Panasonic G7 Performance

Generally very good performance for a mirrorless ILC.

Startup time was a little faster-than-average for a mirrorless camera, and switching from Play to Record and taking a shot was reasonably quick.

The Panasonic G7's autofocus speed was very good our tests, especially for a camera that uses contrast detection only. The G7 produced full-autofocus shutter lag (with the subject at a fixed distance) of 0.18 second using 1-area (center) AF. That's quite good for a mirrorless camera and competitive with most prosumer DSLRs. Enabling the flash increased lag to 0.40 second, to account for preflash metering. When manually focused, the G7's lag time dropped to 0.073 second, also very good. The G7's prefocused shutter lag time of 0.059 second was also quite fast.

To minimize the effect of different lens' focusing speed, we test AF-active shutter lag with the lens already set to the correct focal distance.

Single-shot cycle times were so fast that they were difficult to accurately measure as they depend on the tester's dexterity and ability to maintain an optimum rhythm, so your results may vary. (Note that we no longer test single-shot mode with just RAW files, as the results are usually somewhere in between JPEG and RAW+JPEG.)

Continuous High Speed "H" mode burst rate was good for its class at 8.1 frames per second for best quality JPEGs, slightly exceeding Panasonic's 8 fps spec. When shooting RAW or RAW+JPEG files, the frame rate dropped to 6.6 fps, which is still pretty good. Note that these burst rates are with single-shot AF mode (AFS). Panasonic claims up to 6 fps with continuous autofocus (AFC).

The G7 also has an all-electronic shutter mode which boosts the full-resolution frame rate to 10 fps, however we did not test that mode in the lab. We did however test Super High Speed mode which also uses the all-electronic shutter, and it met Panasonic's spec, capturing 4-megapixel JPEGs at precisely 40 frames per second for up to 60 frames.

Full-resolution buffer depth was very generous for Large/Fine JPEGs at about 240 frames, but when shooting RAW files buffer size dropped to 16 frames, or 9 frames when shooting RAW+JPEG files.

Buffer clearing was reasonably quick with a fast 95MB/s UHS-I card, ranging from 5 seconds after a long burst of JPEGs to 13 seconds after a 9-frame burst of RAW+JPEG files. According to Panasonic the G7 is UHS-II compatible, but we found buffer depths dropped and clearing times increased with our 280MB/s UHS-II SDHC card, suggesting that the G7's UHS-II interface may not be optimized for stills capture. For example when shooting best quality JPEGs in Continuous H mode, buffer depth fell to about 88 frames, and buffer clearing increased to about 10 seconds, resulting in significantly lower performance than with our UHS-I card. Note that Panasonic's documentation states that a U3 card is required for 4K video recording, but not necessarily a UHS-II card.

Flash recycling after full-power discharge took an average of 2.4 seconds, which is pretty fast for a built-in flash.

Bottom line, the Panasonic G7's performance is very good for its class. Startup and mode switching are reasonably fast, while autofocus speed and shutter lag are very good. Burst performance is good to excellent depending on the mode. Buffer depths are excellent when shooting JPEGs, but limited with RAW files.

Average battery life for a mirrorless interchangeable lens camera.

The Panasonic G7 uses a custom rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack for power, and comes with both a single battery and dedicated battery charger. The CIPA-rated 360 shots per charge when using the LCD monitor or EVF is about average for a mirrorless ILC, but much lower than a typical DSLR when using an optical viewfinder. We strongly recommend getting a second battery for your G7 if you plan any extended outings.

The table above shows the number of shots the camera is capable of (on a fully-charged rechargeable battery), based on CIPA battery-life and/or manufacturer standard test conditions.

(Interested readers can find an English translation of the CIPA DC-002 standards document here. (180K PDF document))