Panasonic Lumix GH3 Digital Camera Review

Speed and Timing

The Panasonic GH3 offers a pretty standard array of speed and timing options, with high and low speed continuous shooting, a low-res/high-speed shooting mode, and an array of self-timers when you need them. The GH3 isn't the fastest camera at its price point, but it has enough options to get the job done most of the time.

The GH3 features a dedicated drive mode dial on the top plate of the camera with four settings: single shooting, continuous, bracket, and self-timer. The single shooting and bracket modes are rather self-explanatory, but the other two offer a variety of options.

The continuous shooting modes offer you the option to fire off shots as long as you're holding the shutter button. You can select high or low-speed continuous shooting, as well as whether you want to shoot at the maximum speed or at a slower rate with live view activated. You can also choose a reduced resolution burst, but this limits you to shooting at the smallest JPEG setting only.

We found that the GH3 lived up to its claims of 6 frames per second shooting, occasionally getting as fast as 6.3fps. It did this in both JPEG and RAW with rather snappy focus and response time as well. Panasonic claims that JPEG shooting is unlimited, but we found RAW, RAW+JPEG, and JPEG alone all ran out of buffer space after about 20 shots, causing the shooting speed to drop to just over one shot per second.

If you need the camera to delay a bit before firing you can use the self-timer options, with just basic options for a two- or ten-second delay. You can also specify a ten-second delay with a three-picture burst, but there's no option to customize the self-timer in any way. The closest thing is the camera's built-in intervalometer, which lets you capture a timelapse by shooting at set intervals for up to 9999 shots. The intervals can be as long as 99 minutes and 99 seconds, allowing for some very long captures.