Gearing up for fall with the Lumix G7

I participated in an Ambassador Program on behalf of Influence Central for Panasonic. I received product samples as well as a promotional item to thank me for my participation.
Like all good things, summer must come to an end sometime. While it’s only officially fall as of today, it’s easy to get in the mindset that summer is over as soon as school starts. I get it, trust me. As much as I love fall, I really don’t look forward to the back to school season. At all.

So, how was the first two weeks of school? It actually hasn’t been so bad because we still say it’s summer until the weather gets cold and the days get short. Even after school is back in session, we make a point to keep up with our summer activities as much as possible so we can enjoy the beautiful fall weather.

This means after school playdates with my daughter’s twinsie friend It means lazy afternoons hanging out on the playground with the younger kids while we wait for school to dismiss It’s county fairs where we watched my aunt’s dog rock it in the Dock Dogs competition And beach days with the family that end only when the sun goes down
To our daily bike rides celebrating the fact that we are a training-wheel-free family Thank goodness I had an awesome compact camera on hand for all of our end of summer adventures to help capture all these moments. With the Lumix G7 I don’t have to be weighed down with equipment but I can still get awesome frame-worthy pictures no matter where we are. The entire camera weighs less than some of my larger lenses for my other SLR camera, and the lenses that it uses are so impossibly tiny that I can carry a whole camera system in a small bag.  This tiny camera has interchangeable lenses like a traditional DSLR, but the Lumix G7 mirrorless DSLR just has a much smaller and lighter package that makes it super portable. See the camera there next to an SD card? I told you it was tiny. This smaller size means it easily fits in my backpack or even my purse to make it easy to capture memories from all of our adventures. Never again do I have to go without my camera and be sad about all those perfect shots I’m missing. Instead, I can pack the Lumix G7 and capture all those important milestones without feeling like a paparazzi. This is why it made my short list of back to school must-haves for moms: Here are just some of the features that make the Lumix the perfect camera to capture all of our back to school activities and events.

The touch-enabled monitor to make it so user-friendly that I can literally hand the camera to anyone and they can take gorgeous shots. Having the touch screen means that you can change most everything simply by touching the screen back and choosing settings from there instead of navigating menus and missing the action. In addition to camera settings, I love that you can also select those 4K pictures for saving right on the back of the camera instead of having to connect it to a computer to extract all those amazing images you captured. While I love the touch screen for just about everything, my favorite use is selecting the focus right on the touch screen so you can choose whatever you want crystal clear and let the camera do the rest. It’s just that easy.
The 4K Ultra HD Video mode. Speaking of never missing the action, I don’t think I can rave enough about the 4K video mode on the Lumix G7. I’ve had numerous people ask me about that feature when I run into them, and I always have to show it off because it’s just so mind-blowing what you can do with the 4K setting. If you ever photograph anything that moves, you know how frustrating it is to have the perfect shot but not be able to get a good picture. That’s where the 4K setting really shines. Simply shoot an up to 30 frames-per-second video and then you can extract individual stills as an 8MP still image. Now no matter how fast your subject is, or what kind of action you find on your journey, you can capture it easily and never miss a moment. With three 4K modes {4K Pre-Burst, 4K Start/Stop, and 4K}, it takes all the guesswork and stress out of getting that perfect shot, and allows you to still enjoy the moment.

The iAuto setting that automatically adjusts and selects the correct scene setting so you can get the best picture on the fly. I’ve never tried an Auto setting I liked, even on my super expensive cameras I’ve owned or rented, but I truly love the iAuto setting on the Lumix G7. While I still love playing with the settings and manually selecting everything I can when I have a situation I can control such as professional shoots or still life shots, when we’re talking kids, fast is definitely preferred. I love that when someone suggests baby slide down the slide the first time, I can simply flip on the camera, set it to iAuto and shoot away and I almost always end up with gorgeous shots. Isn’t she adorable pretending to be a big girl?Built-in Wi-Fi to share all your beautiful photos on the fly. If you see other moms snapping pictures at the school, you can bet 99% of them are shooting on their cell phones so they can upload them to social media. I simply hate camera phones, so I’m the crazy one with the real camera that I then have to download and share, which honestly means I never get around to sharing. But, now I have an awesome solution: I can simply take the Lumix G7 and share right to my cell phone or tablet on the fly via the Lumix app. This means I can share that picture with all the moms on Facebook and Instagram before I have twenty instant messages bugging me about it.

I could really go on for another few pages about why I love the Lumix G7, but instead I’m going to urge you to find one of these awesome little cameras in retail near you and try it for yourself. Until you see everything it can do and how compact it is without sacrificing all the new technology that makes for great pictures, you just can’t possibly get it.

Want to know more? Click though the link to find out more about the Panasonic Lumix G7, and be sure to follow Panasonic on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram so you can see all the amazing things this little camera can do.