Panasonic just posted a void link to the GX7 firmware update 1.3. Could mean that it’s coming soon…
Panasonic just posted a void link to the GX7 firmware update 1.3. Could mean that it’s coming soon…
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61 Responses
IBIS while filming please :-p
If you research the issue you will find that IBIS does not work well for higher resolution video because for one excessive heat generation severely limiting length of clips and video output and poorer resolution at the long end? If that was such a good idea why have not Nikon, Canon, Sony jumped the bandwagon? I believe for the EM5 Oly actually uses digital stabilization when using video and I believe Pany could do the same for the GX7 for example. You will have to note that the EM1 and EM10 can only do lower video resolutions and speeds with video with IBIS. Yes I want IS for video a must but better digital IS which is much better than previously than none at all,
I have never seen an official statement from a manufacturer that IBIS during video recording is restricted due to overheating. I have only read this from speculation via the Internet. And nowhere have I read that Olympus’s IBIS is nothing other than a mechanical implementation, and not digital stabilizing like that which can be done in post. I’m sure other manufacturers could bring IBIS to video if only they prioritized it.
Then obviously, you haven’t heard of the Nex burning hot during video.
Any hints on the upgrades?
Yes, IBIS during movie recording!
Just for sport I’m going to guess they speed up the refresh rate in the EVF…(based on no information)
Greeeeeat. I don’t think it’s IBIS improvement, or my vertical focus peaking improvement. I guess it has something to do with WiFi/NFC and mobile app. I experienced few connection issues there, which also required me to re-insert battery.
Yeah, my GX7 have this issue. I can’t get to the wifi menu and I have to remove the battery. I send it back to Panasonic to resolve this. It’s been two weeks and they didn’t send it back yet.
An another thing that could be improved is the wheels controls in A and S modes. Why do they have to do the same control ?
You can change the dial settings in the menu.
Not many options for changing though.
You can change which ones affect the mode option (aperture/shutter) and the exposure value. And you can change the direction of them. What else could you need? :/
I just got the GX7 and love it, needs IBIS in video but the main thing is getting rid of the horrible banding when using silent electronic shutter in artificial light, I got this camera because it had this feature and now I have to use my RX100 for indoor street shots :sadface:
> banding when using silent electronic shutter in artificial light
There is no fix for that. 🙁
E-shutter readout speed is still too slow and it will always be catching the artificial light fluctuation due to mains frequency. IOW, e-shutter is useless indoors.
> indoor street shots
He?? You are shooting street from the indoors (aka lazy)? Or you are shooting indoors from the street (aka perv)? 🙂
Haha I realise indoor street shots sounds a bit oxymoronish but not really, when you consider a mall, any shop, train, work, I consider these still street style.
In regards to the banding issue, how come I don’t see it on my RX100 which uses electronic shutter? Or any other eshutter i.e. iphone or friends using their compacts?
The banding is an inherent problem with shooting using electronic readout rather than shutter. It cannot be helped unless you change physics.
“Indoor” Street shots… LOL!
You can avoid the banding: Set camera to shutter priority and choose multiples of the outlet frequency of your country, e.g. 50/100 in Europe or 60/120 in the US. Works most of the time. Physics 🙂
which is also the ideal shutter speed for shooting video ( you will avoid flicker too)
> Physics 🙂
Please for the idiots like me, can you please explain slowly how that can prevent the “banding” of readout which happens at speed of 1/8 of a second???
No, I won’t explain. Doesn’t matter why, it just works. Give it a try!
If you really want me to explain, you have to pay me, because that’s what I do for a living 😉
Thanks for the suggestion, I have heard this doesn’t work but will definitely try, a work around is better than nothing, i’m in Australia so i’ll be checking our frequency.
Oh boy 1.3 I hope they fix some issues with the GX7
– Option to always have the EVF on (when set to on it stays on until the first time you pull it to your eye then when taking it off it shuts off right away -> at least give us some sort of timeout before turning off)
– IBIS in movie mode, it really is a shame with the 20mm prime
– Give me the option to set a function to the rear/front dial when in A mode or S mode. only option now is have A on front/rear or A on front and use rear for exposure comp. which I get from pressing the back dial anyway so give me the option to assign some custom stuff to it
– WYSIWYG in the other modes as well, not only in M mode
Thats it for now
Vertical Focus peaking would be great. So would an “always on” EVF option that someone else mentioned.
Sadly I doubt we will get these.
Vertical focus peaking? What’s that?
And of course Auto ISO in M mode would be great…
That seems so backward… “Auto” in Manual mode.
Shoot in a different mode then.
Shutter speed and F-stop will visually change the picture you are taking. ISO will only introduce grain, it won’t change the content of the image. I’d rather trust the camera to do a trivial task such as that, rather than determining for me how much depth of field I may need, or what shutter speed is best suited to my intended result.
These days, cameras in general do so well at most ISO settings, that it matters little to me. There are times that I want a specific shutter speed, and specific aperture, but I want the ISO to change as needed from shot to shot.
Many video cameras worked this way, I believe called “auto gain”. It’s even more useful in video, because a specific shutter speed is needed for certain motion smoothness, and you don’t want your aperture to change during video recording (a visual difference, and noticeable switch), but light may change during that particular shot, and here is where sensor gain (ISO) can compensate.
It’s not backward. You go outside with a wide-angle lens, set aperture to F8 for example, shutter to 1/500 and auto ISO in M mode, lens to manual focus and to the hyperfocal distance and just shoot. Ideal for street photography.
Pentax SLR cameras have a dedicated Tav mode for setting manual aperture and shutter with auto ISO and most of the other manufacturers have the option to use auto ISO in M mode in their advanced cameras.
I agree ISO does seem like one of the easiest modes to set once and not need to be on auto. If you’re outside, set it low; if you’re inside, set it higher. Seems odd to want your camera to trying to balance ISO when you want to shoot in Manual. The whole point of shooting in manual is trying to control your shot. Aperture priority might be a better choice for these guys.
If I’m shooting with a manual adapted lens, say a 50mm f1.4, I’m controlling the aperture for DOF and the right sweet spot but I know I need a shutter of at least 1/100s for sharp shots, or maybe I want to shoot at a slow shutter to get some creative blur, or faster to freeze motion. So I need to shoot in manual. But the exposure changes with different light, or what you point the camera at. So I need to constantly fiddle with the ISO setting to balance my exposure. That’s not useful.
No Auto ISO in manual is the only reason I wouldn’t buy a GX7 and it’s precisely because I like having control over my images.
“but I know I need a shutter of at least 1/100s for sharp shots, or maybe I want to shoot at a slow shutter to get some creative blur, or faster to freeze motion.”
that’s called Shutter Priority, try using that.
My gosh, the complaints, wants and needs are really nothing to cry about. Manual is Manual. If you want the camera to control the iso for you, pick anything BUT Manual!
Gosh!
You can’t use shutter priority with adapted lenses because the camera can’t control the aperture. And what if I know what aperture I want as well as the shutter speed?
If I can’t have auto ISO, at least let me map ISO to one of the two control dials in manual mode…
Just because you can’t understand the utility doesn’t mean it isn’t valid. That’s why it’s available with Olympus, Pentax, and Sony cameras. And probably others…
Yes, auto ISO in M mode would be great, and please, AVOID TO LOOSE MEMORY FOR THE TOUCHSCREEN PARAMETER (taking picture using touchscreen) EACH TIME YOU SWITCH OFF THE CAMERA !!!!! Same boring problem on the GM1, compared to any Olympus body…
Finally .
Hope to further improving focusing speed on shooting moving subjects .
Can anyone shed some light on how to implement firmware upgrades on this camera. I have dropped the extracted file on my SD card, powered up with a full battery and pressed “play” and nada. Is there some procedure I am missing?
See here:
http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/dsc/download/fts/index.html#step1
Hi there,
Well I don’t know about you or why it happened. but I first downloaded the 1.2 firmware on my Mac using Safari, but Safari must have done something to the .zip file as I had the same problem.
After I used Firefox for the download it all worked. in case you are using Safari then that might be it.
Thanks, I will try another browser to fetch the .bin file.
Hopefully we’ll also see an update for the G6. I’d love better focus peaking, better WiFi connection and WYSIWYG exposure in manual mode. The Lumix cameras are a blast to use.
How about the 0 second delay that Oly has implemented…
Very cool, I wish they would do one for the GM1 as well. I tend to have trouble holding a connection when trying to shoot on Wifi. Maybe its just me, I thought I saw some reviews stating similar issues, but it seems to drop the connection after 2 or 3 minutes even if I’m using it. I bet the next iteration uses NFC. Still a cool camera, glad to see Panasonic is providing long term support.
The GX7 is a fabulous camera, I never thought I would find such level of customization outside of Olympus or Ricoh but Pany have done an awesome job with the GX7, it’s truly a photographers camera. Now, having said that, there some things I would like to see improved:
– Allow movie button to serve as Fn button
– Allow RAW in camera processing
– longer Bulb time with live preview
– Auto ISO in M mode (just to shut people up about it)
– GH4’s DFD technology (It’s just lens profiles right ? easily added via FW)
– Auto detect Pano direction (the GX7 already has motion sensors so why not)
– Allow new options for Fn buttons i.e. Multi exposure, Panorama or
any other scene mode/style. It’s really tedious to go into the menu every
time you need one of these, this was possible (to some degree) with my ancient
PL1, should be easy to implement by now.
– Live preview in non-Manual modes
– Improve picture selection method; choosing 1 by 1 is tedious, let us choose by date or some other method
“- Allow movie button to serve as Fn button”
This was the first thing I have tried to change – and oops it can’t be changed. A bummer.
Why the artificial limitations, Pana? This is an expensive enthusiast camera after all.
“- GH4’s DFD technology (It’s just lens profiles right ? easily added via FW)”
Please, please, pretty please!
But I doubt very much they’d do it. Even if that would become a highly requested feature, they’d find a way to explain why they can’t add it via firmware update. They always do.
“- Improve picture selection method; choosing 1 by 1 is tedious, let us choose by date or some other method”
You can select pictures using the touch screen. Simply zoom out, to make it display multiple images on the screen, then touch images to select them. Not perfect, but better.
yeah I know, I always use the touch screen but you still have to go through all the images inside the SD card and select them individually, you cannot select by groups i.e. by date or anything like that.
Totally agree – I have two and love them – agree on firmware recommendations
I could see it now, a photog asking another photog what mode he’s shooting in… “Manual. But uh, i let the camera choose the iso for me..”
“Then it’s not manual.”
I hope the do it, and it shows in the camera data… “Manual in auto iso mode”
manual, with a crutch.
100mbps IBP MOV 1080p only updated that panasonic MUST insert in GX7
4K resolution. 😛
How explain with 28 MB/s the video looks better than the GH2 and GH3 and until the 5D MKIII?
new sensor and well implemented AVCHD codec. In Sony A6000 for example the video is better than GX7 for same reason
Lol where did you hear the a6000 is better than the gx7?
DxO, Andrew (EOSHD) and Philip Bloom
The GX7 video is really nice and I don’t use the AVCHD codec. Folks who have the GX7 should try using it’s video (non-AVCHD) at the highest quality MP4 bit-rate, 1080p. I use the GX7 with the Lumix 12-35mm zoom for videos because it is so convenient and makes excellent quality videos.
If some other camera’s video looks better in the theoretical or pixel-peeper mode, (according to the internet), who cares?
Auto ISO in M seems like the only important missing feature to me.
Flash with electronic shutter.
or atleast electronic first curtain.
Anyone know what is included int he firmware upgrade ?
Sadly, firmware cannot extend that tiny sensor…
Eh? Troll?
Eh? A little less bright than average?
– Let PAL models access NTSC refresh rates! Down with that stupid region restrictions! The GH4 can do it, why wouldn’t the GX7 also? It’s up to you, Panasonic.
– IBIS in video mode.
– Auto ISO in M
Pretty please