Panasonic GX8 Beta First Shots: Pixel-peep the highest-res Micro Four Thirds camera to date
posted Friday, July 31, 2015 at 12:42 PM EDT
While it may be a beta sample, we've gotten our hands on a brand-new Panasonic GX8 and shot some test photos with it. We've published our standard First Shots set of lab sample images, and they're now ready for your perusal -- with the provision that due to the prototype nature of this unit, image quality might be slightly different once the final production ones hit store shelves.
The Panasonic GX8 sports an all-new 20.3-megapixel Digital Live MOS imaging sensor, which is the highest resolution 4/3" sensor offered to date for a Micro Four Thirds camera. The new chip ups the resolution and dynamic range performance compared to Panasonic's long-used 16MP sensor. In addition, the GX8 combines the new sensor with the same Venus Engine image processor as the GH4. With this combination, Panasonic improves image resolution and also claims to enhance tonal gradation and color reproduction, as well as provide better high ISO noise sensitivity thanks to more natural noise reduction processing.
Below are a few 1:1 crops of default, straight-from-camera JPEGs at base ISO and 6400 comparing the new Panasonic GX8 against its predecessor, the GX7, as well as one of its biggest competitors, the Olympus E-M5 Mark II. We invite you to head over to the Panasonic GX8 Samples Page to view all our (beta) First Shots and download both full-resolution straight-from-camera JPEGs and RAW files for your own analysis (though keep in mind that RAWs are probably not yet compatible with most, if any, RAW converters at this point in time). Be sure to check out the Comparometer, as well, and match-up the GX8 against other competing cameras as well as any other camera we've tested.
