Panasonic Lumix GH1

At £1,300, Panasonic’s Lumix GH1 is an unusual digital camera. Most cameras that cost this much are known as Single Lens Reflex (SLR) cameras. They have an optical viewfinder that shows the scene through the camera lens before you shoot, and lenses that can be swapped.

The GH1 has swappable lenses, but no optical viewfinder: the viewfinder is electronic, using a second LCD screen, which makes the camera smaller and lighter than most SLRs.

The GH1’s electronic viewfinder is the best of its kind we’ve seen so far. We found that composing shots in daylight was almost as easy as with a similarly priced SLR, with the picture sharp enough to allow us check for focus and with very little shutter lag. In the dark, however, it became harder and more frustrating to frame shots quickly, and we missed having a proper optical system.

One nice touch is the button that switches the viewfinder between a classic SLR-like view, with information below, and one with more information overlaid on the image. The rear screen pivots on its left edge, allowing composition from just about any angle.

The GH1’s mode wheel offers all the shooting modes you would expect from an SLR, and oddly there’s a second wheel that offers only a choice between the three focus modes. The camera auto-focuses using the contrast detection method used by most compact cameras rather than the phase-detection system available on SLRs. This has the advantage of allowing clever features such as face tracking, but it’s not always as swift and assured as the autofocus on a good SLR.

Photos taken using the GH1 and its 14-140mm stabilised kit lens were well exposed and sharp. The stabilised zoom allows for snapping at a great distance, but with a maximum aperture of f/4 at the wide end of the lens we struggled to create pleasantly blurred backgrounds on portrait photos. The lack of a dedicated exposure compensation button is an annoyance when shooting stills, however, especially as there is a pointless 'film mode' button taking up space on the camera top. The camera takes Micro Four Thirds lenses, which are relatively rare at the moment, but adapters allow the use of Olympus Four Thirds lenses as well.

The GH1 comes into its own, however, when shooting video. It can record video in high definition and save it as either AVCHD or motion-JPEG files: movie buffs will want to know that it can handle both 720p and 1080i, although oddly the 1080i movies are captured at 25fps progressive and converted in the camera to 50fps interlaced. You’ll need a tripod to get good shots, but we were impressed by the quality on offer. What’s more, unlike many digital SLRs we’ve seen that record HD video, the GH1 can auto-focus while shooting. It has a stereo microphone on top, and there’s a socket for an external microphone too.

And these great movie functions help make up for the occasional still-photo annoyances, but leave the GH1 as a very odd proposition. If you want to make creative home movies in HD it’s the best camera we’ve seen by some margin, but you’ll need a decent budget to afford one.

If you’ll be mainly shooting stills, however, we would recommend picking a proper SLR that can use the more plentiful Canon EOS or Nikon F-mount lenses.