Panasonic GH3 GH2 & GH1 Comparison Test

In this video I compare the Panasonic GH family GH3, GH2, & GH1.

I have been a proud owner of the GH1 and GH2 cameras since their release dates and use the GH2 as my primary camera before purchasing the GH3.

My GH1 makes a great B camera and have been very happy with both cameras performance. Now that the GH3 is out and has promising features on paper, I decided to purchase a GH3 and what better way to see just how good it is than to compare it to it's older siblings!

RESULTS
Panasonic GH1: Doesn't have as much detail as the GH2 and GH3 as when paused the image looks pixelated and blocky. However, the colors on the GH1 are more accurate than the GH2 and has lower noise in lower ISO. The low light of the GH1 isn't as good GH2 or GH3 but I would hesitate to use any of these cameras between 800-1600 ISO.

Panasonic GH2:
The GH2 has been my baby for quite some time, however it was interesting to see some of its quirks after being compared to the other cameras. For example, the GH2 has a green cast over its image. It's also has some noise in it's picture even at its lowest ISO, but after using it for about 2 years it obviously wasn't noticeable enough for me to really find it an issue. The GH2 did have a very sharp picture and resolution equal to that of the GH3. I like that the lower ISO 160 was dimmer than the GH3's ISO 200 and even the GH1's ISO 100. The GH2 also has a bigger sensor than the GH3 (similar to the GH1) resulting in a wider picture than the GH3 with the same lens. GH2 also has a better noise pattern and can have a pretty clean image in black and white with ISO's up to 6400! Not that is really a deal breaker, but interesting to know when in a predicament.

PANASONIC GH3
The Panasonic GH3 is an interesting camera. It is very well built with nice features that are missing on the GH1 and GH2 like a Headphone jack and 1080 60p. This camera by default can shoot at AVCHD 24mbps, MOV 50mbps IPB, and 72mbps All-I. To my surprise the AVCHD was the cleanest out of the other codecs. However, the AVCHD introduced some pixelation in fast moving objects like the leafs. IPB vs All-I IPB wins! I mean it wins in every aspect: it produces less noise (not as clean as AVCHD), more detail than AVCHD and All-I and can be edited immediately after importing it. It would be easier on your machine if you were to transcode, but if you have a modern computer and for most projects it will do just fine. I recommending transcoding for films and other very important projects where every pixel/detail counts. The GH3 was the brightest of the bunch and haven't really noticed any Dynamic Range difference between any of the cameras, but then again I didn't really test for that.

Well these were my findings. So don't let this completely change your mind or decision on any of these cameras I just wanted to simply share my results to hopefully give you a better understanding on how some of these may perform under similar circumstances.

If you want to see my Panasonic GH2 in action SUBSCRIBE    / viewbility  

Thank you and I hope this helps!

HACKS USED
Panasonic GH1 - LPowel Blackout Native 24p
Pansonic GH2 - Cbrandin 44