Panasonic G100 - A good entry-level point into the Micro Four Thirds System

[Phaser]

Pros:

• RAW shooting
• Capable for photography
• Quick Autofocus and Decent Tracking
• Top Center High Resolution EVF
• Built In Flash
• Touch Screen
• Very Small & Light
• Micro HDMI port
• 3.5mm Microphone Input Jack
• Responsive Menu & Controls
• Included 12-32mm f/3.5-5.6 Lens is very sharp, contrasty, and renders very well
• Can be found cheap
• Has a high quality 20MP sensor, practically the same quality as the G9

Cons:

• No IBIS (Why would a camera marketed for video vlogging not have it?) The GX85 has IBIS and it's very compact...
• 4K Video has a large crop
• Electronic E-Stabilization on "High" reduces video quality substantially because it's not oversampled (better to rely on O.I.S lenses and "Standard" E-Stabilization)
• No Environmental/Weather Sealings
• Audio Bitrate is only 128 Kbps. 320 Kbps or PCM audio should really be selectable options!
• Recording Limits (4K, 10 Mins/1080p 20 Mins)
• Mechanical shutter limited up to 1/500 sec
• Flash limited up to 1/50th Sec (you might be better off using LED Light Panels)

Other thoughts:

• Good for Street Photography, Landscapes, Portraits. The lack of IBIS has been a non-issue for stills.
• Auto and P modes tend to use very small Apertures (like F11-F22) in good light if shutter type is set to "Electronic Front Curtain". This is because the Mechanical shutter is limited up to 1/500 sec. Set the shutter type to "Electronic Shutter" for better results in good lighting.
• AF Custom Settings for video will need to be manually set for best results (AF Speed & AF Sensitivity) Recommended AF Sensitivity to "locked on" and Autofocus mode to "tracking".
• If recording video on a Tripod, turn off E-Stabilization to get the sharpest video and least amount of crop.
• If you need a cheap MFT camera as a backup or just starting out, just get one!

Sample photos converted from RAW and lightly processed:


Panasonic G100


Panasonic G100


Panasonic G100


Panasonic G100


Panasonic G100


Panasonic G100


Panasonic G100


Panasonic G100


Panasonic G100


Panasonic G100


Panasonic G100


Panasonic G100


Panasonic G100


Panasonic G100


Panasonic G100


Panasonic G100

 

[Tom Caldwell]

I don't really know just why when someone shows "the happies" over a camera body that satisfies just why the image quality of the sample images supplied becomes more important than the worth of the camera body itself as an imaging tool.

Cannot we just accept that no Panasonic camera body is incapable of making high quality images. Let alone the G100.

That's the nature of this forum, Tom.

Whenever a Panasonic camera or lens is released, there is the inevitable 'hunt' for the fatal flaw that proves beyond any doubt that it is not as good as the Olympus/OMDS equivalent. It can therefore be regarded as an unworthy alternative, a lesser product that doesn't challenge Olympus. Those users can then sleep soundly at night knowing that their choice was right and correct all along.

Not having PDAF was the killer punch for years despite the fact that many shooters didn't even need it. That complaint has gone so now we're worrying about the speed of writing burst images from the buffer to the card. Two hundred images in the space of a few seconds is apparently egregiously slow. Colours that appear to be "off" when photos are taken through perspex screens in a stadium under a variety of artificial lighting. And a camera boot-up time of 1 second that is regarded as too slow.

Hopefully this post won't cause a riot. The main title is about the G100 so it should go unnoticed by the majority who will get their noses out of joint.

Perhaps I take a brighter note:

You are most certainly a positive influence on the forum Tom!

There are obviously more Olympus people about.

I guess that's the key. Which means that Panasonic products are in the main judged/assessed by how an Olympus camera/lens typically works as if that is the right way or the default. Not exactly fair, but there it is.

The main issue seems to be that Panasonic obviously workshopped its interface as brand new for digital and obviously only trimmed it for increasing sophistication along the way.

On the other hand it seems to me that Olympus as another traditional film slr company simply took their proven and well loved interface and slotted in all the extra controls that were necessary for digital almost anywhere they could find a space to fit them. Not that I am saying that this bad but it does take longer to get used to. Once "used to" it probably feels very natural. In the wake of learned interfaces the effort leaves the necessary finger memory just a precise. Once set in jelly they can no longer "improve' the interface without causing a major ruckus with their loyal customer base.

I had the same feeling with Canon dslr bodies - just film slr updated and it took Canon many models to gradually improve upon its weirdness. Not that I thought it so weird when it was the only interface that I knew.

Going back to one of the greatest niche bodies - the 5Ds I found it strangely old fashioned after Panasonic's "evolved purely for digital" that I had become familiar with.

A short try of a Nikon dslr body also left me nonplussed.

Sony of course had an agreeable interface worked out for its late NEX bodies then threw it to the winds with a probable hand me down from the original Minolta slr which was all buttons and wheels in an awkwardly shaped body. A grip too short for full finger grip and a shutter button a la Rangefinder-style on the top plate. Then some essential buttons and a rear wheel buried in a notch in the top plate - what on earth were they thinking? But all was forgiven as their first series was quite affordable and the market was 'bustin' for a FF ML body and would accept it in a plastic lunch box with some gusto if that was all that could be had.

As a mainly decided Panasonic person I am glad that Panasonic seems to evolved a very clean user interface from scratch. I really respect Olympus/OMDS camera bodies for their capabilities but for now I am not willing to make the effort to try and learn another user interface that really cannot be made to start to emulate how Panasonic does things.

If any manufacturer is willing to accept my advice there should be a way by which our M4/3 manufacturers could allow their interfaces to be customised to work at least similarly to each other. Shutter buttons and front/back wheels can be left alone as they are obvious and both work well.

 

[Tom Caldwell]

Yep Tom, that would make for a nice extended trip around the bay! :-D

[And in case you were too scared to check....that's a neat 301k !! :-O ]

Heavy traffic for most of the way - a million traffic lights and overtaking is hazardous. As already noted pre-motorways. Furthermore I had already clocked up a good 150km already. You can just about see Ryde from Point Lonsdale at Queenscliffe.

I hope it was a good reunion after the travel woes

Nah, I was very tired had one or three too many and paid the price. The following morning, not really up to it, I had to re-trace my journey around most of the bay to get back to the Western District. A few years later I was married and moved 1,500 kms back north to a much better climate and a new set of adventures.

But it was nice to meet up just once with my old schoolmates whilst they were still silly young twerps like I was. Now have well and truly lost contact and don't even know if they are all still with us.

 

[James Stirling]

Yep Tom, that would make for a nice extended trip around the bay! :-D

[And in case you were too scared to check....that's a neat 301k !! :-O ]

Heavy traffic for most of the way - a million traffic lights and overtaking is hazardous. As already noted pre-motorways. Furthermore I had already clocked up a good 150km already. You can just about see Ryde from Point Lonsdale at Queenscliffe.

I hope it was a good reunion after the travel woes

Nah, I was very tired had one or three too many and paid the price. The following morning, not really up to it, I had to re-trace my journey around most of the bay to get back to the Western District. A few years later I was married and moved 1,500 kms back north to a much better climate and a new set of adventures.

It is hard to wrap my head around just how huge Australia is 1500km would get me to Northern Italy

But it was nice to meet up just once with my old schoolmates whilst they were still silly young twerps like I was. Now have well and truly lost contact and don't even know if they are all still with us.

Having recently moved back near to where I grew up I have met up with a few of my old school friends. In truth nearly all my real friends are people who I grew up with hard to beat decades of shared experience I have never been to a school reunion the folk from school who I wanted to keep in touch , I see or speak to often, my two best friends went from Primary 1 to 5th year with me. One was my Neighbour and we have embarrassing photos of us as babies crawling about together

--
Jim Stirling:
“It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possession of truth.” Locke
Feel free to tinker with any photos I post

 

[Tom Caldwell]

Yep Tom, that would make for a nice extended trip around the bay! :-D

[And in case you were too scared to check....that's a neat 301k !! :-O ]

Heavy traffic for most of the way - a million traffic lights and overtaking is hazardous. As already noted pre-motorways. Furthermore I had already clocked up a good 150km already. You can just about see Ryde from Point Lonsdale at Queenscliffe.

I hope it was a good reunion after the travel woes

Nah, I was very tired had one or three too many and paid the price. The following morning, not really up to it, I had to re-trace my journey around most of the bay to get back to the Western District. A few years later I was married and moved 1,500 kms back north to a much better climate and a new set of adventures.

It is hard to wrap my head around just how huge Australia is 1500km would get me to Northern Italy

There is nothing so wondrous as visitors in Britz camper vans doing the Cairns-Melbourne-Adelaide trip via the coast road. The coast road looks quite "coasty" on a map but the reality is you can only see the sea from the road in a very few shortish glimpses. The rest of the trip of quite a long way consists of endless roads in good sealed condition but the country passed through might runs in a series of much the same thing for ever and ever then change to another same thing for ever and ever - repeat. You can see the sea by side trips but that adds a lot more kms and days to the trip. But I have done many long distances in Australia and for the most part rural-ish roads can be traversed fairly quickly with light traffic away from the major capital city urban-jungle traffic.

You don't really see a proper hill all the way around the coast road. Although the scenery is very varied from cool temperate wet-winter South to hot humid even wetter full tropics in the far North.

It is not widely appreciated that Melboure to Brisbane = Brisbane to Cairns = 1,500 kms approx and that incudes the inland route between Melbourne and Brisbane which is a lot shorter than round the coast. I quite enjoy these long trips (or used to do) as you get inured to doing them. This does not include yet another leap of many kms to get Melbourne-Adelaide.

Had a cyclone through Cairns very recently - in places there were over 2 metres of rain - the extensive flooding has caused some serious devastation. It was a beyond-normal cyclone.

Of course the trip around Port Philip Bay from Queenscliffe to Rye involves urban driving in heavy traffic for most of the way. That is quite different to cracking up relatively stress free long trips over fairly lightly trafficked roads.

But it was nice to meet up just once with my old schoolmates whilst they were still silly young twerps like I was. Now have well and truly lost contact and don't even know if they are all still with us.

Having recently moved back near to where I grew up I have met up with a few of my old school friends. In truth nearly all my real friends are people who I grew up with hard to beat decades of shared experience I have never been to a school reunion the folk from school who I wanted to keep in touch , I see or speak to often, my two best friends went from Primary 1 to 5th year with me. One was my Neighbour and we have embarrassing photos of us as babies crawling about togethere

These were old school mates that used to hang around together in a little country school before we were scattered to the winds as there were no serious jobs in the town where we were schooled. It was not an official school re-union but was a spontaneous get together of some 20-something year olds when I managed to contact one after moving back to Victoria.

As a still very raw migrant of fairly recent memory I had no real roots set down other than my migrant family. All the easier to compare the benign climate where I finally settled to the long miserable wet winters and very hot summers that Victoria offered (all forgiven by wonderful spring and autumn weather). Roughly 1,500 kms further north on the coast was no frost ever, not to hot and not too cold. But Victoria was wealthier and far more productive for its physical area. Easier there to make the crust.

However where you live your life when you grow up and where most of your family and friends reside is probably everyone's best place to live.

--
Tom Caldwell

 

[James Stirling]

Yep Tom, that would make for a nice extended trip around the bay! :-D

[And in case you were too scared to check....that's a neat 301k !! :-O ]

Heavy traffic for most of the way - a million traffic lights and overtaking is hazardous. As already noted pre-motorways. Furthermore I had already clocked up a good 150km already. You can just about see Ryde from Point Lonsdale at Queenscliffe.

I hope it was a good reunion after the travel woes

Nah, I was very tired had one or three too many and paid the price. The following morning, not really up to it, I had to re-trace my journey around most of the bay to get back to the Western District. A few years later I was married and moved 1,500 kms back north to a much better climate and a new set of adventures.

It is hard to wrap my head around just how huge Australia is 1500km would get me to Northern Italy

There is nothing so wondrous as visitors in Britz camper vans doing the Cairns-Melbourne-Adelaide trip via the coast road. The coast road looks quite "coasty" on a map but the reality is you can only see the sea from the road in a very few shortish glimpses. The rest of the trip of quite a long way consists of endless roads in good sealed condition but the country passed through might runs in a series of much the same thing for ever and ever then change to another same thing for ever and ever - repeat. You can see the sea by side trips but that adds a lot more kms and days to the trip. But I have done many long distances in Australia and for the most part rural-ish roads can be traversed fairly quickly with light traffic away from the major capital city urban-jungle traffic.

The thought of that amount of time in a camper van does not appeal . The chances of my wife murdering me would be quite high

You don't really see a proper hill all the way around the coast road. Although the scenery is very varied from cool temperate wet-winter South to hot humid even wetter full tropics in the far North.

It is not widely appreciated that Melboure to Brisbane = Brisbane to Cairns = 1,500 kms approx and that incudes the inland route between Melbourne and Brisbane which is a lot shorter than round the coast. I quite enjoy these long trips (or used to do) as you get inured to doing them. This does not include yet another leap of many kms to get Melbourne-Adelaide.

I thought the NC 500 was a road trip

Had a cyclone through Cairns very recently - in places there were over 2 metres of rain - the extensive flooding has caused some serious devastation. It was a beyond-normal cyclone.

That is a crazy amount of rainfall

Of course the trip around Port Philip Bay from Queenscliffe to Rye involves urban driving in heavy traffic for most of the way. That is quite different to cracking up relatively stress free long trips over fairly lightly trafficked roads.

City driving sucks the fun right out of it for me

But it was nice to meet up just once with my old schoolmates whilst they were still silly young twerps like I was. Now have well and truly lost contact and don't even know if they are all still with us.

Having recently moved back near to where I grew up I have met up with a few of my old school friends. In truth nearly all my real friends are people who I grew up with hard to beat decades of shared experience I have never been to a school reunion the folk from school who I wanted to keep in touch , I see or speak to often, my two best friends went from Primary 1 to 5th year with me. One was my Neighbour and we have embarrassing photos of us as babies crawling about togethere

These were old school mates that used to hang around together in a little country school before we were scattered to the winds as there were no serious jobs in the town where we were schooled. It was not an official school re-union but was a spontaneous get together of some 20-something year olds when I managed to contact one after moving back to Victoria.

As a still very raw migrant of fairly recent memory I had no real roots set down other than my migrant family. All the easier to compare the benign climate where I finally settled to the long miserable wet winters and very hot summers that Victoria offered (all forgiven by wonderful spring and autumn weather). Roughly 1,500 kms further north on the coast was no frost ever, not to hot and not too cold. But Victoria was wealthier and far more productive for its physical area. Easier there to make the crust.

However where you live your life when you grow up and where most of your family and friends reside is probably everyone's best place to live.

I agree Tom, we lived in Edinburgh for many years but it never really felt like "home". When I am out with the dogs now I am guaranteed to meet someone I know . Though in the village where I grew up other than a couple of young relatives , I don't recognize anyone under 50

 

[Pete_W]

The main issue seems to be that Panasonic obviously workshopped its interface as brand new for digital and obviously only trimmed it for increasing sophistication along the way.

Panasonic menus are most certainly easy to understand and use. I've not tried an Olympus camera and am unlikely to ever do so. I owned a Nikon SLR in the film days so if I was to ever switch, I would take a look at their cameras. But I am happy with Panasonic FF so am unlikely to ever switch.

If any manufacturer is willing to accept my advice there should be a way by which our M4/3 manufacturers could allow their interfaces to be customised to work at least similarly to each other. Shutter buttons and front/back wheels can be left alone as they are obvious and both work well.

It's surprising that no camera maker has ever attempted this.

 

[Tom Caldwell]

Where I live the population was about 14,000 when we arrived. I was in the middle of a growth spurt. A very poorly endowed region only suitable for a declining timber exporting industry and growing bananas which did not provide a luxurious farm living. It came out of the WWII era with a population of about 3,500.

Nowadays it has an official census population of some years ago of over 70,000 and growing like topsy. There is a University Campus, the busiest regional airport in NSW, a transport hub and traffic chaos. 100,000 does not really seem that far away.

Being found is not always for the better. Once I could walk up the street and surely I would meet someone I knew, now it is juts 'city faces'. Once parking was just a scrimmage to find a spot on a single block central shopping centre on a Saturday morning. Now it is a perpetual scrimmage over a much wider area. The layout of the internal road structure has hardly changed from the needs of a village of 3,500.

Regional Australia in general is being de-populated due to its burgeoning capital cities which attract because of the huge expenditures on infrastructure works that create well paid jobs (repeat). But the very many coastal towns located in pleasant places to live are being found even though there are initially no jobs or burgeoning sources of income to support them.

The industry in a rapidly growing place is based on the building industry alone and this is supported by importing capital to build. We could not afford $5,500 for a block of land when we arrived but rumour has it that a new 400 lot subdivision has an asking price of K$600 per block. Found indeed. I am glad that we beat the price rise.

Happy Christmas, and dare I hope that we might see some end to the troubles that presently beset the world.

 

[jalywol]

The industry in a rapidly growing place is based on the building industry alone and this is supported by importing capital to build. We could not afford $5,500 for a block of land when we arrived but rumour has it that a new 400 lot subdivision has an asking price of K$600 per block. Found indeed. I am glad that we beat the price rise.

Happy Christmas, and dare I hope that we might see some end to the troubles that presently beset the world.

Yes, I hope also. But fear and uncertainty drive people to embrace extremism instead of hope, and that perpetuates the worst, so the road is rocky ahead, still.

I live in a small house in a little enclave next to an old (small) urban area, that is part of a larger urban, political (state capitol is across the river), and (mostly formerly) industrial region. My spot was fairly depressed when I bought my house about 20 years ago, and remained so until a couple of years before the pandemic, when house prices started to rise. Over the past few years, even the few formerly "distressed" houses near me have been snapped up and renovated, and that has accelerated the price rise of everything else right here. I'm still boggled that if I put my house up for sale now, it would go for twice what I paid for it.

I'm retired and on a fixed (pretty darn modest) income, but because I was lucky enough to buy my house when it was cheap, my monthly mortgage and taxes are under half what I would currently pay for a decent rental. If I had to rent, much less buy, right now, there is no way I could afford any of it, and I'd be living in a tiny, dingy hole-in-the-wall. I'm just thankful that at that one moment of time in my life that the stars aligned and I was able to buy a house, that I managed to do so.

-J

 

[Lupata]

I managed to snare a tt artisans 35mm f1.4 lens at a garage sale shoved it on the G100 and the combination is a pleasure to use, the results are not too foul. It's a lot more fun than the Pen F ( may have to sell that) and leave the om/oly world behind

May just check out the 50mm f1.2 version

--
gfgfjup

 

[Markusweld]

I managed to snare a tt artisans 35mm f1.4 lens at a garage sale shoved it on the G100 and the combination is a pleasure to use, the results are not too foul. It's a lot more fun than the Pen F ( may have to sell that) and leave the om/oly world behind

May just check out the 50mm f1.2 version

I have the m4/3 mount Siggy 30mm f/1.4 It goes really really well on little G, I thoroughly enjoy the FOV. Gives some quite 3D looking images at times.

 

[Lupata]

looks like a nice lens to use, but I have decided to go back down the manual, focusing path

I was surprised how easily the ttartisans is to use on the G100, sure quality is not as good as a Leica but then again, like a film lenses lose a bit when used on digitals. I have a big photo account, but I'm still a cheapskate when it comes to buying
I haven't missed the camera or lens based stabilisation at all, but I guess I never have it in the medium format anyways and when I looked at the pen it was off must've been like that for years, as for those that need stabilisation is wear heavy boots, drink less coffee and get a decent social life,

 

[Tom Caldwell]

Good to see that you share a creative love of photography and the ability to make use of it.

Of course we are all on this forum because we have opinions and sharing our opinions can be very constructive if we do so with good intent.

Friends that we never meet or see are still friends sharing a common interest.

 

[Tom Caldwell]

Very nice Andrew - reminds me of when visiting Townsville in North Queensland and I got up before dawn to drive up Tower Hill so that I could catch the dawn from the eminence.

Unfortunately pre-M4/3 but I might try and find and example shot from my archives.

 

[Stu3133]

looks like a nice lens to use, but I have decided to go back down the manual, focusing path

I was surprised how easily the ttartisans is to use on the G100, sure quality is not as good as a Leica but then again, like a film lenses lose a bit when used on digitals. I have a big photo account, but I'm still a cheapskate when it comes to buying
I haven't missed the camera or lens based stabilisation at all, but I guess I never have it in the medium format anyways and when I looked at the pen it was off must've been like that for years, as for those that need stabilisation is wear heavy boots, drink less coffee and get a decent social life,

No guessing where TT Artisan got their inspiration for this lens ! :-D

Right down to the decal!

 

[Markusweld]

looks like a nice lens to use, but I have decided to go back down the manual, focusing path

I was surprised how easily the ttartisans is to use on the G100, sure quality is not as good as a Leica but then again, like a film lenses lose a bit when used on digitals. I have a big photo account, but I'm still a cheapskate when it comes to buying
I haven't missed the camera or lens based stabilisation at all, but I guess I never have it in the medium format anyways and when I looked at the pen it was off must've been like that for years, as for those that need stabilisation is wear heavy boots, drink less coffee and get a decent social life,

Certainly looks a lot more compact than my Siggy 30. I didn't pay a lot for it mind you, some sort of eBay sale and it somehow ended up on my doorstep for somewhere around $350 delivered. Brand new, local stock, with local warranty. I was initially a wee bit hesitant in buying 3rd party AF lenses for my m4/3 camera after some real horrors with a couple of lenses on my Canon DSLR's. Wouldn't wish that on anyone. I first picked up the Siggy 56 1.4, & was very very very pleasantly surprised with its performance. Optically, mechanically & AF wise. Once again, local stock, local warranty, for a really good price thanks to Amazon this time

I don't mind manual focus at all myself. Focus peaking is an absolute game changer there. I don't even bother with magnified view even. Just pick an easy to see colour, off you go.

 

[Lupata]

Why not copy it is a very practical design for manual usage. I got a bit of a bug now I wonder about the 50mm version's performance....

 

[Lupata]

Focus peaking is an absolute game changer

Yea when one figures out what is in and what isn't in focus depending on distance aperture and lenses it's all pretty much seamless.

or

Set the focus for f1.4 and then dial the aperture up to f4 or f5.6 and shoot , the beauty of the lens aperture stops at the front.

--
gfgfjup

 

[Tom Caldwell]

That the camera body is seen as one of the best cameras in its class is encouraging.

I must admit that my tentative purchase to give it a try resulted in more rewards in its use than I had imagined.

There is more to any device than just a specification sheet. I like my gear to be inviting to use more than just what its specification seems to offer.

 

[Bassam Guy]

It might be priced at entry level but it seems to me, from the pros and cons, its limitations are such that it's more like expert level to get the best out of it. Otherwise, its form factor makes it a great little travel and backup camera.

1" hyper-zoom cameras would be another option for travel with less limitations

But one wouldn't exactly be a "good entry-level point into the Micro Four Thirds System", would it?

 

[Stu3133]

Just by the bye, I've noticed the rear screen on my G100 has a bit of movement when it is sitting normally against the body with the LCD out [less so when it is reversed].

Anybody also experience this?

From what I can see, Lumix has had some trouble with loose articulated screens in the past. Apparenty fixable but with some serious looking disassembling.