What's a lighter substitute for my Panasonic GH4?

Hi everyone,

I bought my Panasonic GH4 a little more than 2 years ago and I have got two lenses: 12-35 f2.8 and 35-100 f2.8.
Nowadays I was wondering if it would be possible to substitute the GH4 with another lighter MFT camera.

I would mainly use it for photos, but for videos as well and its characteristics should be at least equivalent to those of a GH4.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

g85, gx85 they both have dual is2 and 16mp with no low pass filter. The G7 isn't a bad option either, much of the same specs as the GH4 but is bit smaller and lighter.

G85 would be first pick if you're looking for slr styling.

Ricfoto wrote:

Hi everyone,

I bought my Panasonic GH4 a little more than 2 years ago and I have got two lenses: 12-35 f2.8 and 35-100 f2.8.
Nowadays I was wondering if it would be possible to substitute the GH4 with another lighter MFT camera.

I would mainly use it for photos, but for videos as well and its characteristics should be at least equivalent to those of a GH4.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

GH will be your only option...

If no very casual video shooting and small body, GX85 might be. It is a small swiss army knife support a lot of things, small and cost small but might not be best on anything.

For relatively more serious video work, G85 would be (mic in port). It is a scale down model of GH5.

If you pay more attention on still shooting, obvious the G9 would be the best choice especially for high speed shooting. But it is similar to GH5 in size and weight.

Ricfoto wrote:

Thanks for your answer. Apparently the G85 is not that smaller, though. And it doesn't have a headphone plug...

If you need all the bells and whistles, including a headphone jack, you will not find a smaller or lighter camera than a GH4, unfortunately. The headphone jack is a pretty niche, professional feature - it is quickly abandoned any time miniaturization is called for.

Not possible. GH4 was still the flagship as recently as 6 months ago. From the moment the GH5 was released there have been no new lower tier cameras introduced.

So nothing out there that can match the GH4 at a lower size and pricepoint yet. Give it another year or two, or go with the GX85 and deal with its limitations.

Not necessarily a reply to you personally but as an addendum to your post, with which I fully agree, here's David Thorpe's take on the G7. I find it to be extremely comfortable in my hands and for the price, it is a fantastic camera. It has a 3.5mm microphone input. The jpegs sooc are also quite good. My 14-140 has lived on it for a while. I call it mine, but I think my girlfriend has decided she owns it.

I'm not sure what you'd be gaining as much of the weight/size is in the lenses. I have the same GH4 and lenses (and a couple of other lenses). I actually like a more substantial body so I have the grip permanently attached, as it was with my GH3. As I never remove the grip, I only use one battery at a time which are very large and long-lasting. The extra size added by the grip helps balancing with my longer lenses, such as the 100-300, and larger flashes.

In fact, I'm disappointed that my favorite and most-used cameras, an RX10 and an RX10III, don't have grips available.

jalywol wrote:

The GX8 is about 100g lighter and a lot less bulky than your GH4. It has a more recent design 20MP sensor, mic plug socket, and has excellent video capabilities.

I found the GH series just a bit too big and bulky for my taste, but the GX8, while not a small M43, is considerably easier to handle when shooting casually or for walk-around use. It also has a fabulous viewfinder.

Unfortunately, when you go much smaller in M43, you will lose features that you consider essential in your work, so the GX8 would probably be the smallest body that would have all that you need.

Sadly, it's not the mic jack that he mentioned wanting, it's a headphone jack for monitoring. That's a very rare feature, especially on anything smaller than a DSLR.