I reckon it would be useful to share some of my on-the-field thoughts on this camera.
All in all I am pretty satisfied wih this little camera. It is very light. I can stuff it into a small pouch and just walk around without feeling much extra weight on me. In fact, I was deliberating whether to carry my 800g dSLR or the Panny G1. At least while walking around, I definitely feel like it was a great decision to carry the 400g camera instead. Ofcourse, my experience is set against the following environment - It was a rainy day and lighting was poor.
Here is what I liked about the camera:
- ISOs of 400-800 is very usable. This is the trump card against P&S. Even an excellent P&S will start to struggle at ISO 400
- The LCD is just excellent and the EVF is way better than any others in the market (at least those of similar price range)
- The weight and size is great for travelling, especially if you need to walk a bit. Folks with kids and a huge bag to carry around will appreciate this a lot. Grabbing the camera and the kit lens in one hand is comfortable.
- The swivel LCD is great for finding new angles.
- The performance is definitely snappier than any P&S out there, close to or exceeding some entry level dSLRs. Very impressive considering that it is using Contrast Detect all the time. Contrast Detect on my 450D can take up to 3-4 seconds.
- I like the feature which does a countdown during long exposure. On my other SLRs, I feel like an idiot then the exposure is 30 seconds and I have to count to myself (one-thousand, two thousand..) to have an idea when the shot is going to be completed. On the G1, there is a timer which counts down how many more seconds is left for the exposure. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:
- Battery life is pretty good....
- Details captured are very good.
So up to this point, you would have realized that all the 'likes' are almost lifted from other reviews on the G1. Well, that is because what the other said are true in these aspect.
Now on to some of the quibbles that I found with this camera. Note: Some of this could be because it is my first time using it and I'm not really familiar with some of the settings.
- For normal dSLRs, I don't mind leaving them ON most of the time. This is because, without Live View, power consumption should not be that high. Therefore, whenever I needed to shoot, the camera was ready. With the G1, since either Live View or EVF is ON all the time, I felt the need to turn it off every time I put it down, in order to save power. This made it a bit more cumbersome when I needed to take the next shot.
- If you playback your shots after the previous shot (which is what most people would do to check the result of the shot), the EVF will be stuck in playback mode as well. So when you view through the EVF for the next shot, you will be surprised to see the previous shot instead of the current live view. Half pressing the shutter fixes this but I find it a bit of a bother to waste a second or two doing that every time. I felt disrupted and while this may be a minor quibble to some but it irritates me a bit. Panasonic engineers can easily fix this by allowing the firmware to exit playback mode whenever it detects a face at the EVF and switches the back LCD off, a setting which can be turned on or off.
- I am not sure if this can be changed but the EVF does an immediate preview after every shot, this could be a hindrance when I need to take the following shot. I think the EVF should be at least configurable to only show live view all the time. Any previews or playback should only be shown on the back LCD.
- When taking shots with a strong backlight, I felt that the area around the lights gets washed quite out a bit. Some of the shots of the trees with sunlight behind them had this effect and the Waterfall picture above illustrates this. Ofcourse, perhaps some Film Mode settings may help me and PP can definitely fix this easily but as of now, it bothers me a bit . My using the lens hood could have contributed to the effect too, as I wanted to explore traveling as with as compact an equipment as I can.
- When taking shots with long exposure NR turned on, it takes as much time as the exposure time for processing. Eg, a shot with 30 seconds exposure time will take another 30 seconds to process. There is a countdown timer for this as well which is good but why so long to process?
- I also feel that my pictures are a little over exposed most of the time. EV compensation of up to -1 fixes some of these issues. [EDITED: Perhaps some film mode can help here]
- The default color settings also looks a bit washed out...Again I believe the Film Mode can help fix this, I haven't actually got to experimenting on some of the modes yet. [EDITED: I changed the film mode to Dynamic and the colors are very much brighter]
- Just note that when using the swivel feature of the back LCD, one needs to flip out the LCD fully and turn it around. Half lifting the LCD which I was doing in the beginning, would make it even more complicated to angle.
- Some settings such as metering mode, requires going through the menu to change. [EDITED: This can be changed by using the Fn button]
- The built-in flash, at 10.5, may be a little weak at times.
- As mentioned by some reviews, changing lenses is a little scary because of the exposed sensor.
- The On-OFF switch and some other controls feels a tad flimsy at times.
These are some of the minor quibbles I found with this camera. Again, as I mentioned, I haven't fully explored all the features of the camera and my first shots are out-of-camera JPEGs not RAW. Besides, these are not serious deal breakers that would likely to stop anyone buying the cameras. With time, I am sure, I am just going to like it more.
Summary
All in all, a very compelling package to replace some bridging or P&S camera. The performance is very close to dSLRs out there although I find the best entry level dSLRs may still hold some significant edge over the G1. I will definitely not be dumping my dSLR for the G1. However, considering the overall size and weight advantages and the undeniable hip factor, I think the G1 has a very good market carved out for the following groups:
a) People who have serious dSLRs but would like a travel camera which can still do a very decent job. The trendly looks of G1 fits right into those situations in which you don't want to look too geeky carrying around a chunky dSLR and make your friends nervous but would still want to take good pictures. The red one is really good for this.
b) Trendy people who would like to get a bit more serious in taking photos but would still want to carry hip equipments not too different from the colorful Sony and Casio P&S
c) 4/3 and m4/3 enthusiasts will current 4/3 accessories or people who would just like to try out the possibilities of the m4/3 technologies with adapters for Leica and other mounts
All in all, if marketed and executed properly, the Panasonic G1 could very well be the iPod/iPhone or the Wii of the dSLR market. Note that the iPhones has a gazillion flaws, but it is still the most exciting thing that happened to the handphone industry since the Motorola StarTac. The Panny G1 definitely have very much less flaws than the iPhone.
Good review .... just that it'll get lost here .... find another proper mFT forum ....
