LUMIX GH7 (upgrading from the GH5)

Here are 8 reasons why I decided to upgrade to the Panasonic Lumix GH7 from my Lumix GH5 that I’ve been using since it was released in 2017.

For reference on the kinds of videos I make: I’m primarily a solo video creator, so I usually direct, shoot, and edit my own videos. Most of my work has been in corporate videos, documentaries, and interviews. More recently I’ve been doing a lot of cooking videos for clients and my wife’s online school, as well as travel videos.

For me as a solo shooter, the headline GH7 feature is its phase detect autofocus. The older GH5 relies on contrast detect auto focus which Panasonic stuck with until very recently. For still photos I feel that contrast detect isn’t bad, and the GH5 was, and still is, a very capable camera.

But the reliance on contrast detect autofocus meant the GH5 would constantly need to hunt a little bit to maintain proper focus on your subject. For video this was a problem because even if your subject would generally appear to stay in focus, the background would often have this weird pulsing effect as the camera continually hunted for the right focus point. Even the GH6, which I had for a couple years, suffered from this problem, which is why I eventually sold it.

I found this pulsing to be very annoying and it severely limited situations where I could confidently use the camera.

Micro four thirds has always suffered a bit when it comes to low light performance. It’s just a fact that the smaller, high resolution sensor doesn’t capture as much light per pixel as a larger sensor.

The GH7 has greater dynamic range than the GH5, and should have better low light performance as well. So the improved performance of the GH7 sensor should give an overall better picture than the GH5.

On paper, the GH7 is only marginally larger than the GH5. But I think it feels a lot larger, although still very comfortable to hold.

The chunkiness of the GH7 is largely due to the active cooling fan that they built into it, along with the tilt out and flip open monitor, versus the flip-only monitor on the GH5. This is great if you need to attach cables to the side of the camera like I often do. The tilt function lets the monitor clear the cables and gives the monitor better range of movement to angle it how you like.

I also like the tilt function because it makes it easier hold for low angle shooting. With the GH5, the screen is sticking out to the side and I find that it can get in the way of my left hand when holding the camera.

Full V-Log is also quite important since I think it will better match my newer Lumix cameras that I use.

Years ago I paid for the V-Log upgrade on the GH5, but it’s still the “light” version of Panasonic’s log format. Matching colors between the GH5 and full non-light V-Log cameras like the full frame S5 mark II that I shoot with, was always a bit challenging and I could never get the images to match as well as I wanted.

I’m eager to find out if the full V-Log profile of the GH7 makes color matching with my other Lumix cameras easier. I’ll have to do an update video, after I use the GH7 in my studio for a while.

Note: To get 32-bit float audio on the GH7 you need to purchase this XLR2 adapter separately. Without it, the GH7 records in more typical 24-bit audio.

With a typical 24-bit audio recording, it’s important to set your recording level properly to get a clear strong signal; but you don’t want to set the level too high, because if the sound or person you are recording suddenly gets louder, you can end up with clipped and distorted sound.

But with 32-bit float, you can capture very loud sounds that would distort a 24-bit recording. You have so much editing leeway, that the recording level dials are just disabled because you don’t need to set them.

Similarly, you can boost a quiet recording in 32-bit float, without boosting all the noise floor as well, although I think a lot of how well you can do this depends on how well sound treated your recording environment is. If your environment is noisy, you’re still going to boost the environmental noises as well.

For my work, I shoot cooking videos in a studio, and some equipment can suddenly get very loud. Things like mixers and food processors. I usually have my hands full taking b-roll from the side, and audio is going into the main camera over there; so often I can’t adjust the audio levels on the fly. This results in some blown out, distorted audio at times.

Using a separate audio recorder with 32-bit float would have solved that problem years ago. But when I’m setting up and operating by myself, streamlining my workflow is important. A separate audio recorder is one more thing that can go wrong, or I could simply forget to turn it on before the action starts. It happens.

So the GH7’s 32-bit float audio should give me the ability to better manipulate the audio in post production without having distorted sound when loud equipment suddenly comes into the mix. And I think this can be beneficial in many situations when you just can’t control the audio situation.

External SSD recording is available on a number of Panasonic’s newer cameras. You can plug an external SSD into the USB-C port and record to it directly, instead of going to memory cards inside the camera.

SSDs have a few benefits, like being much cheaper per gigabyte than memory cards; and you can attach up to a 2 terabyte drive for a huge amount of recording capacity.

It also means that after the shoot you can take the SSD, connect it to your computer, and start to edit right away; rather than first having to transfer your media files off a memory card.

While SSD recording is not in my usual workflow, I have used it on my other cameras, and it can come in handy at times.

Another limitation of the GH5 is that it can’t output an HDMI signal when you’re recording in its 6K open gate mode. You’re stuck to using the viewfinder or the build-in LCD screen. Because I really need a bigger monitor to accurately judge focus, it means I can’t really use the GH5 for open gate shooting, which is pretty disappointing since it’s a pretty killer feature to have.

Focus ring control with native lenses. This is probably such a minor thing for most people, but the focus-by-wire manual control on the GH5 drives me nuts.

When I shoot b-roll, I often shoot handheld telephoto closeups and focus manually. I’ve used cine and vintage lenses, which are easier to focus manually, but the problem I run into is shaky footage after hand holding the camera for more than a few minutes.

I’m just not steady enough for telephoto closeups without good image stabilization or a gimbal, and shooting with non-stabilized lenses usually gave me lots of shaky footage. So now I prefer to shoot with image stabilized lenses and take advantage of Panasonic’s wonderful dual stabilization that combines both the lens and body stabilization to get some super smooth results.

But this means manually focusing these focus-by-wire lenses.

On newer Lumix cameras, you can set the focus ring to act in a linear; or non-linear manner that accounts for rotation speed. I like linear because this allows me to easily fine tune the focus on b-roll closeups.

With the older GH5 there is no such option and I find myself constantly missing focus on shots. I’ll turn the focus ring just a little, and get no response. So I’ll turn it a bit more, and suddenly the focus goes way off from where I wanted it.

The GH7 should be much better in this regard and allow me to really finesse the focus.

So that’s it. Those are the 8 reasons that make the GH7 a worthwhile upgrade from the GH5 for my work; and some of the reasons I’m keeping micro four thirds in my toolkit.

After I use the GH7 on some projects, I’ll post a follow up on how things work out. Did these upgrades live up to my expectations?