Panasonic Lumix DC-GH5 Review - Review 2022

Panasonic's GH series has long been a favorite for videographers invested in the Micro Four Thirds arrangement. The latest iteration, the Lumix DC-GH5 ($i,999.99, trunk only), ups the video game, calculation a wealth of recording options, including a 400Mbps 4K setting. You lot also get in-trunk stabilization, the option to add XLR sound with an adapter, and a very solid build. It's a photographic camera that's prepare for utilize in a professional surround. It besides has attractive even so capture capability, but if that'south your primary purpose, you lot have better, less expensive options, similar our Editors' Choice Fujifilm 10-T2.

Design

The GH5 ($1,297.99 at Amazon) looks a lot similar the models that came before information technology. It's a compact (3.9 by 5.five by 3.iv inches, HWD) but hefty (1.half dozen pounds), mirrorless camera with a matte blackness stop. The torso is adequately slim, merely the handgrip is deep and comfortable. As a mirrorless camera it's smaller than a similar SLR like the Nikon D500 (4.v by 5.viii past three.two inches, 1.9 pounds), only not dramatically so.

In the manus, the GH5 feels like a tiptop-terminate product. The body is finished in a comfortable, textured rubber, but underneath the exterior is a magnesium alloy chassis. In that location are a ton of physical controls, including the unmarked Fn6 push on the front, hands pressed by your right band finger. Like all of the Fn buttons it can be programmed. Past default it toggles a preview part. It shows you the depth of field for the set f-end, which is a function photographers are used to, only an additional press besides adds shutter speed preview. This shows you the effects of movement mistiness when shooting with a longer shutter speed. It's non something I've seen in other cameras.

You'll detect a dedicated Drive dial at the far left of the tiptop plate. In addition to the standard single, continuous, and self-timer options, it has positions for 4K and 6K photo mode. These leverage the video functions to capture 4K (8MP) photos at upwardly to 60fps and 8K (18MP) images at up to 30fps. Focus is locked in the standard capture style, but you can too gear up the dial to shoot with Post Focus enabled—it shoots a burst of images, changing the camera'due south autofocus betoken for each shot, and is a useful tool for macro focus stacking techniques.

The hot shoe is centered behind the lens mount. In add-on to an external wink—dissimilar the GH4, the GH5 does not have a built-in flash—the shoe can as well accommodate the DMW-XLR1 audio adapter ($400), which adds dual XLR sound inputs.

The Mode dial is to the right of the shoe. It features a lock button at the center—a push of the button holds the dial in identify, or makes it so you can plough information technology to change the mode. Tension is tight to begin with, but engaging the lock ensures the way won't be changed inadvertently. The On/Off switch is nestled into the side of the dial.

Other summit controls include the shutter release, positioned atop the handgrip, with a control punch directly behind it. White Rest, ISO, EV, Fn1, and Record buttons round things out—they're grouped together backside the tiptop dial, to the correct of the Mode punch.

Play and Fn5, which toggles the view betwixt the rear LCD and EVF or enables an eye sensor to switch automatically, sit on the rear, just to the left of the eyecup. To the right y'all notice a toggle switch to change focus mode (AFS/AFF, AFC, and MF are options), with an AE Lock button at its center. There'south also a small joystick, a dedicated control to set the active focus point. It's very useful and perfectly placed; it makes setting the focus point manually a joy.

Other rear options include a command punch (at the top right), Display, Fn2 (Q.Carte), Fn3 (Focus Area), Fn4 (Delete), and Menu/Set buttons, too well as a flat command dial that spins to navigate through menus and also sports four-mode directional command. The flat dial has a great experience to it—it'south large enough that it'due south comfy to plough, and offers both resistance and detents then you know yous're turning it. Past default it adjusts sound recording levels, merely you can change its function—I prepare it to directly adjust EV compensation.

In addition to physical controls, the on-screen Q.Menu is used to change settings. It'south a useful tool—you lot'll only need to dive into the more than extensive card system in social club to adjust fairly esoteric options. For things you desire to modify without losing view of your frame, including video resolution and frame rate, metering settings, white remainder, and image format, you can employ Q.Menu.

The menu can be navigated using the rear command dial or focus joystick, or by touch. The 3-inch LCD is as responsive as a flagship smartphone, and so you can easily navigate menus, tap to arrange the focus point, or pinch to zoom in on an image during playback. The display itself is very sharp (1.62 meg dots) and sports a vari-angle design, so it tin can swing out to the side and face all the style forwards or all the manner downwards—a must-accept for serious video work.

There'south likewise an heart-level EVF for those times when you want to bring the camera upwards to your centre. Information technology's an OLED blueprint with a big 0.76x magnification ratio and a 3.6-one thousand thousand-dot resolution. Information technology's right up there with the best in its class.

Connectivity and Ability

The GH5 includes Wi-Fi for prototype transfer and remote control. Information technology works with the Panasonic Image App for Android and iOS. The app shows a live feed from the lens, and supports tap to focus and full transmission exposure control. Yous also get access to all Q.Menu settings—it's i of the best, fully featured remote command experiences y'all'll find.

Physical connections include dual UHS-II SD slots, PC sync for studio flash, 3.5mm mic and headphone, HDMI, and USB-C. The bombardment charges outside the camera, using an included charger, and is rated past CIPA for about 400 images. That's on the same level every bit the competition—the Fuji X-T2 is rated for 390 and the Olympus OM-D East-M1 Mark Two for 440.

Performance and Imaging

The GH5 is very responsive. It powers on, focuses, and fires in just about 0.viii-2d. Autofocus on its own is extremely quick—I recorded shut to naught lag in bright lite, and nigh 0.3-second in very dim conditions. Continuous shooting is available at 10.3fps with locked focus. The GH5 keeps that pace for 64 Raw+JPG, 75 Raw, or 194 JPG shots, with 42.7, 37.four, and 18.2 seconds required to clear the buffer subsequently a full bust, respectively.

The autofocus system is purely contrast based, so the photographic camera slows downwardly when you switch the focus mode to continuous. If you're shooting moving action, speed is limited to 6.5fps. Our standard focus test shows that nigh shots are crisply focused at that charge per unit when photographing a target moving toward and away from the lens, but it'south not a perfect hit rate. Other cameras that utilize both phase and contrast detection for focus, like the Ten-T2 and East-M1 Mark Two, manage a quicker burst rate with an as practiced or better hitting rate for focus when tracking a moving bailiwick.

Run across How We Test Digital Cameras

The focus organisation is quite flexible, even if there isn't a stage observe component. Panasonic uses what it calls DFD, depth from defocus, which leverages cognition on how a lens draws a scene in order to speed focus and eliminate the back-and-along action that we've come up to expect from a contrast system.

A skillful portion of the sensor is covered by the autofocus system. There are 225 selectable boxes; you tin can select whatsoever of them individually, or set upwards a group focus area that covers anywhere from four boxes, arranged in a crosshair pattern, all the fashion upwards to a big group of 97 points. If you desire more than command over focus, you tin switch to Pinpoint manner, which magnifies a portion of the frame and lets you select a focus bespeak.

The GH5 uses a 20MP Micro Iv Thirds image sensor. It has a native ISO range that starts at 200 and ranges up to 25600, but ISO 100 is also available every bit an extended low setting. I tested the photographic camera'due south JPG output using Imatest and found that noise is curbed to less than 1.5 percentage at every setting.

In that location'southward some racket reduction going on to achieve this. Yous can expect to get crisp, clear images through ISO 1600. At ISO 3200 nosotros see some slight smudging of very fine detail, and image quality is most the same at ISO 6400. Quality takes a noticeable hit at ISO 12800, and ISO 25600 output is noticeably blurry.

You lot tin shoot in Raw format to sidestep the in-camera noise control. I converted Raw test images using Adobe Lightroom CC with default develop settings enabled. As with JPG, results through ISO 1600 are very strong. There is some roughness in fine details at ISO 3200 and 6400. At ISO 12800 details in Raw images are quite rough, but they're still in that location, unlike with the JPG output. The top ISO 25600 setting is very grainy, and detail isn't great, but it's not blurry similar the JPG.

Video

Praising the GH5's video capabilities is an do in redundancy. Like the GH4, it's the merely photographic camera in this toll range that delivers so much for videographers. Video recording is available at 4K quality in the standard 16:9 or 2:1 aspect ratios at up to 60fps, and you tin can tape in the four:iii ratio at 6K resolution at upwardly to 30fps. Cinematographers who want a wide look at 6K tin can add an anamorphic lens.

The full-size HDMI port outputs make clean, uncompressed video at 10-bit 4:2:2 quality, so y'all tin can monitor in existent time with a pro-course display or utilize a dedicated external recorder with ProRes support. Y'all tin can also record at that quality to a retentiveness bill of fare, albeit with mild compression. The camera has a laundry list of options for quality, but the meridian setting is 400Mbps with ALL-Intra compression and LPCM audio.

Fifty-fifty at more pocket-sized 100Mbps settings, the 4K video looks fantastic. You tin utilise a finished colour profile in-camera, or opt to shoot in one of two apartment, log color spaces, which requite y'all more than flexibility grading footage.

In-body stabilization is a boon for video utilise. Any lens you lot utilise will be stabilized, so you have the liberty to utilise legacy glass to go a specific look, or modern cinema lenses with precise manual focus control. Fans of the handheld look volition appreciate the stabilization, as it does a fine task eliminating small jitters, while maintaining the cinéma vérité manner that many strive for.

We used the built-in microphone for our video tests, and experienced the typical built-in mic issues. The omnidirectional design picks upward sound all around the photographic camera, and so yous tin clearly hear the shutter of another photographic camera I was using to accept photographs of a feeding gull. Pros will add an external mic, and have the ability to employ XLR with an add together-on adapter.

Conclusions

If video is your master focus, the Panasonic Lumix DC-GH5 delivers the highest quality and feature fix you tin can find in a photographic camera in this cost range. Still shooters invested in the Micro Iv Thirds system shouldn't disbelieve it either. It delivers stiff image quality, quick focus, and 4K and 6K photo modes. It doesn't shoot quite as fast as its closest competitor, the Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark Ii, which is priced the same and uses the same lens system, but non everyone needs the blazon of shooting speed the Eastward-M1 delivers.

As adept as the GH5 is, we're not naming it Editors' Choice. The loftier-end mirrorless market is extremely competitive. Our favorite fast-shooting, crop-sensor mirrorless body is the Fujifilm 10-T2, which has an impeccable autofocus system and 4K video (although not on the same level as the GH5), but costs but $1,600. If yous don't need speed or 4K, and desire a full-frame sensor instead, the $1,700 Sony a7 II is our pinnacle option.

Panasonic Lumix DC-GH5 Specs

Dimensions	3.nine by 5.v by 3.4 inches
Weight	1.6 lb
Type	Mirrorless
Sensor Resolution	20 MP
Sensor Blazon	CMOS
Sensor Size	Micro Four Thirds (17.three x 13mm)
Lens Mountain	Micro Four Thirds
Retentivity Card Slots	2
Memory Menu Format	SDXC (UHS-Ii)
Battery Type	Panasonic DMW-BLF19
Minimum ISO	100
Maximum ISO	25600
Stabilization	five-Axis IBIS
Display Size	three.2 inches
Display Resolution	i.62 million dots
Touch Screen	Yes
Viewfinder Type	EVF
Viewfinder Magnification	0.76x
EVF Resolution	3.6 million dots
Connectivity	Bluetooth, HDMI, USB-C, Wi-Fi, Microphone (three.5mm), Headphone (3.5mm), PC Sync, Remote (two.5mm)
Maximum Waterproof Depth	0 feet
Video Resolution	6K
HDMI Output	4:2:2 10-chip
Apartment Profile	Yep

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Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/cameras/17831/panasonic-lumix-dc-gh5-review

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