Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF2 Samples

The crops below show the performance of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF2 next to the same ISO for the Pentax K-5
Pentax K-5. Both these cameras use a CMOS sensor which at least covers the ISO sensitivity range from 100 to 6400. The K-5 is presently the top-performing APS-C sensor (1.5X FLM) DSLR.

All images below are 100% crops from their respective camera taken at the highest image quality JPEG setting available. ISO, aperture and white-balance were set on camera. Other settings were left at their default values. These crops help determine which ISO settings is acceptable on these cameras. When noise increases, most cameras compensate with noise reduction which introduces softness. The point at which a print becomes too noisy is a matter of personal taste.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF2	Pentax K-5
ISO 100	ISO 100
ISO 200	ISO 200
ISO 400	ISO 400
ISO 800	ISO 800
ISO 1600	ISO 1600
ISO 3200	ISO 3200
ISO 6400	ISO 6400
The Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF2 applies more noise-reduction in low-light, despite setting it to the minimum. This causes its images to appear rather soft next to the K-5 which clearly shows a huge lead in terms of image quality. The K-5 had its noise reduction off. Keep in mind that the GF2 is one third the price and weight of the K-5! Considering this, it slots itself nicely as a great compromise between image quality and bulk.	ISO 12800
	ISO 25600
	ISO 51200