photo - Ken Gilbert

There aren’t many dedicated
lenses to choose from yet,
but since both Panasonic and
Olympus are making Micro Four
Thirds gear, new optics may
come quicker than you’d expect.
In the meantime, your glass
options are commendable. For
example, the 20mm kit lens
offers a pleasingly large maximum
aperture to allow limited
depth of fleld and low-light capture
that’s hard to accomplish
with most compacts.
And you can expand the
system’s fiexibility with lens
adapters. Both Panasonic and
Olympus make ones that enable
regular Four Thirds lenses to
be placed on Micro Four Thirds
bodies, allowing you to use
autofocus and control aperture
from the camera body.
We even mounted a Pentax
28mm f/3.5 Auto-Takumar lens
on this Panasonic, using one of
Novofiex’s Micro Four Thirds
adapters. These let you mount
any lens on the GF1—just turn
on the Shoot Without Lens
option in the advanced menu
and you’re all set. Of course,
you’ll have to focus manually
and change the aperture with
the ring on the lens.
Improved by Design
Given how different the GF1
looks compared with Panasonic’s
earlier Micro Four Thirds
models, it’s tempting to wonder
how much the design was
infiuenced by the more svelte
Olympus E-P1—and how much
the new E-P2 (see page 15) was
infiuenced in turn by the GF1.
(The answer to both is probably
“Not much,” since all of these
models have come out in such
rapid succession.)
Soft Focus for the Lensbaby Optic Swap System. The classic portrait
lens reborn at 50mm.
photo by john panian
the GF1 is
the first
truly
compact
micro Four
thirds
camera to
accept an
optional
EVF, thanks
to the data
port on the
back of the
camera just
below the
hot-shoe.
www.storemags.com & www.fantamag.com
But while the GF1 has less
fiair, it does have a built-in
fiash—score one for practicality
over beauty. You shouldn’t
expect a whole lot of light from
this small pop-up, though.
The guide number is 20 (ISO
100, feet). Using the 14–45mm
lens at 14mm (at f/3.5 and with
ISO on auto), you can expect the
GF1’s fiash to provide about the
same range as a good compact—a
little more than 11 feet.
Compare that with the GN 36
fiash in Panasonic’s earlier GH1
($1,500, street, with 14–140mm
f/4–5.8 lens), which gives you a
range of about 20 feet.
The GF1 records video, but
it gives you more options than
compacts generally do, and its
Four Thirds-sized 12.1MP Live
MOS sensor delivers higherquality
clips. This sensor, while
still much smaller than the type