cornandbeans
Member
- Messages
- 15
- Reaction score
- 6
My first Micro 4/3 camera. It looks good (especially in red), shoot good photos, but if you want to take videos, this camera is not for you. My main gripes of this camera came down to two things.
First, the 20mm kit lens. I know it is unfair to judge a camera based on the performance of the kit lens but kit lens do affect people's first impression of a camera. The 20mm lens is noisy and has severe focus issue so it is unusable in video mode. When I tried to take videos of still objects in a quiet environment the only thing I could hear is the sound of the lens focusing non-stop. Yes, I regretted not getting the 14-45mm lens instead.
Second, the microphone. It's the only M4/3 camera with mono mic. I haven't seen many people mentioning this but this is in my opinion the worst thing about GF1. The main advantage of M4/3 is its superior video quality compared with DSLRs, and bad audio can ruin a great video, so I wonder why Panasonic cheaped out on the microphone!?
Ultimately I still prefer this camera to Olympus' offerings (I used E-P1 and E-P5) because Olympus' cameras have unusable menus in my opinion. This camera also made me a M4/3 fan. I later sold the GF1 for a GH2 and haven't looked back since.
First, the 20mm kit lens. I know it is unfair to judge a camera based on the performance of the kit lens but kit lens do affect people's first impression of a camera. The 20mm lens is noisy and has severe focus issue so it is unusable in video mode. When I tried to take videos of still objects in a quiet environment the only thing I could hear is the sound of the lens focusing non-stop. Yes, I regretted not getting the 14-45mm lens instead.
Second, the microphone. It's the only M4/3 camera with mono mic. I haven't seen many people mentioning this but this is in my opinion the worst thing about GF1. The main advantage of M4/3 is its superior video quality compared with DSLRs, and bad audio can ruin a great video, so I wonder why Panasonic cheaped out on the microphone!?
Ultimately I still prefer this camera to Olympus' offerings (I used E-P1 and E-P5) because Olympus' cameras have unusable menus in my opinion. This camera also made me a M4/3 fan. I later sold the GF1 for a GH2 and haven't looked back since.
