Although it’s expensive, the Panasonic Lumix GH5 lives up to it’s stellar reputation; being a high quality, reliable and well equipped underwater camera – especially for shooting videos with; having been designed “for video first and stills second”.
One of the reasons it performs so well underwater is because it is equipped with a wide arsenal of relevant performance enhancing features including white balance metering, autofocusing and image stabilization.
Image stabilization is a particularly crucial feature for anyone shooting video underwater but not all image stabilization is equal!
The GH5s’ incredible 5 axis dual image stabilization corrects all lenses to eliminate blur and body and lens shake, both effectively and seamlessly. (A similar model to the GH5 exists: the newer Lumix GH5S; which has higher pixelation but no image stabilisation, making it poorly suited for underwater videographers – so choose the GH5, which we’re reviewing here).
Another reason this mirrorless camera has superb video resolution is because of its full sensor width 4k which can shoot up to a whopping 60 frames per second (!) 4k video with internal 4:2 2 10 bit 4K video recording and subsequently captures some truly flawless slow motion videos as well. Videos shot by the GH5 are extremely sharp and don’t suffer from pixel dumping at all.
The Panasonic Lumix GH5 produces excellent image quality with a high dynamic range thanks in part, to it’s 20.3 mp 1 inch sensor, which is a smaller micro four thirds sized sensor – this means that the camera will show some noise and less colour retention at higher ISOs.
All of these awesome features that the Lumix GH5 has, result in this camera capturing ultra high quality video footage.
The GH5’s video resolution is a whopping 4096 x 2160 and this is ultimately the main reason why it win’s the Diving Squad award of overall best expensive underwater video camera instead of it’s similarly matched competitor / runner up, the Sony A7III (3840 X 2160 vid res).
The underwater housing gives the Panasonic Lumix GH5 water resistance to 300 ft / 90 m and is made from high quality aluminium with superbly ergonomic quick access of all the controls as well as a moisture detection feature.