Putting the GH7 to the test ← Hi Neighbor

Lumix GH7 Fireside Test

The GH7 is no slouch when it comes to low light situations

Vibrant picture of friends siting around the fire pit — Testing out the night capabilities – used was Meike 35mm 1.7F lens at about 2. Vibrant Neutral LUT added

How could we pass up on a chance to wear costumes!

Hard to believe I was off of Facebook for almost a year. Crazy how the site could change so much. That is besides the point, I got an invite to a friend’s Halloween party via Messenger. This invite could not have come at a better time as Vanna and I are trying to gather with friends more often. So Vanna sprung into action and found us some “costumes”…….you know the flair, they are usually the one use one size fits most “costume.” So Amazon came to the rescue with next day shipping. Well the costumes were of low quality which was to be expected but they were too good to pass up on. The male or plug part of the costume had a usb A plug along with a ground 3 prong plug. The female part of the had a usb A slot and 3 holes for the prongs. Lets just say it was a hit at the local bingo hall and at the party.

Time to whip it out….the camera that is

I have had too many people recently tell me to take my camera with me where ever I go. So this night it came with me. As of this writing I currently own two micro 4/3 lenses. The kit lens that came with the Lumix G7 and the Mieke 35mm 1.7F lens. The kit lens does surprisingly well for its age. It is not the best at night due to the 3.5 starting aperture. What it does do is provide consistent performance on either body. The picture above was captured when the fire was on the way of waning and was really dimly lit. The 14-42mm kit lens would have struggled to get a less noise filled image. If you watch the video it was captured in 4k 23.9 frames at 420-L and V-Log on the Lumix GH7. I applied the boosted saturation LUTs to most of the film. The camera did not turn on the fan once and due to the cooler temps the battery lasted just a little longer. The camera does put off a decent amount of heat over time. In total about 40-50 minutes was recorded and about 100 shots were taken. This test was to see the raw performance of the camera in very poor lighting conditions. Micro 4/3 sensors gather less light than their full frame counterparts, which in turn makes it difficult for them to capture darker scenes. So how did I think the camera did over all?

The camera punches above it’s price range

Yes this camera is worth every penny. Is it for someone who has a Lumix GH 6 and just wants to have a new camera……….Nope. This is the camera for someone who already has a older Micro 4/3 set up but wants to move into the 2020 camera line-up. The saying goes “spend money on lenses over cameras.” This is true to a certain point. the Lumix G7 vs the Lumix GH7 …………not hard to pick a winner if you line up night time shots. In the day or with enough light the gap gets smaller. The G7 has a 12 MP sensor vs the Lumix GH7 a 24 MP sensor……… the 24 MP looks better when you edit photos and videos. Less noise is also present in recordings. I tested the auto focus by sitting across the fire pit with the camera resting in my lap while recording subjects on the other side of the fire. Lets just say the camera struggled with low light auto focus. Every time a big flame would happen the camera would hunt for focus even with the scene set to human/total body. I also had on movement tracking so the camera could have been confused with the motion of the flames as they would come into focus and the subjects behind would get fuzzy and then clear. When the flame was really low and it was darker around the fire, the camera would hunt for focus about every 3-5 seconds. Normally darker skin subjects have a hard time being focused on by AF by most modern cameras, the auto focus on this camera did slightly better with lighter subjects as more light was reflected to the camera. Weight is an issue if you plan on holding this in your hand most of the time as the grip and heft make it tiring if you shoot with one hand. This camera works great as is but with a rig it will really shine as you can push it with up graded storage, battery, monitor, mics, and much more.