Digital Camera Review

First Impressions Review

Sep 25, 2008 - By Steve Morgenstern
Completely new camera formats don't come along that often, but we've just had our first hands-on with one; the first camera that uses the new Micro Four Thirds format. We spent some quality time with a pre-production sample of the Panasonic G1, the first camera in the recently announced Micro Four Thirds format. The G1 is an interchangeable lens camera that looks like a shrunken SLR, but works very differently, with photo composition handled on the live LCD screen instead of through an optical viewfinder. We were impressed overall with the camera's performance, but still wonder if there's actually a market for a camera that's significantly smaller than a traditional SLR, but still much larger than a pocketable point-and-shoot. Panasonic has not announced final pricing or availability yet, but we expect that it will hit the market before the end of the year for about $800. Our first impressions review based on our tests with a pre-production unit follows.
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Model Design / Appearance
The G1 is a handsome camera, styled like a miniature SLR with a deflated viewfinder hump, with a pleasing sense of proportion and elegantly curved lines. In addition to basic black, the camera is available in red or blue. Fortunately we're not talking candy-apple red or sky blue. Instead, Panasonic has chosen sophisticated, muted tones that bring a little style to the proceedings without screaming out "look at me, look at me!" Nicely done.

Size and Handling
This was an area of some concern for your large-handed reviewer, who's perfectly comfortable working with chunky SLR's like Nikon's D700 but often finds grasping little compact cameras like holding a delicate teacup with pinky raised and fingers cramping. Turned out, though, that the G1 grip accommodated a wide variety of shooters very comfortably indeed. We had only one major problem. The control dial mounted on the top front of the grip falls too easily under the index finger. When pressed, it enables exposure compensation by simply turning the dial. That's great if you're trying to use exposure compensation. It was less great when we found ourselves repeatedly shooting with a tweaked composure after accidentally clicking the dial. It would be better if you had to hold the dial down while changing the exposure comp setting.


Panasonic managed to create a small body that's still comfortable for
big hands which was, frankly, a pleasant surprise.

Menu
The on-screen menu system is well organized and easy to navigate with the four-way controller. The display text is large enough to read from a distance, with good contrast between the type and the background and full-text menu item descriptions instead of cryptic icons. The Q MENU button brings up a sequence of on-screen control overlays to speed setting changes. Even better is the combination of control panel display and Quick Menu functionality, which shows all your current settings and makes them editable with a click of the MENU/SET button.


The control panel menu puts all frequently-changed
settings at your fingertips..

Ease of Use
Overall the control scheme and menu structure of the G1 were very easy to grasp, even without a user's manual (which is probably being written as you read this). 
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