Panasonic G7 with 14-140mm lense still a good camera July 2022

JoviFan wrote:

Pulled the trigger on one from Amazon on deal yesterday....but having buyers remorse reading about it's age and that it's used mostly for video and no in camera stabilization.... this would be my first time trying a non-point and shoot mirrorless camera.

Wondering if I should look for a 'newer' option? or Will this be good for wildlife, birds esp, and landscape photos...?

thanks!

Should be totally fine for stills in good light.  If you start using it for lower-light photography (i.e. dusk or dawn shots) or for video, however, you will wish you had a camera with in-body stabilization.

I won't consider the shutter shock affected cameras again.

Eric Nepean wrote:

(snip)

I have the GX7 (as well as about 6 other Panasonic M43 cameras)

Panasonic offers two kinds of digital zoom on its cameras.

I don’t have much use for the “Extra Tele Conversion” feature-for 1.4x increase in zoom it requires you to set the JPEG quality to “M”

The “Digital Zoom” feature can be set to 2x or 4x. I find the 2x to be pretty good, the 4x not so good.

Converting from raw image information to JPG discards a lot of fine detail, this is why a strong crop of a JPG has poor results.

Digital Zoom crops before JPG conversion, adjusts the JPG conversion to keep more detail, and then makes a little white lie about the original number of pixels.

Roughly speaking, JPG conversion averages the detail from a block of 4 or more pixels to one set of values, smearing out detail and colour which is not visible when viewing the entire image.

By using ¼ of the total number of pixels (2X magnification) but not averaging pixels, the same amount, quality and kind of information is obtained as a normal JPG from the entire sensor.

There are fewer original pixels, but a lot less smearing.

A JPG doesn’t contain RGB information about each pixel, it contains the count of pixels, the size of the pixel groups, and cosine curves that represent average information of each group of pixels. The computer at the receiving end uses this information to determine the information for each pixel it displays.

Quite often the viewing computer can’t display as many pixels as the original image. The JPG information is convenient because the cosine curves permit the viewing computer to calculate the RGB values for the pixel positions it using instead of those in the original image.

Digital Zoom then lies about the number of original pixels, so where the cosine curve may have been determined by two pixels, the viewing computer uses that information to get RGB values for up to 4 pixels.

For 2x, the result is pretty good - a bit noisier perhaps.

Thanks!  This is the most informative explanation of this process I've ever read.  And you're right - the 4X in my view is emergency use only, but the 2X isn't half bad.

JoviFan wrote:

Michael Houston wrote:

JoviFan wrote:

ok, whew - that's what I thought about the stabilization... and yea, I do like more 'zoom' for birding and I'm sure will take getting use to ... but wanted a higher quality photo.

I've never owned a G7, but several other Panasonics, and they all had a built-in teleconverter. I'll bet the G7 does too. It'll compromise your image quality a bit, but you might still might wind up with a superior image to a point and shoot.

oh right, by changing the MP setting you get 'more zoom'... I think that's what you mean!?

The G7 should have the Extended Zoom similar to the FZ. Instead of using the picture size, it will be L, Mez or Sez. At Sez, it will be about the same as the FZ at 560mm. It will tell you right away if you need to consider a 300mm lens. After using an FZ28, it was hard for me to adjust to the shorter focal length for wildlife.

Lepewhi wrote:

What about if you turn on the electronic shutter? Wouldn't that solve the issue?

It's a partial solution but causes two issues, rolling shutter and the possibility of banding under flickering lighting.

Rolling shutter never bothered me but banding when shooting indoors did. The problem being that with an affected lens which I wanted to use when shooting indoors I'd be in the shutter shock range and facing two possibilities, shutter shock with the mechanical shutter and banding with the electronic shutter. This made some camera and lens combinations and specifically one combination which I wanted to use unusable for indoor shooting.

Outside and away from flickering lighting the electronic shutter is fine unless you shoot subjects that could show the rolling shutter effect.

woof woof wrote:

Lepewhi wrote:

What about if you turn on the electronic shutter? Wouldn't that solve the issue?

It's a partial solution but causes two issues, rolling shutter and the possibility of banding under flickering lighting.

Rolling shutter never bothered me but banding when shooting indoors did. The problem being that with an affected lens which I wanted to use when shooting indoors I'd be in the shutter shock range and facing two possibilities, shutter shock with the mechanical shutter and banding with the electronic shutter. This made some camera and lens combinations and specifically one combination which I wanted to use unusable for indoor shooting.

Outside and away from flickering lighting the electronic shutter is fine unless you shoot subjects that could show the rolling shutter effect.

For the OP's use case - wildlife and landscape - electronic shutter will probably be fine. Fast things like flapping wings on small birds may show rolling shutter artifacts, though sometimes they're interesting or attractive. Most subjects will be pretty safe. Saves wear and tear on the hardware and its nicely silent too.

The insidious thing about shutter shock is you can't always tell you have it. The worst cases with doubled horizontal edges are pretty obvious, but lesser cases may still degrade sharpness a little.

While I have not used the G7, I still own and use the G6. I see no reason for buyer's remorse as it should be a wonderful camera for the things you mentioned you want to use it for. My G6 is still going strong and I get great images from it's 16mp sensor. Enjoy your new G7.

JosephScha wrote:

I should add, this is not a G7 specific issue. Electronic shutter on any camera (if slow enough) under florescent lights or any lights that are not continuous will show banding.

The issue is that in some circumstances and when used with some lenses shutter shock pushes you towards using the electronic shutter which in itself can bring problems in specific instances.

Also, for some subjects when the shutter speed will be faster (or indeed slower) than the affected shutter speed range you don't need to use the electronic shutter unless you want to shoot silently.

For me the biggest issue with shutter shock was indoor shooting as with some lens and body combinations there's just no way around it as I used to find myself smack in the affected shutter speed range and with flickering lighting present so the kit became unusable in that environment.

Thanks everyone for the information!  I finally received it and was able to play with it, but just for about an hour so far - so straight out of the camera, here are a few....lots to learn I think....def an adjustment without the 'zoom lever' that I'm use to!

thanks!! looking forward to taking some in the sunshine!