Panasonic G85 Flash

Coverage and Range
A fairly weak flash with narrow coverage. Good exposure with Auto ISO.

Coverage. Flash coverage is rather uneven at wide angle, leaving the corners of our flash target image quite dark at 12mm, thought that's not unusual, especially for a wider than average kit lens. Some of the corner shading can also attributable to the lens itself. We no longer test flash coverage at telephoto, as it is invariably better.

Exposure. Indoors under incandescent background lighting, the Panasonic G85's flash underexposed our indoor portrait scene at our standard aperture of f/4 at ISO 200, even with +1.0 EV flash exposure compensation. However, with Auto ISO, the G85 produced a good exposure but it boosted ISO to 800 to achieve that. Shutter speed was 1/60s, which is good and should help avoid motion blur with most portrait shots, though results were quite warm from the somewhat high ISO and ambient lighting.

Manufacturer-Specified Flash Range Test. The Panasonic G85's built-in flash has a Guide Number of approximately 6.4m at ISO 100 or 9.0m at ISO 200. That works out to a range of about 5.2 feet at f/5.6 and ISO 200. As you can see above, the Panasonic G85 produced a somewhat dim exposure at the rated distance, which means Panasonic's flash rating is optimistic.