GE G1 Digital Camera Review

GE G1

Digital Camera Review

Mar 11, 2007 - By Richard Baguley
1.7 The digital camera market today is a place of razor-thin profit margins and competition more reminiscent of a street brawl than the gentlemanly rivalry we used to see. As such, we don’t see newcomers very often since most companies look at the entrenched hold that the big companies have on the camera market and decide to move into new markets where they are less likely to get a bloody nose. But newcomers do try their luck sometimes, and General Electric is giving it a go.   Actually, General Electric is only sort of giving it a go; the electrical and broadcasting conglomerate is licensing their brand to a new venture called General Imaging. The new company announced a range of 8 cameras at PMA. You can find out more details on their web site or by watching our video tour of the whole range here. Their launches are broken down into four product lines: the budget A series, the intermediate E series, the compact G series and the high-end X series.  We decided to take a closer look at the G1, the first of their new compact range. The G1 has a 7-megapixel image sensor and a 3x optical zoom lens. Pricing and availability has not yet been finalized so keep an eye on our news pages for details. We looked at a preproduction model of this new camera at the PMA show in Las Vegas.
Advertisement
Recently Viewed Products
Canon
PowerShot S5 IS		 $600
Canon
PowerShot SD750		 $200
Pentax
Optio A30		 $149
Nikon
Coolpix P5000		 $288
Top Point & Shoot Cameras
Max Price: $1020
$0 $255 $510 $765 $1020
Filters
All
Canon
Casio
Fuji
Kodak
Nikon
Olympus
Panasonic
Pentax
Sony
All
Compact
High-End
Pocket
Ultra-Zoom
1.Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX1
Ultra-Zoom		$400
2.Canon SX1 IS
Ultra-Zoom		$527
3.Panasonic DMC-ZS3
Compact		$318
4.Samsung HZ15W
Ultra-Zoom		$280
5.Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T900
Pocket		$325
G1 Prices
Latest Camera Reviews
DSLR Point & Shoot
Panasonic
DMC-GF1		Samsung
TL225
Pentax
K10D		Canon
PowerShot S90
Olympus
E-P1		Canon
G11
Canon
EOS 5D		Panasonic
DMC-ZS3
Nikon
D3000		Canon
PowerShot A650 IS
External Reviews
 
Manual Control Options
The G1 does boast a manual mode, which has its own spot on the mode dial. However, this wasn’t fully functional on the preproduction mode that we looked at, so we were unable to ascertain how easy to use this might be.
 
Focus
Auto Focus
The Auto focus of the G1 was adequate, but not great. In our limited tests at the PMA show in Vegas, it was pretty quick to snap to focus, typically taking under half a second. It did swim a little bit in low light, though. You do get a good degree of control over how the focusing works, with the option to engage the auto focus constantly or just when the shutter is pressed.
 
The G1 can track a single face. To do this, you frame the image with the face in the center, then press the face tracking button. The camera will then track the face in the image, using it as the focus and metering point. In our limited tests, it seemed to work pretty well, keeping track of a face as the subject moved round the frame.
 
Manual Focus
No manual focus mode is present on the G1. It’s auto focus only, all the way.
 
ISO
The G1 has a very wide ISO range, starting at 100 and going up to an impressive 3200. The highest setting is only available with a reduced resolution, though. The maximum resolution in this mode is 1.7 megapixels. General Imaging also claims that its considering adding an ISO 64 setting.
 
White Balance
7 options are available for white balance: Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Fluorescent H and Measured, which is an evaluative mode. That’s a good selection, and it is nice to see a point-and-shoot camera with a proper evaluative white balance mode.
 
Exposure
As well as the manual mode, there is an exposure compensation control that has a two stop range, in one third of a stop steps.
 
Metering
The usual options for metering are present: a full screen evaluative mode, a center weighted mode, and a spot metering mode.
 
Shutter Speed
The shutter speed of the G1 has a range of 4 seconds down to 1/2000 of a second. In the full manual mode, the longest shutter speed goes up to 30 seconds. Because the manual mode of the G1 wasn’t working on the model we looked at, we weren’t able to judge how easy it is to set the shutter speed manually.
 
Aperture
The aperture range of the small 3x zoom lens is from f3.5 at the wide end to f4.3 at the telephoto end of the zoom range. The maximum aperture setting isn’t known.  
 
Modes Page 6 of 11 Image Parameters
General Electric G1 First Impressions Review Navigation
 
Advertisement