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Panasonic Lumix DMC-FH5 review: Panasonic Lumix DMC-FH5

Unless you need a slimline, bare-bones camera, steer clear of the FH5 and get one of the many more pleasing options in the Lumix compact range.

Lexy Savvides Principal Video Producer
Lexy is an on-air presenter and award-winning producer who covers consumer tech, including the latest smartphones, wearables and emerging trends like assistive robotics. She's won two Gold Telly Awards for her video series Beta Test. Prior to her career at CNET, she was a magazine editor, radio announcer and DJ. Lexy is based in San Francisco.
Expertise Wearables, smartwatches, mobile phones, photography, health tech, assistive robotics Credentials
  • Webby Award honoree, 2x Gold Telly Award winner
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Lexy Savvides
3 min read

Design and features

Editor's note: this camera is the same as the Lumix DMC-FH2, with the differences being a higher resolution sensor (16-megapixels on the FH5 vs. 14-megapixels on the FH2) and a shorter battery life (260 shots on the FH5 vs. 270 shots on the FH2).

6.7

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FH5

The Good

Compact form factor. Decent battery life.

The Bad

Very poor video performance. Blown-out highlights and lacklustre image quality. Few features compared to other cameras in this price bracket.

The Bottom Line

Unless you need a slimline, bare-bones camera, steer clear of the FH5 and get one of the many more pleasing options in the Lumix compact range.

This bare-bones slimline camera isn't going to turn too many heads with its design, given that it's encased in a brushed metal finish with precious few buttons and dials to get stuck into. Along the top sit a shutter button, zoom rocker and the power switch, while at the back things are even more simple with a 2.7-inch, 230,000-dot screen flanked by menu and control buttons.

Taking up a tiny footprint thanks to its 1.8cm depth, photographers with larger hands might find the controls just a tad too dainty. Take, for example, the switch that changes between playback and camera modes -- so tiny you need to get a fingernail into it. Elsewhere on the spec sheet, top-line numbers are pretty consistent with a camera in this price-range, with a 28mm wide-angle lens, optical image stabilisation and 4x optical zoom. Inside is a 16-megapixel CCD sensor, in front of which sits a Leica-branded DC lens with a slow maximum aperture range of f/3.1-6.5.

Within the camera, options are kept very simple, with just intelligent automatic, normal picture, scene modes and movie mode to choose from. Colour modes available include the now-Panasonic regulars of "happy" (saturates colours), black-and-white, sepia and standard colour. Connectivity is via a single AV/proprietary mini-USB out, and the FH5 uses a rechargeable lithium-ion battery with SD/SDHC/SDXC cards.

Performance

General shooting metrics (in seconds)

  • Time to first shot
  • JPEG shot-to-shot time
  • Shutter lag

Continuous shooting speed (longer bars indicate better performance)

  • Panasonic Lumix FH5
  • Sony Cyber-shot W570

Panasonic rates the battery of the FH5 at 260 shots.

Image quality

Given the Leica-branded lens, we had high hopes for the FH5. Unfortunately, our hopes were dashed on looking at the test images that we took on this camera. Colours were dull, highlights were blown and the lens exhibited flaring issues when there was a lot of light present in our photos. Macro performance was lacklustre, and even low ISO levels produced images that, when observed at full magnification, looked noisy and over-processed. Like other cameras of the 16-megapixel variety, there's definitely no need to pack so many pixels onto such a tiny sensor.

Lens sharpness also dropped off dramatically towards the edges of the frame.

While the FH5 is equipped with HD video recording at 720p, it certainly does not deliver results that you would expect from HD. Video images appear blocky and without sharpness, and the audio is only just passable from the internal microphone. The FH5 does not allow the use of the optical zoom while filming.

Image samples

Exposure: 1/80, f/6.5, ISO 400

Exposure: 1/125, f/3.7, ISO 100

Exposure: 1/320, f/3.5, ISO 100

Exposure: 1/60, f/6.2, ISO 640

(Credit: CBSi)

Conclusion

Unless you need a slimline, bare-bones camera, steer clear of the FH5 and get one of the many more pleasing options in the Lumix compact range.