Panasonic Lumix GF5: Hands on

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Posted on 5 Apr 2012 at 06:00, by Seth Barton

Panasonic yesterday gave us an extended hands-on with its new Lumix GF5. This is the latest model in its Micro Four Thirds range of interchangeable lens compact cameras. The Lumix DMC-GF5 replaces the outgoing Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF3, as both the most compact and the cheapest in the range. At first glance it looks to be almost identical, but there have actually been numerous significant upgrades.

Only the bigger handgrip really marks it out from the GF3

Turn the GF5 on and it's immediately obvious that the 3in display has been updated. The new LCD has exactly double detail of the GF3's, with 920,000 dots, and is pin-sharp with punchy colours. That's twice as many dots as the recently released GX1 has, which is bound to make new owners of the enthusiast model a bit jealous. As well as making your photos look great, and making it far easier to determine what's in focus and what's not, the increased resolution makes the UI elements really sharp.

The new screen is superb, and puts the GF5 alongside the Sony NEX models in terms of LCD resolution and quality

The physical controls are laregely identical to those on its predecessor. The main change is the addition of a Display button, so you can quickly clear the screen of unwanted odds and sods. A smaller change is that the previously plastic buttons have been replaced with metal ones.

Even one extra button is appreciated

We really appreciated the new handgrip. It's not very large, and certainly doesn't protrude any further than even the smallest of lenses in the G-series line-up. It does give you a far firmer grip, though, on what is a fairly dinky little camera. In terms of dimensions it measures 108x67x37mm, making it 4mm thicker than the old model. It's still a very compact camera, but still a little chunkier than the competing Olympus PEN E-PM1 or Sony NEX-C3.

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