Pros
- Plenty of control
- 4K video
- Great EVF
Cons
- Plastic build
- APS-C rivals offer better dynamic range
Key Features
- 16-megapixel MFT sensor
- 2.36-million dot EVF
- 4K video capture
- Manufacturer: Panasonic
- Review Price: £599.00
What is the Panasonic Lumix G7?
The Panasonic Lumix G7 takes the classic G-series mid-range accessibility and bolts-on some of the higher-grade video skills of the Panasonic GH4. That camera brought 4K video shooting to thousands, this one lowers the entry price a bit.You’re looking at £599 body-only for the G7, which is still hundreds of pounds cheaper than the Lumix GH4, if also around twice the current price of the trusty old Panasonic G6.
For the extra money you get improved performance, a new slightly more angular design and those 4K shooting abilities. However, stills image quality is not dramatically improved over the last model if you’re a G6 owner looking to upgrade.
Panasonic doesn’t make the most style-obssesed compact system cameras, and the Panasonic Lumix G7 doesn’t change that. However, this year’s design is a little more angular, bringing a hint of the retro DSLR flavour that inspired ranges like Olympus’s OM-D series.
The key part of this is the pentaprism-style mound on top of the Lumix G7 top plate, holding the viewfinder. Of course, as it’s home to an OLED screen rather than an actual viewfinder mirror, it’s pretty much purely for show. Still, it’ll look quite nice to some eyes.
What’s more important is handling, and for pure comfort and grip the Panasonic Lumix G7 is a winner. The same curvy design that makes the G-series design that bit bigger than some Micro Four-Thirds CSCs ensures the camera feels secure, and fits the hand nicely. The rubberised grip snakes around from front to back, providing the friction we’re after.
What the Lumix G7 isn’t, though, is all that expensive-feeling. It’s a mostly-plastic camera, including the top plate and control dials, giving it that cheaper vibe. This sort of construction isn’t uncommon in upper-entry-level cameras like this, but after checking out the similarly-priced magnesium alloy FujiFilm X-T10 recently it does seem unfortunately plasticky.
Where the construction might impact how you use the camera a bit is in the dials. As well as being made of plastic they don’t offer all that much feedback and are quite easy to turn accidentally. You’ll want to check they haven’t been moved in your camera bag before starting any serious shooting.
The Panasonic Lumix G7 does not feel like a camera for beginners, though. Anything but.
It features a grand total of 16 buttons, 4 dials and two stitches, giving you as much manual control as you like as well as plenty of scope to customise operation. Some may find this intimidating, although this is no snobby camera.
Panasonic Lumix G7: Screen and Viewfinder
Take the screen as an example. It’s a 3-inch display that folds out on a side hinge, perfect for both video shooting and selfies. It’s also less prone to being obstructed by tripods than the now-popular flip-out screen style, which is also a bit less versatile.The screen offers 1040k-dot resolution: nothing too staggering, but what we’d hope for. It’s a touchscreen too, and supports familiar gestures like pinch-to-zoom, speaking a similar language to your phone.
The viewfinder is actually more notable. It’s great. The Panasonic Lumix G7 gets the 2.36-million dot EVF used in the Panasonic GH4. It's a great viewfinder, not slapping you in the face with obvious visual compromises as soon as you put your eye up to the thing.
It uses an eye sensor too, flicking the preview display over from the rear screen to the EVF as needed.
Panasonic Lumix G7: Features
The Panasonic Lumix G7 connectivity works pretty well at this point too, even though it doesn’t pack in everything you might expect. You get Wi-Fi but not NFC, which is used to pair wireless devices without having to delve into menu systems or tap too many buttons.Going manual with Wi-Fi isn’t too much of a pain, though, and the Panasonic Image App is fairly easy to use. It lets you transfer photos, share them to Facebook and other spots, and control the shutter and AF for remote shooting.
Panasonic Lumix G7: Performance
The Panasonic Lumix G7 is smart with its performance upgrades, making sure to offer more than the Lumix G6 without outdoing the still-current GH4.The result is a standard shooting speed of 8fps, up from 7fps in the G6 but a lot less than the 12fps of the Panasonic GH4. That speed also chips down to 6fps when using autofocus during shooting. Still, that’s better than most DSLRs at the price, which clock in at around 5fps.
These numbers don’t tell the whole story of what the Panasonic Lumix G7 is capable of, though. It makes great use of last year’s star feature of chopping 8-megapixel stills from 4K video capture.
If 8fps just won’t do, you can also shoot stills at at 30fps, capturing 8-megapixel images instead of full-resolution 16-megapixel ones. This mode is called 4K Burst Shooting, and feels a lot like a standard burst mode: it shoots as long as you hold the shutter button down.
Alternatively, there’s a burst mode that starts when you press the shutter and stops when you press the button again. And one that captures 15 exposures just before and after you hit the button. All suit different tasks, but the last, called Pre-Burst, doesn’t half eat up the battery since it’s effectively shooting constantly.
To test out the 4K Burst Shooting mode, we took the Panasonic Lumix G7 to the cricket, to try to capture that exact moment when ball meets bat. We shot for eight seconds, producing hundreds of images, and it took the camera around five seconds to process them for a closer look. You can then flick through the results and save specific 8-megapixel stills with a press of the Menu/Set button. This mode is easier to use than you might expect, and made capturing the crucial moment a cinch.
The one issue is that when previewing burst images using the viewfinder, they appear low-res, making checking for a solid focus problematic. In other cameras this happens sometimes because it takes a camera a little while before the higher-res version kicks-in, but the Panasonic Lumix G7 just seems to stick with the scrappy preview image. It may be something Panasonic addresses in an update.
Panasonic Lumix G7: AF
Software is as important as hardware sometimes. Take the Panasonic Lumix G7 AF. It uses standard contrast detection autofocus, but also makes use of Panasonic depth from defocus tech to improve performance.This use a clever analysis of what the sensor sees to judge how far away objects are, providing some of the benefits of phase detection autofocus without dedicated hardware. Sure enough, the Panasonic Lumix G7 focuses very quickly and accurately, and has an orange AF light to help out in darker environments.
The official claim is that the G7 focuses as quickly as 0.07 seconds: pretty damn fast. However, with the 14-42mm kit lens that drops down to 0.18 seconds.
The Panasonic Lumix G7 has 49 focus points, up from 23 in the G6, and they cover most of the frame. You can use either the touchscreen or the rear controls to control the position and size of the focus area, earning this manual control-heavy camera some more accessibility points. AF is one of this camera's stronger areas.
Panasonic Lumix G7: Image Quality
One area that hasn’t changed too dramatically since the last generation is image quality. Like the GH4, the Panasonic Lumix G7 has a 16-megapixel Micro Four-Thirds sensor. It produces good images just like the Lumix G6, but dynamic range is slightly limited by the sensor size.At ISO 100, an extended mode that gets you the very best dynamic range results, the G7 scores 10.15EV in our dynamic range lab test. APS-C cameras at the price do better here (the Sony A6000 scores 12.26EV), although the Panasonic Lumix G7 holds onto its dynamic range pretty well as you head up the ISO range.
At ISO 800 it scores a very usable 9.27EV, and it even sticks at 6.12EV at ISO 12,800. The same clinging onto respectable performane is also seen in the Panasonic Lumix G7’s detail capture. It harvests about what we’d expect of a 16-megapixel sensor at base ISO, and holds onto the same labs detail score right up to ISO 800. It’s only at the top ISO 12,800 and 25,600 that detail really drops off.
Aside from the expanded ISO 100 mode, the rest of the range is totally native. That the G6’s ISO 25,600 setting was ‘expanded’ in the last generation shows that Panasonic is confident it has made some improvements here.
Image noise isn’t too obvious up to ISO 800 either, and both ISO 1600-6400 can produce great results too. It’s only the top two ISO settings that should be reserved for emergencies. That’s not bad going for a MFT camera.
When you’re shooting in very bright environments with a fast lens, the Panasonic Lumix G7 also offers an electronic shutter, letting you shoot as quickly as 1/16,000 of a second. The standard shutter setting does up to 1/4000, which should suffice for most conditions. Here are some shots taken using the camera:
Panasonic Lumix G7: Video
If you’re a stills shooter you probably know by now whether you want a Panasonic Lumix G7 or not. However it also shoots video at 4K resolution.Or to be exact, you can shoot at 3840 x 2160 4K recording at 25p (50Hz) or 24p with a bit rate of 100Mbps, or alternatively 1920 x 1080 resolution at 50p in AVCHD or MP4 formats. This 4K resolution is actually UHD, not broadcast-standard 4K 4096 x 2160. The Panasonic GH4 can handle this, making it the choice for more professional shooters.
Of course, it you’re producing content for people to consume on YouTube or through their TVs, UHD is actually more useful as it’s the native resolution of all ‘4K’ TVs, monitors and laptops.
Should I buy the Panasonic Lumix G7?
The Panasonic Lumix G7 is one of the most video-centric affordable compact system cameras. And while it doesn’t quite offer everything you get in the Panasonic GH4, its skills should be enough to convert plenty of keen video-makers currently using an entry-level DSLR or something less capable.It also makes a pretty great stills camera thanks to its wealth of manual controls, excellent EVF and good higher-ISO performance. If you want the ultimate in image quality, you might also want to consider an APS-C alternative like the Sony A6000 or FujiFilm XT10, which offer somewhat better better dynamic range.