Panasonic Lumix G7 Autofocus Test - BEST Independent AF Mode for Video 

I’m a Panasonic fan as well. This week I am getting the G9, the 2.2frmw has made that camera unbeatable, and the AF works top. I’m going to make videos on it, stoked!

Would you trade the g7 for Sony 6100? Somebody wants me to give them my g7 and $150 for their new Sony a6100. I don’t want to mess up

Glad it was helpful!

Hi, go for center-weighted. Thanks for watching!

Hi, to turn off the AF you simply slide from AF to MF that you find on your lens, there's a switch. To capture a large area in focus you will have to play with the aperture. Now since you play drums, it is very important to have a nice motion blur, so your shutter speed should be double your frame rate. If you record in 4k 24p keep the shutter at 1/50. If you shoot in 4k 30p, your shutter should be 1/60. Keep in mind that increasing the aperture say for example f5.6 to have a large area in focus, will decrease lightning because the lens will shrink down, so if you don't have good lightning, I suggest investing in some lightning and you will have great footage! Hope it helps, if you have other questions please let me know, thanks for the sub and cheers!

So adorable

For landscape keep in mind to increase the aperture, maybe something between f/4.6 - f/5.7. For the AF mode choose the One Area because it responds faster. Cheers!

In this case you want everything in focus. Autofocus isn't a strong point of the Lumix G7. What I'd recommend to you, is to use manual focus for the scene, with an aperture of around f8-f10(you need to experiment and see which works best), and to add some slow motion shoot in 1080p 60fps + keep the shutter speed 1/120th. P.s., in my opinion an action camera would be better for sports and they can shoot up to 4k 60p. Hope it helps. Cheers!

@@HenriUnzip i just did manual focus on a spot i was planning on skating within. when following people later with a fisheye, ill probably close the aperture more and its easier to keep things in focus with a 6.5mm lens anyways

Thanks for letting me know. Yes, you're doing it right, you will get beautiful footage that way.

@@PhaseSkater what 6.5mm lens do you have for the G7 that gives you autofocus? I can't find a lens that wide.

@@HoneyTwee its just a 6.5mm opteka. no autofocus on fisheye

If you want to vlog, it's difficult beat Canon's auto focus. The G7 is better suited for shots that you can set up in my opinion. The auto focus is pretty good in 1080p, but in 4k it struggles. As someone with the G7, I find myself using manual focus a lot more than the auto focus settings. For easier finding of the focus so I don't have to manually adjust it, I switch to auto focus mode, tap the screen where I want the focus to be, lightly hold the shutter to start the focus, and once I have the subject, I switch to manual focus.

@@enochkeoki5158 Thank you for this explanation. From your point of view should i go with G7 now because it's cheapest from M50 Or i should buy latest cameras like Fujifilm XT100 with better specifications comparatively!!

Hi, the focus hunting in the background is something you cannot fix. It has to do with Panasonic's autofocus system which relies on contrast-based method. The manual way is the classic solution and it works great. If you are the subject and you stay still in one place, then you can practice the manual focusing. You can tell if you're in focus when the display highlights portions of the shot with a selected color from the menu. If the display of the camera is too small to tell if you are in focus, then I'd recommend you to buy an external monitor and they help a lot, I myself use one with my G9, love it. Also, something else te consider, in order to have some headroom to stay clean and sharp on the video while tilting your head around, is the aperture. Depending on the lens, you get a different aperture. I have a Leica f1.7 and it gives me great results at 2.5 or 2.8. Hope this helps

@@HenriUnzip Thanks

Hi Chandrika, if you're going to stream online, I recommend you buying a Logitech C920 that goes straight to your laptop or PC with a USB. You can also use this, but the setup is more complicated and you have to deal with the focus, while the C920 is also portative and goes with you everywhere. Here is the link for Logitech: amzn.to/37VCCy8

@@HenriUnzip tx😊

The G7 back then used to be compared to the a6300. So, no way!

Rolling shutter is so bad on sony....

I would say no for two reasons. First this camera doesn't have stabilization and your memories will be shaky. Secondly the AF is weak, which will result in blurry shots, unless you do manual. I'd strongly recommend you to go for the Lumix G85 which has stabilization and better AF (amazing camera, still on a budget). Hope it helps

Henri Unzip Thank you so much ❤️

I have this. Lousy camera in many ways. Shaky as hell, because no IBIS. Very paltry quality of footage. Sorta like a Redmi Note 5's 4K video. Has greenish color tinging in the video. All the hype videos on YT will be artsy shots, check it out and see. Not the kind of shots you want in the real world. Like grass with the golden sun, a silhouette of people walking against the sun set. Thats all bullshit. When someone tells you to shoot an interview or what they want this camera cant perform for nuts. Its no good for shooting people and all that. More like a shaky Vlog camera which cant even keep pace in image quality with a GoPro 7 series. ALso EXTREME VIDEO NOISE even in day shots. You will see grain in shade areas in 100 ISO. Ive never seen such bad camera ever. My phones shoot better......SAVE and buy the GH5 with 5 axis IBIS. Not the GH5-S, bec that sucker is also shaky as hell with no IBIS.

mgr5550 Thank you so much, you really saved 400$ dollars from being wasted 😂👍🏻❤️❤️❤️❤️

mgr5550 do you think the Sony a6100 is better than the g7?

Hi there, for your project I would recommend two options: Since you are in control of the camera try either Tracking or 1-Area just like the example at the beginning of the video. 49-Area is good only when an object is all over the frame. Let me know how it goes

@@HenriUnzip > The begining of the video example is face tracking right ? Here the person will be far away and face features may not track. But the lens would be @150mm so the focus should be correct as the person walks towards the cam due to shallow DOF of the long lens.

Now I understand better what you're doing, bc I thought the person would be in a distance of 60 feet away and closing slowly to the frame, but with that 150mm lens seems you're keeping the person close on shot. In this case, I'd recommend you to also add the Face/Eye detection (this works best to me) besides the 1-Area and Tracking mode. Also keep in mind that Panasonic G line is infamous for not reliable autofocus.

@@HenriUnzip > Hi Henri.....No im not keeping the person close on shot. Its a full shot. Here's an example of the shot im talking about....ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-HetzwxXCO4E.html But in the example its very quick scene which means you dont really need to rack focus with him, if you pause and see the fence sticks, you can see at least 3 sticks are in focus range, so if he walks within that range he will be in focus. But if he were to keep walking toward the cam for a few more secs then some focus adjustment would be needed ? That's what i want to do.

Well, that is not done with AF. That is a product of MF. If you want to take such shots you need to practice manual focusing and aperture with the lens that you're going to use, so you can trigger the right shallow depth of field that you need.

Hi, there is a chance that AD disactivates when using your camera as a webcam. I have a Sony A7III and when I connect through HDMI to an external screen, face detection doesn't work, it grays out. It could be a similar issue with your G7 in that scenario.

@@HenriUnzip Did you find a solution for this?

Please tell me how to use G7 as webcam. I bought a Micro HDMI to HDMI cable for it and damn! my HP laptop doesn't have HDMI slot. It has advanced options like USB C (which can also transmit video/audio via USB C cable - don't know what we call it exactly), it has port to connect with a dockstation and even a VGA slot but not HDMI. What to do?

@@iamaakashindia Laptop HDMI slots are output only anyway, you will need a HDMI input box, there are lots out there. I bought an Elgato HD60S, but its not cheap. From the research I did you basically get what you pay for and this is perfect for us. I thik you need a USB 3 input in teh laptop. Our sound comes separately to the laptop from the sound desk, but believe it can input sound from the camera too.

there may be a way to link teh camera output to the laptop via USB, but i have not tried, so do not know, and from what I read it would not be as good as the HDMI capture card if it did work.

Yes, for photography has actually quite a fast AF and produces awesome results. For video I always went manual rather than auto. In a photography point of view I’d add that it suffers from the lack of stabilization, which results in blurry images if shutter is slow, unless you have stabilized lenses (still not the same as in-body stabilization), other than that it’s an amazing camera.

Why does the 4k suck? I am looking forward to buy this camera for videos on a budget.

G7, unusable 4K video? Please!!!

@@leomachine23 I think he meant the 4K one is not so good. So it might be because he is not liking it in the environment he is using it in. I have a G7 and 4K looks decent to me. I usually shoot in 1080p 24 fps though to save space and because I don't have costly PC to process 4K fast (I use my android phone for video editing).