Mirrorless interchangeable lens camera is a category that is quickly growing thanks to its USP of offering better image quality in a comparatively compact form factor as compared to similarly priced DSLRs. Panasonic, Sony and Olympus have been quite aggressive in this segment and we are seeing the same camera launch cycle as is witnessed in the DSLR and compact camera market. We got our hands on Panasonic’s latest iteration from the G series - the Panasonic Lumix DMC GF6 which is a successor to the DMC GF5 launched last year. The GF6 has some visual improvements and it also adds in Wi-Fi. On paper it looks like a good entry level mirrorless ILC, but is that enough? Let us find out.
Build and Ergonomics The Panasonic Lumix GF6 looks a lot like its predecessor - the GF5 - but there are some changes. For starters, the GF6 is a bit wider which gives you a decent amount of space between the lens and the palm grip. It is made up of an aluminium body with chrome finish on the top. The palm grip in the front is neatly complemented by a thumb rest on the rear side. The top edge has a slight outward protruding bulge around the lens region atop which you have the pop-up flash unit. Unfortunately, there is no hot shoe or accessory port. 
Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF6 houses a 16MP LiveMOS sensor and comes with the 14-42mm kit lens
A good addition is the dedicated metallic mode dial, which was missing in the GF5. It has a good click mechanism to it and there will rarely be instances where you may accidentally rotate the mode dial. Dedicated buttons to get into the Intelligent Auto mode and video mode are placed one behind the other, towards the right hand side. When activated, the strip around the iA button glows blue indicating that the camera is being used in the iA mode which is quite thoughtful. The shutter button is surrounded by the zoom lever which works in the preview mode. You can set it to work as an exposure controller, such that whenever you use it in the live-view mode, it will bring up the aperture and shutter rings, which can be adjusted using the rotary controller around the d-pad. 
The top edge of the Panasonic Lumix GF6 has a mode dial which was missing from the GF5
On the rear side you have the standard arrangement of buttons - a directional pad surrounded by a rotatory ring around it. Four buttons surround the d-pad. The screen can tilt a full 180 degrees thereby allowing you to see what you are shooting, when you are facing the lens while holding the camera. Selfie-addicts rejoice! The camera feels sturdy in the hand and you can use it one-handed, of course provided you just want to point and shoot without making any adjustments. The extra space between the lens and the palm rest on the right hand side, gives more room for your fingers to rest. All the buttons have a nice feedback and we only found the movie-record button to be too recessed. The buttons and the d-pad are placed within easy reach of the thumb. The hinges holding the LCD together are firm. Features The Panasonic Lumix GF6 houses the same sensor that was seen on the GX1 - the 16MP LiveMOS sensor. It comes bundled with the 14-42mm kit lens which has a manual focus ring in front of the zoom ring (with the 2x crop factor, the effective focal length you get is 28-84mm) Unlike the motorised 14-42mm lens seen with the GF5, the regular 14-42 mm kit lens does not make this camera pocketable. It houses the Venus image processing engine. 
The 3-inch LCD screen can tilt a full 180 degrees allowing you to see what you are shooting provided the lens is pointing at you
The 3-inch 1040k dot touchscreen LCD is quite responsive. We did not notice much lag while moving around the focus or swiping through the photographs in the preview mode or while zooming in and out. When you tilt the screen by a 180 degree angle for self portraits, the screen shows up three options - number of pictures (you can take 1-4 pictures at a time with a 3-sec interval), skin tone (low or high) and touch shutter. You can disable that by going to Custom menu and keeping the Self Shot menu off. Visibility in sunlight is quite good. The Quick Menu button brings up the most important functions such as focus, white balance, exposure, image size, ISO and so on. The functions can be navigated either via touch or by using the rotatory d-pad. MF Assist tends to zoom into the area of focus so that you get an accurate focus, however you need to keep your hands steady when you do so. You can disable the zoomed in view of the area under focus in the Custom menu. There are guidelines for those learning the basics of compositions. so you can choose from three different guidelines which basically form an overlay on your LCD screen. 
The Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF6 supports NFC and Wi-Fi transfer as well as remote shooting.
There are four function buttons, of which two are physical and two are touch buttons. You can set any of the 28 functions on any of the four buttons. We would suggest you to keep the Fn1 and Fn2 buttons as is, unless you won’t be using the Wi-Fi button much. 
Screenshots of the remote shooting mode from within the Panasonic Image App
Wi-Fi function works in conjunction with an app called the Panasonic Image app and you can connect it to the camera over your local Wi-Fi network to transfer images. Image size can be Medium or the Original size. You can also control your GF6 using the remote shooting mode from the Panasonic Image App. It is a detailed app and allows you the option to change white balance, focus, ISO, exposure among other things. While readjusting the focus we noticed hardly any lag. You can shoot still images as well as record videos. It is one detailed remote photography app we have seen off late. The GF6 also has an in-camera retouching feature that allows you to clone out unwanted objects from the image. It works with touch using which you have to highlight the region you want removed. But instead of a smooth highlight, you get jagged edges which makes removing objects a bit inaccurate. |
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Build and Ergonomics - Features
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Focus - Image Quality
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Specifications
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