Hi As a new member, I've seen a number of threads talking about the quality, but as one member said the GH2 has more settings than a jet fighter... Has anyone got recommended settings for using the GH2 in raw/manual mode please?
I'm confused about what you are asking... Which settings are you looking at? The bulk of the image settings apply only to JPG. For example, the film mode setting don't affect RAW file output.
Actually, I've read that the film mode is affecting the RAW file... My thoughts on the Panasonic GH2 - Page 2 - PentaxForums.com
There should be very few in camera settings, apart from the likes of iso, shutter speed and aperture that would affect the raw output of a camera, however the live image and histogram are built up from a jpeg processed in camera, so these could be affected by camera settings such as contrast, saturation, etc and your interpretation of those might affect the raw file in the sense that as a user you wrongly compensate due to the live image or histogram you see in the viewfinder or lcd. This link discusses this phenomena Settings for an Accurate Histogram Barrie
Thank you for the quick response; to explain further, previous experiences of DSLRs (yes I know I have come from the dark side) had such recommendations as white balance settings, over/under-exposure settings to compensate for clipping etc, what settings need turning off because they affect auto focus, best colour space (sRGB or Adobe RGB?), and so on. I ask because my experience in the last few days has been from great quality with ISO 160 + Nissin Di466 flash bounced photographs, to ISO 160 on a freezing morning where the picture is sharp but the orange sun has a ghost....all raw manual I am absolutely certain that its me not the camera (how else did I get a great quality flash picture?), and so any clues as to how people set their GH2s might give me clues.
It does. I did some tests and on the GH2 when a raw .RW2 file comes into a programme like Photoshop ACR the parameters contained within whatever film mode I selected come with it. Colour balance, tint and exposure mainly. I could get rid of these, but its interesting that the raw file carries elements of the .jpg settings. You can try it by shooting the same picture, in raw and jpg. using different film mode settings - natural, vivid etc. and then opening them up as raw files in Photoshop. They will all look slightly different in Adobe Camera Raw, and you can see that the settings reflect this. I read the same thing that John did over at Dpreview and was intrigued by it. It seems its not embedded into the file and you can get back to a "neutral" looking file by creating a preset that basically zeros everything out and creates a "flat" file. By applying this to all the images which have the different settings you can get them all looking identical again, and the film mode parameters disappear. I won't pretend to know whats going on, and it may happen with files from other cameras and I just haven't noticed it. It dooes however seem to be further evidence that raw files aren't that "raw".
