Digital Photographer - UK (2020-05)

Right

A mirrorless camera that

looks like an SLR

Although the GH5 is a mirrorless

camera, it’s quite chunky and

about the same size and weight

as the Canon 90D, featuring a

top-centre electronic viewfinder

Right

Front/slant

The 12-60mm f/2.8-4 is the top-

performing kit lens option, but it’s

quite large and not retractable

PRICE: £1,699 / $1,997

Panasonic Lumix GH5 + 12-60mm

Physically it’s quite heavy for a crop-sensor mirrorless camera,

but it also goes large on features and performance

Based on the Micro Four Thirds format, this camera has a smaller

image sensor than any of the APS-C format models on test, with

a 2.0x crop factor for shooting stills. The megapixel count of

20.3MP is also below average, but neither of these factors has any

real bearing on video capture. Indeed, the GH5 can capture 4K

UHD footage with no additional crop factor, and with the highest

maximum frame rate of any camera in the group, at 50-60fps.

The Panasonic is also the only camera on test to feature IBIS,

with 5-axis, 5-stop stabilisation that works really well for both

stills and video capture. Furthermore, it has a fully articulated rear

touchscreen with a highly detailed 1.62 million-dot resolution, losing

out only to the Fujifilm X-A7 in this respect. Another plus point

matched only by the Sony on test is that the length of individual

movie clips is limited only by your battery and memory card, rather

than having the usual 30-minute maximum (15 minutes for the X-A7

in 4K mode).

The Panasonic doubles up on SecureDigital memory card slots,

both of which are UHS-II compliant for maximum data speed. Like

the Canon EOS 90D, it also packs a headphone socket as well as an

external microphone socket.

All of the cameras on test suffer from the ‘rolling shutter’

phenomenon to some extent, giving a skewed appearance to

objects that move across the frame. It’s due to the time taken

for the processor to ‘read’ the image sensor line by line in video

capture. Slower read times make the effect more apparent, and the

Panasonic loses out slightly to the Canon and Fujifilm cameras in

this respect. Generally, however, video quality is excellent, although

it tends to look a little grainy when pushing the ISO value under

very dull lighting.

Far left

Rear

As with the Canon 90D, the rear

panel packs in a lot of dials and

buttons but is easy to navigate,

and comes complete with a

joystickcontroller

Left

Top

There’s a wealth of dials and

buttons on the top panel for

direct access to important

shooting adjustments, but no

secondary info LCD

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