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Monday, 3 September 2012

Panasonic G5 - Review and User Experience - Part 6

CLICK HERE for my ongoing Review and User Experience with the G5



I was taking some pictures for a post on the 14-42mm X pancake zoom and I decided to use my new Panasonic G5 + 20mm f/1.7 lens to photograph the combination and see just what low shutter speeds I could use hand held with the electronic shutter turned on, which of course eliminates all vibration from the camera. 


As you can see above the answer is (so far) 1/10th. sec. Now since the electronic shutter can only be used up to ISO 1600 (Can anyone explain why this might be?) for indoor and low light use, wide apertures on fast lenses with low shutter speeds are the way to take advantage of it. In the examples above the light wasn't that bad, but I wanted to use a reasonable aperture and as you can see the camera gave me 1/20th. and 1/10th. sec. The 20mm f/1.7 doesn't of course have any kind of stabilisation, so this is a useful and impressive result. 

 Also impressive is that ISO 1600 is relatively "clean" and noise free.

 On the G5 sensor, Amin Sabet over at mu-43 did this piece a few days ago. The sensor in the G5 is apparently the same as the GH2 with the multi-aspect options disabled.




There was a piece about an interview with some Panasonic people featured in 43rumors here, in which this was stated - "G5 can be considered as a sort of “GH2.5″ according to Panasonic." and this doesn't seem far from the truth from what I'm seeing. What we probably have with this camera is a "consumer" and cheaper version of what is going to be appearing in the GH3, which seems to be both Panasonics answer to the Olympus OM-D and their attempt to provide what, for want of a better description, is their version of "pro-spec" m4/3. 

If the rumours of weather-sealing, battery grip, video out connections, new sensor with improved dynamic range etc. are true then we should be getting a pretty impressive camera. For those who don't want and / or need all of this and in a package that doesn't command the premium price that I'm sure the GH3 wil have, then the G5 seems to be aimed very much at that market. As it is, the G5 is very much the best Panasonic m4/3 camera yet from what I'm seeing. However it just makes me even more keen to get my hands on a GH3. But if things pan out like they usually do with Panasonic, that shouldn't be until around December.

 CLICK HERE for my ongoing Review and User Experience with the G5

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