Panasonic GX7 Notes: Responsiveness

Reviewed by Carl Weese

[This is the fourth and final installment of Carl's notes about the Panasonic GX7. Part I is here, Part II is here, and Part III is here.]

First, a few less favorable points. I think Panasonic should have made the GX7 "splash-proof." The first 4/3 format camera, the Olympus E-1, was weather-sealed way back ten years ago. Even if this moved the price of the GX7 up a notch, I'd like it to be there. I've used my GF1 and G3 cameras in the rain lots of times (I like to take pictures in the rain) and they're still working, but I'd rather not find the water resistance limit the hard way.

Next, with the GX7, Panasonic has, for the first time in one of its Micro 4/3 cameras, included in-body optical image stabilization. This is welcome, but the implementation isn't powerful. My sense is that the "shake reduction" in Pentax cameras seven years ago was a bit more effective. It's still much better than nothing, especially since my four best lenses for the format are not stabilized. Testing with a 20mm ƒ/1.7 I found the stabilization began to improve my results consistently at 1/30 sec., and by 1/8 sec. it was much better than me, though not entirely reliable. I won’t hesitate to use this combination at 1/8 sec., but I'll let off bursts of several exposures expecting that some of them will be good enough for large prints. If the best possible stabilization is a top priority for your work, you may want to look elsewhere.

Rangefinder-like form-factor: The uncommonly
handsome Panasonic Lumix GX7

There is a stealthy "silent mode" that turns off the mechanical shutter, focus assist light, and alert sounds (I turn sounds off anyway as soon a camera's out of the box). The standard shutter sound is more of a whirr than a click and seems quite unobtrusive. The silent mode really is inaudible—it takes some practice to get used to the lack of feedback. The downside is that relying on the electronic shutter alone can result in defects in the capture. The problem is that while you may have an effective speed of 1/320, the sensor scan can take 1/10 second. If the subject moves, or the camera shakes, during that time, you can get some weird renderings. I've experimented with it and managed to come up with some Lartigue-esque out-of-round wheels on moving vehicles. The usefulness of this feature will depend on whether the situations where you want a silent camera are likely to generate these motion-based image defects.

Southbury, CT. The snow flag on the hydrant reads perfectly round, but look at the front wheel of the moving SUV in the background. Movement during the sensor scan in silent mode has distorted its shape.

I can't give a hard and fast definition of what makes a camera feel responsive, but I know it when I see it, and this is the most responsive digital camera I've used. In no particular order, here are some of the reasons.

I've already mentioned the double control wheels, and also want to point out that they respond immediately, without needing to be unlocked. This could at some point result in accidental actuation, but I’ll take that chance in order to have instant response. By default, the camera auto-switches between LCD and EVF. I found that disconcerting at first, but I've decided I like it. I don't like to use continuous autofocus, but a nice touch is that in single AF, as you raise the camera to your eye, when it switches to the EVF the autofocus is automatically triggered, as though you had half-pressed the shutter. I don’t know if this will ever make the difference in getting a successful grab shot, but it makes the camera seem quicker, which is a valuable thing in itself. The contrast-detect AF is, as with earlier models, highly accurate and reliable, and it's now noticeably faster. Combined with that automatic triggering, focus is mostly seamless and simply there before you know it.

Torrington, CT. You don’t need to shoot sports to appreciate a responsive camera that helps you get the framing and timing just where you want them.

Like some other cameras, the GX7 responds to the shutter release faster in burst mode than in single, even if you only want one frame. It's also so much faster than the G3 in medium-burst drive mode that I had to retrain myself to get off the button soon enough to avoid two or three shot bursts when I meant to take one frame. It's nearly impossible to squeeze off just one shot in high burst. The camera also writes its RAW files remarkably faster than the earlier models—to my same old cards, which are quite slow by current standards. This will help anyone who does a lot of high speed sequence work, but I also like it because, in difficult light (and I'm drawn to difficult light), I often take one shot and then review the RGB histogram. A fast write time means that the file is available by the time I've lowered the camera enough to see the LCD clearly and hit the playback button. If I see a safe histogram I can go back to shooting with this whole check sequence taking perhaps one second flat. It makes the camera seem quick and eager to please.

There are more custom mode settings available than before, which is nice. I find custom modes highly useful and will talk about them someday, but in some future article since they certainly aren't unique to this camera.

Ancramdale, NY. Natural light effects can be fleeting. A camera with "good reflexes" helps capture them.

The LCD is improved in general appearance, visibility in bright light is better, and it has more and better touch screen capabilities. The EVF presents, well, a more substantial display that seems more like a ground glass and less like a washed out mini-TV. It's also easier to use in bright light, though not yet to the level of an SLR.

Of course there's a raft of other features, from "intelligent" automation to Scene Modes and "creative" filters and effects, but I don't use any of that, so this wraps up my mini-series user report on the GX7. I'll watch comments for any questions about details of interest that I might have missed.

I mentioned in the first post of this series that I had waited out a number of new Micro 4/3 models from Panasonic and Olympus before pulling the trigger on the GX7 release. The camera is a big step forward from the GF1 and G3, even though I've been getting files from those cameras that make excellent 17x22-inch prints. I expect I’ll be able to use it for quite a while before something demonstrably better comes around. The improved exposure range of the sensor is important to the pictures I like to make, and the greatly improved high ISO performance, while not as important to me, is certainly nice to have. However, it's the "responsiveness"—the overall combination of factors from body design to hardware controls to logical, easily navigated menus—that really stands out for me. It has already affected the way I shoot. Before I'd even worked with it extensively, the GX7 was becoming much closer to "an extension of my hand," than any digital camera I've used before. It's a keeper.

Carl 

©2013 by Carl Weese, all rights reserved

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Dave Karp: "Thanks Carl. I am thinking about purchasing this camera. Your articles were very helpful."

Alan Brown: "Thanks, Carl, for the well-written review. I concur with your observations about responsiveness. The GX7 is so responsive that it seems to be anticipating what I'm going to do. The camera is more that the sum of its parts or features. One additional observation is that the histogram, compared to earlier Panasonics, is very accurate. I thought I would miss the 'blinkies' of the Olys, but the accurate performance of the histogram mitigates that. It is simply a delightful camera to use and makes me want to go out and photograph. Thanks again."

Comments

[Bob]

The electronic shutter movement distortion is similar to the distortion caused by a focal plane shutter's traveling narrow slit. This distortion was usually seen on older large format cameras where a narrow slit was used to give a "high shutter speed" but it took a while for the slit to travel across the whole film plane.

Here is an old race car photo that really exaggerates the effect...
http://maisonbisson.com/post/10531/focal-plane-shutter-distortion/

[Robert Roaldi]

In case no one else has said, thank you very much for this.

[Sanford]

What about the rear screen? The screen on my relatively new GX1 is peeling or flaking off at an alarming rate starting from the edges. Very soft and easily scratched.

[David Miller]

Thank you Carl. It has been so helpful to read a detailed response to the GX7 from someone whose work impresses me as much as yours does.

[Steve Goldenberg]

My only complaint about the responsiveness is that if you make the EVF come on when you bring your eye up, it takes a split-second (maybe a 1/2 a second?) to turn the EVF on. If you're REALLY reacting fast that delay can cause you miss the shot. However, I give the camera credit for letting you shoot the frame even if the EVF is awake yet - you just have to accept the potential of a very loose frame if things appear so fast.

[Moose]

"Testing with a 20mm ƒ/1.7 I found the stabilization began to improve my results consistently at 1/30 sec., and by 1/8 sec. it was much better than me, though not entirely reliable."

Other testers have found it to be particularly effective, compared even to the Oly 5 axis IS, at low speeds down to about 1/8 sec. I speculate that this may be intentional tuning for the ~1/10 second it takes for the electronic shutter to read the sensor.

It seems odd to me that the first, and often only, thing testers do is test IS at very slow speeds with short focal lengths. I'm much more interested in how it does at moderate shutter speeds and longer focal lengths. How does it perform at 150 mm and 1/60 or less or 300 mm and 1/120 or less?

These are common speeds with slowish long lenses and subject to either shutter shock blurring or the delay necessary with Oly's Anti-Shock settings. The electronic shutter completely eliminates the shutter shock, but one also needs good IS at these focal lengths.

'I think Panasonic should have made the GX7 "splash-proof."'

In some reviews and blogs, the difference in the buttons on the GX7 and E-M5 has been attributed to the weather sealing of the Oly. The Oly buttons feel sort of squishy, with a relatively long throw; the Panny buttons are short and crisp in action.

I don't know what a splash proof Panny implementation would be like, nor does the difference bother me, but apparently it does others. Free lunches are uncommon.

"I don't like to use continuous autofocus, but a nice touch is that in single AF, as you raise the camera to your eye, when it switches to the EVF the autofocus is automatically triggered, as though you had half-pressed the shutter."

In case anyone thinks this might bug them, this feature may be switched off. Mine is off at the moment.

Thanks for the review.

Moose

[Lynn]

Thanks for the interesting review Carl. Not sure if this will work as well with the GX7, but with a Nikon 1 I find if I put a finger over the eye sensor while raising the camera, the EVF is usually ready by the time the camera is at eye level.

[Dan Deakin]

The thing that's impressed me the most about my GX7 is the ability to recover highlights from a RAW file. I'm sure it's a sensor generation thing but it's light years ahead of my former Olympus e-pl3, and not far off my full frame D700.

[Thomas]

Great review. For me, a feature that adds to the responsiveness of the GX7 is its touchscreen. You can use it like a trackpad to position the AF point anywhere in the frame, even when you are looking through the EVF. Other Panasonic cameras have this feature. But, as far as I'm aware, no other camera brand has it. I'd much rather have this than faster AF on a DSLR, as being able to position the AF point speedily is more useful to me.

[Stephen Scharf]

I know that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but for the life of me I don't why the GX7 is referred to as a handsome camera. It reminds a lot of the Sony NEX series, which have all the appeal to me of a dishwasher.

Now the Fuji X100S, or even the little X10/X20s, those are handsome cameras.

Even the Olympus OM-D E-M5 appeals because it reminds me so much of my OM-1, which I personally think was the most beautiful SLR ever made.

[John Camp]

@Steven Scharf: I think my GX7s are some of the nicest looking cameras I've ever had.

I also think that the GX7 (I have two of them) are, for my purposes, the best cameras I have ever had. Not the highest IQ, but my criteria don't lean too hard on IQ.

Like Carl says, I wish they were at least splash-proof; I also like to shoot on rainy days.

Three more things:

I have fairly large hands, and the lugs for the straps and the straps themselves can get in the way.

I don't know why I do this, but I sometimes want to get my eye close to the LCD screen to look at what I've shot. (I often unconsciously cock my wrist when shooting vertically, and the horizon gets tilted.) But when I look closely, the eye sensor picks that up, and turns the screen off (and turns the EVF on.) I do that at least 9 times a day; I wish the detector were slightly less sensitive.

The second-shot time is way too slow. More than a second, I think. So, I keep it in burst mode, where the response is much faster, but I don't really want a burst, but just a quick sequence of frames. You can actually shoot a single frame in burst mode, by pressing the shutter release firmly, then quickly taking your finger away, but when I do that, I tend to press the right side of the camera down and I get the horizon problem again. A technique problem, true, but I haven't been able to completely fix it, and I wouldn't have to completely fix it if the second-shot response was better in single-shot mode.

[Carl Weese]

Moose, interesting thought that the OIS may be optimized for short/normal lenses at really slow speeds. Partly to help with the silent mode, but also perhaps because Lumix longer lenses tend to be stabilized already. If you mount a stabilized lens, the camera defaults to that system, not the in-body one, with no apparent override possible, which seems an indication that the in-lens system works better. I have a 45-200, but I can't test it with the in-camera stabilization. I almost never use long lenses so I don't have anything else to experiment with.

[Kenneth Tanaka]

Thank you for presenting such an elaborate and thoughtful review of the GX7' Carl. Much more experientially informative than most reviews.

OK, I have to confess to giggling at your praise of the camera's "responsiveness"; compared to the 50lbs of 19th century photo gear you normally use I would imagine that any digital camera would seem responsive!

Kidding aside, though, you make the keen, and perhaps most salient, point that the secret sauce of a camera's usability is how closely it can unobtrusively extend your senses. That, of course, was a big portion of what propelled the Leica M cameras to popularity during the least century. With practice the old film M cameras just became extensions of the eye.

My own rule is that when I find such a camera I never let it go.

[Moose]

"I'm sure it's a sensor generation thing but it's light years ahead of my former Olympus e-pl3"

All the E-Pens, from E-P1 through your E-PL3 and the E-PM1, have the same sensor and take the same images.

The E-M5 changed that, with much the same highlight recovery potential as the GX7. The following E-Pens then use that better sensor, so far.

I assume you were not using Oly's Viewer software? As it is hopeless at highlight recovery, and would make the E-Pens (and E-M5, E-M1) appear much worse than they are. ACR does recover highlights from them, just not as well as from the later sensor.

Moose

[Moose]

"when I look closely, the eye sensor picks that up, and turns the screen off (and turns the EVF on.) I do that at least 9 times a day; I wish the detector were slightly less sensitive."

There are two sensitivity settings for the sensor; low helps me. It may also be turned off.

Moose

[Moose]

"Moose, interesting thought that the OIS may be optimized for short/normal lenses at really slow speeds. Partly to help with the silent mode, but also perhaps because Lumix longer lenses tend to be stabilized already."

Makes sense. OTOH, the only comparison I've seen with a long lens, 400 mm, seems to show the GX7 IS outperforming the E-M5. I've not done any formal comparisons, but the Panny has worked well for me at 300 mm so far.

"If you mount a stabilized lens, the camera defaults to that system, not the in-body one, with no apparent override possible,"

I gather from reviews that some lenses have an IS off switch. Otherwise, correct.

"which seems an indication that the in-lens system works better.:

Panny are clear in saying that is so in their written material.

"I have a 45-200, but I can't test it with the in-camera stabilization. I almost never use long lenses so I don't have anything else to experiment with."

I wasn't really complaining, as you rely primarily on shorter lenses. Just commenting on something about which there is little info from any tests I've seen thus far.

Thanks again for the review.

Moose

[Carl Weese]

Moose, "I gather from reviews that some lenses have an IS off switch"

That just turns off the lens OIS, it doesn't enable the in-body, which makes sense if you're going to use a long lens on a tripod and so want no stabilization active.

Ken, I started using Leica's in 1967, and while the GX7 can do a zillion things better, it's not as *responsive* as an M4.

John, it's almost impossible to let off a single shot in high burst, but with a bit of practice (aided by an abusive amount of marksmanship training in childhood) it's manageable in medium. There's also a slow burst setting which might still be more responsive than single. Also, the strap lugs aren't placed terribly well for large hands, but to quote "the 'Ol Man" once again, "you don't expect the tool to understand you, you learn to use the tool." Plus I can't really see where else they could have put them.

[Steve Biro]

I'm posting late but thank you for the excellent review, Carl. It assisted me mightily in my decision to purchase a GX7. I just ordered it yesterday.