Panasonic GX-7 Test

[Manfred M]

We spent a couple of hours at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa last night (free admission on Thursday evenings, as things turned out) and I did my first "serious" shooting with the Panasonic GX-7. All of the shots are hand held and most are high ISO and low (usually terrible) light ones. All shots used the f/4 - f/5.8 14-140mm lens and the shots were generally taken with the lens wide open.

Generally I'm pleased with the results, given the relatively poor lighting and high ISO settings, but the "hit" rate of good shots is lower than I would have anticipated.

I also figured out that neither Adobe (in ACR) nor DxO Optics Pro 9 have profiles for this camera and lens. I guess mFT is not considered to be a "serious" camera by these companies.



Front of the museum:





Hitler's armoured Mercedes-Benz parade car:





Detail of a WWI field gun:





Gunner Display:





Damaged WW II German Self-Propelled gun:





Plaster casts for the Canadian War Memorial, Vimy Ridge, France:

[bnnrcn]

Hi Manfred, what do you mean by saying that Adobe ACR doesn't have a profile for your camera? Does it mean you can't post process them with ACR? My best is Gunner Display

[Manfred M]

No Binnur, it means that there is no profile to correct lens distortions and vignetting. The image can still be processed (that's how these images were done).

[Edwin Harvey]

I also have this camera, the Panasonic GX7. I shoot in jpeg only, as my Elements 10 doesn't recognize the raw files. Further more, I have also tried the movie mode with this camera & Elements wont recognize the movie files. The movie files are still in the camera. I have no problem looking at them in camera, but somehow I think this sort of defeats the process, if I can't download them to edit on my Computer.
Cheers..........Edwin.
PS; Am I doing something wrong, or is there some other program I'm supposed to download from the net?

[dje]

I also have this camera, the Panasonic GX7. I shoot in jpeg only, as my Elements 10 doesn't recognize the raw files. Further more, I have also tried the movie mode with this camera & Elements wont recognize the movie files. The movie files are still in the camera. I have no problem looking at them in camera, but somehow I think this sort of defeats the process, if I can't download them to edit on my Computer.
Cheers..........Edwin.
PS; Am I doing something wrong, or is there some other program I'm supposed to download from the net?

Edwin if the GX7 is anything like my old Pany TZ7, the movie files are probably saved in camera in a different folder to the still images - something like BDMV/STREAM and they probably have an extension of .m2ts or .mts. You should be able to pull them out with Windows Explorer and play them on Windows Media Player. If you want to edit them, you'd be best to get Adobe Premiere Elements which is a specialist video editor but it's not free.

Dave

[Edwin Harvey]

Thanks Dave, I shall look for them elsewhere, wish me luck.
Edwin.

[Shadowman]

I also figured out that neither Adobe (in ACR) nor DxO Optics Pro 9 have profiles for this camera and lens. I guess mFT is not considered to be a "serious" camera by these companies.

Nice images.

I used to use Olympus Master to edit my RAW files but there was always an issue with the software, so now after transferring to the hard drive I convert to DNG.

[Kyle]

Nice series Manfred. It's always a challenge to shoot in low light like that, especially when f4 is as open as you can go.
I haven't been there in years. Wish I had known about the free admission when I lived in Ottawa, might have actually went.

[Manfred M]

Edwin - the issue is that the GX7 is relatively new (2013 release) and your Elements came out in 2011 and the camera last year, so the RAW converter is several years out of date.

Adobe does not maintain the software after it releases a new version. You could try downloading their free RAW to DNG converter to see if that lets you open the files. Upgrading to Elements 12 is going to be the easiest way to go.


For Windows: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloa...jsp?ftpID=5694

You should be able to get at the RAW files with the software Panasonic shipped with the camera.

[davidedric]

Manfred,

I don't have your set up. In fact I have the G5 and the new 14-140mm. My understanding is that the reason there are no lens profiles from Adobe is that Panasonic bodies fix those problems in camera. Do you have reason to believe differently?

Dave

[Manfred M]

Manfred,

I don't have your set up. In fact I have the G5 and the new 14-140mm. My understanding is that the reason there are no lens profiles from Adobe is that Panasonic bodies fix those problems in camera. Do you have reason to believe differently?

Dave

That is true only for jpegs. RAW, which I often work with, do not have the corrections applied to them.

[davidedric]

That is true only for jpegs. RAW, which I often work with, do not have the corrections applied to them

I really am puzzled. At least in Lightroom, there are no profiles at all for any Panasonic lenses.

This is one example of a thread that suggests that the corrections are passed on in RAW files.

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3360997

If you have a link that says something different, I'd be very pleased to see it.

Dave

[Manfred M]

I really am puzzled. At least in Lightroom, there are no profiles at all for any Panasonic lenses.

This is one example of a thread that suggests that the corrections are passed on in RAW files.

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3360997

If you have a link that says something different, I'd be very pleased to see it.

Dave

Thanks Dave!

I did a bit of digging and found this in ACR:




DxO Optics Pro 9 - does have the profiles though. I expect that this might be the same of Olympus; again, nothing in ACR, but full profiles in Dx0 Optics Pro 9.

I remember reading something about Leica not allowing any corrections being allowed with their mFT lenses, but I guess I had assumed this was for jpegs only.


I guess I can always stick to working with DxO rather than ACR for this camera...

[Edwin Harvey]

Thanks for the advise Manfred, looks like I'll be buying Elements 12 then. I'll download the RAW to DNG converter as well, to see if that helps with my problem.

[Edwin Harvey]

Manfred you're a genius, I downloaded the converter & guess what, it helped.
Cheers.......Edwin.

[Manfred M]

No problem Edwin - it may be a 2-step process, but the price is right.