Firmware Friday: Panasonic GH5 update brings bug fixes, reverts change to viewfinder sleep defaults

 

 

Our Firmware Friday post this week is going to be extremely short and sweet, because there's only one new firmware release we're aware of since our previous update. Unless you're a Panasonic GH5 owner or simply curious, you can hop over to another news item now. (I recommend our just-published Canon EOS M100 first shots fresh from the lab, or perhaps our review of the Think Tank Photo Spectral 15 shoulder bag, among recent articles.)

If you're a GH5 owner or thinking about picking one up soon, though, then you'll want to know about firmware version 2.1, which landed on Tuesday. The update makes four main changes, with one of them in particular very clearly aimed at addressing customer feedback. The previous v2.0 firmware release changed the default setting for the electronic viewfinder to preserve as much battery life as possible, sending the camera to sleep after just one second of inactivity. This change has been rolled back in v2.1, which will now leave power saving inactive for viewfinder shooting. You can, of course, change that default by pressing the Menu/Set button and selecting Setup :: Economy :: Power Save LVF Shooting, then selecting your desired sleep timeout.

Another important change is that when recording MP4 HEVC(AAC) video using v2.0 firmware, the Photo Style options were all reset to a level of -5 rather than the default of a zero adjustment. This behaviour has likewise been reverted, leaving the user to dial in their own picture quality adjustments only if they feel necessary. Finally, Panasonic has also resolved two bugs which could prevent AVCHD videos from being split in camera and the V-LogL View Assist function from working correctly. 

You can download the new Panasonic GH5 firmware version 2.1 firmware here.

And that's all for this week! Be sure to check back next time, or browse through the archives now to check for updates for your favorite camera(s).

(Camera parts image courtesy of Kelly Hofer / Flickr; used under a Creative Commons CC-BY-2.0 license. Image has been modified from the original.)