GX7 review (my first review!)

larsbc wrote:

I've had the GX7 for over a month now. My camera experience includes long term use of a Nikon D300, D60, D200, D90, D70, Sony RX100 II, Panasonic LX3, LX5, Canon G11, and Panasonic G1 and GH2. I've been a photography enthusiast since the late '70's.

Your experience shows in this very useful review.

After spending a couple of days experimenting with different layouts and button assignments, I arrived at a combination that pleased me a great deal and made me appreciate the new layout.

I am very interested in what you ended up with.

I am a newcomer to "serious" photography having migrated to MFT from P&S travel cameras. For a year I have been shooting RAW (almost exclusively), shoot available light, usually M(anual) Mode (ETTR), sometimes A(perture) Priority in changing light (ETTR), sometimes S(hutter) priority to keep the speed up when shooting wildlife. (in such situations I'll even float the ISO up to a limit)

I have never customized my cameras, so I'm used to the defaults.

Now I am at the stage where I want to customize my GX7.

It seems to make sense to assign one of the C's to normal JPEG shooting, with all of the bells and whistles in the "Image and Picture Quality" settings.

I will have to experiment with in-camera HDR to see if it is worth playing with.

I am a solid believer in Gollywop, Anders, GB etc and a solid disbeliever in the "Exposure Triangle" (having "been there" and suffered).

What did you do? Any advice to a learner?

I now think the GX7's control layout feels about as quick and easy to use as the one on my Nikon D300. Good use of the touchscreen (for AF point selection, the quick menu, and soft Function buttons) is a big reason for that.

I find the GX7 so much nicer than the GH2 (which I kept) in that regard as I can keep my eye to the EVF and thumb my AF point at will.

Dynamic range also seems improved. Processing the raw files in Lightroom, there doesn't seem to be as much headroom in the highlights, as compared to my Nikon D300 or even my Sony RX100 II. So I've been shooting with a tendency toward underexposure. Still, I haven't run into many situations where highlights were blown out except in some scenes where it was quite obvious that there'd be a problem. In other words, I haven't been surprised by blown highlights. I've just noticed that there doesn't seem to be as much room to recover highlight detail. OTOH it also seems like I don't have to recover highlights as often as I did on my GH2, either.

Others have suggested a similar lack of headroom. Does this mean that you are required to give more room to the histogram in LV? to the RGBY histograms in chimp view? that you have to reset (downwards) the White point in LR? That you can't de-compress as much using the Highlight slider in LR? OR???

Unfortunately I changed my routine in LR just about the time when I got my GX7 and therefore find it difficult to compare with my (now gone) GX1.

BATTERY LIFE

Seems shorter than my GH2 but not by much. Still too early to say for sure. Not really a problem for me, though, since I always carry a spare. Bought a kit of 2 spare batteries and a charger from Wasabi for about $25.

I have yet to pick up my two spare batteries which I ordered when I read of PaulChapman's experience. Now I don't find it to be a problem at all.

3) For a camera with this much customizability, it REALLY needed a better manual than what it came with.

CONCLUSION

it's such an enjoyable camera to use once it's dialled in to your preferences.

I am also enjoying the camera very much!

Thanks for your review.

tom