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  • Introduction

  • Design & Appearance

  • Tour

  • Menu

  • Ease of Use

  • Size & Handling

  • Modes Overview

  • Auto Mode

  • Movie Mode

  • Drive/Burst Mode

  • Custom Image Presets

  • Picture Quality & Size Options

  • Focus

  • ISO

  • White Balance

  • Image Stabilization

  • Picture Effects

  • Lens Mount & Sensor

  • LCD & Viewfinder

  • Flash

  • Jacks, Ports & Plugs

  • Battery

  • Memory

  • Conclusion

  • Sample Photos

  • Specs

  • Introduction
  • Design & Appearance
  • Tour
  • Menu
  • Ease of Use
  • Size & Handling
  • Modes Overview
  • Auto Mode
  • Movie Mode
  • Drive/Burst Mode
  • Custom Image Presets
  • Picture Quality & Size Options
  • Focus
  • ISO
  • White Balance
  • Image Stabilization
  • Picture Effects
  • Lens Mount & Sensor
  • LCD & Viewfinder
  • Flash
  • Jacks, Ports & Plugs
  • Battery
  • Memory
  • Conclusion
  • Sample Photos
  • Specs

Introduction

Spec-boosts include an updated 16-megapixel Four Thirds MOS sensor, 6fps burst shooting, ISO up to 12800 at full-resolution, an even smaller body, a 920,000-pixel articulating LCD, 1080/60p video, a third Fn button and Fn lever, and faster, more accurate autofocus.

We spent some time with a pre-production G5 at a briefing last month. Read on for our first impressions.

The G5 will come in black, silver, and white bodies. Availability and pricing have yet to officially be announced, but Panasonic told us in a briefing that they expect the G5 kit (including a standard 14-42mm zoom lens) to cost $799 at launch—up from the G3's $699 MSRP.

Design & Appearance

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The Panasonic G5 is a gently reworked version of its predecessor, the G3, which was a gently reworked version of the G2 and G1 before it. This year, the body is slightly shorter, wider, and deeper, the screen is higher-res and has a few more buttons, but the design should look familiar. It's a DSLR-style mirrorless body, with a sizable right-hand grip (actually more prominent than the G3's) and eye-level electronic viewfinder—too big for any pocket, especially with the lens attached, though considerably more compact than, say, a Canon or Nikon DSLR in the same price range.

Tour

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The main menu system has had an aesthetic update. It's laid out largely the same way as its predecessors—legible, logical, and easy to understand, but not great for quick adjustments—but there are now backgrounds and cleaner text. The quick menu system is basically unchanged from previous Panasonic G-series cameras.

Ease of Use

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The Panasonic G5 is an enthusiast's camera, with the full course of manual modes, a rear jog dial, three assignable Fn buttons and a new Fn lever, RAW capture and plenty of JPEG controls, and a viewfinder. But with tap-to-focus features and Panasonic's reliable iAuto mode, it's suitable for hands-off users too (though the cheaper, smaller GF5 might be more attractive to that crowd).

The Fn lever, between the shutter and movie button, is our favorite new control. The prototype we handled in our press briefing had the lever set to EV comp by default, though it can be set to any number of controls. Anything on a scale—like EV, shutter, aperture, or even ISO—lends itself pretty well to a left-right tilter.

Size & Handling

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The G5 is much smaller and lighter than a traditional DSLR, but the comfy right-hand grip and full set of physical buttons makes just as easy to control and even easier to carry. It's light enough to grip with one hand. But because of that grip and viewfinder, it's a bit too big to fit into a jacket pocket.

Modes Overview

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The Panasonic G5 has a full complement of shooting modes, including two auto modes (not on the mode dial), program, aperture priority, shutter priority, manual exposure, a slew of scene modes, and a helping of picture effects.

Auto Mode

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iAuto is what we've come to expect from Panasonic cameras, basically turning it into a point-and-shoot with better image quality. There's a dedicated iAuto button on the top panel of the camera, next to the mode dial. One press activates it (it glows blue), another press deactivates it, and returns the camera to whatever setting it was at before iAuto mode (or any setting you've changed to on the mode dial).

iAuto+ is also available, which opens up some more control over the shots including exposure compensation and white balance, kicks up features like intelligent d-range control when appropriate, and supports multi-shot tricks like background defocus.

Movie Mode

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The G5 shoots 1080p high-def video at 60p in the AVCHD 2.0 format, as well as 1080/30p video in MP4 format. Several lower-res modes are available as well. We think that full manual video controls are available, including PASM modes, though we're unable to confirm that detail for now. There's a dedicated movie record button on the top panel of the camera.

Drive/Burst Mode

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Burst rates keep increasing, and the G5 can churn out an impressive 6 frames per second at its top speed, up from 4fps on the G3.

Custom Image Presets

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Two custom image presets are available, both with notches on the mode dial.

Picture Quality & Size Options

Focus

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The Panasonic G5's autofocus is said to be improved over the G3, which was already pretty fast and accurate for a contrast-detection system. Manual focus is also supported via lens ring.

ISO

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Full-resolution ISO options range from 160 up through 12800, one stop more than the G3.

White Balance

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Auto white balance, custom white balance, and a large handful of presets are available.

Image Stabilization

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Panasonic mirrorless cameras, including the G5, do not have in-body image stabilization, so stabilization depends on the lens; Panasonic's 14-42mm kit lens does have Mega O.I.S., so this will only matter with additional lenses. (Since Olympus Micro Four Thirds cameras have in-body stabilization, for example, their lenses usually aren't stabilized.)

Picture Effects

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14 picture effects are available, including Soft Focus, Dynamic Monochrome, Impressive Art, One Point Color, Cross Process, Low Key, Toy Effect, Star Filter, Expressive, Retro, High Key, Sepia, Hi Dynamic, and Miniature Effect.

Lens Mount & Sensor

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The G5 uses the Micro Four Thirds lens mount, the same standard used by the rest of the Panasonic G series as well as the Olympus PEN and OM-D lines. Lens selection for the Micro Four Thirds mount has blossomed beautifully since the format launched a few years ago, with everything from kit zooms and pancake primes to bright specialty glass and powered lenses. It's a great lens family to be a part of these days. It's also one of the most adaptable mounts, supporting adapters for almost every legacy system out there.

Behind the lens mount, the G5 uses a 16-megapixel, Four Thirds-format MOS sensor, updated from the successful chip in last year's G3. We'll have to wait until we get the G5 into our testing labs to see how it affects image quality, but Panasonic mentioned in particular that the color accuracy will be "spot-on" in the neutral profile (though that has a lot to do with the processor, too).

LCD & Viewfinder

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The LCD is a 3-inch, 920,000-pixel touchscreen on a tilt-and-swivel hinge. As far as we could tell from the prototype G5 we saw at our briefing, it's a bright and responsive display—18% faster than the G3, according to Panasonic.

Touch controls are largely the same as they've been on the last few generations of G-series cameras—tap-to-focus and a few "soft" function keys if you want them, but you can certainly ignore them in favor of physical controls. It's a good setup.

Like the main G-series cameras before it, the G5 has an eye-level electronic viewfinder (EVF). It's a 1.44-million pixel display with 100% coverage, complete with an eye-level sensor and a diopter adjustment dial.

A potentially very useful feature is eye-level autofocus, which starts to focus on the scene as soon as the EVF sensor is activated, rather than waiting for the user to press or half-press the shutter. Split-seconds are precious, so this could help for action shooting.

As far as we could tell in our brief time with the camera, it's a bright, crisp, responsive EVF, good enough to satisfy most eye-level shooters. The common complaint with the first few generations of mirrorless cameras was that EVFs didn't even begin to approach the quality of a traditional optical viewfinder. Nothing matches an OVF, but the gap has closed significantly, and EVFs do offer useful on-screen data overlays.

Flash

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The G5 has a pop-up flash. No official specs have been announced, but the G3 was rated for 11 meters of effectiveness, so we expect similar performance this time around. An external flash can be connected to the hot shoe as well.

Jacks, Ports & Plugs

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Like most consumer-grade cameras, the G5 has USB and micro-HDMI ports. But it doesn't have an audio jack (for either headphones or a microphone), which could be considered an oversight by some.

Battery

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The G5 runs on a rechargeable lithium-ion battery. It appears to be the same battery as the G3, and we're guessing it'll be good for about 350-400 shots per charge, if history teaches us anything.

Memory

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Surprising nobody, the G5 records to SD/SDHC/SDXC media cards.

Conclusion

Panasonic were one of the original innovators in the mirrorless space, but with this year's GF5 and now the G5, it looks like they've settled into a safe, comfortable routine of predictable, conservative yearly updates. The G5 is a modest update to last year's G3 a slight rework of the body, a few spec bumps, and an otherwise familiar experience for both G-series fans and traditional DSLR shooters.

Most of the improvements seem genuinely helpful. The eye-level autofocus feature and faster burst shooting will help with action photography—still a weak point with mirrorless cameras—and the extra controls, both physical and touchscreen-based, are useful for auto-mode and hands-on shooters alike. The body is smaller and lighter than past models, but still big enough to handle comfortably.

We have every reason to believe that the G5 will be a great camera once we get it into our testing labs. It's a fourth-gen product at this point, and shows signs of experience and maturity in its design. All the buttons and controls are in the right places and it has all the right features.

It's just that we'd love to see Panasonic try something more daring than another gentle refresh. Since the G3 came out last spring, Olympus brought Micro Four Thirds to a higher plane with the excellent OM-D E-M5, Fujifilm dazzled with the X-Pro1, the Sony NEX-7 made believers out of mirrorless skeptics, Nikon made a splash with their point-and-shoot replacement J1, and Pentax pleased their base of K-mount lens owners with the quirky K-01. Yeah, there's the Panasonic GX1, but that's basically the GF1 from 2009 with a new sensor. And we haven't even considered traditional DSLRs, which still hold sway on the strength of optical viewfinders alone.

With all of those models still fresh in the minds of photo enthusiasts everywhere, the G5 doesn't stand out. And on the flip side, it's too big and expensive to attract many step-up photographers. It'll please the G-series diehards, but who else?

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Sample Photos

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Specs

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Meet the tester

Liam F McCabe

Liam F McCabe

Managing Editor, News & Features

@liamfmccabe

Liam manages features and news coverage for Reviewed.com. Formerly the editor of the DigitalAdvisor network, he's covered cameras, TVs, personal electronics, and (recently) appliances. He's a native Bostonian and has played in metal bands you've never heard of.

See all of Liam F McCabe's reviews

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