Awhile back I wrote about the new Panasonic GH3 and how it performed in Kenya, Africa. I was quite pleased overall but I knew there was one other test that had to be conducted to really see if this camera was up to the standards as my beloved Nikons. Those of you who follow this Blog may recall my Predictive AF test with the Nikon D4, D800 and D600 a few months back. Like those tests, for the GH3, I chose to borrow a good friend and his dog to put the Lumix GH3 through a series of predictive AF tests that are guaranteed to tell the real story when it comes to shooting action subjects. You can read my original Nikon post for more details, but in short, I have a dog sit out front of the camera at 50 yards, her master throws the ball over my head, and the dog charges full speed towards the camera. I’ve not found any better subject than a fast dog coming straight at the camera. The GH3 was set to its fastest – 6FPS with the AF in Predictive Mode, single AF sensor, right in the middle of the EVF frame.
The Bozeman Hawks host a regional track and field meet in Bozeman, Montana. Click on the image to see a series of track and field images captured with the GH3 in predictive AF.
I’ve uploaded every image I shot so you can see how difficult it is for the photographer to keep the GH3 on the target. Any image where there is no dog in the frame is a situation where the dog bolted out of view, either left or right, and due to not being able to see that movement, the frame is missing the subject. As you’ll see, this happened several times. It also happened with the track athletes but not nearly as often since they were so much slower than the dogs.
Here is the link to the GH3 test on Track Athletes.
Here is the link to the Gh3 test on running dogs.
Tired pooch takes a break.