Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH1 Review

Using the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH1

Record Mode

Flip the power switch and the Lumix DMC-GH1 is ready to go almost instantly.

In case you missed it: there's a histogram available on the GH1

As with the original DMC-G1, the GH1 focuses extraordinarily quickly. The GH1's live view shooting experience is better than any D-SLR out there, save for maybe the Sony A3xx series. In most cases, the camera focuses as fast in live view as most D-SLRs do with their viewfinders. In the best case scenarios (wide-angle, lots of light), the GH1 and its 14-140 kit lens locked focus in 0.1 - 0.3 seconds. Telephoto focus times were roughly 0.5 - 0.8 seconds, only occasionally approaching the one second mark. Low light focusing was generally good, with focus times staying under a second in most cases. Just be sure that you don't block the AF-assist lamp with your right hand -- it's easy to do.

If you're looking for shutter lag, keep looking -- there isn't any.

Shot-to-shot delays were minimal. I could just keep firing away, even in RAW+JPEG mode. Adding the flash into the mix didn't change things, either.

There is no quick way to delete a photo immediately after it
is taken -- you'll have to enter playback mode for that.

Now let's take a look at the image size and quality options
on the GH1. Since there are three different aspect ratios available, it's a
very lengthy list.

Aspect ratio

Resolution

Quality

Approx. File Size

# images on 4GB SD card (optional)

4:3

Large
4000 x 3000

RAW+Fine

22.0 MB

182

RAW+Standard

18.5 MB

216

RAW

15.0 MB

267

Fine

7.0 MB

573

Standard

3.5 MB

1137

Medium
2816 x 2112

RAW+Fine

18.9 MB

212

RAW+Standard

17.0 MB

235

Fine

3.9 MB

1030

Standard

2.0 MB

2010

Small
2048 x 1536

RAW+Fine

16.7 MB

240

RAW+Standard

15.9 MB

252

Fine

1.7 MB

2412

Standard

900 KB

4640

3:2

Large
4128 x 2752

RAW+Fine

20.9 MB

191

RAW+Standard

17.5 MB

228

RAW

14.1 MB

284

Fine

6.7 MB

593

Standard

3.4 MB

1170

Medium
2928 x 1952

RAW+Fine

18.0 MB

222

RAW+Standard

16.1 MB

249

Fine

3.9 MB

1030

Standard

2.0 MB

2010

Small
2064 x 1376

RAW+Fine

15.6 MB

256

RAW+Standard

14.9 MB

269

Fine

1.5 MB

2622

Standard

800 KB

5027

16:9

Large
4352 x 2448

RAW+Fine

19.7 MB

203

RAW+Standard

16.5 MB

242

RAW

13.2 MB

304

Fine

6.5 MB

611

Standard

3.3 MB

1205

Medium
3072 x 1728

RAW+Fine

17.0 MB

235

RAW+Standard

15.1 MB

265

Fine

3.8 MB

1048

Standard

2.0 MB

2044

Small
1920 x 1080

RAW+Fine

14.3 MB

280

RAW+Standard

13.7 MB

291

Fine

1.1 MB

3548

Standard

600 KB

6704

1:1

Large
2992 x 2992

RAW+Fine

16.9 MB

236

RAW+Standard

14.3 MB

279

RAW

11.7 MB

342

Fine

5.2 MB

767

Standard

2.7 MB

1507

Medium
2112 x 2112

RAW+Fine

14.0 MB

285

RAW+Standard

12.9 MB

310

Fine

2.3 MB

1722

Standard

1.2 MB

3351

Small
1504 x 1504

RAW+Fine

12.9 MB

310

RAW+Standard

12.3 MB

324

Fine

1.2 MB

3260

Standard

700 KB

6033

That's quite a list. As you can see, you can take a RAW image
alone, or with a JPEG at the size of your choosing. I explained the advantages
of the RAW format earlier in the review.

The GH1 maintains the same
focal length regardless of
what aspect ratio you're using. In other words, the wide end of the kit lens
will be 28mm (equivalent) at
4:3,
3:2, and 16:9 (but NOT at 1:1). By the way, that 1:1 option was not available
on the original DMC-G1.

Just like Panasonic's point-and-shoot cameras, the DMC-GH1 has an "extended
optical zoom" feature. By lowering the resolution, you
can use digital zoom without reducing the image quality. The lower the resolution
goes, the more zoom you can use. For example, if you select the 3 Megapixel
setting, you can get 2X of additional zoom power.

The DMC-GH1 has an easy to use menu system that should be familiar to anyone who has used a Panasonic camera in recent years. It's not the flashiest menu out there, and there aren't any help screens, but it gets the job done. The menu is divided into six tabs, covering still, movie, custom, setup, recent, and playback menu options. Here's the full list for you:

Record Menu

Aspect ratio (4:3, 3:2, 16:9, 1:1) - the last option is new to
the GH1

Text stamp - stamp the date/time, age (of child/pet), travel date,
or title onto a photo; photos will be downsized to "small" size

Resize

Trimming

- also known as cropping

Aspect ratio conversion (3:2, 4:3, 1:1)

Rotate

Rotate display - whether portraits are automatically rotated

Print set (Single, multiple) - tag a photo for printing to a DPOF-compatible
photo printer

Protect (Single, multiple)

Audio dub - add a 10 second audio clip to a photo you've taken

Face recognition delete - removes a name tagged to a photo

Faces that the camera already knows

You can edit the name, age, and set the priority for a given person

As I mentioned earlier, face recognition is one of the new features on the DMC-GH1. Simply put, the camera can "learn" who various people are, and when they appear in a photo you're composing, they will be given focus priority. You can manually register a face by pointing the camera at someone at taking a picture, or you can have the camera bring up the face recognition screen after you've taken a few photos of the same person. On this screen you can set the name, age, and "priority" of the person in question. In playback mode, you can see the name and age of the person in the photo, and the same is true if you're viewing the image in PhotoFunStudio.

What are those image stabilization modes all about? Mode 1 has the image stabilizer active at all times in record mode. Mode 2 only activates it when you halfway press the shutter release button, and mode 3 is for horizontal panning (it only stabilizes up and down motion).

The Intelligent Exposure feature is similar to Active D-Lighting on Nikon cameras and D-Range Optimizer on Sony cameras. In a nutshell, it brightens the dark areas of your photos as they are taken. There are three levels of Intelligent Exposure to choose from, and you can turn it off entirely. As with the DMC-G1, you can hardly spot any difference between the various settings. There may be certain circumstances where the difference is more substantial, but I sure haven't seen it.

Enough about menus -- let's talk photo quality. All of these tests were performed with the 14 - 140 mm kit lens.

The Lumix DMC-GH1 performed very well with our macro test subject. The colors are nice and saturated, as you can see. The subject is a bit on the soft side, which seems to be a common occurrence with the 14 - 140 mm lens. I don't see any signs of noise or noise reduction, nor would I expect any.

The minimum focus distance will depend on what lens you're using. For the 14-140, it's a rather lengthy 50 cm. If you want to get closer, you may want to consider a dedicated macro lens, though there isn't one available for the Micro Four Thirds mount yet, so you'll have to use a regular FT lens with the adapter.

The night shot turned out fairly well, though it took is on the soft side. If you look at the same shot taken with the DMC-G1 and the 45 - 200 mm Micro Four Thirds lens, you'll see a noticeable difference in sharpness compared to the GH1 produced with the 14-140 kit lens. The photo here has a bit of a yellowish color cast, though fooling around with the white balance fine-tuning should take care of that. I don't see any noise or purple fringing here, nor was there much in the line of highlight clipping.

Now, let's use that same scene to see how the DMC-GH1 performed at various sensitivities in low light:

ISO 100

ISO 200

ISO 400

ISO 800

ISO 1600

ISO 3200

There's hardly any difference between the ISO 100 and 200 shots. You can spot some mild noise at ISO 400, but there's not enough to prevent you from making a midsize or large print. Things are a little worse at ISO 800, and I can see the slightest hint of banding, but overall, it's not bad. Things start to go downhill at ISO 1600, with more noise and banding visible. I'd be shooting RAW at this point, and even if you do so, I wouldn't plan on making large prints at this sensitivity. At ISO 3200, the corners of the buildings start to disappear into the background, so I'd pass on this setting if I were you.

I want to show you the advantage of shooting RAW at the higher ISO settings in low light. The crops below show the original JPEG, the RAW conversion (using Camera Raw 5.4), and a RAW conversion that's been cleaned up and sharpened. Have a look:

ISO 800

JPEG, straight out of the camera

RAW->JPEG (ACR)

RAW->JPEG + NeatImage + Unsharp Mask

ISO 1600

JPEG, straight out of the camera

RAW->JPEG (ACR)

RAW->JPEG + NeatImage + Unsharp Mask

You can see that, by shooting RAW, you're trading away detail loss for grainy noise. It's generally a good trade-off, since you get a little bit of detail back. Not so much at ISO 1600, but definitely at ISO 800. I also found the color a bit more pleasing when shooting RAW.

I'm going to do this same type of comparison for the studio test scene, so stay tuned for that.

There's a bit of redeye in our flash test photo, but it's not too bad. The GH1 uses both a preflash and, if you want, a digital redeye removal system to get rid of this annoyance. As always, your mileage may vary.

There's mild-to-moderate barrel distortion at the wide end of the 14 - 140 mm kit lens. While the lens isn't terribly sharp in general, I didn't see that things got any worse in the corners. Vignetting (dark corners) was not a problem, either.

Now it's time for our normal lighting ISO test, which is taken in our studio. Thus, it can be compared to other cameras I've reviewed over the years. While the crops below give you a quick idea as to the amount of noise at each ISO sensitivity, viewing the full size images is always a good idea. And with that, here we go:

ISO 100

ISO 200

ISO 400

ISO 800

ISO 1600

ISO 3200

As expected, there's very little difference between the first three crops. Only at ISO 800 do you start to see some noise creep in, but it shouldn't keep you from making large prints. Image quality starts to degrade at ISO 1600, so this is for small or midsize prints only (and perhaps larger if you are using RAW). There's a drop in color saturation and even more detail loss (and maybe some banding, too?) at ISO 3200, so I'd pass on that setting unless you're really desperate.

Okay, time for two more comparisons. First, let's see if there's an advantage to shooting RAW (you can probably guess the outcome already):

ISO 1600

JPEG, straight out of the camera

RAW->JPEG conversion (ACR)

RAW->JPEG conversion + NeatImage + Unsharp Mask

Pretty obvious difference here at ISO 1600 -- the RAW image, especially the retouched one, is much better in terms of color, sharpness, and detail. If you're shooting at high ISOs, then it may be worth the trouble of post-processing your photos.

Next, is the new sensor on the GH1 better than the one before it in terms of noise? These two crops (straight out of the camera, with levels adjusted so they match) answer the question:

ISO 1600

DMC-G1

DMC-GH1 (JPEG)

I'd say that the GH1 is a little bit cleaner than the G1, wouldn't you?

Overall, the DMC-GH1 produced photos of very good quality. Exposure was generally good, with just an occasional tendency to underexpose. The camera does clip highlights at times, and you will spot "jaggies" here and there. Colors were pleasing: they're accurate and vivid. In my DMC-G1 review, I thought that the images could be a bit sharper. The same is true here, and I think the new kit lens actually makes things a bit worse. If you agree, you might want to use the film mode feature to increase the in-camera sharpening, or just shoot RAW. While I didn't take many high ISO photos (most of them are on this page), I found the GH1 to be competitive with other D-SLRs in terms of noise, except at the highest sensitivities. The camera's Venus Engine HD image processor does some fancy tricks to digitally remove purple fringing, so that wasn't an issue here.

Don't just take my word for all this. Have a look at our photo gallery, perhaps printing a few photos if you can, and then decide if the DMC-GH1's photo quality meets your needs!

Movie Mode

The most notable addition to the Lumix DMC-GH1 is its ability to record Full HD video. While a few other D-SLRs can record HD video, none of them support continuous autofocus while you're recording. On those cameras, you have to attempt to manually focus the lens as your subject moves closer or further from you, or if you zoom in or out. That's not an issue on the GH1, as the specially designed 14 - 140 mm lens does it for you. Focusing is super quiet too, so its unlikely to be picked up by the GH1's stereo microphone. And, as you'd expect, the lens' optical image stabilizer is active while you're taking a movie.

While that makes life a lot easier, recording movies on a digital SLR is still no picnic. Unlike on a compact digital camera or camcorder, you have to manually zoom in and out, which isn't terribly "smooth". In other words, while the GH1's movie mode is currently the best out there (for a D-SLR, at least), shooting video isn't nearly as seamless as it is on an HD camcorder.

So what happens when you're using a lens other than the 14-140? Well, if you're using one of Panasonic's three other models, you will be able to focus continuously at all resolutions except for Full HD. If you are using continuous autofocus, it won't be as fast as it would with the 14-140, and noise from the aperture may be picked up by the microphone. Regular Four Thirds lenses that support contrast detect AF should work too, just not as well.

Enough about compatibility, let's get into the details now. The GH1 records movies at 1920 x 1080 at 24 frames/second (packaged into a 60 fps interlaced file) using the AVCHD codec. One of the nice things about AVCHD is that you can keep recording until your memory card fills up (unless you're in Europe, where silly laws have limited recording time to under 30 minutes). If you've got an 8GB SDHC card in the camera, you can fit an hour of continuous video recording onto it. Panasonic recommends a Class 6 memory card for optimal performance. The main "not nice thing" about AVCHD is the difficulties you'll encounter in viewing and editing the videos on your Mac or PC.

Several lower resolutions are available, as well. You can record at 720p (1280 x 720) at 60 frames/second using AVCHD, and there are three quality settings to choose from. Again, you can record until your memory card fills up (except in Europe), which give you recording times ranging from 60 to 114 minutes on an 8GB SDHC card, depending on the quality setting.

If you don't want to deal with AVCHD (which may not be a bad idea), you can use Motion JPEG instead. File sizes are a lot larger, and there's a 2GB file size limit, but working with the movies is a heck of a lot easier. At the 1280 x 720 (30 fps) setting, you'll hit the 2GB file size limit in a little over 8 minutes. You can also record at 848 x 480, 640 x 480, and 320 x 240, all at 30 frames/second.

You have full access to all the exposure modes in movie mode

A much-needed wind cut feature is also here

The GH1 is someone unique in that it lets you use all of the camera's manual controls in movie mode. Want to adjust the aperture or shutter speed? No problem -- just set the mode dial to creative motion picture mode. If you've got a scene mode selected, the camera will use those settings, too. A wind filter is available for outdoor shooting, with three settings to choose from (in addition to "off").

How does the Full HD video look? I took the memory card out of the GH1 and put it into my PS3, and played back some clips on my Samsung HDTV. The results were spectacular. You can see that the camera does struggle with autofocus at times, but the picture looks great.

I've got several options for those of you who want to view a sample movie. Below is a compilation of clips that were taken in Full HD using AVCHD. Both have been run through Final Cut Express, deinterlaced, and saved as H.264 files -- therefore, there may be a drop in quality. And sorry about the jerkiness during the cable car portion -- the camera was on a tripod and panning around wasn't as smooth as I'd hoped! Be warned that these are LARGE files!

The DMC-GH1 has a fairly standard playback mode for an SLR-like camera. The basic playback features include slideshows, image protection, DPOF print marking, thumbnail view (in many sizes), and zoom and scroll. This last feature lets you enlarge the image by as much as 16X (in 2X increments), and then move around the enlarged area. There doesn't seem to be a way to move from image to image while retaining the same position and zoom setting, unlike on some other cameras.

Like Panasonic's consumer cameras, the GH1 offers a calendar view of your photos, so you can quickly navigate to photos you took on a specific date.

Images can be rotated, resized, and cropped right on the camera. If you want to change the aspect ratio, you can do that too. There are no -- I repeat, no -- video editing functions on the camera. You can't even trim unwanted footage off the beginning or end of your clips. Grrr...

The GH1 has a very robust "text stamp" feature. As the menu above shows, you can print the date and/or time on your photo, plus the age of any children or pets, the date you took the photo, and even a custom title. If you squint really hard at the screenshot on the right, you can see the date and "RocketBoat" printed at the lower-right of the photo. Do note that the camera downsizes the images to "small" if you do this, which shouldn't matter if you're making a small print (the original image is left intact).

The various playback info screens

If the camera recognizes a face, it'll display the name and age of the subject

By default, the camera doesn't give you a lot of information
about your photos. But press the display button and you'll see more info,
including an RGB histogram. If a person is recognized, their name and age will be displayed, as well.