21st November 2009, Murray St crossing (between the malls).

I am a hypocrite!

I bought a panasonic G1 twin lens kit. This is after I complained buckets loads about how they have made it so that you can’t use the cheaper generic batteries in their cameras.

But, the camera on paper really satisfys  my photographic needs, mostly.

Shortcomings:

Firstly, it is power hungry. I have three batteries; I think I will buy another two. I paid $115 for each of the extra two on ebay – they are about $180 here. There is absolutely no justification for this price. The good news is, I have updated my camera with a version of the 1.4 firmware that apparently lets you continue using the generic batteries. So I will take a gamble and buy a couple of $15 generic batteries and hope they work. Thankyou to Steve from rangefinder forums for supplying the firmware.

Second, this camera has a useless implementation of what Canon calls Flexizone. This is where you can put the focus point wherever you like for the shot. It is so retarded on the Panasonic that I use focus lock instead.

Third, I really miss lack of macro and a narrow depth of field. Both my kit lenses are dark – the 14-45 starts at 3.5, the 45-200 starts at 4. Eventually I will buy a third lens, the 45mm macro f2.8 panasonic / leica lens. This will do for low light shooting, portraiture, and macro. It is about a $1000 au though, and not yet available in Australia.

Fourth, after all the research I did, I bought it online. Then found a review which shows that the subsequent model (GH1) handles noise at high iso much better. Since then there has been a lot of online discussion about this. But the GH1 is $1000 more expensive and it comes with a lens I don’t want (14-140mm). I’m also not interested in video.

Good points (some of them):

I had this camera for about a month sitting on the lounge floor in its box doing nothing. I was disinterested
in my new toy and was still using my powershot. Fortunately, Wiebke (the great looking woman with the camera in the photo above) has also just bought a new camera. She bought a canon eos 450 with the 18-55mm kit lens, a 50mm macro, and a 50mm prime. She has been overflowing with enthusiasm – it is her enthusiasm that finally got me using the new camera.

I haven’t been reading up on the manual or anything like I usually do. I’ve just been trying to do what I want to do, then hitting the manual to find out how to do it.

I do like the image quality. I haven’t even considered using my powershot since. I like focus tracking; this is great for following birds or people that are moving about a bit. It has its limitations, but if something is not moving too fast, it is great.

I use focus lock a lot, so that I can compose the picture how I want. On my powershot I used flexizone most of the time – putting the focus area on one of the four magic composition spots (rule of thirds).

The big zoom! 45-200mm. On a four thirds camera (the G1), this is equivalent to 90-400mm. I theorised long ago about using a long zoom for street photography, to go against the common trend of fast wide angle or prime lenses. I love it. When I’m walking around town I have the big zoom on. The shot above is at full zoom (400mm equiv).

The fold out screen and live view.  Yesterday I was kneeling above my camera photographing seagulls on the ground; Wiebke was contorting herself to get down behind the camera so that she could see to compose.

Unlike slr cameras, this camera uses contrast detection for focussing all the time. So, live view, as in a compact digital, is fast. Also, apparently with contrast detect focussing there are no front or back focus issues.

There is a lot I just haven’t looked at yet with this camera.

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