Some GM5 impressions/rolling review

So as I mentioned got a GM5 last Friday and I am very very happy with it already.

Two GM5 Photos

I wanted to start a rolling review but first I wanted to mention a few things that jumped to my attention particularly having and used an OMD EM5 MKII that I also own quite a bit.

Some Background

I have finally converged to M43rds and sticking with it. The Gm5 is not to replace the OMD, I will keep the OMD for a lot of paid work but most of my personal photography will probably be done with the GM5.

I have gone a bit around and the last check was the Fuji X-T10. I love love Fuji and their image quality to me is definitively a step up from M43rds but I wasn't thrilled with the size of some of their lenses at some focals I use, size being important to me so decided to head this way.

Realizing the camera I have enjoyed the most for my photography has been the Pentax Q, and after, the Nikon 1 J4, I decided to look at the logical conclusion of what's in m43rds that is the smallest, while I have grown to appreciate the OMD EM5 MKII more and more.

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Impressions / surprises on the GM5

- Panasonic put several features I thought were a bit overboard but they are actually photographically useful.

1 - Pinch focus- works pretty great for precise focusing even if slower

2 - Take a shot on half shutter press- this is the kind of thing it shows Panasonic has photographers in their staff. I have never seen this and it works great at avoiding camera shake particularly on such a small camera, as an option.

3 - Almost every review laments that the dial on top is a Focus mode dial instead of exposure compensation. I have to say Panasonic got this right. For street life at least- it's more common to switch focus modes to me than exposure compensation.  And it's not like EV compensation is hard to dial with the back dial.

4 Big Surprise- this camera focuses my Olympus primes faster than my OMD. Less hunting, more accuracy, better AF-C and faster to "get to action."  This I didn't expect at all.  If I had to come up with a number I would say like 20-30% faster.  It's absurd.  I was able to get shots of people walking and moving with the 75mm F1.8 at night no less in difficult light.

If this is the tiny GM5, then the GX8 must surely be thunder-fast at AF.  I think I have heard before the GH4 focused faster than the EM1 but I wondered about that. Now I wouldn't be surprised it's true.

The GM7 should have depth from focus tech also, and should be even faster, but seriously, this is pretty darn fast as it is.

5 - Special "monochrome live view" that makes manual focus peaking stand out in color vs the rest of the shot in B&W.;  This again, shows that Panasonic has photographers in their staff. Pretty surprising.

6 - Well thought out interface/UI- again, surprised that they got this right. Maybe not super surprised- the LX5 was pretty sorted out. But this is even better. Runs rings around Olympus complexity and yet it has a lot of features too.

For example- face detection- face detection has eye detection. It will focus on the eye it can find the easiest. Want to focus on the other eye? Touch inside the face detection square the other eye.  You can see at all times which eye it is picking.

Oh, don't want the other eye detected? Touch the AF off on the screen that only shows up when focusing in a face.  Statistically more often than not you will want eye detection.

This makes which eye/any eye far more accessible and with less clutter than either Olympus or Fuji do which requires to select a menu option or icon option.

7 - Battery life- as commonly known, CIPA ratings are using flash.  Without firing Flash I have been able to make the battery last ballpark of what I would expect a single battery charge of my OMD to last. Maybe a tad less but not bad. I was expecting a rather quicker drainage like what I remember with my Pentax Q.

I certainly still recommend you go out with a spare battery.

8 - mechanical shutter is pretty darn quiet.  I find myself leaving the camera in auto- shutter so everything under 1/500 is mechanical. On the streets I use regularly 1/80-1/250 so it's all mechanical and avoids any light shadow banding by flicker.

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Things I don't quite like

- I wish there was a menu option to turn off the power on led permanently. Or better yet- just get rid of it. The camera has an on/off mechanical switch after all.

- As I expected, the color JPEG engine of Panasonic up to this model while some improvement has been made, still is not to my liking. Olympus JPEG color is still better, and ditto for Fuji. I also find Sony's current JPEG engine better.

The B&W; Jpeg engine of Panasonic though is pretty darn good. The opposite experience.

- No in-camera RAW development. Panasonic finally introduced this with the LX100 and GX8.. I wish this camera had that but it doesn't. I guess this will happen with the GM7.

I find it useful to play with a RAW file to see how malleable it is, what I will do when I get home or to share a photo from the camera directly.  I would use it for B&W;, again, not super fond of Panny color.

From what I have seen the GX8 JPEG color looks promising, so the GM7 should carry on that.