Living Up to the Micro Four Thirds Promise - Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1

Introduction

It's been more than a year since the Micro Four Thirds standard was announced, promising DSLR-like quality images in smaller than DSLR bodies. With four of these cameras in the market, including the new Panasonic Lumix GF1 we're reviewing today, has the standard delivered? To answer this question, it helps to look back at how the Micro Four Thirds platform has progressed.

First in the Market - Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1

Panasonic took the lead in introducing the first Micro Four Thirds cameras with the G1 in late 2008 and then quickly followed it up with the GH1 update in early 2009. While noticeably smaller than an entry level APS-C sensor based DSLR, the G1 was not much smaller than an Olympus Four Thirds system DSLR, the E-420 (touted as the world's smallest DSLR during its March 2008 release). The GH1 had essentially the same body as the G1, but added HD video recording, and was the world's first interchangeable lens camera that could auto-focus while shooting video.

Both cameras were fine performers, but we lamented their high price tags. The G1 was selling for S$1199 at its release, the price of competing entry-level DSLR cameras with wider selections of lenses. The GH1 however, was going for US$1499.95 at release.

While their camera bodies and lenses were smaller, they weren't much smaller than the smallest DSLR cameras already retailing at that point of time. In fact, they retained familiar DSLR-like bodies. Our dreams of DSLR-like quality in compact bodies seemed like they were going to be more hype than reality.

A Retrospective Winner - Olympus PEN E-P1

Then came the PEN E-P1 from Olympus. Already gathering excitement from sneak previews of its retrospective camera body, the most exciting thing about the E-P1 was its size. While bigger and heavier than a compact, it was noticeably smaller and lighter than the Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1 and GH1. It was released to generally positive reviews, including a Gold award from our HWM tech publication and a solid 4.5 stars rating from our own online review in July .

Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1 - A Surprise Release!

When the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1 Micro Four Thirds camera's photograph was leaked online, we were as surprised as anyone. While anticipating an update to their successful LX series, we didn't expect Panasonic to release its third Micro Four Thirds camera within a year, and especially not in a compact body unlike its predecessors. This one even had the built-in flash that we missed on the Olympus PEN E-P1, together with an optional live view viewfinder that the E-P1 also lacked.

Despite the feature additions on the new GF1 from Panasonic, is it too late for Panasonic to catch up with the lead time that Olympus has enjoyed on its popular E-P1? And more importantly, does the GF1 measure up to its closest competitor, the E-P1, and does it live up to the Micro Four Thirds promise? Stay tuned for the verdict after our thorough assessment in the following pages.

Design & Handling Part 1

Design

The GF1's product design doesn't leave too much of an impression in black, although the white and red versions look much more fashionable. Otherwise, everything feels utilitarian, with form following function.

Handling

The GF1 and the E-P1 both occupy a new middle-ground between DSLR and prosumer camera models; they are smaller than a DSLR but larger than prosumer cameras like the Panasonic LX3 and the Canon G10. If you've been a keen compact user, you'll feel the GF1's 285 grams weight and its larger-than-compact size, but if you're a DSLR user, you'll appreciate the smaller size it occupies in your bag.

The camera body feels dense and compact, but its weight is evenly distributed throughout the body. Even though it's heavier than a compact, you can easily shoot one-handed with the GF1.

With one exception, the controls on the GF1 are all well placed and make using the GF1 an intuitive experience.

The Mode Dial on top toggles between different shooting modes. An Off/On switch, easily differentiated by touch from the shutter release button, is in the right place, as is a handy video recording button just beside the shutter release. Without switching to video mode, you can simply depress this button to start shooting video immediately.

All the controls on the back are easily accessible and buttons are just the right size. The double-function shutter dial - which we loved in the Panasonic G1 and the GH1 - is back. Scrolling it normally controls either the shutter or aperture settings depending on which priority mode you're in. But go into manual, and pressing the dial down like a button switches between shutter and aperture control.

The one little annoyance we have with the GF1's controls is that the shooting mode switch is right below the mode dial. While that may be convenient, its closeness to the mode dial means that it sometimes gets brushed and changed accidentally.

Design & Handling Part 2

Display

The LCD on the GF1 is bright, and the Live View feed is fast and responsive. The large 3-inch screen definitely makes for a great shooting experience and makes it easier to check your photo/video previews. The Quick Menu display as well as the other menus borrows heavily from the Panasonic Lumix compact cameras, which is a good thing as they're easy to use.

There are a couple of features we'd like to mention, one of which is the shutter speed/aperture exposure meter.

If you're shooting manually (either in shutter or aperture priority, or full manual), whenever you change one setting like shutter speed, a meter will show up displaying the corresponding change in aperture setting and vice versa. If some settings aren't appropriate for the scene, like too slow a shutter speed for too bright an environment, those settings on the meter will be colored out to warn you.

Not only is this is an intuitive way to quickly understand and select the shutter speeds and aperture settings you need for the scene, it also helps beginners who are new to shutter speed and aperture settings to understand them.

Something else we like is the live DOP (Depth of Field) and shutter speed previews. When selected, the GF1 shows you a preview of what your photo will look like with the present aperture or shutter speed settings, helping you get the settings you want before you take the shot.

Optional Live View Finder

For those who miss an optical viewfinder, there's an optional live view finder that can be attached to the GF1's hot shoe. A button on the finder toggles between using the LCD and the live view finder, and you see exactly what you'd see on the LCD using the view finder.

While the live view finder is as fast and responsive as the LCD, we found the finder screen really small, and because previews of what you've just taken are so tiny, we felt it wasn't practical to use the live view finder to inspect your images at all. Unfortunately, there's no way to shoot with the live view finder and then preview your images on the LCD like a DSLR, it's either the use of one or the other.

So unlike some DSLR cameras where we'd rather shoot with the optical viewfinder than live view, the GF1's LCD monitor is so much more compelling that this time round, we'd rather eschew spending extra for the live view finder and stick with the LCD.

Focusing

By far our favorite part about the GF1 must be its quick and accurate auto-focus. And not only does it focus fast, the GF1 benefits from Panasonic's Face Detection technology, which has been honed on its Lumix line of compact cameras and works really well, even with multiple faces.

If you need more precise focusing, the GF1 offers three other focusing modes besides Face Detection: AF tracking, 23-area focusing and 1-area focusing. In single AF mode you can use the directional pad to precisely select the area you want to focus on. With 23-area AF, the GF1 automatically selects what it thinks are the right subjects of interest from 23-points on the screen. The AF tracking mode lets you lock down onto a subject of interest and stay focused on that subject even as you move the camera.

While the GF1's auto-focus is very good, if you choose to use manual focus there's also a manual focus assist that magnifies the image five or ten times when you twist the lens' focus ring. This helps make manual focusing easier and more accurate.

There's nothing more frustrating to go home and preview an SD card full of unfocused shots. The GF1's auto-focus takes that pain away and makes shooting a quick and fun experience.

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Performance

Photo Performance

Photos shot with the GF1 are gorgeous, details are rich and the colors are vibrant. If you decide to go with the fast 20mm f1.7 pancake lens kit (the fastest Micro Four Thirds lens available today and the lens we used to do this review), you'll be able to capture lots of shots in low-light with low ISO and acceptable shutter speeds that don't need a tripod. Or, just pop the built-in flash and fire away.

While ISO settings go up to ISO3200, the GF1's images are really usable only up to ISO1600 - where chromatic noise is visible. ISO800 is still quite clean, while ISO3200 is noisy, and we advise avoiding it.

The GF1 offers nine different color modes, Standard, Dynamic, Nature, Smooth, Nostalgic, Vibrant, Black & White Standard, Black & White Dynamic, Black & White Smooth, and two custom settings. The GF1 also has a dedicated My Color mode you can switch to using the mode dial, with seven different modes:- Expressive, Retro, Pure, Elegant, Monochrome, Dynamic Art, Silhouette and one Custom mode. My Color mode is a dedicated auto only mode where all shutter and aperture controls are locked out when shooting in this mode.

While these modes might be useful for photographs who don't do post-processing, we'd prefer to capture as clean an image as possible and do the post-processing on a computer afterward.

We noticed that there seemed to be vignetting in our shots while shooting with the pancake lens. By comparing a shot with and without the lens, it seems that the vignette is mostly caused by the lens.

Video Performance

Video capture from the GF1 is sharp and clear as well. Auto-focus performs well in most situations, although there are times when you'll need to encourage it along by half-depressing the shutter manually.

There is a slight auto-focusing sound that can be heard, but we only caught it while filming in a silent room. If you're shooting somewhere with outdoor noise, it's usually drowned out.

Here are some screen captures from our video shoots (click for the full resolution 720p screen captures).

Comparison with the Olympus Pen E-P1

The Panasonic Lumix GF1 and the Olympus PEN E-P1 currently occupy a unique distinction: as Micro Four Thirds compact cameras, they are the only two cameras of their class today, so if you're looking for one, it's either one or the other.

Design & Handling

There's no doubt that the Olympus PEN E-P1 is a stunning looker of a camera, distinguishing itself not only from the GF1 but also most other cameras with its unique retro body. At the same time, while the black GF1 looks inconspicuous, the white and red models are more fashionable.

The Olympus PEN E-P1 and the Panasonic Lumix GF1 are approximately the same size, although the GF1 is slightly lighter by around 50g. The overall weight will change though, depending on which lens you have attached.

Judging from the camera body alone, the E-P1 suffers from an uneven heft. Its weight leans towards the left (the side away from the shutter release button), and it's a camera that really needs to be used with both hands. The GF1 has a more balanced heft that you can easily shoot single-handedly with.

While we were reviewing the Olympus PEN E-P1, an Olympus engineer informed us that the flash was left out to keep the camera as compact as possible, and we wondered if that might have been a limitation of Micro Four Thirds technology. With the GF1's similar size, it appears that it doesn't have to be so.

Olympus also mentioned that flash isn't always necessary, especially with the high ISO settings and low noise performance of the EP-1. While that may be true, there are shooting situations that just call for a flash (ever been at a scene with zero usable light?). While Olympus offers an optional flash attachment, Panasonic's GF1 has one built-in.

And if you really must have one (although we found we would rather do without this time), Panasonic offers a real live view finder attachment which feeds from the sensor, while Olympus only offers a glass view finder attachment that isn't connected to the sensor feed at all.

The E-P1 had problems focusing in low-light situations (Olympus has just released a firmware update which promises to improve the auto-focusing, but we haven't yet tested it), but in our experience the GF1's auto-focusing is faster and more accurate.

Performance

Since we didn't have an E-P1 on hand to simultaneously compare the GF1 against, we decided to leave a more comprehensive performance shootout to later and just use the test footage from our previous E-P1 review for a quick comparison overview.

Since the E-P1 doesn't have a built-in flash, it relies on its high ISO sensitivity to capture light. While the E-P1 goes up to ISO6400, the GF1 goes up to only ISO3200. From our ISO chart comparison, we found that the E-P1 has better ISO performance, with finer grain and lower noise than the GF1. Both cameras' images at ISO1600 are still usable, but at ISO3200 the GF1 is noticeably nosier than the E-P1. At ISO6400 (not pictured) the E-P1's photos are too noisy to be usable.

Video shot with the E-P1 and GF1 are both good quality, but the E-P1's kit 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 lens produces more noticeable noise while auto-focusing than the GF1's kit 20mm f1.7 pancake lens.

Sample Images

These are sample images shot with the Panasonic Lumix GF1 with the 20mm f1.7 pancake kit lens. The images have not been post-processed in any way. These images are copyright to SPH Magazines and we kindly ask that you do not reproduce them elsewhere. Click to see the original full resolution images (which can be rather large).

Conclusion

The Panasonic Lumix GF1 is a joy of a camera to shoot with. It gave us better shots than we could hope for with any compact, at an acceptable trade-off between size and convenience. It's dead-easy to use, with Panasonic's intelligent iA (Intelligent Auto) mode for point and shoot situations, and full manual settings for finer control. The body is finely balanced and controls are conveniently placed. The auto-focusing technology is fast and spot-on and makes shooting a breeze.

So is there a catch? Well, the GF1 promises to be a pricey proposition at US$899.95 (Panasonic hasn't confirmed the local retail price at the time of this review). Doing a rough currency conversion translates that to S$1280.47 (not too far away from the E-P1's S$1298). While that's just a rough ballpark figure, we speculate it could cost more when it actually arrives locally.

It seems clear that while the Micro Four Thirds manufacturers say they're marketing these cameras to consumers who'd like to own a DSLR but are scared off by a DSLR's size, weight and complexity, they clearly want those consumers who aren't scared off by a DSLR's cost, and are setting the bar for their exclusive technology at premium prices.

But is Panasonic too late to the market though? We imagine that if this was the camera that had been released instead of the GH1, Panasonic would have been laughing all the way to the bank this past year. Instead, Olympus swept in and released the world's first compact Micro Four Thirds camera, and in spite of its flaws, it has garnered hugely positive reviews and, we hear, brisk sales.

This gives Olympus a wide lead, because with the premium prices of these cameras, we can't imagine somebody buying both a PEN E-P1 and a Lumix GF1. But if price isn't an issue (and it doesn't seem to be for many judging by the E-P1's popularity), we think the Panasonic Lumix GF1, with its fine performance, handling and size, comes closest so far to fulfilling the Micro Four Thirds promise of having near-DSLR quality in a near-compact body (if low and mid-range ISO settings are adequate for your needs).

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