Panasonic Lumix DMC-G7 real-world samples

"There was absolutely no reason to stop down that far in several of the images."

I assume you're referring to the passing vintage car shots, and there is a reason I stopped down that far. It was an insanely bright day, and wide-open I was getting shutter speeds in the thousands, approacing e-shutter territory, which would have had rolling shutter issues. Plus, fast shutter speeds would have just produced a static shot of the car where even the wheels are sharp. While perfect for pixel peeping, I don't think it makes a very compelling photograph of a car passing by. There's no motion, no action. It's just a car and a road. I was kicking myself for not bringing an ND filter for this reason.

Treating it like a full-frame is just speculation. I figured because I was shooting 4/3 at 16MP the impact of diffraction wouldn't be as severe as a full-frame camera, meaning the shot would still be acceptable, and would have a sense of speed to it, which is what the whole weekend was about.

Working on writing that up soon. In a word, it was pleasant.

I applaud the photographer for taking sports pictures. All too often, the gallery is a bunch of buildings and maybe a bowl of fruit etc. -- useless, dead stuff.

I think the critiques received so far are uncalled for. Which of the car pictures could you NOT sell? That's all that matters. If you can sell it, it's a good image. It doesn't have to be the absolute best in resolution. It only has to generate $.

Thanks Samuel Spencer for taking car shots!

@Sam

I simply don’t buy your argument. The shots at F22 were at very slow shutter speeds and absolutely everything in the image was blurry including the subject. Simply using F8.0 would have resolved the issue and still kept the wheels blurry even at 1/500 of a second.

Image 27 was the worst offender. The wheels blurred so much that you really can’t even see the blur. It looks more like a solid wheel than anything. Image 27 is not an image you could sell. It is simply a mistake on the photographer’s part.

A MFT 16MP should be treated as a 64MP FF camera in terms of diffraction effects observable at 100%. The FF camera would have an advantage because for the same print/display size, you could hide the impact of diffraction by effectively scaling down the image.

But in the end, diffraction was not the issue here, panning was. It just wasn't that effective. And that has nothing to do with sensor size, diffraction, or aperture value.

It has absolutely everything to do with the aperture value. If you are panning and your speed does not quite match the subject then the faster your shutter speed is the more forgiving the image will be.

He could have completely alleviated all of the issues in image 27 simply by using a faster shutter speed. The scenery still would have been blurred by the motion of panning even at a very fast shutter speed. However, the slow shutter speed he chose made it almost impossible to get this shot and keep the subject from blurring.

Welp, I guess I screwed up the panning shots then. Hopefully the rest of the gallery has suitable shots for everyone.

I am not trying to single you out specifically. This thing happens every single time dpreview posts images for m4/3s cameras. I am just trying to express that this type of mistake makes it look like the camera is at fault when that isn’t necessarily the case.

I am sorry that I didn’t initially point out the good images that you took because there were some I really liked. Image 7 of the helmet was great and I really liked image 11 as well. And by coincidence both of those shots were at very fast shutter speeds.

With m4/3s you are better off erring on the side of too fast a shutter speed than having too slow a shutter speed mostly because of shutter shock issues but also because the lenses are usually very good close to wide open.

And now I know it for next time I shoot m 4/3, thanks for the info!

Please do continue shooting action shots -- if you can't find cars, then runners, footballers, sports of any kind. Thanks!

@ mpgxsvcd - can I interest you in a new, easier to spell username? I have some suggestions.

Shutter shock had nothing to do with the blurring in these images. A pan will completely eliminate an visible shutter shock by replacing it with motion blur. The set is a good example of real world use of this camera. The very blurry image is one that I would have left out but in truth is closer to what so many get when working with the technique.

I don't understand why a few people are struggling with the concept of panning and bright lighting much less understand why staff members are apologising!.

If you want to pan successfully you need a slow shutter speed, 1/500 isn't going to cut it if you want the background to have a decent amount of motion blur. Without an ND filter to hand the only option you have to get a low enough shutter speed is to use a small aperture. The fact that they didn't come out perfect has nothing to do with the wrong settings being used, it's just that the photographer didn't quite pull it off.

Under the circumstances and with a lack of ND filters those were the correct settings to get a look that is representative of the technique, a faster shutter speed would have resulted in too little motion blur.

The idea is to use as low a shutter speed as possible, that's basically the idea with panning.

@Barney

What did you have in mind? My 2nd choice would have been Turk182. Would that have been better?

“The idea is to use as low a shutter speed as possible, that's basically the idea with panning.”
That is a very basic way to look at the problem. A more precise way to look at it is that you need to use the appropriate shutter speed to give you the motion blur you desire in the background and still keep the subject well defined.

Too slow of a shutter speed just makes everything look like one continuous object. It doesn’t portray motion if the blurring is excessive. That is what happened in several of the shots.