In Praise of the Panasonic Lumix GX85

Six years ago, I acquired my first interchangeable-lens mirrorless digital camera, after having been immersed in and eventually fallen-out with film-based photography, and then piddled-about with digital point-and-shoot cameras. At that time, I'd wanted to shoot a lot of 4k video footage along with still images, and what had sold me on the Panasonic Lumix GX85 were its compact "form factor" and its image stabilization. After a while, though, I moved-up through Panasonic's larger and more feature-rich cameras, and then moved on to Fujifilm's digital mirrorless cameras for their better colors and dynamic range, despite that Fuji's IBIS was just beginning to be introduced, and was nowhere as good as Panasonic's.

I am still enamored with the GX85, however, and here are my reasons why; sometimes in comparison to Fuji cameras:

1. The tininess of the GX85's body and commensurate sizes of the lenses it takes renders it most portable and also discrete when shooting. It's a creepy photographer's dream camera. Call it "candid" or "street" photography, but male and female photographers alike are predatory creepazoids. The tilting screen in back enables one to shoot from waist-level, head down, so the prey don't even detect their souls' being stolen from them.
2. The GX85's electromagnetic shutter was the first instance of such a contraption, and it's still one of the quietest mechanisms, with almost-no shock to it. I've hand-held shots down to 1/4 and even 1/3 of a second, thanks to its innovative design. Only recently has Fuji introduced such a mechanism (with the X-H1, and then the X-T4 and X-S10). Great for low-light creepiness, and without the rolling-shutter effect and smeary backgrounds that an electronic shutter yields.
3. Along with 4k video, the GX85's in-body image stabilization (which combines with some Panasonic lenses' optical image stabilization) is still better than the IBIS of Fujifilm digital cameras, particularly for panning. It has a setting for defeating vertical IBIS for lateral movement of the camera, so that pan shots don't look jerky. Later models feature a steady-shot function, which fixes upon an object in static hand-held shooting. Fuji's IBIS has a similar feature, but Panasonic's is, again, superior. When shooting hand-held, the GX85's IBIS makes shots look more natural, smoothing what are called "micro-jitters" that make the cameraperson appear to have been nervous about gettin' his/her creep on on the down-low.
4. After shooting a series of time-lapse shots, the GX85 can compile them into a 4k video file. The Fuji cameras don't do that. It sure beats having to load them into a video-editing timeline. One can do that, if one prefers, but I'm a "bang-zoom" kind of person; if the technology exists for me to skip a painstaking step, so be it.
5. Most "hybrid" (still/video) cameras have a 30-minute (if not shorter) recording limit for video, but the GX85 managed to feature unlimited recording time – that is, limited only by the power source and/or the capacity of the SD card. One can use a dummy battery, connected to an external power source, inserted into the battery compartment (although this dictates having to use the electronic shutter when shooting still images while the camera is thusly powered).
6. Panasonic's L.monochrome picture profile, introduced on the GX85, is my favorite black-and-white profile; even more so than Fuji's "Acros" film simulation. Although the Lumix colors look bland and flat compared to Fuji's, the GX85 is a great camera to dedicate to black-and-white still photography. 4k video shot in L.monochrome has a "film noir" look.
7. One thing that gets overlooked is that Panasonic cameras, from about the GX85 onward, have an electronic telephoto feature, which crops the live image by 2X, and doesn't look bad in good lighting. I sometimes wish that Fuji cameras had it. This feature is especially good for creepin' out from a distance from which one has a head start in case of the hunter's becoming the hunted upon discovery.
8. Finally, although it wasn't until the release of the larger, more conventionally-formed and more feature-rich G85, a few months after the GX85 came out, that the flatter, more-gradable, Cinelike-D and Cinelike-V picture profiles for video appeared, it turned out that they had been written into the GX85's firmware but not made to appear in its menu. These and the microphone input jack were the principal reasons to "upgrade" to the G85, but someone figured out how to "hack" the firmware to make these profiles appear. What one does is apply this "hack" and then save the camera with either of these profiles to a custom setting, as during the process they are the only profile settings visible. That leaves the rest of the camera, as it were, with the menu as it had originally come, and one can be a photo-creep in whatever picture profile one deems most appropriate.

The GX85, with the 12-32mm kit lens (depicted above) had originally retailed for $700. It's now selling for half that amount, used, on eBay. Even better deals can be found from sellers who are unable to adequately test them, so selling them "as-is." YouTubers may be talkin'-up the GX85, but they do whine about its lack of mic input jack and "flippy" screen, which can be swiveled around so that they can get creepy on themselves. They're missing the point of the GX85. It was not designed for autocreepazoidalism. It was made for making time-lapses, shooting 4k video takes longer than a half hour, taking hand-held still photos, and discretely stalking visual prey.

By the way, anyone who doesn't believe that chicks are at least as creepy with cameras as dudes are should look at the Instagrams of chick photographers, who are always getting their girl-friends naked, if not also getting naked with them, for "shoots." (There is no "male gaze," there's just how people get creepy when they regard feminine beauty and sexuality.)

Addendum, 24 July:

Panasonic GX8 sans "flippy" screen

I have engaged in many an online argument about tilting-vs.-articulating ("flippy") screens. Aside from its being a matter of personal preference, and therefore not an absolute matter of virtue, one of my points of contention with the "flippy" screen is that I have seen too many cameras with such screens break at the joints on the side. This happens either suddenly with one shock or with cumulative damage from being repeatedly bumped by a left forearm, in addition to being frequently flipped and folded. The Fuji X-E4's screen tilts up into "selfie" mode, with the image flipped – but then, you can't use the hot shoe for mounting a mic (so get a bracket that mounts one off to the side, maybe?). On flippy-screen cameras, the hot shoe-mounted mic's cable runs in front of the forward-facing screen into the mic jack. There's always something about cameras' functional design to whine about by people who are in denial of the prospect of a disastrously amputated "flippy" screen and the disastrous cost to replace it.