Now that phones are the go-to shooters for most people, compact cameras are following the phone’s lead. They’ve adopted touchscreen controls, added built-in Wi-Fi, and they offer Instragram-style filters in their software.
This year’s cameras are tackling another phone trend: They want to help you take better selfies.
The latest selfie-friendly camera is the Panasonic Lumix GF7, a 16-megapixel Micro Four-Thirds model with an adjustable 3-inch touchscreen. Like the Samsung NX Mini, Sony a5100, Olympus PEN E-PL7, and the Fujfilm X-A2 before it, this new compact interchangeable-lens shooter’s screen flips 180 degrees to let you check yourself out while you shoot. The first cameras with twisting screens shipped about a decade ago, but now that selfies have become a phenomenon, the front-flippable display has once again become a high priority on these compacts.
The GF7 eases selfie-snapping even further with some clever AI. It automatically enters selfie mode when you flip the screen up all the way. There’s Face Shutter, which fires a picture when you wave your hand. And there’s Buddy Shutter, which automatically captures a shot when you stand next to Pauly Shore and a pal squeeze together in front of the camera.
Along with built-in Wi-Fi and NFC, there’s another trick when you pair the camera with a smartphone. Using your phone’s accelerometer, “Jump Snap” calculates when you reach the apex of a jump and snaps a shot at that moment. In other words, it has a Nerf basketball selfie mode.
But how many selfies can you take per second with this camera? The answer is nearly six per second with autofocus enabled. You can also take 40 photographs of yourself per second without AF at a lower resolution. Can you take good selfies in the dark, where your phone sucks at taking selfies? Probably, because the ISO ramps up to 25600.
Spec-wise, the GF7 looks plenty capable if you’re more interested in otheries or landscapies instead of selfies. There are manual exposure controls and aperture-/shutter-priority modes, as well as exposure-bracketing options and RAW shooting mode.
As with most Panasonic cameras, video should be a strong suit. The GF7 records 1080p/60fps video in MP4 or AVCHD Progressive format, as well as 1080p/24fps video in AVCHD. You can also use the touchscreen to transition between focus points while you’re recording video.
For the feature set, the Lumix GF7 is nicely priced. It’ll go for $600 as a kit with a 12-32mm/F3.5-5.6 lens (24mm to 64mm in 35mm equivalent). Will it be available in pink? Yes dude. Also, black.
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