Earlier this year I replaced my Panasonic G1 with the G7. The main motivation for this was the expectation that the newer camera would have lower sensor noise at high sensitivities. The highest setting is 25,600 compared with 3,200 on the G1. I’ve found that the noise is not really noticeable up to 1600 and above that images are still usable with noise reduction. This caused me to look at various noise reduction tools. The tools in Lightroom are not very effective but I’ve experimented with two others: dFine 2 in the Nik Collection (still a free download from Google) and deNoise 5 in the Topaz suite. Both do quite a good job; deNoise seems a bit better as it has a wealth of individual adjustments which can be tweaked to get a balance between removing the noise and losing resolution. Using this it is possible to produce a passable A3 print from a 12,800 image and a 1400×1050 projected image (or a small print) at 25,600. Considering that it wasn’t very long ago I was using ISO 100 slide film, this is quite impressive.
The G7 has a number of other improvements. The electronic viewfinder is noticeably better than the G1; I like having 2 control wheels, one at the front for the index finger and one at the back for the thumb. Almost every button and dial can be reassigned so they can be set up to suit the user.