Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1 - wow that was quick

It was just last month that the Micro Four Thirds format was announced, and today a new camera in this format is already previewed at DPreview. I'm sure this has seriously disrupted business planning at Canon and Nikon. This new camera is the Panasonic G1.

The G1 is basically a prosumer camera with interchangable lenses. It sounds bad to the DSLR lovers but it's a blessing to anyone who want quality without the bulk. It replaced the viewfinder with a huge live view screen. The artificially small and dark viewfinder has always been the marketing tool to get people to buy a more expensive SLR, now the market is turned upside down for sure. The one thing that might bother people is that the normal phase-detection autofocus is replaced by contrast autofocus, so AF speed might slow down. I do have to say the entry-level cameras from all manufacturers all seem to have AF problems, so maybe contrast AF is not such a bad thing (and it's really what-you-see-is-what-you-get since you can see much more clearly what is in focus using the big screen). One striking is that this camera will come in 3 colors: black, blue and red. I think a red camera is so cool. A camera with color might make people less nervous too, which is never a bad thing.

Micro Four Thirds bridges the great digital camera divide

Today, an announcement from Olympus and Panasonic sent shockwaves through all the photography forums. The traditional gap between point and shoot and DSLR has been crossed. High quality, compact digital camera is now possible with the Micro Four Thirds format. This format standardizes a mirrorless interchangable lens digital camera with the same sensor size as the Four Thirds system. Imagine, a digital rangefinder with perfect framing, not made by Leica. Entry-level DSLR buyers will be delighted to find a much smaller camera delivering the same quality images, with a big LCD for easy composition. How many times have you heard people complaining about the small and dark viewfinder on entry-level DSLRs? This new system has the potential to steal A LOT of sales from Canon and Nikon. Watch out!

On a side note, we will probably see a Panasonic-made Leica-branded digital rangefinder in the future, but I think it's quite obvious Leica will exist only in name from now on.

Links

• Dpreview has lots of pictures describing this new format

Panasonic 18x Zoom LUMIX DMC-FZ18 Camera

The race toward ever-higher megapixel may be over, but looks like the race to make the biggest zoom has just started. Sony started it all by introducing the DSC-H9 with a 15x zoom lens, when everybody was still making 12x zooms. This week, Panasonic answered: a 8.1 megapixel camera with a 18x zoom lens in the form of FZ18.
The new Leica DC Vario-Elmarit allows zoom range of 28-504mm. It allows slightly wide angle coverage as well as massive zoom in capability. If this was a 35mm camera, the lens would look like a telescope. Macro performance has been greatly improved to allow minimum shooting distance of just 1cm at the wide end and 1m at the tele end. The only worry is distortion. If distortion is kept low, this would be a tremendous camera.

The new feature common in all the new Panasonic cameras is the Intelligent Auto Mode feature. Tired of getting poor pictures out of the Auto mode? This new mode automatically detects motion, faces, shake, and even the type of scene and sets the best settings. Scene detection includes normal, portrait, scenery, macro, night scenery and night portrait. It sounds quite amazing and could be a godsend for times when you need to hand the camera over to a friend or when you're just too lazy.

I find it curious why Panasonic brought out this camera so soon. Could this mean the end of the FZ50 series? In any case, the Panasonic LUMIX DMC-FZ18 looks to be a very good camera. It will be available in September 2007 for an MSRP of $399.95.

ayumi hamasaki x HelloKitty x LUMIX collaboration camera!

Ayu has done it again! Already the LUMIX representative, now she got her own version of DMC-FX30 camera. Could this start a new trend in camera styles? When are we gonna see a Bape x Leica camo M8?

For about US$450, one gets a FX30 with special face plate, special box and case. The FX30 is the exact same spec but with a special shutdown logo . It is very stylish and I have to say fits the Asian taste extremely well. While Ayu's popularity has waned somewhat in the recent years, she's still a strong fashion icon and it shows in her new line of ayumi hamasaki x HelloKitty items.

Panasonic Lumix FX07 Urushi (lacquer)

I first saw these on Mono magazine, and was quite amused. For some, luxury means a red dot on a black or chrome body; for others, luxury means embracing their own culture and tradition with color to match.
Urushi is lacquer art form common to many south east asian cultures. Japan has a rich tradition in this art. Last year, Panasonic released the FX07 with 5 different lacquer finishes. These cameras are done by the same company that did the ultra rare Leica R7 Urushi. Web images can't do these cameras justice; the 3-dimensional finish is incredible. Each color is limited to 100 units. Of course, luxury comes at a price. At 59800yen, these cameras cost more than double the regular FX07.

Panasonic DMC-FZ8 Review

Dpreview has put up a review of the Lumix FZ8 today. That was quick! Normally only Canons get this kind of quick reviews over there. It has gotten a Highly Recommended. Needless to say, it created a firestorm in the forums.

From the review, it's nice to see the image resolution has increased a little bit. The bigger LCD and viewfinder are now one of the best in the superzoom class. Unfortunately, noise reduction is very strong with the Venus Engine III. The RAW mode allows a user to bypass the noise reduction, which is an awesome feature. Using RAW will increase shot to shot time to around 3 seconds, which I think is tolerable.

One thing of concern is highlight clipping, which Dpreview found worse than the FZ7. Whoever wants smaller dynamic range, raise your hand! It seems a 1/2.5" size sensor can really only do so much, when the megapixel count is pushed to such extremes. I agree with Dpreview; if you can accept the image quality limitations of these compact superzooms, there's really no better value than the FZ8.

It deserves a Highly Recommended.

Panasonic TZ3

Panasonic introduced the new Panasonic DMC-TZ3 camera. Targeted at the active traveler, the TZ3 has sophisticated features in a compact package. Panasonic called this the "lady" camera, as opposed to the "girl" FX30.
Although targeted at more mature customers, the TZ3 is no less trendy than the FX30. It has a very useful 28mm to 280mm lens (10x zoom), at F3.3-4.9. F3.3 is a little slow for low light, hopefully the larger sensor is able to make up for it. The TZ3 is a 7.3 megapixel camera, but the sensor is actually 8.5 megapixel with a size of 1/2.35" (compared to normally 1/2.5"). This allows the TZ3 to capture true 16:9 aspect ratio images, as opposed to some camera where 16:9 means trimming the top and bottom pixels.

The TZ3 has the new features common to the FX30, like the SDHC support, Venus Engine III and the intelligent ISO mode. For travelers, a travel date mode and a memo mode is added. The travel date mode allows a user to set the departure date of the trip, and the camera will record and display the images in chronological order of the trip. The memo mode uses the internal memory (12.7MB) to store essential information, for example a photo of a subway map, that can be displayed quickly later. I can imagine this mode being very useful, because the TZ3 has a 3" LCD. A three inch LCD is very easy on the eyes, which makes showing off photos to friends a very enjoyable experience.

Make me wonder when we'll be able to watch TV on a camera :)

Panasonic FX30

Panasonic's new flagship ultra-compact is the FX30. Interestingly enough, Panasonic Japan calls it the "girl" camera, as opposed to the "lady" camera, TZ3. The FX30 is targeted at the stylish girl who also cares about advanced functionalities. These two cameras are Panasonic's attempt to capture the female market. I find it amusing that it does not come in pink. As we all know, pink cameras, cell phones, DS Lites, Wiis (just kidding) really capture a girl's heart like nothing else...
With a width of only 22mm, the FX30 is the world's slimmest digital camera with a 28mm lens. It has the Venus Engine III, and a 7.2 megapixel sensor, allowing ISO of up to 3200. It also has the intelligent ISO mode that detects subject motion and automatically raise ISO and shutter speed if necessary. While not so useful in prosumer cameras, this mode is very appropiate in this class of cameras. Most of the features are the same as the FZ8, with a great 2.5" LCD, 27MB built-in memory and support for SDHC.

Following the girl camera theme, FX30 has 21 scene modes. There is a new "pet" mode that allows setting of a pet's birthday to display its age on the photo, and a "sunset" mode that enables a user to capture beautiful sunset colors. Accessories will include a marine case to be used with the underwater mode!

Panasonic Lumix FZ8

Panasonic Japan announced a new line of cameras for this year. They are the DMC-LZ7, LS75, FZ8, FS1, TZ3 and FX30. Today I'll talk about the DMC-FZ8.Just like the FZ7, the FZ8 will be available in silver and black. It has a new 7.2 megapixel sensor, combined with the new Venus Engine III, will support ISO 3200. Venus Engine III is known to suppress detail (maybe too much) in exchange for lower noise, so it would be curious how FZ8 will perform at ISO 3200. The lens is the same one from FZ7, but the Extra Optical Zoom mode has been enhanced to allow 18x (vs 16.5x) optical zoom when the image size is limited to 3 megapixels. The LCD, while staying at 2.5", has its resolution almost doubled to 207K pixel from 114K pixels, which should make reviewing pictures a much better experience. The viewfinder also see a size increase from 0.33" to 0.44" and resolution from 114K to 188K pixels. Panasonic doesn't stop there, the FZ8 has a new 11 point selectable autofocus mode, auto ISO adjustment with intelligent motion detection, internal memory of approximately 27MB, and support for SDHC memory cards (SD memory cards over 2GB).

The final, and ultimate feature, on a consumer priced digital camera, is the addition of RAW support. FZ8 comes with SILKYPIX Developer Studio 2.0SE to give you full control of the final image, direct from the sensor. This is an incredible feature, as we know Canon just last year removed RAW support from the prosumer G7 camera. Panasonic really outdid itself this time and this camera will be the prosumer camera of choice for a while.

Visit LetsGoDigital for early sample images taken with the Lumix FZ8.