Seven Days with the Panasonic GX7
They say that the best camera is the one you have with you. That may be true, but as somebody who keeps their Canon 5D Mkii at home most days, that leaves just the 1.3 megapixel camera on the back of my dirt cheap Nokia to do the donkey work of each and every day I’m out and about.
I’ve been looking for a solution to this problem for quite some time. I’ve loved my Canon more than I thought it possible to love any piece of electronics — especially since I got hold of an old 70–200mm f2.8 — but in my little Polish city it makes street photography a distinctly unappetising prospect. And on a cold day when I know that carrying my two-year old is going to make my shoulders ache, the thought of lugging around another few kilograms is enough to convince me to postpone taking photos until next time.
I tried an Olympus compact, the XZ-2, with limited success. It had a lot of the manual functionality — a focus wheel on the lens, for instance, and the option to shoot in RAW — that I desired, but the image quality just wasn’t there. It’s now my wife’s camera, and her own Canon DSLR sits gathering dust on top of a book case.
I thought about getting something mirrorless, since they’re currently all the rage. I had my reservations, though. I’d been enamoured enough of the first digital PEN that Olympus made to give it some serious consideration, but since money is tight — I’m an English teacher, and that’s not a lucrative field to be in — I needed something that really performed for me, not just something that looked cool in its leather case.
And then I saw the Panasonic GX7.
The whole retro thing that the mirrorless crowd are getting into is really something: the Fuji X-100 and the Olympus OM-D series look incredible. The GX7 that I ended up going for does not, arguably, look as grand, but it’s still a lot more appealing, and importantly a lot less hefty, than any other serious camera I’ve had the joy of owning.
[On a technical side note, in case you were wondering, I opted for the Panasonic over its rivals because: 1. the price was right; 2. the video capabilities of the GX7 are very interesting; and 3. I found a package that had the camera and a 20mm f1.7 lens instead of a kit lens; I love this prime, and it’s probably one of the big reasons why I love the camera as a whole.]
I bought the camera a week ago, on March 23rd. As I was leaving the shop, I made myself a promise. This camera was going to change things for me as an amateur photographer. It would never leave my side. It would go everywhere with me, and I would take photos with it every single day.
This is the story of my first week with the Panasonic GX7. I might not have managed to produce anything particularly memorable with it, but I had fun snapping away (this is a benefit specific to being a complete amateur, with no need to concern myself with professionalism and/or money-making), and I stuck with my promise.
Monday, March 23rd
I bought the camera in the morning, after one last perusal of the reviews online at the local cafe. This story is not about the camera’s technical accomplishments — for that I recommend looking elsewhere — and nor is it going to show what the pictures look like straight out of camera — I’m too in love with the film emulation filters of Really Nice Images.
No, this story is about the joy a good camera can bring, if only to the one wielding it.
It was a struggle to get through my first lesson at school, a one-to-one with a charming young girl whose enthusiasm for learning English has sadly never included much desire to work on her grammar. Once that was done and I had bid her farewell until tomorrow, I had an hour to get out of the building and to explore the camera’s capabilities.
I left the school with all the giddy excitement of a twelve year old heading out on a new bicycle. I headed towards the old town centre, hoping that this would give me the best chance of a good shot before it was time to clip the lens cap back on and return to work. I took a couple of dozen pictures, getting used to the way the screen worked and the mildly disorienting feel of an electronic viewfinder. The picture I liked best, shown above, I probably couldn’t have shot with the Canon: its bulk would have distracted my subjects, alarmed them or spooked them, and they would have walked away. Instead the quick focus and quiet shooting of the GX7 helped get the shot.
Tuesday, March 24th
It wasn’t until the next day when, playing around with the various menu options, I stumbled across the Electronic Shutter function. This magical facility, quite impossible in a regular DSLR, basically removes the need for any moving parts for taking a photo, and reduces the sound emitted by the camera to much less than a whisper.
The feature is not without its flaws. Moving subjects look all kinds of awful thanks to the rolling shutter effect, and under artificial lighting you run the risk of your shot being ruined by a weird kind of strobe effect, but sometimes this feature can give you a shot you wouldn’t otherwise get.
The photo above is a prime example. Though the morning bus is a noisy enough place, there is something so alien in that sonic landscape about a shutter closing that it is enough to stir one from one’s deepest reverie. With the electronic shutter turned on, you’d have to be extraordinarily sensitive to know that a photo was being taken at all.
Wednesday, March 25th
I didn’t have long for taking photos today, just first thing in the morning whilst waiting for the bus, and then on the way back to school after two of my students decided to take me out for lunch. It’s great to have such a pocketable camera, though; I’d not have bothered to carry the Canon around knowing that the opportunities for snapping would have been so limited.
As it was, I was still able to get some usable shots, including this one of a woman cleaning her apartment window. Whilst it might not be a classic, there’s enough about it that is interesting that I’m glad I was able to get it. I could very well have walked down that street, seen that women, and regretted not having a camera with me. That’s not going to be an issue in my life any more, I’ve decided.
Thursday, March 26th
Another day of limited possibilities, but then that’s very much the nature of my life. Vivian Meier didn’t have it easy, either, with her full-time job, though in her favour New York is a vastly more interesting city than Bielsko-Biala. But I don’t live in New York, and likely never will; nor do I live in Paris, or London, or Berlin. I am where I am and must make the best of it.
What I can do is to listen to the advice of people like Eric Kim, who suggests, for one thing, that you ‘work the space.’ That’s what I did this particular morning. The shopping centre close to where I live is a marvellously brutal complex, ugly on the outside and downright depressing within, but it does offer some great lines and angles, and it’s a chiaroscuro painters dream.
So I waited here in the stairwell, though my time was limited — I still had to get to school and plan my day’s lessons. Fortunately a suitable subject soon arrived, this old woman who looked the archetype of the kind of shopper who visits this crumbling relic.
Friday, March 27th
I took the camera with me on our trip to Katowice for a doctor’s visit for my oldest daughter. I felt uncomfortable taking any more than a handful of pictures at the hospital — and those I did take were of Susie playing with her Hello Kitty umbrella. Polish hospitals are not pleasant, inhabited by a deep, lingering sadness that seems to be magnified by the flickering lights and the dull paintwork.
In the afternoon I managed to take a few photos of the area around our apartment. The Ilford Delta filter takes something dismal and takes it to a whole new level.
Saturday, March 28th
The funny thing about being a parent to two young children is that you have much more free time when you’re working than when you’re not. I’m in the especially fortunate position of having a three-day weekend, but those three days are so family-oriented that I take fewer photos than at any other time of the week. Apart from kiddie snaps, of course, and the GX7 does an admirable job here, in the low light conditions of the local play centre.
Sunday, March 29th
The city of Bielsko-Biala has undergone a set of changes that is typical of many cities in Eastern Europe. The big money name brands have come in, forcing out the smaller establishments whose wares harken back to an age whose time has certainly passed. These big names have brought with them the American mall, and now Bielsko is littered with these edifices to such an extent that the old high street has completely withered away. What was once a humming shopping arcade has been reduced to cheap alcohol outlets, credit firms, pawn brokers, and the kind of quickly set-up, quickly closed second-hand clothes shops that you see everywhere now; one leather goods shop, for instance, still has ‘Saladin’ splashed across the window, even though that belonged to a Turkish restaurant that closed six months ago.
Everyone has moved indoors, and this has had a knock-on effect for street photography. The mall is a private place, and so you may only take photos here with prior approval. Even the land outside the mall is privately owned; I know this from a number of run-ins with mall security on what I had thought was common land.
This is a real shame. Street photography is, and always has been, the recording of daily life in whichever place and time it is found, and the erosion of public spaces has meant that our history has become eroded too. It might not seem like my photography is meant for posterity, but that’s not the point. You simply never know when something might prove interesting, or even useful. When we look back at our times and wonder how people dressed or how they spent their free time, we will want photographs.
At least with the GX7 I now have a camera unassuming enough to go relatively unnoticed as I make my way around the city’s various shopping centres, hoping to capture interesting moments.
Conclusion
I’ve enjoyed my photography more in the last week than at any other time that I can remember in the last year. The only time I’ve had more fun since coming to Bielsko-Biala seven years ago was when I blagged a press pass for the local sports team and ended up being seen by my friends on cable TV because I hadn’t brought a stool to the match like all the other photographers.
I’ll keep taking my GX7 with me everywhere I go. Some days I’m sure I’ll return home empty handed, disappointed with myself, possibly cursing my misfortune at having to live in Silesia. I’ll be dreaming of moving to Madrid, or to Osaka, or any of another million cities that seem, at a distance, so alluring; and then I’ll notice that the two people in front of me are wearing the same hat and I’ll pull out my camera, take a quick shot, and get home later thinking that the day hadn’t been a total bust after all.
It is true that the best camera is the one you have with you, but that’s an over-simplification. The best camera is the one you choose to have with you; a small difference, certainly, but an important one.
