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A friend of ours won a Panasonic Lumix GM1 in a competition and, after using it for a while, decided that it wasn't for her. Would we be interested in buying it, she asked? Having got my hands on it, we took it with us on an ebike ride and shot a few pics. Wow! Yes, but are you sure you want to sell it...? In the end she decided to keep it and so we went in a search for one. We found that it had been upgraded to the Lumix GM5 - basically the same camera with the addition of a viewfinder and the cutest little external flash.
The Panasonic Lumix GM5 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds digital camera packs a full-featured, interchangeable lens system into a tiny, light magnesium alloy body. It has a 16MP Digital Live MOS sensor and Venus Engine image processor, producing the most amazing high-resolution images out of this diminutive body. It shoots Full HD 1080p video at 60 fps, its 1 166k dot electronic viewfinder is surprisingly clear and you can drop it into silent mode (and we mean silent) when you need to be really discrete.
We've used them on 2 ebiking trips to Europe and on many occasions back home and they never cease to amaze. And the best thing is that we can fit any of our M43 lenses to them!
What we like:
- A wonderful camera for those times when you don't want to be noticed.
- Surprisingly good image quality.
- The electronic viewfinder is very useful when things are too bright for the LCD screen.
- You can change lenses, you're not limited to the (surprisingly good) 12 - 32mm kit lens.
- It uses a full size SD card.
- Very portable.
- Shoots Full HD video.
- Connects to your mobile phone so that you can download jpegs and post to networks while "on the go".


The Panasonic Lumix GM5 with the Panasonic 12 - 32mm lens and tiny removable flash.
What we like less:
- While 16Mp is fine for many things, 20Mp would be nice to have. (Although one must remember that this camera was launched in 2014)
- The iPhone app doesn't allow for RAW image downloading (as it does with the G9) which is a shame.
- And that's about it...
Be sure to check out our other Lumix bodies - the G9, the GH5 and the TZ110.
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