First Look
Last year Panasonic impressed us with its tiny GM1 – a compact system camera barely taller than its Micro Four Thirds lens mount. With its near-silent electronic shutter and extensive touchscreen-based controls, the GM1 is a fine carry-everywhere camera for serious photographers. But it has its weaknesses, most notably a fiddly rear control dial that’s used for changing exposure settings. And as I found out testing Panasonic’s latest 15mm f/1.7 lens this summer, the fixed rear screen and lack of any other viewing option means that shooting in bright light can become a matter of guesswork.
With the new GM5, Panasonic has addressed both these issues. It’s added an electronic viewfinder and revised the control layout, while barely increasing its size. The result is a camera that can stake a serious claim to being the best small interchangeable lens on the market.
To replace the GM1’s tiny rear dial, Panasonic has added a small thumbdial on the camera’s shoulder, re-introducing a control that’s long been a staple of Panasonic’s G-series cameras, right back to the cult-classic DMC-GF1. This is used to change exposure settings such as shutter speed, aperture, and exposure compensation; clicking it inwards toggles its function between whichever are active in the current exposure mode. This dial isn’t very large, but past experience says it should make shooting with the GM5 a much more pleasant experience.
The second new feature is the electronic viewfinder, which is placed rangefinder-style in the upper left corner. It’s impressively high resolution, but pretty small – a necessary compromise for keeping the body this compact. As usual a wide range of exposure information is visible while you’re shooting, including such things as a live histogram and electronic levels.
The slight increase in size relative to the GM1 means that the control layout on the camera’s rear has been revised and spaced out. Panasonic has persisted with with placing a focus mode switch on the top plate, which seems like a waste of real estate – it’s not the most obvious function we’d dedicate the space to, especially with exposure compensation dials becoming increasing commonplace.
The GM5 retains the GM1’s fixed rear touchscreen, which allows it to give quick access to a wide range of secondary functions via the onscreen Q menu. It’s also possible to specify the focus area by tapping the screen when shooting with the LCD, which we’ve always found to be a useful option.
Like the GM1, the GM5 feels like a quality product in your hand. There’s no grip as such, but there is sufficient space on the back of the camera for your thumb to rest without inadvertently pressing any buttons. Overall it gives the impression of being a well-thought-through, premium product.
First impressions
The GM5 takes what was already a lovely little camera, and by adding an electronic viewfinder and tweaking the controls, turns it into something very desirable indeed. It makes an interesting comparison with the co-announced LX100 fixed-lens compact camera; the GM5 is noticeably smaller while using the same size sensor. Its 12-32mm f/3.5-5.6 kit zoom is much slower than the LX100’s similar range, f/1.8-2.8 built-in lens, but the GM5 has the advantage of accepting interchangeable lenses.
Overall the GM5 looks like it will be a lot of camera in a very small package, competing almost as much with 1-inch sensor compact cameras as with other small compact system cameras. It’s also likely to be extremely attactive to existing users of larger Micro Four Thirds cameras like the Panasonic GH3 and GH4, and the Olympus OM-D E-M1, as an ultra-portable second camera. It may risk being somewhat overlooked in the inevitable excitement around the LX100, but it’s an extremely interesting camera in its own right.
