- Average user rating: 4.5 stars out of 6 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
-
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
4.0 stars
"What's not to like about the EVF"
Pros: The EVF is not a drawback of this camera, rather, it offers several advantages.
Cons: The small sensor will likely not have particularly good noise performance at low light and higher ISO settings. Smaller sensors also are more prone to "blooming", which occurs when charge carries from a saturated pixel site to adjacent pixel sites.
Summary: Lori Grunin obviously felt it appropriate to take a ?guilty until proven innocent? approach to this camera. The new Micro Four-Thirds format is designed around the electronic viewfinder, so to criticize the EVF in the way that she did amounts to a criticism of this new format before you have even seen the camera or held it in your hands. She also says that the contrast-based autofocus of this camera will be slow, but the people who have actually played with pre-production copies of the camera have reported that it is more like a DSLR than any previous non-DLSR.
SLR and DSLR cameras are defined by their use of a through-the-lens optical viewfinder. The mirror, when in the tilted-down position at 45 degrees, directs the light arriving from the lens up onto the translucent focusing screen in lieu of the sensor (or film). Your eye focuses on that screen, with the help of the small eyepiece lens, and the pentaprism, which serves to flip the image and extend the optical distance. With any SLR or DSLR, the focusing screen is necessarily the same physical size as the sensor, or very nearly so at least. The net effect is that the physical size of the sensor determines the minimum possible front-to-back depth for the body of the camera.
The advantages of the through-the-lens viewfinder are manifest, but the crucial fact is that when an electronic sensor replaces the film, it is possible to implement a through-the-lens viewfinder using an entirely different approach, where a small LCD display replaces the translucent focusing screen. The mirror goes away as well, as does the pentaprism, and there is no inherent reason why that LCD display should be as large as the sensor itself. Electronic viewfinders have been around in various forms since the early days of video cameras, and nowadays they are commonplace in the super-zoom variety of digital still-image cameras. But up until now, the only place where you would find a really top-notch EVF remotely capable of taking on an optical viewfinder was in expensive commercial-grade video cameras. The continued use of optical through-the-lens viewfinders in digital cameras is predicated entirely on the assumption that present technology with respect to electronic viewfinders just isn?t adequate. Panasonic is saying that the time has come to challenge that assumption and explore the potential of a really top-notch electronic viewfinder in a consumer-grade digital still camera.
One of the inherent advantages of a good EVF is that the image brightness in the viewfinder isn?t tied directly to the subject lighting and the f-number as it is with a through-the-lens optical viewfinder. Anyone who uses their DSLR camera in stopped-down preview mode will appreciate the fact that the image won?t turn as dark as night the way it does with an optical through-the-lens viewfinder. This is one aspect in which this camera will offer a real, undeniable advantage over a DSLR. If you look at Panasonic?s web site or other independent camera review sites, you will see that there is also a shutter speed preview capability that allows you to see the amount of motion blurring that will occur with the selected shutter speed.
But even with these real advantages, the real question is with whether manual focusing will be as easy with this EVF as it is with a through-the-lens optical viewfinder. Even if that proves not to be the case, this camera is inarguably a major step in the direction that digital cameras will inevitably take. Sooner or later, electronic viewfinders will surpass optical viewfinders in every conceivable way. That day is probably just around the corner, and when that day arrives, DSLRs will decline in popularity so quickly that it will make the decline in popularity of film cameras over the past decade seem like it took forever. It will be the final step in the evolution of cameras from film to electronic image sensing. It is not a question of whether, only a question of when.
- 1 reply to this review
-
Headphone guy is dead on. The days of the SLR are probably few. Sevral factors apply that he failed to mention.
1. Eliminating the mirror and pentaprism reduces the weight of the camera body. With some dSLRs topping 3 lbs that's a welcome direction.
2. camera designers will have a field day designing cameras without havcing to deal with the mirror box that limits them now.
3. The Micro 4/3 system reduces the distance from lens' rear elements to the sensor surface which allows lens designers to produce smaller lenses. The SLrs retro focus lenses can be replaced by lenses more like those on Leica rangefinders.
4. The biggest factor is that we older photographers grew up with SLRs and they are 'natural' for us. But I believe that young people coming into photography will see the lighter, smaller Micro 4/3 as simply the camera of choice. They'll wonder why we insisted on carrying around these elephantine SLRs.
Stevefotos
Where to buy
Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1 (red):
$649.99 - $799.97
| store | price | in stock? | rating |
|---|---|---|---|
|
$799.95 | Yes |
|
|
$649.99 | Yes |
|
|
Amazon.com Marketplace
|
$674.69 | Yes |
|
|
$799.97 | Yes |
|
|
17th Street Photo
|
$699.00 | Yes |
|
%20user%20review%20and%20rating%20-%20CNET%20Reviews&srcUrl=http://reviews.cnet.com/digital-cameras/panasonic-lumix-dmc-g1/4864-6501_7-33255270-2.html){kind=small}