Gadgety News

You may have read my review about the Panasonic G1 a week or so ago.

I was impressed and found it pretty easy to use - this comes from someone who basically points and shoots.

The people that Panasonic allowed to run rampant with the pre-production models in order to review and feedback to the company were offered a chance to win one of these beasties.

Well, in for a penny……

I entered the pic that you can see above which, to be honest, took me 25 minutes to take (including the walk to the top of Primrose Hill and back!).

8am on a cold, blustery morning with the threat of rain I quickly snapped a few pics (the rest are on my Flickr page if you’re interested).

Well, long story short - I didn’t win.  I don’t get a free Panasonic G1 four-thirds camera.

But I did come in second place!!!!

Surly a testament to how easy the G1 is to use

Cast your minds back to September 12th where I wrote about the new Panasonic Lumix G1.

Well, I’ve spent a week with the clever four-thirds camera and have been pleasantly surprised.

I’m not a photographer; never claimed to be, and probably never will be classed as such - but I do enjoy taking snaps.

So, for me, a nice compact such as the Panasonic TZ-5 is a very great cam and does the job pretty damn well.

On opening the box of the G1 there were 2 lenses and a body - now this made me very scared indeed!

Chris, my bro, writes a blog about DSLRs and the dark art that is real photography so I generally leave the clever stuff to him.

But after popping over to Primrose Hill with about £700 worth of kit and an uncertainty of how to use any of it I was releived to find that the camera is really easy to use and that the optional zoom was fantastic!

The body was light and the whole kit (body and 2 lenses) hardly took up any space in my man-bag.

I could see that people with smaller hands, people travelling but want a “proper” camera and people like me that would like to try DSLR’s but put off by their complexity, size, weight and cost will love this.

The construction of the thing is top-notch.  It has a metal chassis and feels really top-end, as do the lenses.

A little mentioned point is the fact that the large screen flips out and can be twisted so that over-head shots at gigs/”Hail Mary” paparazzi shots can be taken or indeed help avoid the need to lay on the floor to take ground-level photos.

It of course has a full manual mode for those that know what they’re doing but also a lot of toys such as stability control, etc as well as the full iA auto.

Panasonic plan on releasing some more lenses as well as an adapter which will open up the choice no end.

For the more fashion conscious it will also come in 3 colours - Red, Blue and naturally black.

A bit of news - there will in the future be a HD model that will take HD video: Another World’s First. This has generally not been possible with “system cameras” as there is an auto-focus lens problem but the G1 HD (perhaps it’ll have a different name by then) will have a special lens.  You heard that here first

The Panasonic Lumix G1 will be released in the UK on November 1st

What’s not a full DSLR but not a standard point ‘n’ shoot camera?

Not sure?

Check out Panasonic’s first Micro ‘Four Thirds-standard camera’, the Lumix DMC-G1.

It has the bragging rights to being the world’s smallest and lightest camera that takes interchangeable lenses.

The 12.1-megapixel camera uses a format that ditches the internal mirror and prism while maintaining a DSLR-sized sensor.  

It has a flip-out, 3-inch, high res (1.44 million pixels!) Live viewfinder and a 12.1 megapixel Live MOS Sensor. All that jargo means that this snapper weighs in at 385-grams (0.85-pounds) and just 20-mm thick.

Rounding out the specs are optical image stabilization (MEGA OIS), intelligent ISO, AF tracking, face detection, HDMI output, and intelligent scene selector with Venus Engine HD image processing and a Supersonic Wave Filter dust reduction system.  I hope all that makes sense! 

The Japanese will get the G1 on October 31st.

The body alone is expected to cost ¥80,000 (about $750 tax inclusive) on up to ¥120,000 (about $1,200 tax inclusive) with bundled LUMIX G Vario 45-200mm F4-5.6 MEGA OIS lens.

Fresh from the Panasonic Imaging Event I have news about some new Lumix cameras that you might be interested in.

First off I had a grope around with the new FX500. It’s a good looking machine and the main draw for me was its touch screen LCD viewer. It actually made me want to explore what the camera could do - but don’t worry if you’re not quite ready for a touch screen camera as it has the regular manual dials and buttons as well.

To be honest, watching people use the camera out in the real world I could see most were using it on full auto mode and (as we were in a power-boat) the main use of the touch screen was to target things as they flew by at a fair rate of knots. This has the HD movie function and a 25mm wide angle lens and shoots at 10 mp.

The one that I took out into the field (well, the Thames) was the DMC-TZ5 (pictured).

Not the slimmest camera out there but that Leica lens does state its purpose in no uncertain terms and it has a reassuring weight to it. The lens that it is packaging by-the-way is a 28mm wide angle 10x optical zoom - so that’s a heck of a lot in this compact’s frame if you ask me.

Using the camera is a breeze. As you can imagine, no-one was given a manual or even a run through; it was a case of - choose your weapon, get a life jacket and there’s the boat. Now test those things!

My main gripe was that the mode selection dial on the top of the camera was getting knocked out of place by Mr long-fingers here so every now and then I’d get the message; “Mode Dial is not in the Proper Position” staring me in the face - but, having said that, the one I now own is fresh out of the box and the dial seems nice and taught and clicks nicely in to position - but this obviously slackens after prolonged use.

Getting the 9.1 mp pics I wanted was pretty simple thanks mainly to the easy-to-see 3-inch 460,000 dot super high resolution LCD. The clever view-finder actually detects the light condition and automatically boosts the LCD backlighting by max. 40% when shooting outdoors in bright sunshine, and adjusts the frame rate when shooting in low-lit situations in addition to using the pixel mixed readout method to secure clarity in such situations.

As well as the LCD, being more a point ‘n’ press merchant, the Intelligent Auto mode helps with reducing the amount of misshots (handy for those nights-out). This mode is also further advanced with the inclusion of Intelligent Exposure. The TZ5 lends a hand with its digital red-eye correction, Mega O.I.S. (Optical Image Stabiliser) to compensate for hand-shake and Intelligent ISO Control to detect and suppress motion blur. Both image stabilising technologies have been further advanced in detection accuracy and correction effect thanks to the new image-processing LSI, Venus Engine IV.

The Face Detection system helps the camera recognise up to 15 faces and the red-eye effect can be digitally corrected automatically. The Continuous AF system allows the camera to keep focus on the subject while the camera is in recording mode even before pressing a shutter button halfway, to get best result out of a shutter chance because the focus is always near the subject and the AF time is minimised.

A newly incorporated Intelligent Exposure function increases the exposure only in under-exposed areas by detecting the brightness level part-by-part in the picture. Lets say the background includes the sky, which tends to be easily washed out, the camera automatically adjusts the aperture and shutter speed to keep the setting slightly under-exposed to prevent wash-out while brightening the darkened area by increasing the ISO only in that area . If the background of an indoor portrait receives insufficient lighting from a flash and becomes dark, the ISO sensitivity is raised in only the low-lit area to make it brighter without causing graininess in the subject’s face The result is a picture with well-balanced exposure on the whole.

Theoretically I’m running out of excuses for rubbish pics!!!

The Venus Engine IV imaging processor is not only a great at its job but it is also quite the eco-warrior as it will sip at the battery and allow you to shoot around 300 snaps even with that LCD screen.

I’m not really into camcorders (I had a quick play with them but I don’t really have the use for them) but The new DMC-TZ5 can even record dynamic HD flicks in 1280 x 720p at a silky smooth 30 fps, in addition to WVGA (848 x 480) and normal VGA (640 x 480). Great for that bootleg gig ‘me on a camel’ footage.

The DMC-TZ5 retails at £299.99 and the FX500 will hit you up for £329.99 when it’s released from Panasonic’s eshop.

If you wanna check out some of the results (a lot taken at different speeds on the river) have a slide over to my Flickr site - the pics are tagged Panasonic Imaging Event.

Don’t laugh - I’m a bassist not a photographer there’s only so much even a clever camera can do ;0,

There has been rumours of a 150″ Plasma being produced by Panasonic.

What has been spotted was possibly the most well guarded thing the sleuths from Engadget saw.

They couldn’t manage a good gawp at the front but did get round the back of the substantial structure.  At first it was thought that they had also discovered what could have been the beast’s name: Lifewall.  But this has since been debunked. 

More news on this monster as I get it!