Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF2
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- ********
- ********0
I guess this means the GF1 might become slightly less expensive? Would the GF1 be a good buy?
- Hombre_Lobo_20
^Lukus
ive got a GF1+20mm and love it. the 20mm lens is probably the 2nd sharpest lens for micro four thirds, second to the pana leica 45mm macro (1:1) which cost about £600.
The GF2 is smaller, with less manual control touch screen, generally a more P&S orientated audience and less amateur photographer audience that the GF1 applies to.
- Hombre_Lobo_20
The olympus cameras should be considered before you buy the Gf1 though. i mean the E-P1, E-P2 and E-PL1.
The big difference is the oly cameras have inbuilt image stabilization. Panasonic have gone with lens based IS, which is much more beneficial for video (as the video becomes stabalised - which isnt possible on the pen cameras) and equally (if not a fraction better from what ive read) good for stills. Obviously these lenses with Is can be used on the oly pen cameras.
The 20mm (and the new 14mm) pancake do not have IS. The 20mm has a 1.7 aperture so it isnt that important.
- hey, thanks for the tips - really useful advice :)********
- more to come!...Hombre_Lobo_2
- hey, thanks for the tips - really useful advice :)
- Hombre_Lobo_20
Also, the output of the olympus jpegs are incredible. The colour rendition looks good, although it might not be true to life colour as they tend to pop a lot more than true to life colours.
The jpegs are almost indistinguishable from the RAWs, but obviously RAW is far superior for PP.
The GF1 has a more true to life jpeg output, but the RAW's produce much more pleasing colour. Panasonic (up until now with the release of the GF2, GH2 etc) have had some stick about their jpeg engine not producing accurate sky colours, some say they have a magenta cast to them. I havent found this a problem myself, but i do notice that the RAW colours are slightly different to jpegs.
- Hombre_Lobo_20
in terms of high iso -
The pens apply a much more aggressive approach to noise reduction, losing some detail, but retain enough for it to look very good, whislt panasonic leave more detail along with some noise. Its opinion based really.
Despite having a GF1, i much prefer the oly output at higher isos, it widely agreed amongst many micro four third users that oly pen noise reduction is pretty spectacular and generally, a majority preferred approach.
- Hombre_Lobo_20
will you want an additional Electronic View Finder?
the GF1 can have one with a resolution of 400k dots,
the E-p1 cant have one
The e-p2 can have one with a resolution of 1,400k dots
The E-pl1 can have one with a resolution of 1,400k dotsthe E-p2 and E-pl1 EVF are identical.
The olympus pen EVF is incredibly sharp, ive heard nothing but 10/10 comments for it, its very high resolution.
The EVF for the GF1 (which can be used on the LX5 btw) is not so good. Buyers often say they really like ti and are pleased they bought it, but wish it was half as good as the olympus one.
- Hombre_Lobo_20
Focus speed!!
The mega advantage of the Panasonic over the Olympus pens is that the focus speed is quite a lot quicker. However after a previous firmware update for the olympus pens it has sped up, but still not to match panasonics focus speed and still quite slow.
However! this is mainly due to lenses Olympus produce. So if you put Panasonic lenses on Olympus bodies with the latest Olympus firmware the focus speed will be pretty dam quick, but still a fraction slower (not by much, i dunno if you would notice in RL) that the Panasonic lens on a panasonic body.
- Hombre_Lobo_20
Lens compatibility!
One of the great things about micro four thirds cameras is that they can fit soooo many lenses, you can get really cheap 70's or 80's manual focus lenses for anything from £10 to £1000. the adapters are around £20 too.
I got some old school 80's lenses -
a 50mm 1.8 olympus for £20,
a 135mm olympus for £40
micro four thirds to olympus adapter for £22
A canon FD macro 50mm for £50
micro four thirds to Canon FD adapter for £26So lens choice is huge. but obviously when buying old lenses that arent small, it slightly defeats the point of the small camera package, but when treated as a modular system, its great.
- love the idea of getting some old lenses to play around with.********
- yeh manual focus is very enjoyable in some way. kinda makes you more involved, until you get bored and want AF!Hombre_Lobo_2
- love the idea of getting some old lenses to play around with.
- ********0
Thanks for the advice - really helpful. I basically want a decent camera, that's relatively small - that I can keep on me most of the time. Previously I had a Canon G5, which I liked - but the start up time and general bulk, meant that I wasn't really able to use it for spontaneous shots.
The speed of the Panasonic sounds good, but then the quality & IS of the Olympus sounds good too .. I might just go for price and go with whichever I can get the best deal on.
- if its price, you can get a refurb E-p1 for £280!! (with warranty too i think) ebay style!Hombre_Lobo_2
- Hombre_Lobo_20
My advice!
If i were you (as im sure you were planning) id first of all go to a shop and check they all feel nice, see which fits best in your hand. The reason i went with the GF1 is that it felt so much sharper and faster (which is partly attributed to the faster lens), i also much preferred it ergonomically and i also got the great 20mm lens.
But i would recommend a Pen over the GF1, you shoot sports or need fast autofocus, in which case you should probably get a DSLR anyway.
id say a pen over a GF1 if they all felt equally good to you. Reasons being -
In built image stabilization (but not for video)
fantastic jpeg output (i think its actually seen as the best of almost any camera)
and the excellent EVF (if you dont get the E-p1)If you dont need an EVF the E-P1 is ace.
If you do the E-PL1 is your cheapest bet. Vastly cheaper than the E-p2 and you can use the Oly EVF on it (called the VF2). The olympus E-PL1 is the latest pen, with a slightly light AA filter on the sensor producing very very slightly sharper pics than the E-P1 / 2, but i wouldnt bare than in mind really. Its plactic body not metal, and lacks control dials, which is frustrating for some. ergonomically i prefer its shape to the E-p1 and e-p2, but i dont like the cheaper body and plastic buttons. The main bonus of the E-pl1 is its built in flash which you can bounce.
*THE DREAM*
A pen + the 20mm pancake. You get image stabalisation and a 1.7 lens which is incredibly sharp. thats a dangerous combo particularly for low light.Be sure to watch for the shot to shot LCD blackout on the pen cameras, some dont care about it, some DESPISE it. Again the panasonics are a bit snappier and don't suffer from black out at all.
- Jimbo820
Look at Hombre go!
I started a thread similar to this and ended up buying a GF1 with a 15-45mm lens. Love it. Feels so much more solid and 'special' in the hand than the plastic feeling Olympus cameras.
Check out my thread...
- yeh maaan! :D
the GF1 feels awesomely solid. im gonna get that ace 14-45mm lens soon, v sharp!Hombre_Lobo_2
- yeh maaan! :D
- Jimbo820
From my thread, similar thing happening in this one
- haha :P
super geek hombre is banging on again!Hombre_Lobo_2
- haha :P
- Hombre_Lobo_20
ALSO
the kit lens quality of the panasonics is quite a bit better than the olympus kit lenses. the panasonic 14-45mm lens is incredibly sharp for a kit lens. the 20mm is incredibly sharp full stop, ive seen 5D mkII owners say how amazed they are at the sharpness of the 20mm.
- ernexbcn0
Some kind of a video review of it:
- Hombre_Lobo_20
as i said above in my comment
if its price, you can get a refurb E-p1 for £280!! (with warranty too i think) ebay style!
That is crazy good, comes with the 14-42mm lens which isnt as sharp as the 14-45mm lens offered in panasonics kits, but its still decent. and also, if later you were to buy another lens it makes sense to proritise getting the 20mm later.
So going for the E-P1 (or E-pl1 w/e) with the 14-42mm lens (rather than olys 17mm pancake) and getting the 20mm panasonic pancake later.
- Hombre, you're amazing .. this info is superb.********
- no prob dude, i went through it all in feb and ive been whoring photo forums since :DHombre_Lobo_2
- can be frustrating trying to gather answers and info when buying stuff.Hombre_Lobo_2
- Hombre, you're amazing .. this info is superb.
- Hombre_Lobo_20
and on the subject of fast autofocus the new lumix GH2 has an autofocus speed of 0.1 seconds.
im ordering mine in january :D
ALSO
the GH2 has an AMAZING Extra Tele Conversion video feature, meaning you can zoom in far further than your lens can, by zooming in on the sensor (if you get me)
"The feature delivers an extra 2.6x zoom in full resolution HD video, by only using the (1080 wide) pixels"
without losing any video quality. such a simple yet genius idea using a small central part of the sensor to zoom in!
- Hombre_Lobo_20
here it is on ebay -
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/OLYMPUS-PE…
im tempted myself tbh, just for a bit of fun and to see how oly m43 works.ALSO if you get an e-p1 in silver like in the ebay link above, you would be a fool not to get this skin for it -
found here -
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SGP-deepbl…i think thats even sexier than a white E-p1! maybe even more so than a white GF1.
- Hombre_Lobo_20
if you record video, i THINK, but not sure, that the E-PL1 has full manual control for video just like the E-P2 does, but the E-p1 does not.
The GF1 Doesnt, but you can enable it by installing a hacked firmware version. unless you buy a GF1 with the 1.33 firmware, which is unhackable.
When hacking the GF1 you can also increase the bit rate of the video record for better quality! i have done it, its easy and has a nice small improvement, but its manual controls that are awesome.
- Hombre_Lobo_20
a good micro four third forum if you want to get an idea for some example images -
- epic_rim0
i heard the gf2 has touchscreen controls. That may be kind of crappy.
