Panasonic DMC-L1

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DMC-L1 Prices

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Software (7.5)

The Panasonic L1 ships with Lumix Simple Viewer, Photo Fun Studio and Silkypix Developer Studio. Simple Viewer and Photo Fun Studio are typical viewing and dabbling software – they're limited, but straightforward.

Silkypix Developer Studio is the supplied RAW converter, and it has a complete feature set with exposure, white balance, sharpening, tone, color, and noise reduction. Beyond that, it has controls to compensate for lens aberrations including vignetting, distortion and color fringing. Users who expect to shoot RAW will want to explore Silkypix, even if they're used to working in Photoshop.

Jacks, Ports, Plugs (6.5)

The L1 has a USB port for data transfer and printing, a jack for a remote control, and a port for analog video output in PAL or NTSC formats. The Panasonic Lumix DMC-L1’s hot shoe accepts dedicated flashes, and the battery compartment accepts a power cord that can be plugged directly into the battery charger. It won't power the camera and charge the battery simultaneously.

Direct Print Options (8.0)

The L1 is DPOF and PictBridge compatible. The L1 allows the user to select paper size, whether or not to overprint the capture date, the number of copies to print, and page layouts of 1, 2 or 4 prints per page. Single prints can be set to have borders or not. In PictBridge mode, all of the options depend on printer compatibility.

Battery (6.75)

The Panasonic L1 uses a 7.2-volt, 1500 mAh lithium-ion cell that recharges in a bit more than 2 hours. Lithium-ion is the most efficient technology we see for camera batteries; this battery has an advertised 450 shots per charge. Still, the live view option on the L1 takes more power than other DSLRs need, so we found the battery running down faster than we would like. L1 users may want to pack a spare battery, particularly if they rely on the live view.

Memory (3.0)

The L1 accepts SD, MMC and SDHC memory cards. Panasonic lists capacities from the uselessly small 64 MB to the very large 4 GB in the manual's list of accessories. SD is a robust standard, and the L1 functions fine with other brands. Most DSLRs also accept CompactFlash cards, which generally have faster processing speeds, but Panasonic passed on this opportunity.

Other Features (6.5)

Legacy lens adapters - Both Leica and Olympus have or plan to have adapters to allow users to mount their SLR lenses on Four-Thirds cameras. That sort of adapter doesn't usually allow full automatic functions, but users will have access to some great lenses.

 

Pixel Refresh - The L1 includes a function to calibrate the image sensor and the LCD. Though we didn't see any effect when we ran the function, we expect that calibration would be useful over time. This is similar to a function that Olympus includes on all of its digital cameras.

 

Kelvin Temperature Scale - The L1's direct Kelvin color temperature input is convenient for users who are familiar with color temperature, but Panasonic added icons along the scale to show others where light source types fall on the scale, showing a candle, a light bulb, clouds, a fluorescent tube and so on.