Panasonic Lumix GX85 (GX80) review: The GX85 packs a lot of camera for the price

There's a lot in the Lumix GX85 to appeal to family photographers and first-time mirrorless buyers as an alternative to a decent (as opposed to cheap) first dSLR like the Nikon D5500. It's got a great feature set, very good photo and video quality for its class, pretty fast performance, and an attractive, relatively compact design.

8.2

Panasonic Lumix GX85 (GX80)

$750 at Amazon

The Good

It delivers excellent photo and video for a Micro Four Thirds camera, especially at its price, plus a great feature set and fast performance.

The Bad

The continuous autofocus occasionally fails to lock at all in burst mode, and the battery life is poor.

The Bottom Line

LIke other Panasonic models before it, the Lumix GX85/GX80 packs a lot for its price, including great photos, 4K video and speed.

With an electronic viewfinder, fast continuous shooting and 4K video, it fits right into that camera's demographic: an enthusiast-friendly model with a feature set that should also appeal to families and travelers at a reasonable price.

The kit with Panasonic's collapsible 12-32mm f3.5-5.6 (24-64mm equivalent) lens runs $800 and AU$1,200; in the UK, the model is the GX80, and costs £600 for the same kit. Like many Panasonic cameras, it's not available in the US as a body-only version, but you can get it that way in the UK and Australia for £510 and AU$1,100. And in the UK, you can get it in a dual-lens configuration with the 12-32mm and 35-100mm lenses for £730.

A sharper image

Although it's 16 megapixels rather than the new 20.3MP sensor that's in the higher-end GX8, it's a version of the Four Thirds-size sensor that forgoes an antialiasing filter (aka OLPF). Cameras use them to blur edges slightly, which removes some color artifacts (moire and false color) that would normally appear, but you sacrifice sharpness. The new version of the company's Venus image-processing engine which is in the GX85 has moire-reduction built in to compensate.

Panasonic Lumix GX85 (GX80) full-resolution photo samples

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As a result, JPEGs remain clean through ISO 1600, and depending upon light and subject, usable through the top of the camera's ISO sensitivity range. It's noticeably better than the Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark II in this respect. If you process raw files, you can eke out some more detail at all sensitivity levels; the default Standard Photo Style applied to JPEGs pushes the saturation and contrast enough that you'll lose some detail in highlight and shadow areas.

Its color rendering and white balance is excellent. The automatic white balance delivers some of the best results I've seen, even in cloudy weather, low light and multiple light sources, which are three of the trickiest conditions you'll encounter.

The video looks great, too, though because of the sensor you'll see moire on high-frequency patterns, which are surprisingly common on clothes. But even in high-contrast lighting (such a bright subway platform and dark track area) at midrange sensitivities, it does a good job.

Analysis samples

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Panasonic's DFD (Depth from Defocus) autofocus technology is generally fast and accurate, and that holds true in the GX85 for individual shots; it locks focus and shoots quickly enough for most uses in bright and dim light. Its tested continuous shooting rate of 6.6 frames per second with autofocus for more than 40 shots or raw or JPEG is better than average, and even sustains a solid burst with raw+JPEG.

However, the continuous-autofocus accuracy seemed hit-and-miss for burst shooting (it's fine in video). Most of the time it produced a reasonable number of in-focus shots, and like most systems, it would occasionally lose the tracking or focus on something other than the subject. But it also failed to focus on anything more frequently than I expected.

Overall, though, the continuous shooting performs well enough for the needs of enthusiasts. The hybrid sensor shift/optical image stabilization system also works well with the kit lens, as does the sensor-shift-only which you get with other lenses such as the fast Olympus primes I shot with.

The camera's biggest performance disappointment: battery life. Under typical circumstances, the remaining life would drop a lot after a few hours. Shooting 4K video and burst drains it even faster.

Does it all

I like the GX85's design. The viewfinder's reasonably big and comfortable, it has a modest grip and a tilting touchscreen display and both front and back dials and direct access to most controls. You can customize the quick menu to bring up only the options you really use, and customize and save control mappings and settings separately for photos and videos.

However, I still haven't hit on the right combination of settings that will keep my cheek from changing the autofocus area when it hits the touchscreen (without giving up 1-area AF); I miss shots because of it, and it happens with every Panasonic touchscreen I use.

It incorporates all the latest Panasonic features, including 4K burst modes (which shoots a 4K video at a high-ish shutter speed so you can extract individual frames) and post focus (which takes a 4K movie focused at multiple planes in the scene so that you can choose the one with the blurred areas you like best) as implemented in the ZS100 (aka TZ100 and TZ110).

The GX85 allows for password-free Wi-Fi connections to mobile devices in addition to all the other connection features the company's had for a while. Panasonic's wireless transfer and remote operation is quite robust.

Conclusion

If the autofocus were more consistent and the battery life longer -- both of which I suspect could be improved with a firmware update -- this would be a no-brainer recommendation over its sibling, the G7, which I like a lot. Even so, it's one of the better cameras in its price class, especially if you want the advantages a mirrorless confers over a similarly priced dSLR: it's smaller, as fast or faster, has a more advanced autofocus system and a boatload more features including 4K video.

Comparative specifications