The Monomagician

When I used to shoot 35mm film, one camera that I loved using was a Ricoh GR1s.  This little beauty was built to last, with a magnesium alloy body containing a retractable 28mm f2.8 lens which gave stunning results.  When I moved to digital and the original GRD was announced, I was keen to get hold of one as it offered similar handling and field of view to the GR1s and had a lens which purported to give the same field of view as the original 28mm lens.

The GRD was a disappointment for me.  Whilst the images could be stored as .dng files, it took an age to write them to the card and during this period, the camera couldn’t be used.  Shooting jpegs was faster, but I was never really happy with their quality.  Moreover, the files were noisy if anything other than the lowest ISO setting was used.   I bought a Canon G9 as a replacement and whilst it is by no means a bad camera, I was never completely satisfied with the image quality.

My misgivings were mainly due to the small sensor used in the camera.  This has an adverse impact on two important areas, namely noise and depth of field.  I remember thinking that if Canon could bring out a digital camera which was about the same size as the G9 but had a bigger sensor, say APS-C sized, then for me,that would be a winner.

So far, nothing of that ilk has materialised from Canon.  I wasn’t keen on Sigma’s DP1 offering: it just didn’t appeal to me, mainly because I don’t believe it is supported in Adobe Lightroom.  Rather, you have to use the proprietary raw processing software that is packaged with the camera to process the files. I have also read that this camera is slow - possibly slower than the GRD when writing files to its card.

I was never that interested in the Four Thirds standard and to be honest, when the newer Micro Four Thirds standard was announced, I couldn’t really see how it would be relevant to me.  Then Olympus announced their new PEN range of cameras, shortly followed by Panasonic’s announcement of the GF1.  When I started to hear and read good things about the GF1 and the 20mm f1.7 pancake lens, I thought it was time to have a look at one and see what all of the fuss was about.

To cut a long story short, with a significant birthday fast approaching, I decided to buy a black GF1 with the 20mm f1.7 pancake lens, which gives a field of view equivalent to 40mm on 35mm film.  An acquaintance on the Leica User Group was selling a Voigtlander 40mm optical viewfinder for a good price, so I duly bought that too.

For my money I have a compact camera outfit which isn’t much bigger than my Canon G9. The GF1 is compact enough to fit comfortably into an overcoat pocket, though it will never fit into a shirt pocket like a Ricoh GR1 / GRD used to.

This picture illustrates the difference in size between the GF1 (with 40mm Voigtlander finder) and the Canon G9.

When the the lens on the G9 is extended, there really isn’t much in it size-wise.  The bigger sensor in the GF1 means that the body needs to be correspondingly larger, but not excessively so in my opinion.

So, after using the GF1 for nine days, what do I think of it? Well, my initial thoughts are that I am going to get along famously with this camera. Despite what some people say, it’s not a Leica M8 replacement, though it does complement a rangefinder (or DSLR outfit for that matter) very well and I have been very pleased with the results I have obtained so far.

This camper van was a very sorry sight to behold. I used the 40mm optical viewfinder to frame this and was pleasantly surprised at the accuracy. Click on the image to see more shots taken with the GF1 / 20mm Pancake lens.

The 40mm optical viewfinder means that handling the GF1 is very similar to the Ricoh GRD and one area where it is better is that it is possible to switch off the rear LCD display - something that you couldn’t do on the GRD, which was a bit of a distraction when using the accessory viewfinder.  The main advantage of being able to disable the rear LCD is it must improve the battery life of the camera.

Likes:

• overall build quality

• size - not too big, not too small.  Perfect for Goldilocks

• ergonomics - it didn’t take too long to suss out where everything was.  Why though does a camera need a 196-page manual (see below…)

• optical quality - which is what really matters isn’t it?  The first few prints that I have made are nice and sharp. The colour rendition is excellent.

• autofocus - the face-detection and follow-focus features work very well indeed.

• a nice quiet shutter, with no appreciable lag time.
• well-balanced
• a large sensor.

Dislikes:

• the battery/SD card door feels a bit flimsy.  It spoils an otherwise very nicely made camera.

• vertical pictures are not auto-rotated when imported to Lightroom.  I subsequently discovered that this feature which is known as the ‘direction detection feature’, isn’t supported with the 20mm pancake lens.  Not a deal-breaker, but as I like to shoot portrait format quite a lot, it’s an annoyance.

• more modes than you can shake a stick at.  I think the camera was dipped in Complicatonite!
  There are scene modes: 17 of them, plus the usual Program, Aperture priority, Shutter Priority, manual, movie, intelligent auto, two custom modes and one with an artist’s pallette, which I have no idea about.  Then there are the flash modes (which I haven’t looked at yet).  This little camera is very a la mode!   In short, I think it, like many other cameras of Japanese origin, is too complicated.  Features have been added for three reasons: first because the marketers think it’s a good idea, second because the opposition do it and third because they can.

For me, the biggest advantage of the GF1 is definitely the 4/3 sensor. I’ve used it up to ISO 800 and produced some pleasing prints.  Yes, they are noisy, but whether the noise is acceptable is a personal thing.

Battery life seems to  be OK, though I haven’t used the camera enough to make a proper judgement yet and furthermore, it’s been very cold lately - when I took the campervan shot above, the temperature was hovering just above freezing.

I don’t know whether it’s got something to do with the 4:3 aspect ratio, but the 20mm lens (which is equivalent to a 40mm lens on full-frame 35mm), seems pretty wide - probably wide enough for me in fact, so whilst I have heard that Panasonic are due to bring out a 14mm pancake lens, giving a field of view equivalent to a 28mm, I would need to think very carefully about whether to get this lens.

On the subject of accessories, I have a lens protection filter and lens hood on order.  One small problem with the 20mm pancake lens is the filter size.  At 46mm it isn’t that common and consequently it can be hard to get lens accessories in this size.  I have a Lee RF-75 filter kit complete with a 46mm adaptor and I think this will be very handy when I try landscape photography.  I wonder how the camera will fare with my Leica universal polariser?

One accessory I will get for the camera is a decent wrist strap.  Being so compact, the GF1 lends itself well to being carried from the wrist.  It’s certainly less obtrusive that carrying a camera around the neck or over one’s shoulder.  I also think it will be quicker to bring the camera into action: especially with the optical viewfinder in position.  Moreover, it will probably lessen the risk of losing the optical viewfinder.  I have had finders fall out of hot shoes when I’ve carried cameras over my shoulder.  The voigtlander finders don’t have any means of locking them onto the hotshoe.

Overall, the GF1 is a very good camera and it has produced some very pleasing shots.  If you are in the market for a good quality compact camera then the GF1 comes highly recommended.