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Panasonic Lumix GX 7 Review

by Mike McNamee

Although we do not ordinarily test consumer cameras, our interest was piqued by the GX 7 when we learned that member, Ian Cook, was using one behind the goalmouths at soccer's Premier Division games. Not as his main camera you must understand, but to explore the possibilities of linking to his mainstream Nikons and synchronising the shooting via a modified Pocket Wizard.

Mirrorless technology is, by now broadly established and the DPReview website listed 72 'mirrorless compacts' right off. They also incidentally conducted a comparison review of the seven cameras listed below which is worth a look. As ever in our reviews, we do not intend to go through the manual page by page but to concentrate on what the camera might do for a professional photographer.

• Olympus E-M5
• Fujifilm X-E2
• Panasonic Lumix DMC-G6
• Sony Alpha NEX-6
• Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX7
• Samsung NX300
• Sony Alpha NEX-5T

The 4/3 Micro technology is used widely and has the advantage of being an open standard. Hence the GX7 has an armoury of 24 lenses listed but that is only those made by Panasonic, the longer list is discussed later.

Chip Size

You cannot escape the fact that a 4/3 chip has only got 25% of the silicon area that is available to a full-frame camera. Despite the claims to the contrary, nothing trumps pixel surface area in terms of light gathering, but we were curious to see how much of a compromise you have to make in stepping down. Societies' members such as Damian McGillicuddy have been using 4/3 cameras for some time and both Trevor Yerbury and Damian Lovegrove have been gushing in their praises of the slightly larger chipped Fuji X-Pro.

Optically there are advantages to the use of mirrorless technology from the standpoint of lens design. The mirror box of a reflex camera forces the designers to move the lens further away from the sensor than they would like - it is a design compromise; releasing this constraint gives more options for efficient lens design and it is not surprising that such fine quality lenses have appeared for this smaller technology.

Most of the latest cameras use the Epson Ultimicron technology first seen at photokina 2012. Instead of a mirror and reflex prism, the image 'seen' by the sensor is relayed up to the eyepiece and projected into the user's eye. This arrangement and small chip has pros and cons, broadly as follows:

The Camera Design

The camera is small but not tiny and is thus easily held. Like all mirrorless cameras, the top plate is on a flat plane. The version we had was in a stylish retro livery with silver and black. The camera is substantially made (of metal) but is not claimed to be dust or waterproof. The back LCD is articulated and is also touch sensitive for gestural control, which is handy for some, but not all uses. The best feature is the quick display of menu items which can be launched and adjusted with a double tap and then finger slide. The weight is a mere 402 grams, the size is 123x71x55mm. It is small enough to fit into a ladies' handbag but a little large for a man's breast pocket. With the 20mm f1.7 lens it looks and operates like the iconic Canon Canonet QL17 - those were the days, when the ability to 'quick load' a 35mm film canister was worthy of incorporating into the name of a camera!

Battery Life

All mirrorless compacts suffer from a battery life that is a little low by today's DSLR standards. They range from around 330 to 360 frame depending on the claims made and will presumably be compromised by very cold weather, aging batteries, etc. Even so, this is an adequate number for the casual user. It runs into trouble if you wish to do time lapse (see later).

Lenses

There are 24 lenses listed on the Panasonic website although some are simply silver or black variants.

However, Sigma offer 19-, 30- and 60-mm f2.8 options, illustrating the depth of the alternative market. A search on 4/3 lenses on the DPReview site delivers 121 options, with names including Leica, Fujifilm, Nikon, Pentax and Voightlander.

Out and About with the GX 7

We took the camera (and the dog) for a walk around the local beach. We found the inability to see the viewfinder a real problem. At one stage it proved impossible to locate a ship in the viewfinder and we missed woefully, only half a boat and a very sloping waterline. In 200 attempts to shoot a running dog, only a couple of focused frames were obtained; the viewfinder review must be turned off or you cannot even track a moving object - overall though this is not a sports camera and even shooting the children running about would be quite a trick to pull off.

These issues aside, the camera was simple to use although with such a massive feature list you need to study the manual before you go out, otherwise you will have little idea how you are set up. That said, the menu is nicely arranged and the 'tap and flick' settings are clear and simple to set. The main functions such as aperture priority, manual, and shutter priority are operated from the top dial.

A feature with a lot of potential is the silent mode. This not only totally silences the camera but also switches off any giveaway lights such as focus assist so that clandestine photography is very straightforward. This is a real boon if you do not wish to disturb a wedding ceremony or a sport such as snooker where total quiet is demanded. The swivelling eyepiece also helps in discrete shooting as it would not be obvious what you were up to. The manual does issue warnings about this sort of activity, so take note and take care.

A second trip was more successful if not rather on the wild side with a big nor' westerly driving big clouds and rail squalls. We also took the opportunity to test out the Booq bag reviewed later. All went well, although we did find our gloved fingers were adjusting parameters when we did not wish to, although the wild weather was rather disorienting.

Colour and Exposure Testing

We shot Macbeth test targets in both a controlled light booth and under bright overcast skies. The results were then assessed using the Rags Gardner protocols (http://www.rags-int-inc.com/PhotoTechStuff/ColorCalibration/).

There are issues with the protocol because the script does not work in Adobe CC and conversely we could not open the file in Photoshop CS5 because of the Raw file handler. The overall outcome was that the average error was quite good at 3.4?E00. The exposure reading was for all practical purposes bang on (less than 1/20 of a stop variation).

We did attempt to use Adobe DNG calibrator but it did not improve the statistics. Hand tweaking the calibration did not produce an improvement either and so the limit seems to be around 3.4?E00.

The white balance delivered 5,300K in daylight against a calibrated value of 5800K. This is close enough for practical purposes and was easily tweaked.

Sharpening

Having little experience with images from such small chips we ran our sharpening ring-around to explore the settings. None of the second or third columns was acceptable at any post-Raw sharpening level and the optimum opacity for the Pixel Genius layer was probably about 25%. This is a light application of sharpening compared with larger chip cameras so a light touch is obviously needed.

The starting point for users wishing to explore their sharpening is thus 40% for the Amount, 0.5px for Radius and 80 for Detail for presharpening.

The Pixel Genius sharpening calls for a high pass method and the opacity is a user-adjustable variable (pixelgenius.com/sharpener2); the methodology is also discussed in Martin Evenings Photoshop for Photographers. See also http://www.pixelgenius.com/tips/schewesharpening. pdf for Jeff Schewe's essay on the subject.

Video

The video capabilities of the GX7 are comprehensive as we have come to expect from this class of camera. The basic resolution is FHD, ie 1,920x1,080 with framing rates of 24p or 25p. Other specifications are available such as 1,280x720 at 25p, ie HD/25p specification.

Running video is simple as the start/stop button is positioned alongside the shutter release button.

Time Lapse

The reviewer has long held the view that time lapse at a wedding, showing the church filling up and the actual ceremony and perhaps condensed down to a 20-30 second final clip would make a good start to a fusion slide show.

The GX7 has built-in time-lapse sequencing although a power source might be needed to keep it operating for the required length of time.

Overall

For its size, this is a very versatile system camera which packs a serious quality punch. The images will stretch to a magazine DPS providing control is maintained over exposure, cropping and sharpening. An exhibition-standard A3 inkjet print can also be made relatively easily. Care must be taken to preserve the quality, especially when using long lenses. We were rather fooled by the light weight and tiny size; this can easily lead to camera shake with long lenses; it might not look like a 300mm equivalent but it behaves like one optically!

The chip and exposure produced a slightly warm result when set to automatic but the dynamic range was impressive, as was the lack of chromatic aberration. Overall, calibrated colour accuracy lagged behind the DSLR results, but not enough to trouble the majority of users. The lenses we tested were universally crisp, right to the edges.

The light weight made the 'system' very easy to carry about, indeed you are barely aware of its presence in a bag around your neck. The touch screen on the back was interesting but we did not use it very much. Like all electronically controlled cameras we found glove operation could produce unwanted settings changes. The problem of electronic viewfinders is common to all mirrorless cameras - we found the combination of cold bright conditions allied with rather thick photochromic spectacles prevented seeing through the viewfinder at all well, indeed framing up was pure guesswork in the most adverse conditions.

Can it be used for professional work? Yes it can provided conditions are good, no cropping is required and the lighting level allows lower ISO settings only. The images from 4/3 chips come to bits quite quickly when you move off optimum parameters. You have a small number of truly wide aperture lenses to overcome the inevitable lack of isolation with the smaller depth of field provided by the small chip lens design. A key pair of offerings for the wedding professionals are the silent operation and time lapse - both have potential. At the very worst, a GX7 system tucked away in the bag provides a viable backup in emergencies.



Updated 27/04/2026 16:44:22 Last Modified: Monday, 27 April 2026