Introduction

Ease of Use

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80 has been designed as an alternative for the GX8, being cheaper and slightly lower specced in some respects. However, to look at, it appears very similar to the GX7 - the GX8’s predecessor.

That means it’s got a nicely slim and sleek body, and while it’s not quite pocket sized, it’s not too far off when paired with the small collapsible 12-32mm lens (which will be the default kit lens). On the front of the camera is a grip to help your finger rest nicely and give good purchase. Where your thumb sits on the rear of the camera is also textured, preventing your thumb from slipping onto the screen when holding the camera.

On the top of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80 is a mode dial which allows you to quickly choose a shooting mode, such as aperture priority, fully automatic, scene mode and so on. In a difference from the GX8 however, there’s no exposure compensation dial for quickly making such a change.

Front of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80

Panasonic views this camera as being for photographers who are not quite as advanced as GX8 users, so it’s not too much of a surprise to see a dial like this missing. Around the shutter release is a dial which will allow you to alter aperture or shutter speed (depending on the shooting mode you’re in). There’s a secondary small dial on the back of the camera which can also be used for a similar function - you can set up how these dials work in the main menu.

In another difference from the GX8, while the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80 has an electronic viewfinder, it’s not quite as large as the GX8’s, and it also doesn’t tilt. While this makes it not quite as pleasant to use, it does help save on space (and cost) and becomes something you’ll perhaps use only for shots in bright sunlight, rather than every shot. That said, the view inside it is bright and clear, if a little more cramped than perhaps we’d generally like.

Similarly, the back screen only tilts, rather than being fully articulating. That makes the GX8 perhaps a little more suited to video shooting (and selfies), but a tilting screen is still useful for a number of different awkward angles. As we’ve come to expect from Panasonic G series cameras, it is touch sensitive and very responsive. You can use the touchscreen while using the viewfinder to set the autofocus point, which is an innovation other manufacturers are now starting to copy because it is so useful.

Rear of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80

The buttons occupying the rear of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80 will be familiar to anybody who has used a Panasonic G series camera before, and make for a very sensible way of working. As always, there are a number of function buttons (four in this case) that can be customised to work in different ways depending on your preference but which have a default function already. For instance, one near the viewfinder controls the viewfinder function, while another near the navigational pad switches on Post Focus shooting. If you decide you’d prefer something else to be more easily accessible, you simply change their function in the main menu.

A quick menu can be accessed by pressing the Fn2 button when in shooting mode. This will bring up most of the key settings that you’re likely want to change shot to shot, such as white balance, ISO, Picture Style and so on. You can either use the touchscreen to navigate around this menu, or the directional keys on the back of the camera.

There’s also another more extensive menu if you need to make other changes, such as to the date and time, or change the function of buttons. This is a sensibly arranged menu, and doesn’t take much getting used to, especially if you’ve used any Panasonic cameras before.

Tilting LCD Screen

Like other Panasonic G series cameras, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80 has 4K Photo modes. This utilises the ability to capture 4K video for a number of different functions. One of these is Post Focus, which allows you to take a series of photos all with a different focus point, and then choose your preferred one after you’ve captured the shot. This can be more useful for some subjects than others, for example with Macro it’s a great idea.

There’s also the three standard 4K photo modes. There’s 4K Burst, which will keep shooting at 30fps so long as you have the shutter release held down. There’s 4K Burst (Start/Stop), which will start recording with a single press of the shutter release, and stop when you press it again and 4K Pre-Burst, which will record just two seconds of footage, one second before you fully press the shutter button, and one second after to give you 60 frames to shoot from. Which mode you use will be dependent on the shooting situation - after you’ve recorded, you can simply play back the frames on the camera and choose the one you want to extract. It will be extracted at 8 million pixels, rather than the full 16 the sensor offers, but that’s still enough to print at A3 size.

Dedicated function buttons are available for these 4K modes, but again, you can switch these to another function if you’re not using the 4K modes all that often.

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80 In-hand

Hidden away a little more, there’s also Light Composition, which gives you the opportunity to combine several frames into one final image, giving priority to specific pixels based on their brightness. So, you can use it for fireworks or night sky images to dramatic effect.

As we’ve come to find with Panasonic cameras, focusing is very quick and accurate, locking onto a subject almost instantly when shooting in good light. When you’re using the viewfinder you can use TouchPad AF to move the autofocus point by tapping on the screen to select the point you want. While occasionally you may touch it accidentally with your noise and move the point when you don’t want to, it’s a very useful feature.

In lower light, the lens will sometimes hunt for a little longer than in bright light to acquire focus, but it’s rare for focus to fail - or for a false confirmation of focus to be presented.

Shot to shot times are very quick, and flicking through images in preview mode is also very speedy. Start-up time is practically non-existent, while you may experience a little slowness when the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80 is processing 4K photos, but considering the large amount of work the camera is doing, it’s not too long a wait at all.

Image Quality

All of the sample images in this review were taken using the 16 megapixel Fine JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 7Mb.

Panasonic cameras usually impress us with high image quality, and happily the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80 is no different. It’s interesting to see that Panasonic has gone down the route of removing the low pass filter with a new design, and it appears to have a positive effect on image quality.

If you look at our sample images, you’ll see that detail is resolved extremely well, with lots of fine detail visible throughout the camera’s native sensitivity range. The overall impression of detail is fantastic when looking at images at normal printing or web sizes (such as A4 or below), but if you zoom at 100%, there’s some loss of detail towards the higher end of the sensitivity spectrum - that’s not surprising though and will only really have an impact if you want to perform some heavy cropping.

Low light performance is generally good, with the amount of noise reduction applied to JPEG images appearing quite natural. You can use Panasonic’s Silkypix software to work on raw format images (an update for Adobe Camera Raw will be in the making). Here we can see that at higher ISOs (such as ISO 3200) there is a fair amount of chroma noise and speckling visible when you turn off all noise reduction. However, there is also more detail than in the corresponding JPEG files giving you good scope to bring back any detail in fine subjects if you prefer.

Colours directly from the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80 are nicely saturated to give a pleasing effect without going too far over the top. Raw files are slightly flatter in terms of vibrance, but again this gives good scope for working on the files in post production.

Exposures are generally accurate thanks to the camera’s all-purpose metering system, while being able to use the electronic shutter to utilise very fast shutter speeds gives you the option to create shallow depth of field shots even in bright sunlight.

Under artificial light, the GX80’s automatic white balance system tends to err ever so slightly on the warm side, but if you find that to be problematic you can switch to a more appropriate white balance setting.

One of the headline new features of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80 is improvements to optical image stabilisation. With 5-axis stabilisation in place, you can shoot at slower shutter speeds handheld with confidence. I was able to get sharp shots shooting at speeds as slow as 1/5 of a second handheld, which is great.

4K Photo Modes continue to impress with their versatility. Whether you’re photographing action, sports, wildlife, or just an active child, the applications that this technology has is great - and the fact that it’s so simple to execute makes it even better too.

Noise

There are 9 ISO settings available on the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80. Here are some 100% crops which show the noise levels for each ISO setting, with JPEG on the left and RAW on the right:

JPEG	RAW
ISO 200 (100% Crop)	ISO 200 (100% Crop)
ISO 400 (100% Crop)	ISO 400 (100% Crop)
ISO 800 (100% Crop)	ISO 800 (100% Crop)
ISO 1600 (100% Crop)	ISO 1600 (100% Crop)
ISO 3200 (100% Crop)	ISO 3200 (100% Crop)
ISO 6400 (100% Crop)	ISO 6400 (100% Crop)
ISO 12800 (100% Crop)	ISO 12800 (100% Crop)
ISO 25600 (100% Crop)	ISO 25600 (100% Crop)

Flash

The flash settings on the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80 are Auto, Auto/Red-eye Reduction, Forced Flash On, Slow Sync./Red-eye Reduction and Forced Flash Off. These shots of a white coloured wall were taken at a distance of 1.5m.

Flash Off (24mm)	Flash On (24mm)
Flash Off (64mm)	Flash On (64mm)

And here are some portrait shots. As you can see, neither the Flash On setting or the Red-Eye Reduction option caused any amount of red-eye.

Flash On	Flash On (100% Crop)
Red-eye Reduction	Red-eye Reduction (100% Crop)

Multiple Exposure

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80's Multiple Exposure mode combines two or three different pictures to create one composite image.

Multiple Exposure

Photo Styles

Panasonic's Photo Styles, similar to Nikon's Picture Styles, Canon's Picture Controls and Olympus' Picture Modes, are preset combinations of different sharpness, contrast, saturation and noise reduction settings. The six available Photo Styles are shown below in the following series, which demonstrates the differences. There is also a Custom option so that you can create your own look.

Standard	Vivid
Natural	Monochrome
Scenery	Portrait

Filters

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80 has an extensive range of creative Filters with 22 different options on offer.

Expressive	Retro
Old Days	High Key
Low Key	Sepia
Monochrome	Dynamic Monochrome
Rough Monochrome	Silky Monochrome
Impressive Art	High Dynamic
Cross Process	Toy Effect
Toy Pop	Bleach Bypass
Miniature Effect	Soft Focus
Fantasy	Star Filter
One Point Color	Sunshine

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80 camera, which were all taken using the 16 megapixel Fine JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.

Sample RAW Images

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80 enables users to capture RAW and JPEG format files. We've provided some Panasonic RAW (RW2) samples for you to download (thumbnail images shown below are not 100% representative).

Sample Movies & Video

Product Images

Front of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80

Front of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80

Side of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80

Side of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80

Rear of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80

Rear of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80 / Turned On

Rear of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80 / Main Menu

Rear of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80 / Quick Menu

Rear of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80 / Image Displayed

Rear of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80 / Tilting LCD Screen

Rear of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80 / Tilting LCD Screen

Side of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80

Side of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80

Front of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80

Front of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80

Memory Card Slot / Battery Compartment

Memory Card Slot / Battery Compartment

Conclusion

When the GX8 was announced, many people missed the smaller body size of the GX7 so its nice to see Panasonic bringing that kind of style back for its new addition.

Sitting between the GF7 and the GX8, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80 is a logical camera for people who don’t need the quite so advanced features of the GX8, but still like a viewfinder and are attracted to 4K Photo Modes.

Happily, the smaller body size and cheaper price point hasn’t meant a reduction in image quality. Despite the fact that the GX80 has fewer megapixels, the removal of the optical low pass filter and the improvement to optical image stabilisation makes it difficult to judge between the two cameras as to which in fact has the better image quality - it’s pretty much too close to call.

Directly from the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80 images are bright and punchy, while you’ve also got the raw format files to work from if you’re missing a little fine detail at high ISOs. Detail overall though is fantastic, and you should be able to see that in the sample shots - and we didn’t come across any instance of moire patterning, so the new sensor design has done well there too.

When it comes to downsides - well there aren’t all that many for the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80. The viewfinder is smaller than that found on the GX80, but it’s still very useable. The screen also doesn’t fully articulate, but that makes for a neater overall body. Overall the GX80 represents excellent value for money because it has an extensive feature set, great image quality, and its in a more portable and arguably more attractive body that the GX8, being as it is more similar to the popular old GX7.

It may be difficult for consumers to choose between the GF7, GX80 and GX8 as the differences between them are reasonably subtle. However, with different price points and different intended audiences, there is room for all three to co-exist right now.

It will be interesting to see how this introduction eats into the sales of other popular mid-range CSCs on the market, but Panasonic has brought a very, very strong contender to the game with the new Lumix DMC-GX80.

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	4.5
Features	5
Ease-of-use	4.5
Image quality	5
Value for money	5

Main Rivals

Listed below are some of the rivals of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80.

Review Roundup

Reviews of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80 from around the web.

Specifications

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