[QUOTE ..., from what I have read the merlin is not so easy to balance so maybe something to take into consideration.[/QUOTE]

Noa, I forgot to mention that I heard just the opposite about fine tuning the Merlin and the Gllidecams. There is a guy named Dave on YouTube, very well known for having better reeviews than most, and he has personally owned and used the Glidecam and he said he never did get it tuned good after days of trying. He said that other brands were much easier. I have heard this before. So, who knows unless you try them all and then even people can still have different opinions.

Alex

I saw a vid of a guy running down a pretty steep hill with his own DIY rig and it was unbelievably smooth

Let me guess, did he have a fisheye on his camera? :)

When you ever get to build one, put a 50mm lens on the gh3 and show me some moves and I will do the same with the blackbird, you"ll understand why the better ones cost more. :)

[he said he never did get it tuned good after days of trying.

Alex

Might be true for the glidecam as well, I can only speak about the blackbird with my own experience and about what I read about the Merlin.

There is no accessory that stops the GH3 from turning off the overlays after 10 seconds.


Yeah that's a well documented problem, but you do get a record red dot and a display timer when it disappears to tell you you're rolling - isn't that enough ?.
It's the audio meters disappearing that are annoying. Peaking would definitely make this a better camera as well.

no, he did not use a fisheye. he has more experience than assuming that. I have heard good things about the blackbird, too. Watch over 50 youtubes and see how some are really good. And I would not use a 50mm. It's OK, but wider is better. It makes things even more steady and it keeps everything in focus since you can't be fiddling with focus while walking and running around.

We are only talking here about a few bars that hold weights in strategic places to counter act the movement of the camera. It's not rocket science. I saw one guy online that had access to some really nice machine tools and he built a Merlin 2 copy that worked and look perfect.

Alex

Might be true for the glidecam as well, I can only speak about the blackbird with my own experience and about what I read about the Merlin.
I have seen a lot of good things said about the Blackbird.

Alex

This Steadicam =
Amazon.com: Steadicam SMOOTHEE-GPROHRO Smoothee with GoPro Mount and Belt Clip: Camera & Photo (http://www.amazon.com/Steadicam-SMOOTHEE-GPROHRO-Smoothee-GoPro-Mount/dp/B005WP3IE8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1332411516&sr=8-2&tag=vglnk-c1520-20)
would be perfect for my Canon EOS-M and it's 22mm f2.0.

Alex

Yeah that's a well documented problem, but you do get a record red dot and a display timer when it disappears to tell you you're rolling - isn't that enough ?.
It's the audio meters disappearing that are annoying. Peaking would definitely make this a better camera as well.

and move the headphone jack higher to not interfere with the flip out oled. and a higher resolution oled from what people have said about it's low rez. And a user pref for audio limiter off/on.BTW, I just heard yesterday that the GH3 has Dc on the mic jack for phantom. True?

alex

I don't know man, I've seen DIY steadicams work extremely well. I saw a vid of a guy running down a pretty steep hill with his own DIY rig and it was unbelievably smooth :-/ it's just that I'm horrible at manual labor and generally at building things, so I don't know if this is a valid solution for me...

Luc, some of these people also build and sell them for low prices online. It wouldn't hurt to write to them or make a comment on their youtube page and ask if they would build you one too. some also end up putting them on Ebay.

Alex

Yeah that's a well documented problem, but you do get a record red dot and a display timer when it disappears to tell you you're rolling - isn't that enough ?.

No. Everything is helpful. As you point out, the audio meters being one of them. The tilt and grid overlays stay on and so should the rest. I've had the overlays turn off even when configuring the camera if I think about something longer than 10 seconds.

And it has undesirable side effects such as the record button having to be pressed twice if the overlays are off, once it they are on.

Panasonic should not be given a pass on these things.

Dream on, a steadicam is a precission tool that requires precission and high quality hardware and manufacturing. If you can't afford one, then sure get a 40 dollar one or build one yourself, if you are serious about results, get the real deal and pay for it.

The precision comes from the person using it and trying to tune it. EVERYONE says you have to spend hours and sometimes days learning how to get real good at using these things whether they are bought or DIY. They are quite easy to make. For example, there is no need for the precision in the Merlin 2 for raising or lowering the lower arm. It is over designed in order to impress people to pay higher money. You're just raising and lowering the distance to the low weights to the head weight. I don't think the Blackbird does that from what I recall.

I highly suggest you watch over 50 YouTubes and see the proof before making broad assumptions.

Peace,
Alex

I had a Glidecam for a little while. Finally got it to work on another video camera but was not impressed with the results and the difficulty of operating the camera controls. Eventually I sold it to someone who could use it. In the end I find a good camera shoulder brace and some sort of quality OIS gets me thru my traveling shots. There are some people who get great results with DIY stabilizers and other non Steadicam stabilizers, I am not one of them. Give me a jib (yes I know it's not the same) and I'm having a great time.

Today I covered another dance performance in an outdoor setting where there was no defined stage area. And the improvised performance sort of went on about a half hour longer than I was expecting. Since I knew I was going to an unplanned setting where there was no way to know where the dancers would end up and I didn't want to use the shoulder brace, I brought my monopod. Believe it or not a heavy duty monopod can act as a very low grade stabilizer if you don't extend it. The weight on the bottom acts as a counter weight if your wrist can stand it. It works for me in short stretches but the strain can add up. I eventually extended the monopod so the loupe was at a level that if I had to move the camera I could pick up the monopod and walk gently to a new position without my feet kicking the monopod. Nowhere near any good stabilizer but I had more control over my camera as the sunlight changed or it was time to change the zoom when I settled into a new position. The walking shots were OK not anything to put on my résumé but certainly watchable. And as the performance lasted a full hour instead of thirty minutes, the rest provided by the monopod was appreciated. The focus was provided by the face recognition auto focus. Only a couple of instances where the camera lost focus.

The GH3s disappearing LCD info is a mixed blessing. Viewfinder clutter has been a bane of mine for years. It's very hard to compose and ignore the icons and numbers filling the edges of the screen. Years ago I started with tube cameras that only had a record light in the viewfinder. My first digital video camera had the timecode, the audio meters and the record indicator outside the image. I would really appreciate if we could go back to that. Today's filming was one take for 57 minutes and I was happy to work without the info. By the way, if you adjust the zoom on the Lumix 14-140 lens, the info comes back on. The double record hit is a nuisance especially if one works with video cameras on a regular basis. The same behavior occurs if I try to adjust the exposure dial while filming, the first click on the dial brings the screen info back, the second click actually changes the exposure.

William,

I have never used a monopod, but I have considered them lately. I never knew they had some now with three small legs down at the ground. Manfrotto has one that actually stands on it's own when you let go. I also never knew they had a rule, like for shooting at football games on the sidelines, that you can only have a footprint of 18" diameter. Thus, no tripods and these monopods with legs fall just into being legal to use.

Alex

It is over designed in order to impress people to pay higher money.

I"m sorry but that's a lot of nonsense, you obviously never used a steadicam before, if you think you can get perfect results by drilling some holes in a few tubes and getting your spareparts in a hardwareshop, then have fun, but you will never get the same results as with a real steadicam.

Yeah that's a well documented problem, but you do get a record red dot and a display timer when it disappears to tell you you're rolling - isn't that enough ?

I would like to see what the camera is doing all the time as well, or at least be able to choose what would be permanently shown on the display, I was hoping this could just be solved with a setting but apparantly it's not. It would have been better to give the user a choice if the data has to dissapear or not but now it just does. I"m sure a firmwareupdate can solve this.

The GH3s disappearing LCD info is a mixed blessing. Viewfinder clutter has been a bane of mine for years. It's very hard to compose and ignore the icons and numbers filling the edges of the screen.

Apart from disappearing VU meters I agree with you. The GH3 small screen doesn't need constant information while you shoot. I don't need to be told ALL my settings once I start recording, I know what they are. I want to concentrate on the shot.

I"m sorry but that's a lot of nonsense, you obviously never used a steadicam before, if you think you can get perfect results by drilling some holes in a few tubes and getting your spareparts in a hardwareshop, then have fun, but you will never get the same results as with a real steadicam.

I have to wonder how old you are by the way you choose to discuss things on here immaturely at times. It seems like you take things personally and attempt to make false accusations against other people (me) who do not agree with you. Almost everything you say is just a guess since you never tried it or watched others show how they achieved good results. Another person here even agreed with me and said it was good footage even when the person ran down a hill with his DIY steadicam. Why should you care what other people choose to buy and do? Why not have an open mind and maybe learn from other people once in awhile? You made your opinion clear in your first reply here about buying certain brands and that should have been enough. I only suggested some other options that are viable and then you went on the attack about it since it did not agree with what you said. Let it go and move on. Let people do whatever they choose. Respect everyone else for what ever they choose to buy or do. Quit trying to act like you are so correct about everything and that people should only listen to you. Lighten up Noa and just share your information and stop trying to push your opinions and beliefs on other people so much. It's only gear/tools.

I am done with this topic on here and trying to talk logically with you about it. It appears that you do not have an open mind. You can have the last word if you want. I won't read it.

Alex

After reading Noa's last reply I knew it would come to something like this :) please relax guys, you are both valuable members of this community so let's stop wasting time arguing pointlessly about steadicams! I'm looking more at you here, Noa. You've won me over anyway, I will have to buy a known brand since I don't live in the USA where you can easily find all the required parts to build one yourself, and even then I don't know if I'd actually go that route. I just don't trust myself enough.

It seems like you take things personally and attempt to make false accusations against other people (me) who do not agree with you. Almost everything you say is just a guess since you never tried it or watched others show how they achieved good results.

Alex, comon, when your take on steadicam is, and I quote:

To build one? Takes hardly nothing but to drill a few holes from parts bought at stores like Home Depot.

how can anyone take this seriously, I have all the respect for people that build their own accesories but a steadicam is more then just a few parts from the home depot. I have seen my share of home made stabilisers on youtube before I purchased the blackbird and not one even came close to the results I"l getting with my blackbird. I have also very briefly worked with a pilot with vest and arm and that is even in another league compared to my blackbird with a pricetag to match, but you get what you pay for. The person operating the stabiliser is a very important element but even they won't get good shots out of a homedepot steadicam, here the tool is equally important as the operator and I do speak from experience, not only from watching some youtube videos.

Well you did ask if there were any problems, the main one being seeing the LCD properly and focussing in daylight - so one accessory is a loupe or EVF such as a DP4. The disappearing display is another problem as you can't monitor audio levels after 10 seconds unless you trigger the display by waving your hand over the sensor or half-pressing the shutter. You may want a juiced link or beachtek "accessory" to assist and rads.
Finally don't patronise by suggesting we do dog and pony shows while you forge a career otherwise. There's plenty of people here that make a good professional living using GH3's, me being one of them. No-one said you need to pimp your rig, but the GH3 is NOT an ENG camera and you need to make allowances.
Chris,
I was looking back thru the thread to refresh my thoughts on the GH3 and I now see I overlooked some things in haste. You make a very good point about focusing in daylight and I should think now about your good suggestion of adding a loupe to the system. I also apologize if I have offended you in any way. I say things at times meaning in general terms and not about any certain people, such as yourself. When I said dog and pony shows, I was thinking back in my career when I had to deal with people in the business who always stretched the work day out very long to do a dog and pony show for a client trying to justify why they charged higher rates. I was not talking about you. I appreciate your help and knowledge.

Best regards,
Alex

Apart from disappearing VU meters I agree with you. The GH3 small screen doesn't need constant information while you shoot. I don't need to be told ALL my settings once I start recording, I know what they are. I want to concentrate on the shot.

You need to learn the camera better. You can do that already by pressing the DISP button to the mode that removes overlays. When the overlays are up, they should stay up (or at least have control over it). As it is they don't stay up and that's why it smacks of designers that don't know much about shooting video. It should be fixable in a Firmware update.

Here's a short commercial I made last week which I'm showing you in response to your "focusing in daylight" issue. All the shots you see with the sprinklers, the track and the girl were shot under extreme sun (over 36 degrees Celsius), and most of them were shot at f/2 or wider (I wanted really shallow DoF). Still, I think you will agree I had very good control over focus and all I had was the GH3's screen to help me with that.

Experienta Multisport: Duatlonul Verde - 17 August 2013 - YouTube

Very nice, Luc

Alex

You need to learn the camera better. You can do that already by pressing the DISP button to the mode that removes overlays. When the overlays are up, they should stay up (or at least have control over it). As it is they don't stay up and that's why it smacks of designers that don't know much about shooting video. It should be fixable in a Firmware update.

Problem is with the OLED EVF and Panny not wanting burn in issues as has been mentioned a lot. Not sure if 3" screen is LCD, but if it is they should have given the option to have info stay up on it.

Thanks Alex! You see how bad it is when I tried to run alongside her? The GH3 was on a Manfrotto monopod with those 3 little legs that you can extend, in my head I considered them to be weights! Of course, the end result was extremely poor, and all the running footage had to be warp stabilized.

Panny chose the OLED. Maybe it's not fit for purpose. Other things are left on and will burn in so it's arbitrary. I think it's a marketing excuse for a product defect that people are swallowing. Even so, it's my screen and if I want to risk a burn in, I should have the option. It's a non-issue for a lightly used camera anyway.

Thanks Alex! You see how bad it is when I tried to run alongside her? The GH3 was on a Manfrotto monopod with those 3 little legs that you can extend, in my head I considered them to be weights! Of course, the end result was extremely poor, and all the running footage had to be warp stabilized.

Surprised you didn't mount the camera to a bicycle. Nice work, what slider did you use?

Duane, I thought about it. Well, I thought about getting on a bicycle and getting someone to pull it along the track, but this whole thing had to be done on very short notice. I don't have a bicycle mount, should look into getting one though.

The slider is a Konova K3 60cm.

It looks smooth. Almost bought one and then found a used Kessler. Love it but not sure it looks any smoother than yours.

The Konova is not as smooth as you think. I did about 3 takes of each sliding shot to make sure I got a good looking one. A lot of the time I feel little imperfections causing small bumps and slowing down movement as I push it along. I'm not very happy with it, but it does get the job done eventually.

Quote-"Thanks Alex! You see how bad it is when I tried to run alongside her? The GH3 was on a Manfrotto monopod with those 3 little legs that you can extend, in my head I considered them to be weights! Of course, the end result was extremely poor, and all the running footage had to be warp stabilized. "

It sounds like the father of these two.

XCAM Mini vs Skyler MiniCam Handheld Stabilizers CheesyCam (http://cheesycam.com/xcam-mini-vs-skyler-minicam-handheld-stabilizers/)

:-)

Cheers,
Alex

The Konova is not as smooth as you think

Have one as well and regret to have bought it, I have not been able to get smooth slider shots out of it. The supplier has agreed I can send the sled back and they are going to send me a replacement but I don't have high hopes for it + I have to pay for sending costs to Korea myself.... Here you definetely get what you pay for.

Just returned from some quick and dirty shoot nearby my place and used that cheap 14-42 f3.5/5.6 lens) , I need to get the camera under controll for the following weddings I"m going to use it on so plan to shoot a lot with it just for fun.

The dissapearing info on the screen is indeed annoying, also the fact that you have to press twice to record, that's even more annoying so have to watch out for that. I now know I urgently need a hoodloupe to judge exposure and focus, I thought I underexposed each shot a bit but when I saw the footage afterwards it was on the edge of overexposure. Not sure if this camera has some kind of zebra so need to dive into the manual tomorrow. The oled screen looks nice from a distance but when I hold my loupe against it (one from my 550d that doesn't fit this one, I can see individual pixels, bit dissapointing that they didn't supply a higher res screen.

First impression on image quality though is impressive, the image is sharp as a knive, has good dynamic range and gives nice color in the standard preset with just a bit of color correction in post. Will be collecting shots over the following weeks and post when I have something decent to show. Will see by then if there are more workarounds I need to consider, at this moment the few drawbacks I found are easily forgotten when I see what this small camera is able to output. Who needs a bmc pocket camera when you can get this and 50p :)

Here just some quick shots I did. The sun was setting so a few shots have some sunlight but others, as they where taken later not which explains why some look a bit more vibrant. One tip I can give when you go out to shoot, go very early or very late when it's the "golden hour", everything looks nicer then. :)

https://vimeo.com/72226081

...The dissapearing info on the screen is indeed annoying, also the fact that you have to press twice to record, that's even more annoying so have to watch out for that. I now know I urgently need a hoodloupe to judge exposure and focus, I thought I underexposed each shot a bit but when I saw the footage afterwards it was on the edge of overexposure. Not sure if this camera has some kind of zebra so need to dive into the manual tomorrow. ...First impression on image quality though is impressive, the image is sharp as a knive, has good dynamic range and gives nice color in the standard preset with just a bit of color correction in post.

Use the shutter button to start and stop record as a work around to the bad video record design. No zebras. Only 100 blow out flashing areas. As much as you may like the image, if you can expose and focus then it's of little use.

The overexposed area flashing warning is insanity making. Perhaps still photographers can work with it but not for video work. Don't use it. Perhaps it's a coincidence but now that I am using the loupe I find that I can make better judgements of exposure and the histogram is making better sense. The LCD is very good and isolating it from room or sun light improves it's clarity.

As much as you may like the image, if you can expose and focus then it's of little use.

Thx for the tips! I still need to go through the manual to see what I can/can't do but saw there is a histogrtam so that's a start, I also ordered the varavon loupe as well because that's crucial for me to see what I"m doing, my eyesight is not good enough to judge from a distance. Didn't know about the flashing area's when overexposed (looks like something ML had for the 550d and also never used that) but can imagine it"s very distracting, would be ok in controlled environments (like when shooting for fun in my case) but not so much at weddings.

[QUOTE=Les Wilson;1808244]You need to learn the camera better. ./QUOTE]

I'm not the one who needs an LCD full of displays like you do. I just need to monitor audio, I know what my settings are before I press record. Could it've been designed better, yes, do I really care, no. It's a mild irritation for the price.

that's why it smacks of designers that don't know much about shooting video. It should be fixable in a Firmware update.
Ha, yeah Les, you tell em. Maybe give them a font type and size for the display. The firmware update has been discussed ad nauseum, but it's good you bring it up again and again.

I spent 30 years in product R&D. As a rule, unless the product is getting bad reviews and sales suffer, marketing's attitude is "Let them eat cake. Chris says he'll buy it anyway." then they say something about lemmings. So without market pressure, they won't release the money to fund development to develop a fix. In fact, they will cut development funding so fewer and fewer fixes or improvements are made and it takes longer and longer to develop updates.

While I agree that Panasonic themselves need to release a firmware update that solves this problem, I'm sure Mr. Driftwood will fix it himself sooner or later :)

I just realized that this particular thread, "gh3... any typical problems?" is 6 pages long, the longest thread on this front page of the lumix gf / gh series category.

For those of you who just arrived here:

THE GH3 IS AWESOME. SERIOUSLY. WE JUST LIKE TO RAMBLE A LOT.

Edit: great, my post just made it 7 pages now.

I agree, I use it 4 out 5 days for jobs and am really happy with mine. I find DSLR's in general more complicated to use than my XDcam and Z5, but it's "cinematic" advantages with quality lenses for the price are astounding.
And you know what's a really great thing about it....you can shoot broadcast quality footage around the world often without the hassle of a permit, which makes life a lot easier on shoots.
Great topic - I think there's a few more pages left in this thread yet.

This is going to sound incredibly amateurish, but... you need a permit? Wherever I go I just point and shoot and unless it's a museum or a private property, there should be no problems.

Also, why do you say a DSLR makes it easier? Because people are bothered more by video cameras than by (what they think are) still cameras?

Also, why do you say a DSLR makes it easier?

A colleague of mine went to the racetrack with his nex ea50 just to shoot for fun but was stopped by the officials asking if he had a permit to film there, he didn't so they made him sign a paper that he wouldn't use any footage for commercial purpose and he had to stick a "press" sticker onto his camera.

If you would do the same carrying a gh3 no-one would ask any questions.

Good idea, I will consider this for my next event where videographers will not be welcome. I will also film with the flash popped up, so they'll think I'm really dumb and stay away from me.

...THE GH3 IS AWESOME. SERIOUSLY. WE JUST LIKE TO RAMBLE A LOT....

I would never use that word to describe the GH3. This thread is long because it was hijacked to talk about stabilization

I just made a comparison between the gh3, 550d and nex-ea50 at iso 3200 and above, the gh3 was the cleanest of the lot, about the same sensitivity as my 550d but at 6400 iso the 550d is noisy as hell, same applies for the ea50, this one looks more sensitive at 5000 iso (highest I could go) but again a lot of ugly grain. It looks I will be shooting at 6400 iso with the gh3 when they kill all the light at the next wedding without having to worry that much about the noise.

the 50mbs mov codec is a little bit cleaner then avchd 50p (28mbs) but you have to pixel peep in a 300% blown up part of the image in photoshop to see it. All intra was more noisy and that was visible without magnifying the image, weird. So 50mbs mov would be the best codec to use as far as I can see.

I just love it when someone else does all this work that I try to motivate myself to do, although I know it's pretty important considering you have customers paying you to know what you are doing. All I can say is a big thank you for this, and I owe you a few beers if you ever decide to come visit Romania :)

PS: All I've filmed with the GH3 so far for paid events was in MOV 50p, so I was lucky!

If I had the time I would post a video with the results but I"m swamped with work and I need to get the gh3 under controll before Saturday, I"m off tomorrow shooting with the glidecam for an hour or so, just to test, that footage I will post, the camera is actually too light, even with the samyang 14mm lens on it but will see how it goes, will have to shoot with that combi this weekend so it has to work. I"ll keep that beer in mind. :)

This applied to the GH2, haven't tested it on the GH3, but supposedly the RED channel causes the majority of the noise. A workaround is to use tungsten white balance, to make everything blue - minimizes the information inside the red channel. Then you can get clean footage with high ISO. After which you color correct in post.

Again, I doubt the GH2 was able to get usable footage at ISO 6400, so that was probably very helpful for that particular camera. I've recorded at ISO 3200 and it still looks very usable. Haven't tried 6400 yet, though.

Your ISO 6400 footage, was it taken with the WB set to tungsten or something similar? Just curious! :D