Smaller, lighter, still powerful: Feature-rich Panasonic GX85 offers better IS, lots of 4K goodies, no OLPF
posted Monday, April 4, 2016 at 11:30 PM EST
Did you find the Panasonic GX8 a bit too large? Perhaps slightly over your budget? Well, Panasonic has a tempting new solution if you're still in need of a small, well-built and feature-packed mirrorless camera. Say hello to the Panasonic GX85. For our foreign readers, you might hear of this camera under a different moniker: the Panasonic GX7 Mark II in Japan, or the Panasonic GX80 in the rest of the world.
Naming aside, the new Lumix GX85 offers a slimmer, lighter design that's much more akin to the earlier GX7, and offers a number of new features and performance improvements over that earlier model. While the GX8 maintains the top spot in terms of sensor resolution at 20 megapixels, the new GX85 incorporates a more familiar 16-megapixel Live MOS sensor, similar to the earlier GX7, except this time around there's no optical low-pass filter -- a first for Panasonic.
Combined with the added resolving power of this new sensor, one of the other major performance upgrades for the Panasonic GX85 is the improved 5-axis Dual I.S. system and an improved shutter mechanism that should offer better protection against shutter shock. There are also tons of features revolving around 4K, including the usual 4K video capabilities, as well as a handful of cool new features like 4K Live Cropping, 4K Light Composition mode, and Post Focus.
There's a lot more information about this sleeker, more affordable yet still enthusiast-class Lumix camera over in our Panasonic GX85 Hands-On Preview and be sure to check out the GX85 Samples Page for lab First Shots (note: using pre-production firmware). Check it out!
