Panasonic GX8 Issues (1 Viewer)

Within the last few weeks, I've upgraded my m4/3's body from the Panasonic G3 to the GX8. In many ways, it is a vast improvement...BUT...

I am finding that even in good, bright sunshine, I need to shoot at ISO320+ just to achieve minimum shutter speed with the 100-300mm lens. Overall, on average, I'm having to use double (and sometimes treble!) the ISO setting I would have done with the G3. I can only conclude that either a) there's a setting somewhere that is reducing the light reaching the sensor or b) the new 20MP sensor needs a heck of a lot of light to perform! Has anyone else noticed this please?

Also, noise levels seem surprisingly bad and bright white objects often "glow" (i.e. there's white noise all around them, even though they are exposed correctly). I can't work out if this is the limitation of the 100-300mm lens or the new GX8 sensor??!

So far, I'm not particularly impressed at all with the image quality but I'm hoping it's operator inexperience rather than the camera itself!

Would love to hear from other GX8 users...
Many thanks
Hobbes

I am not a GX8 user, but I am wondering if you are using out of camera jpgs or if you shoot raw and use for example ACDSee Pro or Lightroom to process. The glow around bright objects could be a problem with how the processing is done to produce the jpg, and it could possibly have something to do with which way you reach the product?

If you are using out of camera jpg, you might want to play around with the settings on vivid versus normal and film modes etc that can be found in the menu somewhere.

In older pana cameras (such as those I have), those kind of artifacts often occur along the edges of black objects on ooc jpgs.

Niels

Thanks for your helpful reply, Niels. Yes, I'm looking at SOOC jpgs. I've played around with the noise reduction and sharpness settings in the "Standard" option of Photo Style. I'll see whether selecting "Vivid", "Natural" etc will make a difference - thanks for the suggestion. I'm not keen to start shooting and processing RAW files, mainly due to the space and time they require, unfortunately.

So far, I haven't produced a single photo that equals or betters those obtained using the G3 and that's disappointing.

I have been using ACDSee Pro with RAW images from my GH2 for many years. Yes, they take up extra space on the HD, but an external HD with 2-3 TB of space is small and cheap these days. I usually shoot jpg + raw on this older camera because I just prefer to do so, but the final product from the RAW is better in 99% of the cases.

I think that theoretically, the additional pixels on the GX8 would mean that possible flaws in the lens might be easier to see. If that is the case, then the new 100-400 should do better. Another option is that the camera you have now have a shutter that makes shutter shock more likely to happen or make it happen at different shutter speeds compared to your old camera, so testing with different shutter speeds might be worth doing.

I would be curious to see if other people agree with these speculations.

Niels

Hobbes2 said:

So far, I haven't produced a single photo that equals or betters those obtained using the G3 and that's disappointing.

Click to expand...

That suggests something is very wrong. You should have less noise in the GX8 photos and be able to shoot at higher ISO while maintaining good image quality. (Don't have the GX8, but used to shoot with the G3). Perhaps posting some photos would help people troubleshoot. It is possible you have a defective camera, but wouldn't want to assume that at this point.

Thanks Niels and Jim for your replies. If I get the chance, I'll take some proper comparison shots using the G3 and GX8 and then upload them.

Niels, that's a good point about the greater pixel density in the GX8 sensor possibly showing lens flaws. Shutter shock is also a consideration (and really annoying, lol!).

Ok, will report back in the next week or so :t:

Take a look at this: http://www.43rumors.com/reports-about-gx8-and-gx7-mechanical-shutter-issues/

njlarsen said:

Take a look at this: http://www.43rumors.com/reports-about-gx8-and-gx7-mechanical-shutter-issues/

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A very interesting issue Niels. Thank you for the link. I seem to be really busy this week but when I get the chance, I'll do some test shots to make sure the mechanical shutter isn't faulty.

On a different thread, there was a mention of using the electronic shutter because the regular shutter caused a lot of problems. That was for an Oly camera (I believe) but the proposal probably still is a good one for troubleshooting what is going on.

Niels

njlarsen said:

On a different thread, there was a mention of using the electronic shutter because the regular shutter caused a lot of problems. That was for an Oly camera (I believe) but the proposal probably still is a good one for troubleshooting what is going on.

Niels

Click to expand...

Thanks Niels. I spoke to the company I bought the camera from and they're taking it in for assessment. It may not be faulty but I thought it was worth them taking a look. I'll report back when I get their opinion.

There are a lot of positive points to the GX8, though, and, as I said in my opening post, it is a huge improvement on the G3 in terms of consistent frame rate in burst mode (at all ISO settings), responsiveness, video capabilities and so on.

Thanks
Hobbes