gohunter
Member
I bought this as an "impulse buy" from QVC UK about a year ago. It was on offer at 229UK pounds complete with the 14-42mm H-FS014042 lens, (genuine) Panasonic spare battery and a Panasonic class 10 8GB SD card plus and on easy pays, so it was a no brainer. I intended to have a play with it, knowing that I could send it back within 30 days and it would only have cost me the postage. It didn't go back!
Positives
Wow, was I impressed. The image quality is excellent and my Fuji X10 which I bought as a "holiday camera" now gets little use. In fact I have just returned from a holiday, where I didn't even take the X10. I always found the X10 to over cook the blues when you are near the sea and often forgot to do a manual white balance with it. The Pana GF5 does not suffer from this and I very rarely have to do any WB corrections on the PC.
I love the ability to use prime lenses and I have recently added the Pana 20mm F1.7 and 14mm F2.5 to my collection. They produce superb results and the 20mm F1.7 has become my firm favourite. I rarely need to use anything other than use the intelligent auto (iA) setting, which is amazingly good at recognising whether it should be a portrait, landscape, moving object, night scene, etc, so I can just go for grab shots wherever I go, without thinking about back light, front light, exposure compensation, etc. The other mode I love is the High Dynamic Range setting and I usually have the camera set to switch between that and iA just with a press of the iA button. Switch IA on to use that and switch it off to revert to HDR. The HDR mode is great for sunny days with harsh shadows, or in dark places like churches where it can be gloomy, but with bright highlights from stained windows, etc.
I also have an Olympus E-P2, which seems heavy and sluggish by comparison to the small lightweight GF5. I was so impressed with the GF5 that I also bought a G5, thinking that I would want to use the viewfinder a lot, but it too has hardly been used as the GF5 is such a dream to use for the things I want, and it is so much smaller and lighter. IQ is IMHO very good for what I need
With the GF6 out now, you can pick up the GF5 even cheaper, so if you are thinking of one, grab a bargain whilst they are around.
Negatives
No hot shoe for flash, but I already have a Metz slave flash anyway, so for me it is not a problem
Screen is prone to scratching easily, even just from plastic shirt buttons when you have the camera on the neck strap, which is much easier than other cameras I own. Best to use a decent screen protector.
Positives
Wow, was I impressed. The image quality is excellent and my Fuji X10 which I bought as a "holiday camera" now gets little use. In fact I have just returned from a holiday, where I didn't even take the X10. I always found the X10 to over cook the blues when you are near the sea and often forgot to do a manual white balance with it. The Pana GF5 does not suffer from this and I very rarely have to do any WB corrections on the PC.
I love the ability to use prime lenses and I have recently added the Pana 20mm F1.7 and 14mm F2.5 to my collection. They produce superb results and the 20mm F1.7 has become my firm favourite. I rarely need to use anything other than use the intelligent auto (iA) setting, which is amazingly good at recognising whether it should be a portrait, landscape, moving object, night scene, etc, so I can just go for grab shots wherever I go, without thinking about back light, front light, exposure compensation, etc. The other mode I love is the High Dynamic Range setting and I usually have the camera set to switch between that and iA just with a press of the iA button. Switch IA on to use that and switch it off to revert to HDR. The HDR mode is great for sunny days with harsh shadows, or in dark places like churches where it can be gloomy, but with bright highlights from stained windows, etc.
I also have an Olympus E-P2, which seems heavy and sluggish by comparison to the small lightweight GF5. I was so impressed with the GF5 that I also bought a G5, thinking that I would want to use the viewfinder a lot, but it too has hardly been used as the GF5 is such a dream to use for the things I want, and it is so much smaller and lighter. IQ is IMHO very good for what I need
With the GF6 out now, you can pick up the GF5 even cheaper, so if you are thinking of one, grab a bargain whilst they are around.
Negatives
No hot shoe for flash, but I already have a Metz slave flash anyway, so for me it is not a problem
Screen is prone to scratching easily, even just from plastic shirt buttons when you have the camera on the neck strap, which is much easier than other cameras I own. Best to use a decent screen protector.
