diff --git a/Documentation/config.txt b/Documentation/config.txt
index 22482d6a94..ffef3abfb6 100644
--- a/Documentation/config.txt
+++ b/Documentation/config.txt
@@ -248,6 +248,10 @@ i18n.commitEncoding::
 	browser (and possibly at other places in the future or in other
 	porcelains). See e.g. gitlink:git-mailinfo[1]. Defaults to 'utf-8'.
 
+i18n.logOutputEncoding::
+	Character encoding the commit messages are converted to when
+	running `git-log` and friends.
+
 log.showroot::
 	If true, the initial commit will be shown as a big creation event.
 	This is equivalent to a diff against an empty tree.
diff --git a/builtin-commit-tree.c b/builtin-commit-tree.c
index 33c29f7495..146aaffd28 100644
--- a/builtin-commit-tree.c
+++ b/builtin-commit-tree.c
@@ -118,7 +118,9 @@ int cmd_commit_tree(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
 			parents++;
 	}
 
-	encoding_is_utf8 = !strcmp(git_commit_encoding, "utf-8");
+	/* Not having i18n.commitencoding is the same as having utf-8 */
+	encoding_is_utf8 = (!git_commit_encoding ||
+			    !strcmp(git_commit_encoding, "utf-8"));
 
 	init_buffer(&buffer, &size);
 	add_buffer(&buffer, &size, "tree %s\n", sha1_to_hex(tree_sha1));
diff --git a/builtin-log.c b/builtin-log.c
index b7e47cb5fe..a59b4acef1 100644
--- a/builtin-log.c
+++ b/builtin-log.c
@@ -33,13 +33,10 @@ static void cmd_log_init(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix,
 		const char *arg = argv[i];
 		if (!strncmp(arg, "--encoding=", 11)) {
 			arg += 11;
-			if (MAX_ENCODING_LENGTH <= strlen(arg))
-				die(" Value of output encoding '%s' too long",
-				    arg);
 			if (strcmp(arg, "none"))
-				strcpy(git_commit_encoding, arg);
+				git_log_output_encoding = strdup(arg);
 			else
-				git_commit_encoding[0] = 0;
+				git_log_output_encoding = "";
 		}
 		else
 			die("unrecognized argument: %s", arg);
diff --git a/builtin-mailinfo.c b/builtin-mailinfo.c
index 507b93f6a7..a67f3eb90b 100644
--- a/builtin-mailinfo.c
+++ b/builtin-mailinfo.c
@@ -806,7 +806,8 @@ int cmd_mailinfo(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
 		if (!strcmp(argv[1], "-k"))
 			keep_subject = 1;
 		else if (!strcmp(argv[1], "-u"))
-			metainfo_charset = git_commit_encoding;
+			metainfo_charset = (git_commit_encoding
+					    ? git_commit_encoding : "utf-8");
 		else if (!strncmp(argv[1], "--encoding=", 11))
 			metainfo_charset = argv[1] + 11;
 		else
diff --git a/cache.h b/cache.h
index 4943056c19..29dd290c92 100644
--- a/cache.h
+++ b/cache.h
@@ -416,8 +416,8 @@ extern int check_repository_format_version(const char *var, const char *value);
 extern char git_default_email[MAX_GITNAME];
 extern char git_default_name[MAX_GITNAME];
 
-#define MAX_ENCODING_LENGTH 64
-extern char git_commit_encoding[MAX_ENCODING_LENGTH];
+extern char *git_commit_encoding;
+extern char *git_log_output_encoding;
 
 extern int copy_fd(int ifd, int ofd);
 extern void write_or_die(int fd, const void *buf, size_t count);
diff --git a/commit.c b/commit.c
index df4bc0775a..6f2839a5cd 100644
--- a/commit.c
+++ b/commit.c
@@ -592,12 +592,20 @@ static char *get_header(const struct commit *commit, const char *key)
 
 static char *logmsg_reencode(const struct commit *commit)
 {
-	char *encoding = get_header(commit, "encoding");
+	char *encoding;
 	char *out;
+	char *output_encoding = (git_log_output_encoding
+				 ? git_log_output_encoding
+				 : git_commit_encoding);
 
-	if (!encoding || !strcmp(encoding, git_commit_encoding))
+	if (!output_encoding)
 		return NULL;
-	out = reencode_string(commit->buffer, git_commit_encoding, encoding);
+	encoding = get_header(commit, "encoding");
+	if (!encoding || !strcmp(encoding, output_encoding)) {
+		free(encoding);
+		return NULL;
+	}
+	out = reencode_string(commit->buffer, output_encoding, encoding);
 	free(encoding);
 	if (!out)
 		return NULL;
@@ -618,15 +626,10 @@ unsigned long pretty_print_commit(enum cmit_fmt fmt,
 	int parents_shown = 0;
 	const char *msg = commit->buffer;
 	int plain_non_ascii = 0;
-	char *reencoded = NULL;
+	char *reencoded = logmsg_reencode(commit);
 
-	if (*git_commit_encoding) {
-		reencoded = logmsg_reencode(commit);
-		if (reencoded) {
-			msg = reencoded;
-			len = strlen(msg);
-		}
-	}
+	if (reencoded)
+		msg = reencoded;
 
 	if (fmt == CMIT_FMT_ONELINE || fmt == CMIT_FMT_EMAIL)
 		indent = 0;
@@ -643,7 +646,7 @@ unsigned long pretty_print_commit(enum cmit_fmt fmt,
 		for (in_body = i = 0; (ch = msg[i]) && i < len; i++) {
 			if (!in_body) {
 				/* author could be non 7-bit ASCII but
-				 * the log may so; skip over the
+				 * the log may be so; skip over the
 				 * header part first.
 				 */
 				if (ch == '\n' &&
diff --git a/config.c b/config.c
index 1662a4626e..fcccf7e2a4 100644
--- a/config.c
+++ b/config.c
@@ -309,10 +309,16 @@ int git_default_config(const char *var, const char *value)
 	}
 
 	if (!strcmp(var, "i18n.commitencoding")) {
-		strlcpy(git_commit_encoding, value, sizeof(git_commit_encoding));
+		git_commit_encoding = strdup(value);
 		return 0;
 	}
 
+	if (!strcmp(var, "i18n.logoutputencoding")) {
+		git_log_output_encoding = strdup(value);
+		return 0;
+	}
+
+
 	if (!strcmp(var, "pager.color") || !strcmp(var, "color.pager")) {
 		pager_use_color = git_config_bool(var,value);
 		return 0;
diff --git a/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash b/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash
index 234cd0954b..7c7520ea29 100755
--- a/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash
+++ b/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash
@@ -711,6 +711,7 @@ _git_repo_config ()
 		core.compression
 		core.legacyHeaders
 		i18n.commitEncoding
+		i18n.logOutputEncoding
 		diff.color
 		color.diff
 		diff.renameLimit
diff --git a/environment.c b/environment.c
index f8c7dbcead..a1502c4e87 100644
--- a/environment.c
+++ b/environment.c
@@ -18,7 +18,8 @@ int prefer_symlink_refs;
 int log_all_ref_updates;
 int warn_ambiguous_refs = 1;
 int repository_format_version;
-char git_commit_encoding[MAX_ENCODING_LENGTH] = "utf-8";
+char *git_commit_encoding;
+char *git_log_output_encoding;
 int shared_repository = PERM_UMASK;
 const char *apply_default_whitespace;
 int zlib_compression_level = Z_DEFAULT_COMPRESSION;
diff --git a/t/t3900-i18n-commit.sh b/t/t3900-i18n-commit.sh
new file mode 100755
index 0000000000..3606ed2efa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/t/t3900-i18n-commit.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,104 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+#
+# Copyright (c) 2006 Junio C Hamano
+#
+
+test_description='commit and log output encodings'
+
+. ./test-lib.sh
+
+compare_with () {
+	git-show -s "$1" | sed -e '1,/^$/d' -e 's/^    //' -e '$d' >current &&
+	diff -u current "$2"
+}
+
+test_expect_success setup '
+	: >F &&
+	git-add F &&
+	T=$(git-write-tree) &&
+	C=$(git-commit-tree $T <../t3900/1-UTF-8.txt) &&
+	git-update-ref HEAD $C &&
+	git-tag C0
+'
+
+test_expect_success 'no encoding header for base case' '
+	E=$(git-cat-file commit C0 | sed -ne "s/^encoding //p") &&
+	test z = "z$E"
+'
+
+for H in ISO-8859-1 EUCJP ISO2022JP
+do
+	test_expect_success "$H setup" '
+		git-repo-config i18n.commitencoding $H &&
+		git-checkout -b $H C0 &&
+		echo $H >F &&
+		git-commit -a -F ../t3900/$H.txt
+	'
+done
+
+for H in ISO-8859-1 EUCJP ISO2022JP
+do
+	test_expect_success "check encoding header for $H" '
+		E=$(git-cat-file commit '$H' | sed -ne "s/^encoding //p") &&
+		test "z$E" = "z'$H'"
+	'
+done
+
+test_expect_success 'repo-config to remove customization' '
+	git-repo-config --unset-all i18n.commitencoding &&
+	if Z=$(git-repo-config --get-all i18n.commitencoding)
+	then
+		echo Oops, should have failed.
+		false
+	else
+		test z = "z$Z"
+	fi &&
+	git-repo-config i18n.commitencoding utf-8
+'
+
+test_expect_success 'ISO-8859-1 should be shown in UTF-8 now' '
+	compare_with ISO-8859-1 ../t3900/1-UTF-8.txt
+'
+
+for H in EUCJP ISO2022JP
+do
+	test_expect_success "$H should be shown in UTF-8 now" '
+		compare_with '$H' ../t3900/2-UTF-8.txt
+	'
+done
+
+test_expect_success 'repo-config to add customization' '
+	git-repo-config --unset-all i18n.commitencoding &&
+	if Z=$(git-repo-config --get-all i18n.commitencoding)
+	then
+		echo Oops, should have failed.
+		false
+	else
+		test z = "z$Z"
+	fi
+'
+
+for H in ISO-8859-1 EUCJP ISO2022JP
+do
+	test_expect_success "$H should be shown in itself now" '
+		git-repo-config i18n.commitencoding '$H' &&
+		compare_with '$H' ../t3900/'$H'.txt
+	'
+done
+
+test_expect_success 'repo-config to tweak customization' '
+	git-repo-config i18n.logoutputencoding utf-8
+'
+
+test_expect_success 'ISO-8859-1 should be shown in UTF-8 now' '
+	compare_with ISO-8859-1 ../t3900/1-UTF-8.txt
+'
+
+for H in EUCJP ISO2022JP
+do
+	test_expect_success "$H should be shown in UTF-8 now" '
+		compare_with '$H' ../t3900/2-UTF-8.txt
+	'
+done
+
+test_done
diff --git a/t/t3900/1-UTF-8.txt b/t/t3900/1-UTF-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..ee31e19738
--- /dev/null
+++ b/t/t3900/1-UTF-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+ÄËÑÏÖ
+
+Ábçdèfg
diff --git a/t/t3900/2-UTF-8.txt b/t/t3900/2-UTF-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..63f4f8f121
--- /dev/null
+++ b/t/t3900/2-UTF-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+はれひほふ
+
+しているのが、いるので。
+濱浜ほれぷりぽれまびぐりろへ。
diff --git a/t/t3900/EUCJP.txt b/t/t3900/EUCJP.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..546f2aac01
--- /dev/null
+++ b/t/t3900/EUCJP.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+�Ϥ�Ҥۤ�
+
+���Ƥ���Τ�������Τǡ�
+���ͤۤ�פ�ݤ�ޤӤ�����ء�
diff --git a/t/t3900/ISO-8859-1.txt b/t/t3900/ISO-8859-1.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..7cbef0ee6f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/t/t3900/ISO-8859-1.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+�����
+
+�b�d�fg
diff --git a/t/t3900/ISO2022JP.txt b/t/t3900/ISO2022JP.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..74b533042f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/t/t3900/ISO2022JP.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+$B$O$l$R$[$U(B
+
+$B$7$F$$$k$N$,!"$$$k$N$G!#(B
+$B_@IM$[$l$W$j$]$l$^$S$0$j$m$X!#(B