The Panasonic Lumix GH1, and Some Accompanying Camera Porn
So I own a film SLR and a tiny, shitty Casio EXILIM digital point & shoot, which I have more or less ceded to my girlfriend as I was hating the pictures I was getting with it. My iPhone is a much worse camera, but at least I always have it with me, and I’ve taken a few decent pics with it. On the video side, last year I bought a Canon HV20 – quite a piece of kit. For $800, it offers 24p HD video.
I was looking for two things. One was a new still camera, and the second was a 35mm lens adapter for the HV20. Like many film dudes, I’m looking for a film-like look from my video camera. Those 24 frames a second are part of the look, but the other is film’s shallow depth of field, something video cameras never offer because of their small sensors. So you can get these adapters for cameras like the HV20 that allow you to mount 35mm lenses, and achieve a shallow DOF. At the low end, the kits are $400 – $500.
As for still cameras, I was torn between the Panasonic Lumix G1, which is more or less a DSLR except smaller, and the Canon G10, a top-of-the-line compact. I preferred the features of the G1, like the interchangeable lenses and lens-mounted focus and zoom. But the Canon is smaller and cheaper, and I had settled on that. It’s $450 in Canada.
Then I heard about Panasonic’s GH1.
It’s the same body as the G1, but it enables 1080p, and has a mic in. It’s better than a camcorder because of the SLR-sized sensor and the interchangeable lenses. And it’s better at video than more expensive SLRs, as it offers full manual control while shooting, somthing crippled in the Canon 5D, presumably to protect their video division. The lens it will be bundled with is a 28-280mm equivalent – allowing a great deal more versatility than the 50mm prime I would have bought for my HV20.
This shit is a big deal. It will be about $1500 (as far as I can tell), expensive for a still camera, and more than the HV20. But if it successfully serves both purposes, there will be a lot of people like myself who will be kinda-sorta saving money by only having one device instead of two. Here is a sample gallery from Panasonic’s site.
Now, it won’t be out for a month or two, and there are some questions and downsides – pulldown removal is still required for full 1080p, the lens may not quite be as fast as one might hope, and really, until the tests and reviews are in, who knows? It could turn out to suck horribly for some completely unforeseen reason.
But has that ever stopped film geeks like myself from getting excited about this shit? Hell no.
It’s an amazing time. With Moore’s Law now applied to just about everything but orange juicers, I knew that the day would come where we’d have film power like this in our Joe Sixpack hands. But I’m old enough to remember Hi-8 and editing off VHS tapes, so it feels crazy to have that day actually here. It’s like getting a Lamborghini for $500.
Undoubtedly in two years this camera will look like kid stuff, and I’ll be shooting IMAX from each of the thousands of swarm cameras that hover about me in a fine, invisible mist. Or, more realistically, the RED scarlet will push prices down all over the place. And you know what? Bring it on. Better-looking footage for more people is never a bad thing.