Panasonic Lumix G1 Digital Camera Review - Panasonic DSLR

External Reviews
Photography Blog Panasonic DMC-G1 PC Mag Panasonic DMC-G1 Review InfoSync Panasonic DMC-G1 Review Register Hardware Panasonic DMC-G1 Good Gear Guide Panasonic DMC-G1 Review More

Model Design / Appearance (8.00)
When venturing into a brave new camera format, Panasonic chose a conservative design approach, building a camera body that looks pretty much like a traditional SLR seen through the wrong end of a telescope. It's worth noting that this isn't the only shape possible for a Micro Four Thirds camera: at the Photokina trade show in September, Olympus displayed a concept Micro Four Thirds camera that has the rectangular box shape of a typical point-and-shoot, albeit larger than any point-and-shoot on the market (see coverage here).

And while it may not make a revolutionary design statement, the Lumix G1 is certainly an attractive piece of hardware, with its little strip of vertical bling on the handgrip and a viewfinder hump that's shorter than a true SLR, for a more streamlined appearance. Still, it's size rather than shape that's going to attract attention here. Even when choosing a color scheme, the company kept its top button buttoned and shirt tails tucked in. Unlike most SLRs, you don't have the familiar Henry Ford Model T choice between black and black -- though if it's black you want, Panasonic is happy to oblige. In addition, there's a blue and a red model, both in very muted shades. Given an $800 price, hot pink might not fly off the retail shelves.... but then again, it just might.

Size / Portability (8.00)
Yes, the Lumix G1 is smaller than traditional SLRs... but how much smaller? Here's a Tale of the Tape comparison between the G1 and two of the more petite digital SLRs currently on the market.

A glance through these figures reveals an interesting fact: the G1 is indisputably smaller, but not by much. It's only fair to mention that the size of the camera body is only part of the story: Micro Four Thirds lenses are also appreciably smaller than their full-size SLR counterparts, due in part to a narrower diameter. But the portability gap between what's comes before and the new format introduction isn't a chasm, it's a divot. What's more, the shape of the camera pretty much wipes out whatever shlepability benefit you might derive from the new format. With the lens sticking out of the camera body as usual, you're not sticking the G1 in a pants pocket any time soon (unless parachute pants make a comeback, that is), or even a jacket pocket. It's going into a backpack or over your shoulder on a strap, same as a traditional SLR, albeit one at the lighter-weight end of the spectrum.

Handling Ability (8.00)
Beyond pondering portability, we were concerned about the comfort level of a shrunken SLR. On that score we were pleasantly surprised. This reviewer has great big hands, paws that easily cradle the bulk of a prosumer SLR like the Nikon D700. Full credit to Panasonic, then, for designing a petite package that is nonetheless easy to hold comfortably and manipulate quickly.

Control Button / Dial Positioning / Size (10.25)
The controls for the Lumix G1 are extensive, and generally can be accessed pretty quickly, but there's a significant level of complexity involved in mastering some of them. The mode dial on the top right side, for example, has 14 positions, many of which are identified only by icons that require a trip to the manual to decipher, even for experienced shooters. On the plus side, all the buttons are large enough, and have enough space surrounding them, to make finding and pushing them simple, and they feel solid and responsive. This includes the shutter button, which has a very definite hold point between half-pressing the shutter to achieve focus and a full press to take a picture.

The control wheel mounted on the front of the handgrip is handy for zipping through photos during playback, moving quickly through menus and particularly for dialing in exposure compensation values, but the placement isn't perfect. The wheel has two axes of movement: it rotates and it can also be pushed in with a click, functioning like a button. In fact, that's the way you engage exposure compensation control, by clicking the wheel. And that's the problem: it's very easy to accidentally click that wheel with the side of your index finger while holding the smallish handgrip, and from that point on every movement of your hand can change the exposure comp setting. The first few days we shot with the camera this happened frequently and, even now, when we're used to its peculiarities, it's still an issue. This behavior can be changed through the custom menu, by moving the exposure compensation trigger function to the LVF/LCD button, but most users will undoubtedly stick with the default rather than ferret out this fairly obscure setting. whose function is unclear from the menu text, and overrides the button's original function.

The bottom position on the four-way controller is programmable, with five options: Aspect Ratio, Image Quality, Metering Mode, I. Exposure and Guide Line display.

You can establish three custom control set-ups, including settings for AF / AE Lock mode, auto focus assist lamp, focus priority, noise reduction settings, auto review, and Fn button setting. These are created by setting up the camera the way you want it, then choosing CUST from the mode dial and saving the current configuration into one of three slots. Accessing your stored setup is as simple as returning the mode dial to CUST and choosing from the three stored settings.

Menu (6.75)
The main camera menu system, accessed by pressing the MENU/SET button and navigating using the four-way controller, isn't particularly attractive, but the text is clear and perfectly legible against a white and gray background. It would have been helpful to have on-screen text explaining what each menu choice actually accomplishes: the metering mode section, for example, has three icons with no labels, and picture size choices are L, M and S with no indication of actual image size in megapixels or dimensions.

Some of these menus run on for several pages: the Custom Menu, for example, is five screens long, and the only way to get from the first to the last item is manually scrolling through all the entries in between. Yes, you can scoot through by turning the front control dial instead of pressing the four-way controller down, but it's still a chore.

The Quick Menu system is very useful, but tricky to grasp. You access the Quick Menu system by pressing the Q. MENU button right behind the shutter. What you get for your trouble, though, depends not only on whether you're in shooting or playback mode, but what kind of on-screen display you're using at the time. If you're shooting through the viewfinder or with the LCD screen showing Live View, Quick Menu brings up 13 different settings adjustments, arrayed across seven separate screens. There doesn't seem to be rhyme or reason to the way these choices are organized, and it takes a lot of hunting to find what you need: all in all, not a great improvement over using the regular menu system.

On the other hand, if you've toggled over to the full-screen LCD recording information screen (which appears on the LCD only, not in the electronic viewfinder), Quick Menu suddenly becomes easily navigable and a genuine timesaver. In the information display (shown below), most current settings are arrayed before you in an easy-to-read display. By pressing Q. MENU, these items become live, ready to be selected with a few presses on the four-way and adjusted using the four-way and/or the front control dial. Even here there are some peculiarities, most notably the inability to back out of a submenu without making a selection, but on balance we found this menu so useful that our standard shooting procedure while out in the field was leaving the full-screen Quick Menu live on the back of the camera and using the electronic viewfinder to compose and shoot (the eyecup sensor switches displays nearly instantaneously).

Record Mode Menu
In this lengthy menu, we would have preferred to see the flash settings moved to the opening screen and the less frequently used aspect ratio and picture/ size / quality choices moved further down the list.

Custom Menu
There is a lot of power to tweak camera behavior to suit you preferences here, though the likely G1 buyer, stepping up from a simple point-and-shoot camera, will no doubt find the choices bewildering, with their unclear labels and complete lack of explantory text.

Setup Menu
Another lengthy menu, but at least these are settings that are changed only infrequently. Leaving the card format command at the very end of the line is inconvenient, though, since it's the choice from this menu that will probably used most often.

Playback Mode Menu
Given the limited in-camera editing options, the Playback menu is a compact collection of choices.

My Menu
Positioned between the Setup and Playback menus, My Menu automatically displays the five menu items you've used most recently. Useful, but it would have been even better if you could manually choose frequently used functions to appear permanently.

Ease of Use (6.75)
The ease of use question gets to a core concern about the G1. We wonder whether Panasonic has loaded the camera with an overabundance of tweaky features that may actually frustrate rather than stimulate users upgrading from a point-and-shoot to an interchangeable-lens camera. Yes, you can simply leave the camera on intelligent Auto mode and snap decent pictures. But moving beyond the most simplistic behavior presents you with a tangled web of options, and the user manual was clearly organized by someone who thinks like an engineer rather than an instructor. We would like to have seen a user-selectable choice between simple menus and full menus. An on-screen explanation of what each menu setting actually does would also have been useful: Nikon does this especially well in their latest cameras, but it's missing entirely here.

	Panasonic Lumix G1	Canon Rebel XS	Olympus E-420
Width	4.875 inches (124 mm)	4.96 inches (126.1 mm)	5.1 inches (129.5 mm)
Height	3.3125 inches (83.6 mm)	3.8 inches (97.5 mm)	3.6 inches (91 mm)
Depth	1.8125 inches (45.2 mm)	2.4 inches (61.9 mm)	2.1 inches (53 mm)
Weight (body only)	13.6 oz. (385 g)	15.9 oz. (450 g)	13.4 oz. (380 g)

Components	Page 7 of 15		Modes
Panasonic Lumix G1 Digital Camera Review Navigation
Intro	Physical Tour	Color and Resolution	Noise
Speed and Timing	Components	Design / Layout	Modes
Control Options	Image Parameters	Connectivity / Extras	Overall Impressions
Conclusion	Sample Photos	Specs / Ratings

Panasonic DMC-G1

Digital Camera Review