Digital Camera Review

Digital Camera 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.
Advertisement


Auto Mode
The G1 inherits the Intelligent Auto system from its Panasonic point-and-shoot cousins. This is basically a multi-faceted automation suite that incorporates:

- Shake Detection: otherwise known as optical image stabilization

- Motion Detection: boosts the ISO setting when movement is detected

- Scene Detection: automatically chooses a scene mode based on an analysis of composition and movement in the frame

- Face Detection: sets focus and exposure to favor faces identified in the frame

- Subject Detection: identifies moving subjects in the frame and focus follows them

- Light Detection: what any other company would call dynamic range optimization to maintain detail in shadows and highlight areas

Movie Mode
The G1 doesn't offer a movie mode, something of a surprise considering Panasonic's stated goal of luring point-and-shoot owners into the interchangeable-lens-camera fold. And while it's tricky to incorporate movie mode into an SLR, with its mirrors and aperture mechanism ill equipped to the task, designing a movie mode for a Micro Four Thirds camera is no more difficult than it would be for a standard point-and-shoot compact. Panasonic promises a new model next year which will incorporate the movie feature: if that's important to you, the waiting game is the best approach for now.

Drive / Burst Mode
The burst mode recording spec tops out at three frames per second and, while we were unable to time the actual performance of our pre-production sample, it felt satisfyingly fast and responsive. Exposure bracketing is supported, from 3 to 7 frames, in 1/3EV increments, and so is white balance bracketing.

Playback Mode
As explained above, images can be displayed in four different displays in playback mode. Magnification up to 16x during playback, via the front control wheel, not only allows for critical viewing of focus performance, but makes zooming in and out much faster than the repeated button-presses of the typical point-and-shoot camera. A thumbnail index view and calendar view sorting images by the date they were taken are also available.

Custom Image Presets
So-called Advanced Scene Modes are organized in related groups, which is both logical and convenient, since it keeps the mode dial uncluttered while still providing ready access to a broad range of presets. These are:

- Portrait: Normal, Soft Skin, Outdoor, Indoor, Creative

- Scenery: Normal, Nature, Architecture, Creative

- Sports: Normal, Outdoor, Indoor, Creative

- Close-up: Flower, Food, Objects, Creative

- Night Portrait: Night Portrait, Night Scenery, Illuminations, Creative

In each case, Creative allows further manual settings adjustments in a convenient one-screen interface.

The G1 also offers separate scene modes for Sunset, Party, Baby and Pet photography.

Design / Layout Page 5 of 8 Control Options Panasonic G1 Digital Camera First Impression Review Navigation

Advertisement