Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1

The express purpose of my purchase of the G1 was to have a platform from which to photograph using my extensive kit of vintage and manual glass. The G1 is an outstanding body for just this purpose and in… the first week of having it, I was able to use every one of the lenses I favor. This includes the Canon 100/2, the Canon 0.95 "Dream Lens", a Summicron-R mount, a Cooke, Taylor, Hobson Large format, a Celestron C-8 telescope, and a Questar 3.5" telescope to name a few. The controls are nicely placed and, once familiar with that placement, easy to access. Often criticized in other reviews, the function knob is easy to find and use in the dark. Only real issue to me is that I would have liked it to be a bit stiffer on the click stops as it is easy to bump and change the settings. I really like this body.

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This camera is much more than I expected, I can hand it to my 7 year old and he gets amazingly good pictures. The picture quality is wonderful. The point and click mode works so well that I have trouble… wanting to use it as a straight SLR but even when I do I still get amazing pictures! The only drawback I have found is that it will not take an SD card smaller than 4 meg, make sure you get one! I purchased an extra battery too but I have yet to use it. Great family camera. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a great quality, easy to use digital camera, or a beginning SLR user.

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I've had my G1 for three months, and there isn't much I can add to the other 5-star reviews. It's a very solid camera that is easy to carry and easy to use. It takes great pictures. It has three… excellent kit lenses to choose from, and it can use hundreds of great lenses from the days of film that are now very inexpensive and easily available. I have both kit zooms and 3 legacy primes. I'm particularly impressed by the performance of the zooms, which are both exceptionally good for such moderately priced lenses. All in all, I highly recommend this camera (or its sibling, the GH1, if you need video) to anyone who is moving up from a fixed lens camera and to anyone who is tired of lugging the weight of a full frame dSLR around. One note: I've noticed that several reviewers cited poor high-ISO performance as a drawback. While literally true - a less than full frame sensor is at a technical disadvantage with respect to noise - I've found that this is much less of a problem than I expected. Part of the reason is that Panasonic took a deliberately conservative approach to setting ISO levels, unlike Canon, Olympus, and others who have exaggerated their ISO numbers. For this reason, a G1 image shot at what Panny calls "ISO 800" is essentially identical in exposure to what many dSLRs produce when set at what those other companies call "ISO 1600." The amount of light hitting the sensor is the same in both cases, and therefore the amount of noise is quite similar. Thus it is important to compare the noise in an ISO 800 shot from the G1 with the noise from most other popular cameras set at 1600, and so on at every other ISO increment. (Certain Nikons are an exception, as they are closer to the Panasonic definitions of ISO than the inflated Canon/Olympus definition.) After all, it's the actual exposure settings that matter, not the labels the camera makers put on the ISO. If two cameras shoot the same scene with the same aperture and the same shutter speed, the two exposures will be the same. It doesn't matter that one camera is set at ISO 200 and the other is set at ISO 400, the amount of light reaching both sensors is the same. What this means in practical terms is that the G-1's TRUE low light performance is one full stop better than most people expect if they just go by the ISO settings.

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Before I go on I should mention I also have a Nikon d700 which is a pretty fancy camera costing about five times as much as the G1 if you include appropriate lenses. When compared to the d700 you can see… the G1 doesnt have the same sort of brick like construction quality, it is much more plasticy and doesnt have as many controls to hand. The upside of this is that its about 1/2 of the weight of the d700 with lens and in fact a large part of my decision to buy the G1 was because of its small size. When I compared it to cameras at the more compact end such as the "super zooms" I found the G1 had a physically larger sensor and better picture quality. There was also a real lens up front with ability to change lenses. Also, superior access to deeper parameters like ISO, white balance, focus and exposure modes easily. The downside here is the G1 costs a bit more than similar "super zoom", though I am amazed at the differences in prices sellers are asking for it. I paid about 20% more than my girlfriends top of the range compact which I felt was worth it. So I wanted something much lighter than my d700 but still with lots of ability to fiddle with parameters. I have not been disappointed in this camera, its great fun to use. Setting of most functions require only one or two button presses and scroll of the wheel. I love the small size and reduced weight. Although the electronic viewfinder sacrifices some naturalness you get used to it pretty quick and it has the ability to do things you cant with a SLR viewfinder. These include ability to preview the effects of changes to aperture and shutter speed which is great for lower light shooting. You can also see how much image blurring will occur with slower shutter speeds, and also preview depth of field. When travelling in dodgy places I also feel less self conscious pulling this camera out in public, and feel less likely to get mugged! Ive noticed some reviewers have marked this camera down as being too complex and I feel this is not a fault of the camera. It would be different if the camera were poorly laid out but its not, one button press will give you access to a whole range of parameters, its hard to fault. Little things are annoying like when you want to delete a photo you have to press the delete button then press a scroll right button to choose 'yes" and then press a "menu set" button to confirm. So thats 3 different buttons. On my d700 you just press the delete button, get asked OK? and then press again. Much less finger moving around. These little details are what distinguish higher end cameras but this is a minor quibble. More obscure parameters need more button pressing but this camera is no worse than even the d700. If you are not interested in learning about what goes into a photograph then I would agree the ability to tweak settings will be unnecessary and intimidating and you would be better off with a more preset oriented camera. Then again, the G1 has about 8 scene presets, so at minimum you can just point and shoot. This is good when you want to hand your camera over to a non-camera friendly stranger or friend to use without baffling them. To sum up, this camera was a compromise for me between the high end picture quality of my d700 and the need for something more lightweight, compact and less obtrusive, but still with enough sophistication to allow tweaking and user input into the photo.

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