List Price: $999.99
Sale Price: $828.00
Today's Bonus: 17% Off
Had an E-M5 for about a year which was terrific but a bit unwieldy both to handle and operate. I just dumped it for a GX7.
First I'd like to focus on a few very positive differences in particular that make the GX7 SO much easier and more practical to use in a variety of circumstances than I found the E-M5.
First, the lack of a hump. I know people say they "don't care" but really that doesn't make any sense. If you didn't care about the streamlined size, why would you buy a mirrorless camera? Anyway, it's more practical to stick this in a coat pocket than the E-M5, let alone the E-M1 whose hump makes it literally 1 inch (!) taller than the GX7. The GX7 is the most compact/streamlined body with a built-in viewfinder (EVF) in the m43rd's universe.
About the EVF. Many people have talked up how inferior it is to the Olympus VF-4 (which sits like a mountain atop the E-P5) or that on the E-M1 (which again adds a 1-inch hump). First off, I find it just as visually adequate as the E-M5 no major difference in my eyes (note that I don't wear glasses). But *functionally* it blows the E-M5 away. Why? Because of the autofocus selection mechanism. On the GX7 I position the autofocus point using the touch-screen *while* looking through the EVF. Ingenious (and a little EVF tilting, another great feature, plus using my right eye makes this practical). I can't tell you how many shots I missed on the E-M5 stupidly and painfully slowly trying to move the autofocus point around with the squishy cursor buttons while looking through the EVF. Ridiculous.
The wifi smart phone control (absent on E-M5). I have been to so many places where I would have loved to have gotten a picture of myself or myself and my travel companions but just couldn't because blind timer pictures are just so difficult. With smartphone control I literally see the screen on my smart-phone, can select the autofocus point, all the shooting settings, etc. Really a game-changer.
Autofocus mechanisms. The GX7's 1-area autofocus can be shrunk (*permantently* it remembers) to a very small area. Much smaller than on the E-M5. And at any rate, getting a smaller autofocus point on the E-M5 inexplicably required going into a separate "mode" where all of a sudden half the shooting settings become invisible and inoperable until you "set" the autofocus point. Again, I can't tell you how many shots with the E-M5 of eg animals I missed due to either the large autofocus point or having to waste time in the ridiculous autofocus-magnify mode. In addition, the GX7 has pinpoint autofocus which magnifies and is amazingly accurate nothing like that on the E-M5.
Manual focusing. When you manual focus the GX7 pops up a magnified picture-in-picture over an area of your choosing (and again it remembers once you set the location and magnification of the PIP). Combined with focus peaking (absent on the E-M5) this is now much faster and more accurate and therefore I use it more, which is the most important thing.
Video! Video quality is outstanding on the GX7, while the compression codecs and quality on the E-M5 were basically not useful for anything fast-moving, way too many ugly artifacts.
Silent shutter. Boy do you get some ugly looks at quiet concerts when your mechanical shutter fires off. This is incredibly useful, opens up a whole new range of venues to photography for me, and is completely absent on the E-M5. But note that it only works up to ISO 3200 and is not appropriate for fast-moving subjects.
Built-in pop-up bounceable flash (the E-M5 has a large, cumbersome add-on flash that, in practice, I never brought with me. Carrying 4 lenses on a 15-mile hike is plenty to keep track of, thank you). No more dark faces outside in the sun. Plus bounceable means I normally don't have to shine it on people's faces indoors (which I dislike so much that I just go no-flash when that's the only option.
Bright light goodies. ISO 125 (instead of E-M5's 200) and max shutter speed of 1/8000s (instead of E-M5's 1/4000s) let me shoot my PL 25mm f/1.4 at f/1.4 significantly more often than I could before. Less need for an ND filter (which I never carry around anyway) or stopping down when I don't want to.
Finally some neutral/negative comparisons.
The image quality of the GX7 is essentially identical to all current M43rd's cameras, including the Olympus E-M1, E-P5, and E-M5. There is literally no noticeable difference, end of story.
The GX7's in-body-stabilization (IBIS), the first on a Panasonic camera, is inferior to the Olympus high-end 5-axis. But many reviews have vastly overstated the useful advantage here. I get roughly 100% success at 1/10s using the 25mm f/1.4. That's just more than enough. Sure, I could go to 2/3s with the E-M5, but how often is that practical? Even leaves blowing in the wind get blurred at that speed!
The GX7 is not weather-sealed, the E-M5 is. Yet zero of my 6 lenses are weather-sealed...so how is that useful? My E-PL5 is also not weather-sealed, and I've taken it to the jungle. I guess I'm careful.
The GX7's battery life is not too impressive, the E-M5's was great.
0 comments:
Post a Comment