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G1! Bum! Its a mini SLR design...and still wont fit in your man bag!

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Tim Woodward

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I was sooo hoping for a rangefinder shape, sort of Olympus Trip 35, y'know. Finder to the left, slight handgrip raised area maybe on the right and short compact lens - and what do we get - another bloody mini SLR design!!! These manufacturers are fixated on SLR!! It won't go in my jacket pocket for sure, or even my in-town man bag without leaving a great big bulge - the lens sticks out way too far. So its a sideways slide-in job then and we still need a camera bag :-(

I would like to say "still it's great for what the future may bring" - but hell I am pretty fed up always waiting for the future, based on this design, my future never comes - I am seriously thinking of going down the Contax rangefinder or similar film route and getting a great scanner, just imagine the size of those files :-)

--
Tim.
 
it sure would not convince me to leave the LX3 at home. The G1 is still a little on the large size to carry all day for me. I will likely buy one to see what it is about and I am betting it will produce some great images!

--
Greg Gebhardt in
Jacksonville, Florida
 
I don't know... Was a bit disappointed about the size till I saw the comparison picture. Compared to the FZ28 it wasn't that large at all.

Does anyone know of a picture where you can see the FZ28 next to one of the smaller FZx cameras?
 
I hope, as Leica-Panasonic has presented similar bodies before, there will be a Leica version of this Micro4/3, which would take the Leica M lenses!!!
 
Have just seen a side by side size comparison with the E420 (link below if it works) - it's marginal - no correction, it's barely noticeable!! This G1 is a very slightly smaller, very slightly heavier E420 with bigger handgrip. I am seriously unimpressed, what were they thinking of!

I reckon it's only going to be the likes of us enthusiasts who would ever notice this camera for it's new technology - everyone else will just see a more expensive bridge camera with big clumsy lens you have to change to get any decent zoom.

This camera is actually what the 4/3rds system should have been to begin with if they had had the courage to abandon the mirror box, it's not new and it's not what the press releases seem to infer - a bigger LX3 design would have been brilliant :-/



--
Tim.
 
1. SLR shape of sufficient size (Oly 420 or even larger) to allow full DSLR function with critical dedicated buttons in addition to menu access and hotshoe; optional vertical grip; a serious photographic tool

2. rangefinder shape (LX3?), not too compact, with lots of controls, again with critical dedicated buttons in addition to menu access and hotshoe

3. really compact rangefinder shape with full control but fewer buttons; perhaps lacking hotshoe, or with clip-on hotshoe; competent but not as convenient as above for serious work

In the past, very compact cameras developed cult status if they were extremely well finished, with nice titanium cladding and great ergonomics, silky smooth controls; these are things Panasonic knows how to do. Hope they deliver. Regardless of functional excellence, tiny and plastic with mediocre ergonomics seems toy-like, small and metal (at least cladding or trim) with great ergonomics is must have.

I hope they keep the lenses as small as possible but give us variety in body size, function, and control. I'd love to have several types of bodies using the same lenses and flash options.
 
..because it has a 3" flip/tilting LCD at the back...the A350 and E3 have tilting LCDs but not as big as G1's and yet G1 managed to make it much smaller than these two. what do you expect? a sigma DP1 size? get real, if Pany or Oly decides to come up with that DP1 size, I'm sute it will not have a 3" tilting/flip LCD at the back....and one more thing...Pany decided to have a hand grip in front which make is much thicker.
Tim Woodward said:
I was sooo hoping for a rangefinder shape, sort of Olympus Trip 35,
y'know. Finder to the left, slight handgrip raised area maybe on the
right and short compact lens - and what do we get - another bloody
mini SLR design!!! These manufacturers are fixated on SLR!! It won't
go in my jacket pocket for sure, or even my in-town man bag without
leaving a great big bulge - the lens sticks out way too far. So its a
sideways slide-in job then and we still need a camera bag :-(

I would like to say "still it's great for what the future may bring"
  • but hell I am pretty fed up always waiting for the future, based on
this design, my future never comes - I am seriously thinking of going
down the Contax rangefinder or similar film route and getting a great
scanner, just imagine the size of those files :-)

--
Tim.
Click to expand...
--



http://www.exp1orer.com
 
the e420 doesn't have the 3" flip/tilting LCD at the back. if you remove that tilting/flip LCD, reduce the LCD from 3" to 2.5" and remove the front hand grip...i'm very sure the G1 will be significantly smaller.

--



http://www.exp1orer.com
 
Panasonic have already said that they could have made the G1 much smaller but were concerned that big-handed US consumers would think it was too small and not buy it!

Don't know why some people are so upset - it's only the first camera - and Olympus have yet to show what body and lenses they are coming out with yet - lighten up people.
--
Shoot the Light fantastic
 
Yeah you are right we should lighten up! But...oooh I so wanted what I had set my heart on - maybe we should get on the steering committee for the future of compact camera development :-)

I would like to fancy myself as a bit of a street photographer, although I am way too shy to wield my E510 about in coffee shops!!! :-) I did play with an LX2 for a while and took some great images, but noise was a problem and it couldn't double up as my landscape camera as it seemed to smudge fine detail in leaves and stuff even in raw.

I just don't want to buy an LX3 for compact stuff and find in 6 months someone releases m4/3rds compact! How long do you wait?

--
Tim.
 
I thought I read in one review that their first market is Japan, which is a very conservative crowd (I'm just parroting what I read, so please don't flame me) and that their first m4/3 release had to look like a DSLR. The implication was that they weren't locked into this form factor. Maybe there's more to come??

That'd be sweet -- a camera technology that could be used in a range of form factors. I guess time will tell.
 
wolfie said:
Panasonic have already said that they could have made the G1 much
smaller but were concerned that big-handed US consumers would think
it was too small and not buy it!
Click to expand...
Yes, I believe that the body can really be much thinner. This image proves that there is lot of room between the sensor and the LCD:



(The sensor position is right in the center, on most DSLR's it's in the back.)
wolfie said:
Don't know why some people are so upset - it's only the first camera
  • and Olympus have yet to show what body and lenses they are coming
out with yet - lighten up people.
Click to expand...
Indeed, I'm sure panasonic and/or olympus will make compact-like models (lx3 style?), and it would be very nice if they come up with a nice pancake lens as well :)
 
Although I would LOVE to see Leica jump into the Micro Four Thirds standard, there's something important that people are not noticing about the G1:

There are absolutely NO markings on the camera or lenses that indicate "Leica."

Absolutely NONE.

Every Panasonic-made lens prior to this release was branded with the Leica name on it. Now, we have two lenses that just have the Panasonic/Lumix name and Leica's name is mysteriously absent from the new Panasonic Lumix lenses.

Rumors have it that Panasonic is enjoying a MUCH closer relationship with Olympus than Leica. It seems that Leica still wants to work with Panasonic for their point-and-shoots (because Leica doesn't want to pay to develop their own P&S cameras when it's cheaper for them to re-brand Panasonic cameras as "Leica" cameras) but the Leica-Panasonic partnership has been rather fruitless in the DSLR space.

When it comes to DSLRs, it's the Panasonic-Olympus relationship that has contributed to the best DSLR tech. Considering how tight the financial margins have become in the consumer electronics market, I suspect that we'll be seeing less and less of Panasonic and Leica working together with DSLRs.

We "might" see a Leica micro Four Thirds camera, but don't count on it.
--
http://www.jjjphotography.com
See 'The Big Picture' at http://jjjphotography.blogspot.com/
 
Yes, there are likely more bodies already in the planning stages. Apparently the G1 could have been even smaller.

But I doubt that a smaller µ4/3 body would have an articulated LCD. Even the EVF unit, including the screen, magnification lenses and eyepiece take up quite a bit of room in the cross sections (see cut-away view here: http://dc.watch.impress.co.jp/cda/dslr/2008/09/12/9209.html )

The front grip, won't make the overall camera larger as it doesn't seem to extend beyond the 20mm f/1.7 pancake lens.

I think there will be an even smaller body in the future, either from Panasonic or Olympus. If it lacks an EVF and articulated LCD, it will make a good second body to mount your µ4/3 lenses on for those situations when compactness is an even bigger factor.
WT21 said:
I thought I read in one review that their first market is Japan,
which is a very conservative crowd (I'm just parroting what I read,
so please don't flame me) and that their first m4/3 release had to
look like a DSLR. The implication was that they weren't locked into
this form factor. Maybe there's more to come??

That'd be sweet -- a camera technology that could be used in a range
of form factors. I guess time will tell.
Click to expand...
--
Björn

galleries: http://www.pbase.com/viztyger

 
Tim Woodward said:
I would like to say "still it's great for what the future may bring" . . . .
Click to expand...
It was never going to be a pocket camera, even the FZ8 isn't. I think that much smaller M4/3 bodies will come along, hopefully with radical built-for-use shapes rather than built-for-nostalgia.

I might buy an M4/3 if it were radically smaller and different, achieved by omitting the LCD. A 3" LCD forces the body into the old lateral "film transport" shape and creates the big "T" shape with the lens.

A longitudinally flat vertical body, like a camcorder complete with right hand strap, could be very compact without the LCD and would appeal to EVF enthusiasts . . .

. . . or, if you must have an LCD (dohhhh!), it could lie flat along the left side when you're using the EVF, and swing-out-and-tilt when desired.

And preferably make both as a 50/50 stills/video camera, without sacrificing stills quality - or is this technically impossible?

Mike

Panasonic EffZedEight, Fuji EffTwenty
 
Look at the first 4 lenses on the roadmap, it still won't fit the pocket even if the camera was 1mm thin. If they made a very small RF-type body people would be complaining about how the lens won't fit in the pocket anyway. Once we get to the 20mm F1.7 at the end of the roadmap then it's time to introduce the RF.
 
Wow, I'm not sure if I'm not getting it or you guys aren't getting it.

First of all I'm a Nikon D300 shooter with a large assortment of lenses and gear, takes a full size backpack when I travel for wildlife in Alaska, BC, US national parks and so on and I only carry what's appropriate for what I'll be shooting. I thought I'd peek at the Panasonic forum to see what the Panophile's (is that a word?) reaction was and this is the first thread I've read.

Let me say I think the G1 is a huge, absolutely critical mass type of improvement and step forward in photography. Although I shoot 98% of the time with my D300 I also have a Canon SD800IS, a Canon S3IS and a little Kodak M...something or other that is always laying about for an unexpected moment.

I don't think the size or form of the G1 is at all an issue. As others have said subsequent models will use Micro 4/3's in different forms. But to produce a high quality EVF comparable to a full prism and mirror view finder, to show PRIOR to taking the shot the effect of white balance and aperture and shutter speed and color mode changes.....and to do it in a compact form that with only two lenses will cover the 35mm film equivalent of 28-400mm....this is huge. It won't replace my Nikon D300 kit but it's the ideal backup system or light travel system. I always loved my S3IS for it's light weight and potential for very good quality images but it is slow focusing, doesn't handle high ISO well at all, and the EVF just sucked....and no RAW recording.

The critical issue will be image quality and if the G1 holds up in this regard at least at ISO800 with negligable noise artifact and excellent detail, preferably up to ISO1600, then this will be an absolute winner.

I'll wait until after Photokina but if Nikon doesn't have something along these lines in the future I very likely will buy the G1 with both of the introduction lenses and a flash for my backup and light travel system. Just depends on IQ but I can't imagine it's not very good.

Panasonic should be applauded for this advance.

AC
 
MaineTim said:
Everyone is acting like this is the one and only uFT camera ever.
This is just the start, and by their own admission a conservative
one. There's much more to come.

Tim
Click to expand...
No one is saying that, Tim. In fact, every post I've written, and all of the posts that I've read by others who find this camera well short of the mark say the same thing: We hope for better in the next iteration.

But almost all the posts defending this camera try to ignore the obvious: the promise of the µ4/3 format, i.e., a smaller, lighter camera, is left unfulfilled (so far). Why is it that that simple statement arouses such ire, and in the case of some (exp1orer comes to mind) red-eyed, spittle-flecked, fanboi ranting?

David
 
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