Panasonic Lumix DMC-G6 review

Price, specifications and rating based on the 14-42mm kit

Panasonic introduced us to the world of compact system cameras (CSCs) in 2008 with the G1. Back then it seemed like a leap into the unknown. Five years later, CSCs have become mainstream, with all the major manufacturers now on board.

The G6 is the latest update to the G1, and follows the same design cues. It has a distinctly SLR-like shape, complete with a viewfinder, hotshoe, articulated screen and a generous smattering of controls. This isn’t a true SLR, as there’s no flip-up mirror to redirect light from the sensor to the viewfinder – instead, it uses an electronic viewfinder. One benefit is a smaller overall size, but the G6 is only a little smaller and lighter than conventional SLRs at this price. If size and weight are primary concerns, there are better options such as the Sony NEX-6 or Fujifilm X20. As such, the G6 must compete with SLRs rather than other CSCs.

The SLR-like G6 stands out from the pack of compact-styled designs

BUILD AND CONTROLS

It’s not the most luxurious-looking camera. The plastic construction is to be expected at this price but it looks a little bland to us. It’s a comfortable fit in the hand, with a contoured grip that’s much more substantial than most CSCs offer. However, one-handed operation sometimes led to us accidentally pressing the Wi-Fi button on the bottom-right corner of the camera. The command dial is pushed inwards to toggle between exposure-related functions, but we found it a little too stiff and recessed to rotate quickly without accidentally pushing it.

Lots of buttons and dials to get to grips with …

Otherwise, though, the controls are a great success. There’s a lever on the top, which adjusts the zoom for lenses with motorised zooms, and takes on exposure compensation duties at other times. There’s a generous collection of buttons, including dedicated buttons for the most important functions and five customisable Fn buttons. It’s probably best to leave most of these at their default settings, which are thankfully labelled too to avoid having to remember all of their functions. There is some scope to set things up to your liking, though. For instance, there’s no auto/manual focus switch so we assigned the Fn3 button to this task. Fn3 is assigned to focus peaking (more of which below) by default, but we were happy to leave this function permanently enabled.

… plus even more on the top

PERFORMANCE AND AUTOFOCUS

Performance is excellent, with autofocus that’s just as fast as an SLR, and possibly even faster in low light. It rattled off a shot every 0.5 seconds in our tests, even when shooting in raw mode. Continuous shooting was at 8.6fps for 20 shots, slowing to 2.6fps. Enabling continuous autofocus slowed it to 2.7fps – we couldn’t achieved Panasonic’s claimed 5fps performance here.

All of this compares well with SLRs such as the Canon EOS 650D and Nikon D5200, but the G6 gains several advantages from its mirrorless design. Its electronic viewfinder is significantly bigger, and with a 1.44-million dot resolution, it’s sharp enough to reveal more detail than its rivals’ optical viewfinders. Manual focus gets an added boost with the ability to show a 10x magnification while making adjustments, plus a peaking display that highlights high-contrast (and thus, sharply focused) edges.

SLRs are much slower to focus in live view mode, but here, autofocus is seriously quick regardless of whether you’re using the viewfinder or the LCD screen. Its autofocus is much more versatile, too. The autofocus point can be placed anywhere in the frame simply by touching the screen, and varied in size via the command dial. There’s also a Pinpoint mode, which shows a 5x magnification to help place the autofocus point extremely precisely. Face detection and subject tracking are included too, and there’s also a spot metering function that’s extremely quick to set via the touchscreen.

VIDEO AND WI-FI

Responsive, smooth autofocus is also available when recording videos. That’s not the only advantage the G6’s video mode has over its rivals. Video details were sharper and smoother than any other CSC or SLR bar the Panasonic GH3, with barely any moiré interference and none of the blocky or soft details that rival cameras exhibit. The GH3 delivered punchier contrast that helped to bring out subtle details, but there wasn’t a huge amount to choose between them for video quality.

The best news for keen videographers is that the G6 supports the full complement of priority and manual exposure modes for video capture – something Panasonic has previously reserved for its flagship GH cameras. Shutter speed, aperture and ISO speed can be adjusted while recording, and doing so via the touchscreen avoids spoiling the soundtrack.

MPEG-4 encoding is at 25 or 50fps at 1080p. Switching to AVCHD format adds 24p and 50i to the options, but details weren’t as crisp in this format. Encoding is at up to 28Mbit/s – there’s no 50Mbit/s or 72Mbit/s recording as per the GH3 here – but we didn’t see any evidence of compression artefacts. A bigger disappointment for ambitious filmmakers is that the HDMI output is disabled while recording.

That’s probably enough to protect sales of the GH3. However, in two respects the G6 is an even better video camera than the GH3. Its peaking focus mode is a huge benefit for video, making it easier to adjust the manual focus while recording. It also supports remote video capture over Wi-Fi from the accompanying iOS and Android apps, so a tablet can be used as a wireless monitor. These features will probably be added to the GH3 sooner or later, but Panasonic wasn’t able to confirm.

The app also includes comprehensive control over camera settings, although sadly it’s not possible to adjust them while recording. The camera can even stream recorded videos to an Android device for instant playback, but this isn’t supported in the iOS app.

Use your tablet as a wireless video monitor, and tweak setting between shots

Photo capture benefits greatly from the Wi-Fi features too, with elegant photo transfers, including the ability to transfer as you shoot, plus comprehensive remote control. The autofocus point can be moved by touching the phone or tablet’s screen, and it’s even possible to adjust the autofocus point’s size with a pinching action.

Back in the camera, there are lots of other great extras, including HDR, panorama stitching and creative filters. A Clear Retouch feature can be used to erase blemishes from JPEGs by automatically cloning from other areas of the photo. The results were somewhat hit-and-miss but it could be handy on the odd occasion. A stop-motion mode captures a sequence of photos, either according to a timer for time-lapse effects or on demand with the shutter release button. The screen overlays the previous frame to help keep track of movement in the animation, and the camera can convert the sequence of photos into a video file at a choice of frame rates.

IMAGE QUALITY

The biggest challenge for the G6 is its basic ability to take photos. Its predecessors have done well here but they haven’t quite matched SLRs for image quality. The G6 had no problems competing in bright conditions. Its 16-megapixel sensor is a little lower than most SLRs at this price, but sharp focus right into the corners of frames and extremely reliable autofocus meant that it compared well for details. There was no hint of noise-reduction artefacts at the base ISO 160 setting, and details looked every bit as natural and lifelike as we’d expect from an SLR.

The G6’s lens, sensor and JPEG engine all contribute to supremely crisp, lifelike details in bright light

The spokes on this wheel are sharp with smooth edges to lines, and there’s no hint of noise in the dark textures of the wheel

Noise at fast ISO speeds has been a weak area for Lumix G cameras in the past, but the G6 put in an excellent performance here too. It was just as good as an SLR up to ISO 1600. By ISO 3200 its rivals began to show a slight advantage, but the G6 still turned in usable results at ISO 6400 that were only a little behind the leaders. Choosing a Lumix G camera used to mean having to accept a compromise for low-light image quality, but that’s no longer the case.

There’s barely any suggestion of noise in this ISO 1600 shot

Shaded skin tones are a tougher test, but there’s still only a light smattering of visible noise, and plenty of detail

Noise is more pronounced at ISO 3200, but this shot is still good enough to keep

CONCLUSION

The G6 could be seen as a dependable but unremarkable camera. Its ergonomics, controls, performance and photo quality are all above average but not quite class-leading. Its video mode and Wi-Fi implementation are its best features, but these won’t be the most important issues for many people.

Another view is that this is a rare instance of a camera that gets pretty much everything right. A lot of SLRs and CSCs’ video modes are prone to problems, such as skittish autofocus and aliasing artefacts. We’ve seen slightly unreliable autofocus for photos in many SLRs at this price, too. All of these problems are notably absent here. The G6 takes reliably excellent photos and videos, and everything else is in place for a great user experience.