Product Reviews

If you want quality in a camera, get an SLR; if you want portability, get a compact. Surely it must be possible to combine both?

Panasonic believes it's done just that with the G1. This camera uses interchangeable lenses and the type of high-quality sensor found in SLRs, but lacks the optical viewfinder and bulky mirror system that gave single lens reflex cameras their name. Instead, it shows previews on its 3 inch LCD screen or in its electronic viewfinder - basically another, smaller LCD. Compact superzoom cameras also have this two-screen setup, but the difference here is that the electronic viewfinder has a relatively large 1.4 megapixel resolution, showing vastly more detail and enabling the photographer to

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compose and focus shots as easily and accurately as in an optical viewfinder.

The camera's controls place all the key options within easy reach, and dual lens rings give tactile control over focus and zoom. Meanwhile, a fully automatic mode looks after point-and-shoot photographers admirably. Performance is up among the speedier SLR cameras, with lightning fast autofocus and less than a second between shots. Continuous mode captured 2.8 frames per second.

Image quality is in SLR territory, too. The kit lens produced sharp images across its 28-90mm zoom range, and the 12 megapixel sensor captured plenty of detail. There was some noise (graininess) when shooting at high sensitivities in low light, but nothing like the mess that compromises compact cameras, and only a little more than the best entry-level SLRs. The automatic white balance produced purer colours under artificial light than any DSLR we've seen. The autofocus and light metering benefited from exceptionally effective face detection.

The G1 really is as good as an SLR in terms of features, performance and image quality, but at 580g with lens it's barely smaller, and not cheap. It may be worth waiting to see how the concept devel-ops, but this is the most exciting - and desirable -consumer camera we've tested in a long time.