adamwilt

​Color readings are exceedingly sensitive to calibration and to whatever you're using (if anything) over the lens: I have two Luxi For Alls from different production runs, and one reads 200K warmer than the other, though they're identical to the eye. If you want to run in reflected mode (there's a switch for that in Settings), calibrate reflected-mode camera "sensors" separately from the Luxi "sensors"... and make sure you're using a color neutral measurement target for reflected readings, like a DSC Labs OneShot (white/gray side) or a white-balance card (various vendors) or the like (most white paper isn't really neutral; some types even have brighteners added that fluoresce under UV light). Tip: if you want incident color temperature but don't want to use Luxi, cut a small bit of Lee 216 diffusion and hold it (or tape it) over the camera (and calibrate through it, of course!). It's not nearly as convenient, but it is cheaper... and it works pretty well.

Thanks for the shout-out, AaronChicago. To be clear, Luxi works on Android devices as well as iOS: it's a simple clip-on photosphere that converts the built-in camera into an incident-light sensor. The Luxi folks have free apps on both iOS and Android for incident light metering. It's pretty cool: http://www.provideocoalition.com/review-luxi-for-all-incident-metering-photosphere-for-ios-and-android Cine Meter II, however, is iOS-only. And I don't claim to read out nearly perfect color temp <blush>, only that Cine Meter II's color readings are about as good as other color meters ( http://www.adamwilt.com/cinemeterii/colormetering.html ). Color metering turns out to be fraught with difficulty and uncertainty, and even "real" color meters often interpret the same source rather differently: http://www.dvinfo.net/article/production/lighting/on-the-color-of-light-and-the-measurement-thereof.html .

Oh, one other thing, stills-related: When zooming in during playback, say, past 4x, the GH2's EVF and LCD images go soft: they're being filtered for smoothness, instead of showing a "nearest-neighbor" unfiltered upsampling. This makes it impossible to know if I've nailed focus on my stills. My Nikon and Canon DSLRs show me a much truer-to-life zoomed image; they may show jaggies on pixel boundaries when zoomed in, but they're MUCH better at showing me whether I've got the danged image in focus or not. Please, give us a GH3 that shows us what we've really got in our images, not a consumer-oriented smooth-at-all-costs "pretty" playback zoom. At least, let us set a playback preference in the menu (off by default, to keep the casual shooters happy) that lets us turn off the smoothing.

Simple stuff, mostly software tweaks: - Allow us to disable too-easily-hit buttons, like DISPLAY on the GH2, which I wind up pushing accidentally almost every time I grasp the camera. - Allow us to turn off or reduce the excessive edge enhancement in video shooting (actually, a greater range on all the image adjustments would be welcome). - Full-time manual override in autofocus mode (not just in the instant after autofocusing) would make the camera a lot more usable, especially when shooting video. - Viewfinder focusing aids, like variable peaking or focus-in-red edging (the variability is very important). Harder hardware stuff: - A second control dial (a la the OM-D or the NEX-7, or most of the high-end Nikon and Canon DSLRs) would allow much faster and error-free settings changes since there wouldn't be the modal push-to-change behavior of the single dial. - Move the EVF to the corner, like the NEX-7, so (a) we won't have to mash our noses against the LCD, (b) we could more easily operate rear-panel controls with our eye at the finder, and (c) the height of the camera body could be reduced, though it might wind up wider. - 3.5mm mic jack! Headphone jack! *STANDARD* USB jack! Hey, a fellow can dream...