The GH5S sensor being bigger at a 1.8 crop factor as opposed to 2.0 gives the camera about 9% wider coverage with the same lens.
I personally wouldn’t need to go to 6400 ISO often if ever, but knowing it’s usable without having to clean it up in post is a good thing. In-camera noise reduction is also playing a role in keeping the image clean at those higher ISO values.įrom my testing, this new sensor is performing really well. By taking away half of the megapixels and making the pixels larger they perform more efficiently when an electrical charge is added to those larger pixels. Yep, fewer pixels are better for video capture. The GH5S has a new slightly larger 10.2MP MFT sensor with half the pixel count of the GH5’s 21.7MP, but these pixels are almost two times larger.
The new charger will be a love or hate thing. 190 min to fully charge using the supplied power adapter.
This means you could charge your battery with another USB power source. Panasonic has changed the battery charger to one that has a Micro-USB input rather than one with a Figure 8 IEC cord. Another thing I noticed is all the buttons have a firmer louder click when you push them. Maybe Panasonic was thinking that if you can feel it you won’t press it, but I didn’t really notice much of an advantage to the new feel of the button. On the GH5 the button is flush with the body. The annoying Display (DISP) button just under your right thumb is a little raised now. I did notice the buttons are new though as they feel different to the original GH5. The body is the same as the GH5, so if you already have a cage for a GH5 (like this Movcam cage), it will fit perfectly on the GH5S. I wanted to see for myself if the new features are worth the extra $500 over the GH5 for video. In this camera review, I’m going to keep it pretty technical. It’s a different camera for a video-centric user. In fact, some users would think it’s a downgrade, with fewer pixels for larger stills and the lack of IBIS.
The new GH5S isn’t a natural upgrade from the GH5.
The GH5S also got a bump in quality on the stills side, able to capture 14-bit RAW images compared to 12-bit on the GH5. Panasonic focused on video features with the GH5S like timecode jamming and Dual Native ISO for better high ISO performance. The GH5 has primarily been a video camera for me so when the GH5S was announced it sparked my interest.
Panasonic keeps pushing the envelope with the GH series cameras and the Panasonic GH5S is another example of this.