Panasonic GH5 arrives: Just as small and svelte, the flagship Lumix packs major photo, video horsepower

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posted Wednesday, January 4, 2017 at 2:46 PM EDT

After getting a sneak peek at the upcoming Panasonic GH5 back at Photokina in September 2016, we're finally learning all the details, specs, pricing and design information about Panasonic's new flagship camera today, after its full launch during CES in Las Vegas. While some of the big hallmark features, such as 6K video and 4K/60p, were announced as part of the development announcement back in Cologne, we now know that the new GH4 successor will be powered by a 20.3-megapixel Live CMOS sensor and a new Venus Engine image processor that has two-thirds greater power than the one housed in the GH4.

With this new sensor and processor, AF performance is said to be noticeably improved, with faster DFD algorithms, more AF points, and vastly improved focus tracking capabilities. Burst shooting also gets a nice performance increase with up to 9fps with continuous AF. The updated image processor also brings refinements to image quality with more sophisticated image processing systems, which we discuss in detail over in our GH5 Hands-On Preview.

In additional to a number of still photography-related improvements, one of the major areas of focus with the new Panasonic GH5 is with video and multimedia capabilities. Not only does the GH5, of course, offer 4K Photo modes and 4K video recording, but it now also offers even higher-resolution 6K video at up to 30fps and 6K Photo capture at up to 30fps! 4K recording also gets improved with framerates for video capture and 4K Photo rising up to 60fps.

The design of the new Panasonic GH5 is more or less similar to the previous model, which should be welcoming to seasoned professionals and advanced users who don't want to bother with a steep learning curve of a new camera while on the job. As before, the GH5 is very robust and fully weather-sealed (even more so, with freezeproof protection down to 14°F, or -10°C) thanks to its tough magnesium alloy body.

For even more details as well as an in-depth look at the major technical features, algorithms and image quality improvements to Panasonic's latest and greatest flagship Micro Four Thirds camera, jump over to our Panasonic GH5 Hands-On Preview for the full story!