Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1

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Features

Without mirrors and/or prisms in the innards, the G1 relies heavily on electronics to show users what the camera is capturing. Panasonic has made several advances in this aspect, but these are not without their downsides.

The 3-inch tilt-and-swivel LCD is a nice touch, and we hope to see future models incorporating it also.
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A 3-inch LCD may be a common sight on dSLRs and point-and-shoots these days, but a 3-inch swiveling LCD is noteworthy. The display can tilt and swivel to facilitate taking high- or low-angle shots, and the high-resolution screen's quick refresh rate makes framing pictures with it a different experience.

But what defined the G1 for us would be the Live View Finder (LVF), Panasonic's equivalent to the typical electronic viewfinder (EVF). The 1,440k dot resolution screen inside the shooter is probably the highest-resolution we've seen so far. To match that, the 60 frames-per-second (fps) refresh rate of the LVF makes peering through it almost akin to what you may see with an optical viewfinder.

We found the default settings for both displays to be a tad inaccurate to what the scene is showing, but fortunately there are options to change the brightness, saturation and contrast. Also, in dim lighting conditions, the displays tended to lag a little, which was when we thought an optical viewfinder would come in handy.

There are sensors around the eye piece, which activates the Live View Finder when you hold the camera up to your eye. But by slinging the camera on our shoulder and letting the eye piece stay in close contact, the sides of your body (or in this case, anything) will also trigger it to turn on.

For the average consumer, they may find the Live View Finder to be one of the best on the market, and we agree. However, there are slight "rainbow effect" which is most evident if you look through the LVF and shift the view around. There may be short flashes of blue, green and red shadows which can disorientate some people. However, those who are not too particular or observant probably won't notice it.

The menu interface on the G1 is similar to Panasonic's point-and-shoots.
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As with Panasonic's higher-end point-and-shoots, there is a film mode which allows you to decide the look of the picture by adjusting the contrast, sharpness, saturation and amount of noise reduction. One new implementation would be the Color mode, which is almost similar to what the film mode provides, except that the adjustments made are slightly different.

Operations-wise, you'll probably feel at home using the G1 if you've used a Panasonic point-and-shoot before because the interface and labeling of hardware are almost the same.

To make shooting more intuitive for users who are used to compact shooters, commonly used scene modes are on the mode dial so you won't have to sift through the menu to locate them. To simplify it even further, Panasonic has incorporated its intelligent Auto (iA) mode into the G1 as well, so amateurs can operate it, too.

What is similar about the new Micro Four Thirds shooter and dSLRs would be the amount of control over exposure it offers shutterbugs. You get manual, aperture priority, shutter priority and program mode. To adjust settings, rotate the front dial and press it to toggle between shutter, aperture or exposure compensation. There is also one custom option to save your frequently used settings. RAW format image capture is also possible, and the bundled SilkyPix program handles the post-processing work.

Tags: DSLR, Camera, LCD, optics, Panasonic

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