DSLRs for video hit the scene.

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

That's not the case here Les, I press the shutter button once and it records, I have a visual confirmation that it is recording whether the screen info dissapears or not, if I press the shutter button after the screen info dissapears to start or stop recording I also don't need to press twice and the red blinking dot tells me it is recording or if there is no red dot it's not recording, so here I don't follow your reasoning, if you use the dedicated record button, yes, you can have issues when you don't pay attention but that's not the case with the shutter button.
I use that shutterbutton to automatically focus before or during recording and to show all info on my screen, that's 3 different functions in one button easily available. It looks to me you only want to see negative things in the camera and while the technicians surely made some design mistakes there are other easy ways to deal with it. The only thing that does require constant monotoring is sound and that's the biggest design mistake, all the rest of the screen info I don't need during recording and if I do it's there in a split second.

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

Ditto on that Noa

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

Be nice. There's no need to attack me.

My post was answering your question of how shots are missed. Shots are missed due to the design flaw of the record button not the shutter button. Why have it if users have to use the shutter button? Why not fix it in firmware? The display timeout and the record button are justly criticized by experienced shooters. When you become an experienced shooter you will understand.

Panasonic marketing folks love fan boys like you who give them a pass for their mistakes and they use you to justify not investing in making firmware updates that fix these problems. You are also used when it comes to new products and whether to invest in features like peaking, zebras or false colors. They say you are ok with a camera that usability flaws and lack these features.

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

I thought only inexperienced shooters miss shots ;)

I do agree with you that the button which should be used to record doesn't function like it should and that Panasonic needs to address it, but if you can use the shutterbutton instead which does work like it should, why insist on using a function on the camera that makes you miss critical shots, hasn't happened to me since I started using the shutterbutton.

Also the info on screen is only critical for constant monitoring audio and there I also agree with you that the disappearing screen info makes this a almost impossible task, but beside that pulling the info back on screen is also just a matter of pressing the shutter button slightly.

It doesn't mean we have to accepts these flaws and it should be addressed to Panasonic but we also shouldn't be blind for any usable workarounds that this camera provides.

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

The record button is a DOG - don't use it. It makes the whole disappearing display scenario an even more complicated operation. The shutter button does do it all Les, except make me a cappuccino, which I hope is in the next firmware update.

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

Only a fanboy would believe that will happen, but if it does, let's hope it won't require pressing the button twice :)

Since all design mistakes appear to be because of people like me I wonder where one would best address this kind of flaws? All joking aside and seriously, we can complain about any typical problems in a thread like this but Les has a point that if you do nothing, nothing will change, let's say you want the screeninfo to remain on screen and only to disappear if you press a button (like with any other camera), how do you bring this message to Panasonic and how do you make them change their minds that this is important enough to develop a firmwareupdate? I"m sure that by now many users have complained about this in fora but that doesn't quite seem to do the trick, what does?

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

I do use the shutter button. Started using it in the middle of a trip this past July the moment I figured out the record button defect. I hadn't read anything about it even though the camera had been selling since last November. Too many fan boys and not enough critical review. I've since read more complaints about these same issues on other forums. A thread named "GH3 ... any typical problems?" should be a safe place to render these flaws explicit.

There are scenarios when the shutter is the less convenient button of the two and it's a pity it's badly designed. The same is true for the overlay displays. Plenty of situations when you want them displayed longer. In fact that sums up the design pretty well. It has these design flaws that reflect a limited imagination by it's designers who are apparently inexperienced with shooting and are held captive by product marketing people who have lots of ammunition that users don't care about the flaws.

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

If camera manufacturers would use professional videographers to do design reviews before designs are finalized, they could avoid a lot of design mistakes such as the record button 1-tap / 2-tap problem. I am talking about REAL professional videographers, not engineering technoids.

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

How many camera manufacturers really ask working video pros what they need before designing? Maybe a couple but certainly not Panasonic. Their camera design for video has been terrible for years. It's known around the industry that Panasonic's SLR department doesn't communicate with the Pro Video department. They are designing from a still camera perspective and perhaps it's better with still photographers but I wouldn't know.

Ever since cameras no longer needed to be in large bodies that had to be perched on the shoulder for hand-held work, nothing has really been designed intellegently except to make everything smaller. Note that the Panasonic Pro DSLR cameras are actually getting bigger as photographers were complaining that a small size wasn't working for them. The JVC Pro video division does make an effort to get input but they have stayed in the ENG realm for the most part.

Look at how Blackmagic Designs designs their cameras. Technically impressive but even people who love the cameras say that the design is flawed for many reasons. Blackmagic is one of the best companies out there and even they didn't really ask before finalizing a product. This is very prevalent in industry, I worked with a hardware designer who was in the Microsoft X-Box division years ago. He quit as he was disgusted that the engineering people were forced to fit the hardware in a box designed before they had finished the hardware prototypes. The box was too small for the CPU's heat sinks but Microsoft execs refused to budge, the chassis design came first even if that meant replacing millions of X-Boxes due to the red circle of death.

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

So in other words, if you complain or not, nothing will ever change with an existing model? My Sony nex-ea50 is not able to quickly scroll through it's iso values, like you can with a dslr, everybody complaints about it and Sony brings out a new firmware but it only adds what nobody asked for. I see this trend in so many different camera's, why does teh g6 have peaking and the gh3 not, why can you select etc mode in the g6 in 50p mode and not with the gh3, the g6 is half the price of their flagship yet has more useful features, I"m sure it's just a matter of a firmware update. I thought Panasonic used to listen to their users, something that was proven with the dvx100 line of which I did own the last version, looks like some things changed along the way.

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

Actually I found the DXV100 the start of Panasonic's trend away from making cameras with the user in mind. I was using Panasonic cameras for years before, the CLE200, CLE250, CLE700 because they were reasonably priced well designed cameras. The DXV series and HXV series went further and further into bad ergonomic design. These were not cameras for long days of hand-held work due to the brick like weight distribution. I switched over to Sony for a few cameras and then to JVC. Now I use JVC video cameras and Panasonic GH series. I like my GH cameras a lot but if I am to be in uncertain situations, the JVCs come out no question.

Years ago I was on a few focus groups and I could see how little the advice was being accepted. Frequently the designers are looking for confirmation that their work is good and if people say otherwise then it's a "bad group".

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

I always thought that with the "a" and "b" version the implemented new features where for a big part based on user requests? Then I must have been wrong informed.

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

Yes, absolutely. Those models were a response to the frustration to the user experience with the initial release of the 100. But they then went and released the HXV200 which was like holding a cinder block with your wrist. Did they hand a few prototype models to camera people and ask, "Do you want to hold this?". If they did they ignored it. Every workable pro hand-held camera is thinner in width and has been for decades and Panasonic knew this. Why was HVX so fat? Probably due to the internal components but what they should have done was shift the weight distribution but that required more development resources that they were not willing to spend. Sony made the same ergonomic error when they designed the EX1 and eventually listened to professionals and made the EX3 which is a great camera (and was more expensive). But later they released the clumsy NEX series which are now slowly coming to the usability level of their ENG style cameras. Good camera design is out there and has been for decades but the trend to smallness has required reimagining of how a camera interacts with the user and nobody really has it yet. JVC who has been very good for awhile recently released the HM600 which is smaller than their other ENG cameras and there are some odd decisions about how the shutter speed is changed versus their older models but otherwise it's an easy, easy camera to operate. It would be great to have a camera like the GH3 in the body of a HM600 (the AF100 doesn't count) but I wouldn't expect the price to be the same, it's just not possible.

My point is that many companies have a process and sometimes a corporate culture that doesn't allow outside input easily no matter how benevolent it is. The GH3 is the result of a huge and active community that saw the potential of the GH2 and became very outspoken especially with the firmware hacks. Panasonic saw this, learned and designed the very much improved GH3 but then threw in a couple of weird adjustments because... They didn't ask anybody! Who would have said, "Yes, I like pushing the record button twice unlike every other record button known to man"? Nobody, and I am confident in saying this. The designers at Panasonic, who have otherwise done a great job, and I thank them profusely, went and made a feature out of pure fantasy. Sometimes this works great, sometimes not. Conversely I'm sure a significant number of pros would react negatively to a radical new feature that in the long run would be a great improvement. Possibly I would be one of them. Let's see what the Panasonic design team has come up in the rumored GH4 although I rather have them make a firmware fix for this now and I'll consider newer models more favorably in the future.

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

The G6 did ship about 6 months after the GH3 so it's not surprising that it has features that are not in the older model.

BTW I am sure that it's probably pilot error but I cannot get peaking working on my G6. I have it switched on in the menu. I press F3 & PEAK appears on the LCD screen but I don't see any of the blue highlighting that I have seen on demo videos.

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

This has been discussed at length on dvxuser. Panasonic says it's not just a matter of firmware update. Specifically, they said the chip they chose for the GH3 cannot support peaking and the G6 uses a different chip that can. If one knows anything about image processing and firmware, this makes sense.

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

I was actually only refering to the dvx100 models where there was a time they did listen to user input, the dvx100 was the filmmakers tool that where on a budget and it was very popular, just like the gh3 is, it only looks they have lost track along the way, too bad.

If it's a limitation of the older chip on the gh3 I can understand, but we never know if that is really the case because they can tell you whatever you want to believe, look at what the magic lantern team has been able to pull out the 5D3, I"m sure Canon would also say the chip was not able to handle raw footage or be able to add any new features if those geniuses at ML had not been able to prove otherwise.

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

It seems that it was pilot error. as peaking does work if I switch to MF.

What I would like to use is single shot AF (AF-S) then fine tune manually but even though I have AF+MF switched ON in the menus I don't seem to be able to adjust focus manually until I switch to MF. Piolt erro again I suspect.

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

Read and be informed: GH3 Why Does G6 have Focus Peaking but not the GH3?

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

I just went through the first few pages and see users that bought the camera explain why they think it's not possible, as if they actually designed the camera :) They can only base themselves on info they get from a manufacturer, there is even a panasonic announcment in there but like I said, you can believe whatever a manufacturer or a user tells you with the only proof that it is like that untill a talented team of hackers comes along and makes things appear, or maybe not. Since I saw what the ML team has been able to do I have become very skeptical about any limitation a camera has and often limitations are build in for a purpose, like to protect sales from a higher end camera's or to boost sales from lower end camera's by giving them features a higher end one doesn't have but cripple them just enough in functionality so it won't hurt sales of the higher end one.

You will never know what goes on behind the screens, only the guys that designs and build the camera do for sure and you can bet they won't let you in on any company secrets. So it might just be the case or it isn't, will never know for sure and just have to deal with the limitations a camera has.

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

We certainly don't know what's going on in the GH3 chip architecture. Maybe the hackers who were able to get into the GH2 can tell us why they can't get into the GH3. I would certainly trade the resources used to send a signal out the HDMI port (which I discovered isn't always the same frame rate as the recording depending on the receiving HDMI device) and have the resources devoted to focus peaking. But probably that's not possible. Devices like the GH3, while using computer technology, are not computers. They are designed very specifically with the components usually unable to perform any task besides the intended ones. This keeps the costs down while optimizing the performance. The ML hack is impressive but look how long it took for it to be discovered and designed. It's even possible that Canon engineers didn't even know that their components could do it. Computers are open ended, waiting for programmers to design software to use the available resources. You would have to purchase a whole set of add-ons to get the average computer to do the tasks a GH3 performs in a 1/24th of a second over and over again. It's very possible that Panasonic was't ready with focus peaking in a DSLR yet but they had to release the camera anyway for financial/marketing reasons.

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

This is not quite true. Whilst there is hardware dedicated to specific functions within the camera, there is also hardware that can be assigned to a variety of tasks depending on need.
Limitations to adding focus peaking could be down to lack of processing power (the processors are already loaded running the current functions), lack of banwidth (the processors have enough resource, but there isn't enough bandwidth between components to move the required data), lack of a specific hardware component, or just lack of developer resources to create the code (the GH3 isn't under active development anymore and only pure bug fixes are worked on, which indicates a very small team will be working GH3 patches).
I imagine most dev effort is being put into new prodcuts, especially the new 4k stuff, and the reality of the development process is Panasonic have already sold most of the GH3s they are likely to, from a business point of view it makes a lot of sense to put dev resource into new products not one that already has made the majority of return it's ever likely to make.
Big thing to note, the engineers DO NOT decide what features are provided or added to a cameras feature list. This is a decision purely made by management.

Re: gh3... any typical problems?
 

I agree with you completely. It's most likely that the team at Panasonic devoted to designing these cameras is onto the next set of projects.