Andy Jarosz
07-24-2009, 08:26 PM
My Panasonic Lumix GH1 came a few days ago and I've been playing with it nonstop. Below is my review.
In a few weeks I will be selling a brand new U.S. model of this camera. Also, this review was made with the PAL version, which is identical to the NTSC (ATSC?) version except for the frame rates.
My initial impressions of the packaging were very good. The critical components were wrapped in foam and the box made good use of space. While this would not have impacted my opinion of the camera, it's nice to see I don't have to get the scissors and un-twisty tie thirty things.
My initial thoughts on the camera itself was that it is SMALL. Much smaller then you would think it was. While it's the same style as a DSLR, it's the same size as a point-and-shoot. This sometimes causes me some issues, as I have large hands and it's sometimes hard to avoid pushing buttons. You will need a shoulder mount if you plan on going handheld. It's also quite heavy for the size, and for all the hype about "eliminating the mirror box" I don't see a huge advantage to doing it. I would have preferred the optical viewfinder and larger size, and just dealt with the <half pound or so it would have added.
The body itself is fairly standard. Mode wheel on the top, shutter button on the right. The EVF is fixed and can not rotate up or down. This is compensated for, in my book, by the amazing articulate viewfinder. The screen itself is large, light, and thin. I'm almost afraid it's too light, and it might come off. However, it is very high-quality and focusing with it is fairly easy. The EVF, not so much, but still not bad. Lot's of "rainbow" effect when you move your eye around, however.
The menu system is pretty straitforward, and while the settings are labeled, the tabs are not. I am spending a bit of time initially "finding that damn setting." This will go away eventually. It's also nice to know that I wont have to spend a lot of time in the menu, as most everything has a physical button on the camera. This is something sorely lacking in most sub-~$4000 cameras that I do enjoy.
While the lack of XLR inputs was expected for a DSLR, the lack of even a 1/8th mic input is just maddening. Yes, it has a mic input, but it's a 2.2mm 3/32 input. I coulda swore that the electronics gods said only phones were allowed to have those. It's cheap and easy to adapt to 1/8th and then to XLR, but that adds more metal and potential for problems. I'm also very afraid of plugging an adapter into the mic jack simply because I don't want it to snap off inside the camera. This is one of my biggest problems with this camera and I really hope the next version addresses this. To their credit, the onboard mic is actually pretty good.
This is a camera that NEEDS a riser to work on rods. The lens is pretty much in between the rails otherwise.
Speaking of the lens, for a kit lens (and problably the most expensive part of the kit, so does that make it a kit camera instead?) it's actually surprisingly good. It's internal focus with no rotation as you zoom or focus allowing you to be able to use a clip-on matte box, 14-140 (28-280 35mm equivalent) The focus ring is electronic so you will need hard stops to use a follow focus. The focus ring also operates smoothly. The zoom ring, not so much. It's pretty hard to turn, but doable. As expected, there is no iris ring.
But my main concern for this lens, and for this camera, is the lens is so very slow. f/4.0 wide open. This means if you plan to shoot indoors, you need to add more light, firmly planting this camera in the realm of filmmakers only and pretty much blowing any "home movies" crowd that might want to get it. Of course, you could bump the ISO way up and lower the shutter speed, but at the point you might as well just go buy a camcorder.
I had heard horror stories about AVCHD (Funny story: At NAB, a guy with an HMC-150 walked into the Sony booth. A Sony rep saw and goes "An AVC-cam? Can you actually shoot video with that thing?") so I was expecting it to be a hard road. I was moving from a tape-ful workflow. I was surprised at how easy it was to incorporate. Adobe seems to have fully supported these formats and they import right into Premiere, although you still have to render. After Effects also supports them, although AE seems to think it's interlaced so you have to change some Interpret Footage settings. I didn't try with Nuke, but I figured if you are going to be using that, you won't be dealing with the AVCHD files directly anyway.
The image quality astounded me. For such a tiny camera, it sure packs a wallop. I have attached a few images, and I will be posting some videos as well as some pictures of the camera itself in the next few days. The 17mbps data rate does show it's ugly head, however, when low-light situations roll around. The dynamic range just does not seem to be there. Also, as soon as the camera starts moving, all bets are off. The image seems to turn into a painting (I've attached an extreme example of this). And for such a large sensor, getting 35mm-like DOF still takes some work. However, it still produces some great images. The CMOS skew is almost non-existent at 1/50th shutter, which was a pleasant surprise. This seems like a great bridge between the consumer and prosumer world, and in the right hands could produce some incredible images.
Video and more images coming soon.
In a few weeks I will be selling a brand new U.S. model of this camera. Also, this review was made with the PAL version, which is identical to the NTSC (ATSC?) version except for the frame rates.
My initial impressions of the packaging were very good. The critical components were wrapped in foam and the box made good use of space. While this would not have impacted my opinion of the camera, it's nice to see I don't have to get the scissors and un-twisty tie thirty things.
My initial thoughts on the camera itself was that it is SMALL. Much smaller then you would think it was. While it's the same style as a DSLR, it's the same size as a point-and-shoot. This sometimes causes me some issues, as I have large hands and it's sometimes hard to avoid pushing buttons. You will need a shoulder mount if you plan on going handheld. It's also quite heavy for the size, and for all the hype about "eliminating the mirror box" I don't see a huge advantage to doing it. I would have preferred the optical viewfinder and larger size, and just dealt with the <half pound or so it would have added.
The body itself is fairly standard. Mode wheel on the top, shutter button on the right. The EVF is fixed and can not rotate up or down. This is compensated for, in my book, by the amazing articulate viewfinder. The screen itself is large, light, and thin. I'm almost afraid it's too light, and it might come off. However, it is very high-quality and focusing with it is fairly easy. The EVF, not so much, but still not bad. Lot's of "rainbow" effect when you move your eye around, however.
The menu system is pretty straitforward, and while the settings are labeled, the tabs are not. I am spending a bit of time initially "finding that damn setting." This will go away eventually. It's also nice to know that I wont have to spend a lot of time in the menu, as most everything has a physical button on the camera. This is something sorely lacking in most sub-~$4000 cameras that I do enjoy.
While the lack of XLR inputs was expected for a DSLR, the lack of even a 1/8th mic input is just maddening. Yes, it has a mic input, but it's a 2.2mm 3/32 input. I coulda swore that the electronics gods said only phones were allowed to have those. It's cheap and easy to adapt to 1/8th and then to XLR, but that adds more metal and potential for problems. I'm also very afraid of plugging an adapter into the mic jack simply because I don't want it to snap off inside the camera. This is one of my biggest problems with this camera and I really hope the next version addresses this. To their credit, the onboard mic is actually pretty good.
This is a camera that NEEDS a riser to work on rods. The lens is pretty much in between the rails otherwise.
Speaking of the lens, for a kit lens (and problably the most expensive part of the kit, so does that make it a kit camera instead?) it's actually surprisingly good. It's internal focus with no rotation as you zoom or focus allowing you to be able to use a clip-on matte box, 14-140 (28-280 35mm equivalent) The focus ring is electronic so you will need hard stops to use a follow focus. The focus ring also operates smoothly. The zoom ring, not so much. It's pretty hard to turn, but doable. As expected, there is no iris ring.
But my main concern for this lens, and for this camera, is the lens is so very slow. f/4.0 wide open. This means if you plan to shoot indoors, you need to add more light, firmly planting this camera in the realm of filmmakers only and pretty much blowing any "home movies" crowd that might want to get it. Of course, you could bump the ISO way up and lower the shutter speed, but at the point you might as well just go buy a camcorder.
I had heard horror stories about AVCHD (Funny story: At NAB, a guy with an HMC-150 walked into the Sony booth. A Sony rep saw and goes "An AVC-cam? Can you actually shoot video with that thing?") so I was expecting it to be a hard road. I was moving from a tape-ful workflow. I was surprised at how easy it was to incorporate. Adobe seems to have fully supported these formats and they import right into Premiere, although you still have to render. After Effects also supports them, although AE seems to think it's interlaced so you have to change some Interpret Footage settings. I didn't try with Nuke, but I figured if you are going to be using that, you won't be dealing with the AVCHD files directly anyway.
The image quality astounded me. For such a tiny camera, it sure packs a wallop. I have attached a few images, and I will be posting some videos as well as some pictures of the camera itself in the next few days. The 17mbps data rate does show it's ugly head, however, when low-light situations roll around. The dynamic range just does not seem to be there. Also, as soon as the camera starts moving, all bets are off. The image seems to turn into a painting (I've attached an extreme example of this). And for such a large sensor, getting 35mm-like DOF still takes some work. However, it still produces some great images. The CMOS skew is almost non-existent at 1/50th shutter, which was a pleasant surprise. This seems like a great bridge between the consumer and prosumer world, and in the right hands could produce some incredible images.
Video and more images coming soon.