Category Archives: Micro Four-Thirds

Panasonic’s μFT cameras

The Panasonic G3 – Part VI

In action at last.


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“Wow! That was Intense!”
– Emilio Estevez

“Repo Man is always intense.”
– Harry Dean Stanton

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From Repo Man, 1984.

An intense test:

I was reminded of that great exchange when trying out the new Panny G3 yesterday morning. Stanton had just pumped six bullets from a hand cannon into the home of a defaulting car loan borrower, whose vehicle he was repossessing. The bullets were a warning …. every bit as much as the G3 is a warning to all the other makers of modern cameras. And like Stanton’s, mine was one intense morning.

What better way to wring out the new Panasonic G3 than at the local 8th annual Burlingame Dog parade? Burlingame, which I call home, is a sleepy peninsula suburb of San Francisco where nothing ever happens. The architecture is mostly bland to awful, the people uninteresting and the setting one through which commuters pass on their journey from Silicon Valley to San Francisco. In other words, what Queens is to Manhattan for JFK travelers. The greatest risk to life and limb here is that some overstressed ‘mommy’ will take you out in her SUV as she rushes her kids to yet another useless recreational activity, thus salving her guilt over never having enough time with her kids because both spouses have to work 60 hrs weekly to make the car and mortgage payments, while busy keeping up with the Joneses. And keeping Repo Man from the driveway. In Burlingame, the locals’ idea of street crime is not picking up after your dog. But once a year, Broadway in Burlingame is closed to traffic, the annual dog parade takes over and the ‘burb comes alive.

As usual, our boy Winston shepherded that vicious guard dog, Bert the Border Terrier in the parade; Bert refused to enter competitive judging, arguing that not only would victory be a cakewalk, but also that competing with unterhunds whose parents refused to keep the breed pure is simply below him. Meanwhile, I took 420 snaps in one hour on the new Panasonic G3.

Size:

I recall the prevailing emotion I experienced when opening the G1’s box two years ago was how shockingly small and light it was, an experience heightened by the heavy and large full frame Canon 5D which I was using at the time. The G3 is noticeably smaller than the G1, and the eventual availability of a power zoom MFT kit lens will do for the lens what the G3 does for the body – make the package almost unbelievably compact. As traditional DSLR users increasingly become aware of the capabilities of mirrorless cameras, I expect the rate at which photographers switch to MFT will accelerate.

Use with Lightroom:

First a bit of preliminary work disclosed that the optimal sharpening-on-import settings into Lightroom 3.5 for the G3’s RAW files were 42/1.1/38 Sharpening/Radius/Detail. This contrasts with the stronger sharpening for G1 files of 100/1.1/64. Except for the few digital sensors which eschew an anti-aliasing filter (like the Kodak sensors in the Leica M8/9, for example), all digital files need sharpening on import. That’s not a criticism of the hardware, just a realization that the effect of the anti-aliasing sensor filter (which negates ‘jaggies’) has to be countered. The process was the same for my full frame Canon 5D (60/1.1/40) as it is for the Panny LX1, G1 and G3 – just the settings change. I determined the optimum settings by previewing a file 1:1 on a 22″ Dell 2209WA monitor and dialing up the Sharpness slider until mottling in the image just becomes visible. That magnification is consonant with a 36″ x 24″ print. The Sharpening-Amount slider is then moderated a tad and the Radius and Detail sliders are adjusted for the best look. These import settings are saved and applied when importing files, with 1:1 Previews being generated as part of the import, to speed the review and cull process.

On the first pass LR3.5 refused to import some 191 files in the middle of this first ‘roll’ with import of the remaining 229 RAW files taking 7 minutes. Preview generation added a further 11 minutes, so call it 5 seconds a file all told. Not bad. A second pass through the import process saw the ‘missed’ files come over. Hopefully this quirk in the beta LR3.5 Release Candidate will be resolved by the time the final version is released; meanwhile, I’ll report back to Adobe so that they can take a look at whatever the issue is.

Speed of operation:

Before even talking about image quality, let me reassure you that the G3 is faster in operation than the G1 in every respect. I cannot measure these variables, but can report on them as a heavy user of the G1. While shutter noise is unchanged, focus is faster and shutter lag is noticeably less than the already low lag in the G1. It’s as fast as anyone could want, even in the split-second world of street candids. Indeed, on a couple of occasions I was so startled by the speed of the shutter’s response that an involuntary spasm in my trigger finger caused me to take two shots where only one was intended. The only minor handling issue I encountered was that depressing and holding the Fn2 button on the rear, which I have programmed for AE lock, is tricky owing to its position. Other than that not only does the markedly smaller size of the camera not intrude, the size reduction is in fact a joy, making an already unobtrusive piece of gear even more so. This is easily the fastest handling and most responsive street snapper I have used. Don’t fool yourself with your Leica M8 or M9. They don’t even come close and you still have to futz about with antiquated manual focus and compromised framing accuracy. Get a G3 and if it breaks or is stolen you are out $700. Lose the M9 and you need a second mortgage to replace it if, that is, you dare take it on the streets in the first place. And good luck getting money from your local sleaze passing for a banker.

Many of my snaps were taken using the Olympus 9-18 MFT wide zoom and, as before, the absence of an orientation sensor in the lens’s circuitry means that portrait snaps have to be turned 90 degrees CCW in Lightroom when processing. You live with it, but someone needs to speak to Olympus with a baseball bat if they are to claim full MFT compatibility with other brands’ bodies. I had no issues with either of my other two Panny MFT lenses, the 14-45mm and 45-200mm. In some instances the EVF’s response seemed a little slower than on the G1, visible as a slower refresh rate when moving the camera, but I’m unsure of the cause as I cannot reliably replicate the behavior. There is no practical upshot that I can see, just a minor annoyance. All the EVF G bodies share the same EVF design (except the cost cutting model used in the short-lived G10) so that’s not the answer.

File import:

On import it’s immediately obvious that the native contrast setting of the G3 is far higher than on the G1, so much so that I’m going to turn down import contrast in LR3 in future to make for less processing.

First snaps:

Basset Hound. Probably a good idea to keep that filter on the lens. G3, Oly 9-18mm @ 9mm, 1/4000, f/4, ISO 320.

Eyed. G3, Oly 9-18mm @ 18mm, 1/160, f/5.6. ISO 320.

Dog’s eye view. G3, Oly 9-18mm @9mm, 1/4000, f/4, ISO 320.

Legs. G3, Oly 9-18mm @ 15mm, 1/320, f/5.1, ISO 320.

Dog. Owner. G3, 45-200mm @ 200mm, 1/2000, f/5.6, ISO 320.

Whippet. G3, Oly 9-18mm @ 9mm, 1/400, f/4, ISO 320.

Candy and Ice Cream. G3, kit lens @ 42mm, 1/800, f/5.6, ISO 320.

Match. G3, kit lens @ 31mm, 1/1250, f/5,4, ISO 320.

Zebra stripes. G3, Oly 9-18mm @ 18mm, 1/250, f/5.6 ISO 320.

Sensor:

In a subsequent piece I write about how the sensor handles ISO 1600 in poor light – one weakness of the G1 which is less than stellar in that regard. As for the above, any image scales easily to 24″ x 36″. I would estimate that the G3’s sensor gets you a 50% larger print for the same noise properties compared with a like snap on the G1. More practically, you can correct composition and selectively enlarge smaller sections of the original file with less compromise in quality than with the G1/2/10, GH1, or any GF body – all of which use the older generation sensor. This puts a lie to the oft quoted statement that more pixels are not necessarily better pixels. In this instance that is clearly not the case.

Handling:

The overall rubberized covering of the G1’s body has given way to hard plastic on all but the front finger grip. While I like the rubberized look of the G1 only the finger grip matters in practice, the left hand supporting the lens, so it makes no difference. I would expect the G3’s hard plastic to be less scratch prone than the G1’s rubber – my G1 is showing its share of wear especially on the rear LCD cover. Meanwhile, be informed that where the G1 was fast, the G3 is noticeably that bit faster. And for what I do, faster is better.

Battery life:

If you do not use the LCD, which is the greatest consumer of power, battery life is simply not an issue. After taking 420 RAW snaps I was down to two out of three bars, so one battery will more than power through the 456 RAW snaps which an 8gB SDHC will accommodate. If you want to take more than that in one day, get another battery. Quite how Panny comes up with 270 snaps per battery charge beats me. By the way, a spare battery fits comfortably in the coin pocket of my Levi 501 button fly jeans – as does the G1’s, though the latter is a tight squeeze by comparison. At 7.3WH rating compared with 9.0WH the G3’s battery has 81% of the power capacity of the one for the G1.

SDHC card:

I use a $12 Transcend 8gB Class 10 SDHC card. Panasonic recommends a Class 4 as a minimum – higher class numbers have higher write speeds. The cost differential between the fast Class 10 and slower versions is so low that it makes no sense to compromise.

Wireless remote use:

The wireless remote described here works fine.

Build quality:

The question of build quality becomes increasingly hard to address in modern electronics gear. The old subjective criteria such as ‘feel’ and ‘solidity’ are meaningless for the large part. ‘Longevity’ is largely meaningless also. After 2-3 years the body will be obsolete and will be replaced with something better/faster/lighter etc. Modern cameras are merely disposable tools and the replacement cycle has never been shorter. My Leicas lasted me 35 years. The Rolleis 10. The Canon 5D just 5 years. The Panasonic G1 2 years. Each camera was cheaper in real and nominal terms than its predecessor. Prices are now at the point that it is uneconomical to repair gear which is out of warranty. While my Leicas lasted me half a lifetime (M6, M3, M2, IIIG), they needed constant lubrication and adjustment to remain in peak operating condition. In that regard they cannot hold a handle to modern photo gear. Sure, they lasted forever, but at fearsome maintenance cost. The modern buyer of the M9 had better hope that someone has stocked up on bankrupt Kodak’s already obsolete sensor in case his goes wrong; otherwise, he ends up with a $10k brick.

Does the G1/3 feel as ‘solid’ as a Canon 5D? Of course not. It’s one third of the weight. But are there fewer moving parts? Possibly. There’s no flapping mirror for a start. Absent destructive testing of the whack-a-mole kind how can one comment on build quality? One objective measure is that my G1 has taken 14,000+ snaps without complaint. I have changed lenses on it many times and have treated it without particular care. I never use a case and invariably just chuck it into my canvas shoulder bag when hitting the streets. Lenses have a protective UV filter and nothing else in the bag. If you feel you have to baby it, you cannot afford it nor can you afford to take the risks that hard use entails. I mostly have it slung around my neck when riding my bike and it has taken its fair share of whacks.

So the G1 has proved reliable and the G3 is made by the same manufacturer, albeit using Chinese rather than Japanese labor. A whole new variable. But just because it’s labeled the same as its predecessor, my G3 is still a statistically meaningless sample of one. So I suspect build quality for this user will come down to just banging away until it fails, or something better comes along. All I can say is that the parts fit well, nothing wobbles and it takes pictures when I press the button. Nor is there a groundswell of comment on the chat boards of poor QC at Panasonic. That’s probably more meaningful than anything I write here on the subject of build quality.

As for brand loyalty, if you want loyalty get a dog. (See the pictures above). A photographer uses the best tool for the job and only a fool choses by brand. Brand loyalty is for equipment fetishists and Leica users, who are the wealthy specimens of that breed. To argue that Olympus ‘gives me the best colors’ or that Nikon is ‘best made’ or that true inanity ‘The Leica glow’, denies the realities of the digital age. Use what works best for you, dispose of it when something better comes along. Cost has never been less correlated with quality. Your camera only has to last as long as the replacement cycle – a matter of a year or two. And if you don’t like the color rendition, change it in your processing application of choice

The Panasonic G3 – Part V

Processing RAW in Lightroom.

I mentioned that LR3 does not yet process G3 RAW files.

A reader writes:

“Hi Thomas.

First thank you for your highly informative web-site. I am really looking forward to your observations and comments around the G3.

You mention in your last posting that you can’t use Lightroom for the G3 RAW files yet, but Lightroom 3.5 RC does handle these files with aplomb and I have found the RC version to be stable and bug-free.

Best wishes,
Torje Eike
Galloway, Scotland”

You can download Lightroom 3.5 RC here. Adobe states:

“A “release candidate” label indicates that this update is well tested, but would benefit from additional community testing before it is distributed automatically to all of our customers. The Lightroom 3.5 update includes support for many new cameras and lens profiles.” so you have been warned. The new cameras supported are:

New Camera Support

Fuji FinePix F600EXR
Olympus E-P3
Olympus E-PL3
Olympus E-PM1
Panasonic DMC-G3
Panasonic DMC-GF3
Phase One IQ140
Phase One IQ160
Phase One P40+
Phase One P65+
Sony Alpha NEX-C3
Sony SLT-A35

I just downloaded LR3.5RC1 and can confirm that G3 RAW files are imported just fine. Yippee! No need for that clunky SilkyPix round-tripping process I mentioned yesterday, and I am encouraged by reader Torje Elke’s statement that this release is stable and bug free. The related discussion on the Adobe Forum, moderated by one of the design engineers, is here. Most issues seem to relate to import/export times and proper setting of the cache drive.

Thank you, Torje!

Part VI is here.

The Panasonic G3 – Part IV

Finally here!

Under attack dog guard. Bert keeps an eye on the G3.

The Panasonic G1 was a truly revolutionary camera. It was the first to incorporate a proper, usable electronic finder and interchangeable MFT lenses. The design is now reaching a broad audience and will do great harm to slow moving Canon and Nikon who have either awful alternatives (like Nikon’s V1) or none (Canon). Click in the right hand column under Categories->Photography to access my earlier articles on this ground breaking design. I passed on the G2 which added a movie mode and a touch screen but used the G1’s sensor. There was no compelling reason to upgrade for my purposes.

While the wait for my Panasonic G1 has been just short of six months, it would be churlish to complain. Japan has been ravaged by an earthquake, tsunami and radiation in that time and is digging its way out without a single case of looting or crime. Imagine saying that of any other nation on earth. So, thanks, Panny, for getting things together and back into production. Though the G3 says ‘Made in China’, unlike the Japanese G1, many of the components originate in Japan, so the delay is understandable.

If I say that 14,000+ pictures later that the G1 is second nature to me, that’s not quite true. No modern camera with the myriad of adjustable variables can ever be second nature, not when there are literally millions of combinations permitted. But once you have it set just so, it does become an old friend; I find that once set, I never change my preferred settings. Thus I went about cloning these settings to the G3 as soon as it arrived. The battery is half charged, so I simply charged the spare while doing this. It took almost two hours to get it right, not helped by the fact that there are many more menu choices in the G3 – movie modes and touch screen options being the dominant causes of bloat.

I will not be saying much about the touch screen, as I have no use for LCD screens in cameras. It’s actually ‘push’ rather than ‘touch’- it’s pressure sensitive, unlike the superior capacitive one on an iPhone or iPad. I shoot from the eye, using the Electronic ViewFinder (EVF). The day I compose snaps holding a camera at arm’s length and squinting at a poky screen will be a cold one in hell.

Immediate reactions? The body really cannot get much smaller. For my largish hands it’s at the limit of smallness to be easily worked and some controls, like the countersunk Display button on the back panel, are tough to use. Mercifully, that one is rarely, if ever, used after the initial setting. The smaller front handgrip is as comfortable as the G1’s larger one, and the rotating adjuster wheel is now in the rear (like on the G2) but has been stiffened to prevent accidental depression – an action which permits aperture or shutter speed change in the respective modes. I still struggle with the front mounted wheel on the G1, occasionally depressing it by accident. So while the G3 wheel is a tad rough to the feel, the trade off is worth it.

The G1 and G3. Only a twit uses the stock strap. Those are Upstraps.
Note the much improved, ringless strap attachment points – silent for movie makers.

The AE lock button has disappeared but the Fn2 button is easily assigned that task, allowing locking of exposure when recomposing.

Shutter noise is the same as on the G3. Quiet and low frequency, so you will not draw undue attention to yourself in other than silent settings. I never use multiple shot mode so cannot comment. Decisive moments are not caught with machine guns.

The proximity sensor for the EVF has gone. If you use the LCD then a mechanical switch to the left of the EVF has to be pressed to alternate between LCD and EVF. I never use the LCD so it’s a non-issue. If you open the LCD it comes on. Close it and it reverts control to the EVF. But if you keep the LCD open, then the switch has to be worked. In the G1/G2, the proximity sensor did this for you. A cost cutting exercise in the G3, then, but not one which intrudes for this user.

One immediate improvement is the provision of two custom settings on the top dial – C1 and C2. This is wonderful for me, as I take most of my snaps at ISO320, but like to switch to ISO1600 for poor light. In the G1 that means fiddling about with EVF displays (or the LCD which is hard to read in bright light). Here, once programmed, it’s simply a case of turning the dial one notch – I have C1 at ISO320, C2 at 1600. All the Scene settings on the G1/G2 have been consolidated into one click on the dial and are invoked using display controls. A camera of this calibre does not need easily accessed Scene modes, so it doesn’t matter if these are deleted from the mode dial.

Note the escutcheon surrounding the G3’s lens mount – likely required to pad out the very thin body.
Sadly the G3 does not come in Blue or British Racing Green, so Black it is.

On an 8gB SDHC card (the G3 will also take high capacity SDXC cards, for long movies I suppose) the G1’s 611 RAW capacity falls to 459, exactly in line with the G3’s larger 16mp file size compared with the G1’s 12mp. The G2H is the only other Panny to include this higher pixel count sensor at this time, the GH2 adding sophisticated movie modes and the ability to use high quality external microphones; the G1 makes do with two small built-in mics.

The overall feel of the camera confers slightly greater confidence than the G1; while the weights are similar (G3 – 11.8 ozs, G1 – 13.4 ozs), the G3 packs more into a smaller volume, thus seeming more solid. I’m sure it’s just a psychological effect, for it’s not like my G1 had any reliability issues.

Strangely, the provided G3 body cap does not lock on the G1, but all three MFT lenses I own – the Oly 9-18, the 14-45 and 45-200 Panasonics – couple properly. If you want to switch off anti-shake in the latter two (the Oly has none) you can use the switch on the lens. Users of later lenses like the 14-42 kit lens will have to dive into the menu system. A step back, but a non-issue as I’m sticking with the outstanding 14-45 kit lens. The new, not yet available, Panny 14-42 OIS PZ kit lens with electronic zoom is much smaller than the 14-42/45 variants with their manual zoom control. The PZ optic claims higher performance than the already excellent manual zoom kit lenses, so it’s an intriguing prospect. I’ll take a look at the new $400 PZ 14-42 when it comes out to see if Panny’s design genius makes it workable for still photographers, the appeal being that it is very small, a size in keeping with the whole ‘small and light’ Micro Four-Thirds design ethos. It will quite possibly make the G3 a pocketable outfit – a true dream harkening back to the compact screw mount Leicas of yesteryear. I have fond memories of using Leica IIIA, IIIC and IIIG models many years ago with the collapsible 50mm Elmar. Tweed jacket-pocket specials.

One area where it’s hard to imagine any improvement is in manual focusing. In the G1, with focus set to auto, turning the manual focus ring would enlarge the image in the EVF for truly critical focus, as long as you kept up a first pressure on the shutter release. However, you lost any sense of composition in the G1, as you were looking at a hugely magnified part of the center of the image. The G3 nails it. Now a central rectangle opens in the EVF for critical focusing, yet the rest of the image appears in regular size around it. It’s as if someone had taken the center RF rectangle on a Leica M body and vastly magnified its content wthout changing the periphery, allowing composition to continue. Magic!

Over the weekend I’ll be wringing out the G3 on the streets and will comment on sensor quality when I have some images to work with. Needless to add I will have the sensor set to a 3:2 aspect ratio; 30+ years with Leicas have me composing in that format and I’m not about to change. 4:3, for me, is too square. I’ll be using SilkyPix to convert the RAW files to TIFF before import to Lightroom 3. A pain, but once Adobe adds the G3 to its PS/LR RAW engines, that nonsense will cease. Hopefully something good will present itself, allowing creation of 18″ x 24″ prints on the HP DesignJet wide carriage dye printer. That is the touchstone of quality chez Pindelski.

Part V is here.

The Panasonic G3 – Part III

Some things do not change.

The operating manual for the Panasonic G1 is 166 pages of useless. That for the G3 is in the same format but has shrunk to 56 pages, making it one third as useless. The completely useless long form 208 page version ships on the provided CD.

Click below to download the Panasonic G3 manual which I have placed on my server. Trying to find anything on Panny’s site is as futile as attempting to divine intelligence in government:

Click to download the Panasonic G3 manual

When my G3 arrives this evening, I’ll be setting it much along the lines of the G1; my street snapper settings appear here.

And if you want to read about touch screen this and movie that, go elsewhere. I’m a still photographer, a street snapper, and LCD screens simply have no utility value in those avocations. I never use the one in the G1 and the G3’s use will be no different. That will also help with battery life which has never been an issue for me in the G1. The G3’s battery is noticeably smaller, holding 19.2% less power. 500 shots on one 8gb SDHC card in the G1 (which holds 608 RAW snaps on the G1), is typical, as I do not use the battery draining LCD. Based on the larger RAW file sizes in the G3, I expect card capacity to fall to 456 shots and battery capacity to 491 shots. Not a problem.

The main focus of my comments on the G3 will be, in priority order:

  • The sensor. Is it noticeably better?
  • Operating speed. Is autofocus faster? What is the shutter lag like in real world snapping?
  • Ergonomics. Does the smaller body hamper handling?
  • Shutter noise. Is it quieter than the already quiet G1?

Looking at that largely useless manual, the layout of the various menus seems much the same as that in the G1. Good. One less thing to learn before wringing it out on the streets.

In its two years of intensive use I have made 14,275 snaps on the G1, of which 3,234 survived the cull, according to Lightroom3, a 23% retention rate. If the G3 works out, the G1 will pass to our 9 year old son, and will also do duty as a backup. Wish I had had a dad like me ….

RAW processing:

I only use RAW in the G1. LR3 makes it invisible and I retain the best file quality in that way. Converting to a small JPG for the web, using LR3, is easy. Unfortunately, at the time of writing, Adobe has yet to update Photoshop or Lightroom (I’m on 3.4.1) to read G3 RAW files (Apple’s Aperture does not support G3 either), so I will likely have to use Panasonic’s provided SilkyPix as a RAW conversion tool and then import the (lossless) TIFF files into LR3. A bit of a pain, but I’m not willing to process in SilkyPix as I like the idea of one LR database for all my files and am very comfortable with the LR3 processing flow.

MFT lens range:

Click the picture to see the large range of MFT lenses now available:

Click the picture to see the full range of 26 MFT lenses available.

Part IV is here.

The Panasonic G3 – Part II

Finally shipped!

Part I is here.

A sharp eyed reader dropped me a line to say that black Panasonic G3 bodies were in stock at B&H (thank you, Bill!) and it took mere seconds to cancel my Amazon order for the G3 and buy the body from B&H, along with a spare battery. The G3’s small size means the battery is smaller than in the G1, so I’m playing it safe.

Given that my AMZN order was placed on May 12, I felt it only right to splash out $22 on expedited shipping from the center of the world to the left coast!

I’m getting 80% of the quality of my (sold) Canon 5D from G1 snaps in 18″ x 24″ prints, and as the G3 is the first MFT camera to use the latest generation 16mp sensor I’m hoping that results in a little more headroom when the light is poor or the original needs a bit of cropping. The bulk and weight saving with MFT hardware over full frame digital is tremendous and the main reason I switched.

Stay posted as I wring this new body out with my existing complement of Oly (9-18 MFT) and Panny (14-45 and 45-200 MFT) lenses, all known quantities extensively covered here in past articles.

Part III is here.