Panasonic Lumix GX7 – Part V

Micro Four-Thirds

Wi-fi.

Part IV is here.

There are excellent descriptions of how to enable Wi-fi in the GX7 at CameraLabs.

I’ll add some personal experiences below.

Wi-fi:

Wi-fi on the GX7 means that you can send images to your portable device of choice – cell phone or tablet, iOS or Android – after first having downloaded the Panasonic Image App from the AppStore (iOS) or GameStore (Android). The app is free. Further, once the GX7 is connected to the device, you can control just about anything on the camera – focus (using the touch screen on the cell phone or tablet), framing rate, movie mode, you name it. However, you cannot send or receive emails while the camera and device are connected as they share a wi-fi circuit unique to the two devices. So if you download images from the camera to your device, you must then switch to your regular wi-fi or cellular connection before these can be sent out.

Here’s the order of events to get wi-fi working:

  • Turn on the GX7
  • Hold the wi-fi button on the rear until the blue diode lights up
  • Go to Settings->wi-fi on your device, find and activate the GX7 wi-fi connection – it’s named ‘GX7-204E2A’. The first time you do this you will have to input the password shown on the LCD display of the GX7. Thereafter you can simply save this password to your device.
  • Open the Panasonic Image App on your device – your device will take 10-20 seconds to connect to the GX7. Sometimes this fails so turn the GX7 off and on and the app on the device off and on. Re-pair the wi-fi and try again after doing this. It usually works by the second attempt, worst case.
  • The Panasonic Image App will now display on your tablet or cell phone exactly what the lens on the GX7 is seeing. Magic! You can now control the GX7 fron your device.
  • Take a picture by touching the camera icon on your device. Enlarge any image to full screen by touching it.
  • You can now download the picture to your device by touching Playback on the device app, whereupon all the images on the GX7 will be displayed on the device in thumbnail format. Touch any thumbnail for a full screen view.
  • The Panasonic Image App does NOT recognize Panasonic RAW images. You will see a preview with a symbol but you cannot email the image. Thus you must set the GX7 either to JPG or RAW + JPG. In both cases, the JPG file will be both visible on the device and can be emailed out once you revert to your normal wi-fi or cellular connection.


The GX7’s wi-fi connection seen on the iPhone.


The GX7 under remote control by the iPhone, seen on the iPhone.
You can move the focus rectangle using touch-and-drag.
Touch the camera icon (circled) to take the picture.


Image downloaded to the iPhone. The logo indicates
this is a RAW image which cannot be emailed.

I have successfully tried the above with two iOS devices (iPhone5 and iPad Air) and one Android one (Nexus7 tablet).

While steup is a bit clunky, operation is simple and effective. It’s a nice feature to have if you want to email images on the run or control the GX7 remotely.

One roll

Photographs

36 snaps.

That was the discipline in the days of film. You only had 36 snaps on a roll, changing film was a pain, so you tended to try to make every one count.

So it was a fun exercise to limit myself to just 36 exposures on the Panny GX7, whose 32GB card assures me it can store 1850 RAW images …. The GX7 is the spiritual successor to the Leica M2, the Panny 14-45mm zoom updating the Leica’s 35mm Summicron, the single greatest street lens of that now distant era.

All were snapped in SF’s Mission District (hey! why not cheat a bit?) and I ended up with 28 keepers after the cull:

Hare’s a Baker’s Dozen of my favorites.

Stopped in traffic, this traffic warden was relaxed with an elegant grace:

Michael lives!

Who could resist the charm of such a setting?

The Mission District is rapidly gentrifying, driving the poor away:

A friend writes: “Did you know that all this “street art”, and the large scale bright color painting of buildings in otherwise dingy condition, is being actively employed by the government of Albania. The collapse of communism left them with the typical depressing communist landscape and the government wanted to do something to lift the people out of their malaise and give them hope for a better tomorrow. Bright bold color = brighter future….. and it seems to be working.”

Marxist protest art:

The corner store:

The Napper Tandy – lunch was a roast beef sandwich and a pint of Boddington’s Ale:

Painted Victorians on Capp Street:

Gentle humor from Wise Sons, who are still awaiting the Resurrection:

Graffiti timetable on 23rd Street at Harrison:

Mexicano AA at 21st Street and Capp:

At my old school, any boy with glasses – like me – instantly became ‘Four eyes’. Five eyes here would have given those bullies pause. This mural was hidden behind a plywood merchant’s on Harrison at 21st Street and the man there kindly let me in the back to snap it:

At the coffee shop at Harrison and 24th, these grizzled older guys were reliving their world travels. I used the GX7’s tilting LCD to compose this – a first for me:

Sheer charm

Photography

A continuing delight.

I have had cause to highlight the Swiss watch maker’s advertising here before and their latest continues one of the classic photography campaigns.

I only hope that when my boy comes of age he will appreciate this mechanical throwback with its so-so accuracy and questionable reliability, for heritage is not something which comes in a digital form, confusing as it does precision with accuracy, competence with class.