Micro 4/3 Panasonic GX7 image thread

serhan

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I am starting one:) First shots w/ gx7 + Oly 75-300mm & Zeiss Makro zf 100mm, at the local Black Hill Park just before the sunset so mostly at high iso's:

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All were shot hand held w/ e-shutter. It is very silent, no hiss noise of Oly IS either. A tripod and flash could have helped, but this was just quick trial of these 2 lenses esp w/ IS and also the focus peaking. Hopefully they will improve the e-shutter read speed, because getting rid of shutter vibr is very good. It is as useful as 5 dim IBIS of Olympus. Focus peaking works but I prefer the red peaking color from nex and also the middle enlargement is too small on the evf. I have to find/use the full size enlargement w/ evf. The size of the body is good w/ bigger lenses, but a little grip could have helped. It is similar size to e-m5 w/o the viewfinder hump. All shots processed in lightroom w/ VSCO velvia preset except last 2 shots.
 
Really well done! I'm not a huge fan of the critters and flowers, but you do it really really well!

I have a few from the shooting I've done with the GX7 that I posted in my user impressions over at mu-43.com, which you were posting in. I may put a few of them up here as well in time, but I don't see myself buying the camera, so I probably won't do a whole lot more with it. I really really like it a lot thought. If I was as into m43 as I was a year or two ago, I'd probably buy that to compliment the EM5, but I don't have any use for two m43 bodies these days and the Oly IBIS is probably more important to me with the lenses I have than some of the great features on the GX7.

-Ray
 
first these look lovely both as examples of the camera and your eye. having said that, it appears that the color rendition of the red flower is not good with both oversaturation and unrealistic magenta tones. this is the first time ive seen gx7 red rendition and is the first aspect of this cameras output that imo can be criticized. now what i see can be from a variety of factors that may have nothing to do with camera performance, but with PP, uploading or my monitor. so what are your observations?
 
It might be due to the PP+my laptop screen. It looks differently at my work screen vs work laptop also as my work screen is more saturated. Velvia preset saturates the colors. It is similar with Oly raws. I can check and post the direct raw/jpg. This is another version of the flowers w/ different tones, again with Velvia preset, taken w/ 35-100mm at its closest focus distance:

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first these look lovely both as examples of the camera and your eye. having said that, it appears that the color rendition of the red flower is not good with both oversaturation and unrealistic magenta tones. this is the first time ive seen gx7 red rendition and is the first aspect of this cameras output that imo can be criticized. now what i see can be from a variety of factors that may have nothing to do with camera performance, but with PP, uploading or my monitor. so what are your observations?
 
This is shaping up to be an excellent camera. I still have some question marks over how accurately Panasonic handles their exposure previews. Traditionally they haven't always displayed an exact representation of the final exposure in their live-view displays which makes it hard to judge exactly how far you can push an exposure to the right.
 
I haven't pushed the images that much, but sunset images allowed me to push and pull the images on both sides. Again I don't know how much is better then previous Panasonic vs new Sony m43 sensors. They might be close enough. Only techradar showed some dxo numbers, but their tests are not that reliable. DXO lately haven't published any sensor scores. Maybe dpreview will do a comparison.

From my experience with RX1 sensor, sensor improvement comes w FF mirrorless cameras which Sony will be bringing in couple weeks. Low end one will be priced around $1600-1700 and it comes with 24MP pdaf sensor. Again finding lenses might be a challenge compared to m43 but the color/dynamic range/noise will be better. You can check SAR:
sonyalpharumors - Sony Digital Camera News

This is shaping up to be an excellent camera. I still have some question marks over how accurately Panasonic handles their exposure previews. Traditionally they haven't always displayed an exact representation of the final exposure in their live-view displays which makes it hard to judge exactly how far you can push an exposure to the right.
 
I didn't really mean how good the sensor is, although it does seem very impressive. One of the biggest issues that I have had with the two Panasonic Micro 4/3 cameras I have owned is that the cameras display the live-view image at a certain brightness, which will adjust as you change the exposure compensation. Where the problem arises is that when you press the shutter the actual image captured might be faithful to the live-view display, but it also might be at least a stop lighter or darker. From this experience I can't be certain that I can trust a Panasonic to give me the image that I see in live-view, whereas Olympus by comparison has always been WYSIWYG.
 
I have to use it more and see. White balance was good. I haven't done any exposure adjustment either, but the light was soft except the sunset. Also half or more of the shots were with 100mm macro using the peaking and manual focusing, so I was more concentrating on the focus esp blue mixing with the greens, etc.
 
Steve Huff review is out w/ evf comments & comparison of high iso raw image w/ e-m1:
The Panasonic GX7 Camera Review by Steve Huff | Steve Huff Photo

Also interesting post about the dynamic range comparison to e-m5, which shows 2/3 EV improvement at the extended ISO 125:
GX7: Extended ISO125 Image Degradation?: Micro Four Thirds Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review

Sony nex 5 was similar starting with ISO 200 base, then they started to pull the ISO 100 to increase dynamic range. I don't know if Oly is doing the same thing with EM1 w/ ISO 100.
 
How is the focus peaking using the EVF on the GX7? On the NEX7, the shimmering was much less pronounced on the EVF as opposed to the LCD. It made focus peaking via the EVF nearly useless for me.
 
I haven't used nex-7, but nex has the better peaking eg red color and 3 levels of peaking. Normally you can adjust the peaking depending on the situation. Usually I didn't use the lcd for peaking much except for CV 12mm where nearly everything is in focus with f/5.6. For fast lenses, I usually enlarge the view w/ nex as the peaking changes a lot based on the lens contrast, light, etc. Only thing w/ nex is you have to watch the min shutter speed which is fixed at 1/60 sec. So you need to switch/select the shutter speed as the lens gives the aperture and camera picks the auto iso. I know some people shoot B&W with nex so they can see the peaking better so you get B&W jpg and color raw.

Panasonic has 2 levels of peaking, high & low. Mine was on the high and I used with the central magn also. Sometimes I see clearly the blue and sometimes it was my eye based on the magnification. Zeiss 100mm is normally very contrasty lens. I also used 75-300 manually for the sunset shot as small af box sometimes had a hard time to pick focus. I haven't compared the viewfinder vs LCD. I guess bigger e-m1 evf might be better for peaking, but then the early reviews say that the viewfinder slows down with peaking and Olympus has the black or white as peaking color which is not my optimal colors. Panasonic has also yellow and another color for peaking. I can change and see if that helps. Also I can check the lcd vs vf. M43 has the advantage of IS with 3rd party lenses and also you can enter the lens focal length, so the camera adjust the shutter speed+iso automatically. With gx7 e-shutter, I was limited by upper iso 3200.
 
On the NEX7, even with the shimmer set on high, it was difficult to see the shimmering on the NEX7's EVF. It was very easy on the LCD. Similarly, it was easy on the NEX3's LCD. I read somewhere that the shimmering is hard to see in EVF's, because the pixels are so small in the super high resolution EVF's.
 
I have no problem w/ Sony nex-5n external evf or nex-6 evf (maybe both released after nex-7) as I used them both. Some say the nex-7 evf wasn't the best compared to nex-6. Sony has been improving them. The best Sony viewfinder is now w/ RX1 and most probably will be used with the new FF mirrorless cameras.
 
I have no problem w/ Sony nex-5n external evf or nex-6 evf (maybe both released after nex-7) as I used them both. Some say the nex-7 evf wasn't the best compared to nex-6. Sony has been improving them. The best Sony viewfinder is now w/ RX1 and most probably will be used with the new FF mirrorless cameras.
They ought to cut a deal with Olympus for the VF-4 / EM1 evf. I have the RX1 evf and it's very nice. The VF4 blows it's doors off. You'd think you were shooting with an OVF...

-Ray
 
Live-view histogram accuracy

This is shaping up to be an excellent camera. I still have some question marks over how accurately Panasonic handles their exposure previews. Traditionally they haven't always displayed an exact representation of the final exposure in their live-view displays which makes it hard to judge exactly how far you can push an exposure to the right.

Not to hijack this GX7 image thread but, in response to the above question, I have found the GX7 live-view histogram can be a fairly accurate preview of how far to push ETTR. After reading Petka Potka's journal article on this very subject (http://www.pekkapotka.com/journal/2011/12/20/expose-to-the-right-ettr-with-e-p3.html), I have set my raw capture record mode as follows:

Photo Style- Standard (Contrast -2/Saturation -2)

With the above settings, a RAW capture will yield an under-saturated, low contrast JPEG thumbnail for chimping or review. BUT, more importantly, the live-view pre-shot JPEG-based histogram will now provide a fairly accurate representation of how far you can push ETTR before you start to clip/blowout highlights. When shooting RAW, those in-camera JPEG thumbnails used for chimping or reviewing images really don't matter; all will be well when you upload your RAW images into your favourite raw converter.

Other early adopters of the GX7 have reported that the camera is very conservative with it's programmed exposure, some claiming it under-exposes by as much as 1.5 stops. Maybe this is true if shooting JPEGs with the photo style cranked up to some retina-burning saturation and contrast (which I'm not curious to try) but I just don't see this with my GX7 shooting in raw mode. With the above photo style settings for shooting RAW, I use the histogram to establish my best ETTR settings and my resulting exposures are bang on.
 
How is the focus peaking using the EVF on the GX7? On the NEX7, the shimmering was much less pronounced on the EVF as opposed to the LCD. It made focus peaking via the EVF nearly useless for me.

Again, not wanting to hijack this image thread but the question has been asked.

I find the focus peaking equally effective/visible using either the EVF or the LCD and I see no difference in the amount of shimmering between the two. The GX7 has a user-selectable high/low setting for focus-peaking; I have mine set to high.
 
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