REVIEW OF PANASONIC GH5

Panasonic GH5 review: Autofocus

Panasonic is unique among CSC manufacturers in not incorporating phase-detect autofocus points onto its sensors to help with autofocus performance. However, with the GH5 typically taking only 0.1 seconds from pressing the shutter button to capturing a photo there’s clearly nothing holding it back. Panasonic’s Depth From Defocus (DFD) technology measures the amount of blur to estimate the focusing adjustment required so it can jump to the correct focus position rather than hunt through the scene.
This is a new feature since the launch of the GH4 and it does indeed appear to improve autofocus speed. Also new is the ability to customise the subject tracking performance in continuous autofocus mode, similar to the controls offered by high-end SLRs.


When it comes to video, autofocus performance isn’t so much about speed, but rather reliability and smoothness. When tracking a moving subject or shooting with a moving camera, very slight deviations may be forgivable but focus hunting, where the subject goes completely out of focus before locking on again, really spoils a clip. Meanwhile, a deliberate change in focus, perhaps to switch between two people in the frame, should be executed slowly and smoothly.
The GH5’s video autofocus options include two new controls for Speed and Sensitivity, similar to the photo autofocus customisation options but set independently for video. This lets the user choose between a smooth but slow response or a responsive but jittery one. Neither sounds ideal, but I found that somewhere towards the latter end gave the best results for automatic subject tracking.

Panasonic GH5 review: Performance

Capturing and encoding 4K video at 60fps requires a fast processor and lots of memory and that’s good news for still image performance, too. I recorded continuous shooting at 10fps and it lasted for 111 JPEGs or 65 RAW frames before slowing. That’s even better than the Nikon D500, an SLR that’s built for speed. Burst shooting with continuous autofocus rattled along at 7.5fps, slowing slightly when focus needed to be updated.

If that’s still not fast enough you can turn to the 6K Photo mode. This is an upgraded version of the 4K Photo mode that has appeared on recent Panasonic cameras, which captures a 4K video at 30fps and lets you pick individual 8-megapixel frames to save as JPEGs after capture. Capture continues until the card is full, and there’s an option to buffer footage and save frames from before the shutter button was pressed.
On the GH5 there’s a choice of 4K capture at 60fps or 6K (for 18-megapixel stills) at 30fps. 10fps RAW capture is more useful in most cases but the 4K and 6K Photo modes are handy for very fast action such as golf swings or diving kingfishers.