Panasonic teased the photography world back in September with their follow-up to the beloved GH4, but the announcement was surprisingly lights on specs. Today however, at CES, the GH5 was officially released with a slew of upgraded for both the photo and video inclined.
[REWIND: 5 THINGS THE SONY E MOUNT SYSTEM IS STILL MISSING]
In typical Panasonic fashion, the GH5 is not an incremental update of its predecessor. Almost everything about the GH4 has been upgraded, save the battery. The GH5’s OLED electronic viewfinder also gets a spec bump up from the GH4’s 2.36 million dots with a 0.67 magnification to a 3.68 million dot and 0.76 magnification. The beefed up behemoth now has internal 10-bit 4:2:2 recording, 20.3MP Live MOS sensor, dual SD Card slots, Full Sided HDMI, 4K at 60p, in body 5-axis image stabilization, while retaining a size that is 13% bigger.
The GH5 isn’t all about video, for the still photographer there’s a buffer of 100 photos when shooting in RAW and thanks to the updated “Depth from Defocus AF” system, focus times as fast as 0.05 seconds, and up to 9fps burst with continuous AF. Also building on previous micro 4/3 systems that we’ve seen Panasonic and Olympus, the “4K Photo” mode has also been upgraded and now allows you to grab 18-megapixel stills (closer to 6K image).
One of the camera’s underrated new features is something that will appeal majorly to new the MacBook owners is a USB-C port with USB 3.1 gen 1 speeds, instead of the more common (and slower) USB 2.0 port. Add this with the GH5‘s eventual support of V60 SD cards, transfer speeds will be even faster than they otherwise would via built-in adapter.
[RELATED: THERE’S A NEW SD CARD CLASS | SD 5.0 VSC SD IS FASTER & MORE STABLE ]
Specs:
- 20.3 Megapixel sensor
- 5-axis in-body image stabilization system with DUAL IS image stabilization
- All 4K footage taken using full width of sensor (better than the crop of the GH4 sensor in 4K mode)
- Internal 4K/30p 10-bit 4:2:2
- 4K/59.94p and 50p shooting with 10-bit 4:2:2 external output or 8-bit, 4:2:0 internal at 150Mbps I
- 1080 video at up to 180p
- 9 fps shooting with continuous autofocus
- Advanced DFD autofocus
- Dual SD card slots
- USB-C 3.1
- 802.11ac Wi-Fi, NFC and Bluetooth
- Waveform and vectorscope monitors
- No record time limits
Panasonic says all of these features make the GH5 the “world’s first Digital Lens System Mirrorless that meets professional quality standards.” For those of you who are interested in getting your hands on one won’t have to wait too long. B&H has the camera up for pre-order with delivery expected in late March.
