The Lumix GF-1 system is an intriguing tool in capturing landscape images.  From a technical perspective it is a very capable camera. Being such a small and light system makes it easy to justify not taking any of the bigger cameras along, especially if you are pretty sure what you are shooting will end up printed small or used in things such as web galleries or books.

It’s important to understand using one isn’t without it’s challenges.  Getting away from the ground glass to compose images takes some serious adjustments ... much more than I thought it would.  The LCD isn’t as sharp as it should be.  It may be fine on a standard dSLR where it isn’t performing the ground glass functions but since this is the primary method of judging your image, both before and after capture it should be the highest quality device possible.  The attached EVF (electronic viewfinder) may actually be worse, as here the image is extremely low quality and very small.  In bright light it is an improvement over the LCD, and holding the camera up to the eye provides a sturdier platform, but as a method to preview the image the EFV is very weak.  At this point I’m going to try one of those magnifiers that clip onto the the rear LCD.

While I was vacationing with my family in Maui I had three cameras with me (well, 4 if you count my iPhone).  The ever present s90, which proved it is truly a pocket camera and for the size has great quality.  Then there was the full GF-1 system which was with me most of the time as well.  Finally, the full PhaseOne system, which of course was only with me when I was specifically doing a shoot ... which I did about 5 times during this particular trip.

Normally I’d have some of the Canon gear along, so this was the first real test of my theory that the GF-1 was good enough as a secondary system when the main system was the Phase One gear.  I used it quite a bit, including a walk around Iao Needle where I intentionally used the GF-1 system, even though the Phase One System was in the car.

As I mentioned, composing an image on the LCD or using the EVF is challenging ... even to the point of being a little frustrating at times.  I constantly moved from the LCD, which I felt made the camera difficult to hold steady (especially with the 45-200mm lens), to the EVF which just had a lousy image.  I didn’t realize how frustrated I was until my son-in-law asked me snap a shot of his family and handed my their 5D.  I had just taken a picture of my youngest daughters family with the GF-1 and when I looked through the viewfinder it was such an astounding difference.

I took some sunset images, and this was probably the most challenging, bordering on impossible.  It was very hard to make out the image for cropping.  I could barely see the sailboat in the image above.  Judging exposure was tough as well, but because of the live histogram I managed to not clip many of the intense highlights.

It reminded me a little of my film days ... I had to wait until the images were on my computer to really know how good they were.  An important distinction here is the difference isn’t the preview image.  The Phase One LCD isn’t that great either, but here the viewfinder experience is the real tool for composing the image, and the difference is substantial.

In all other aspects I loved the camera.  The lens design and zoom controls, the button layout, and menu structure all were fine.  I did a few videos of family, and love how easy it is to switch and do a video (just push the video capture button).

Despite the challenges of composing, the end results were pretty satisfying.  I’ve been working with the RAW files, and printed a few images on 17”x22” paper with very nice results.  I think if I continue working with the camera I will get more accustomed to the viewfinders.  At this point I still give the system a thumbs up.  Now if someone would just design a full frame version that was similar.  I know, Leica has one.  The problem for me is about 40% of my images are taken at focal lengths greater than 135, the maximum on the M-9.  I’m also a zoom lens junky ... I’m just used to using the zoom function to preview composition.

Anyway, there you have it.   Here’s a few more images from the trip.