[Leica] Panasonic G1/Leica 28 mm Summicron

[r.s.taylor_post at comcast.net (Richard S. Taylor)]

I bought a Panasonic G1 and M-4/3rds adapter last week and thought you  
would be interested in an initial user's report.  Six of the photos I  
took with this combination can be found at:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/rtaylor/PICKS/panasonic+G1/
or
http://tinyurl.com/o7fnbg

Since I expect to travel to Japan for the first time this summer, I  
wanted a small, lightweight, travel camera with a reasonable sensor  
size and capable of producing really nice results.  I think I've found  
it.

Some initial impressions:

* The EVF works fine for manually focussing and framing in dim light  
and bright without invoking the magnified view down to about f4.0.   
Smaller than that I needed to magnify the view.  Since (I read) it  
runs at 60 Hz in bright light the finder has no more delay than a  
typical DSLR and with the usual anticipation I found I could catch the  
peak of the action pretty reliably.  I dim light (and at very small  
apertures) it slows to 15 Hz and I quickly learned to slide the camera  
slight to the right and use my left eye to catch the action.  This  
works really well and is better, IMO, than putting an optical finder  
on the top of the camera.

* It quickly became apparent that a couple of firmware changes would  
be nice to have:
        - One-button selection of the magnified view (it now takes two)
        - An option to have a magnified spot in the center of the field with
          an option to have it on all the time.

* On my camera, anyway, the front dial exposure compensation function  
in Aperture Exposure mode cannot be turned off.  This led to some  
heavy confusion until I realized what was happening.  This does not  
happen in Programmed Exposure mode and once I switched to it my  
exposures became consistent.  If anyone knows of a menu setting change  
I could make to fix this, please let me know.

* The indoor shots were taken at ISO 400 (1st shot) and 800 (latter  
two) in a very dark French restaurant.  It sure looks to me that ISO  
800 is nicely usable.  The outdoor shots were at ISO 200.  The posted  
pictures were shot in RAW, converted to DNG and processed in Lightroom  
with only exposure (to fix the exposure compensation errors noted  
above).  They all look a little pastel for my taste and I will  
probably boost both contrast and saturation in my workflow on output  
from this camera.  I didn't try higher than 800.  (The food was too  
good and I got distracted.)

* All these were taken with the 28 Summicron except the Nobska photo  
which was taken with the new rangefinder focussing Cosina 15 mm.

* The few photos I took with the 14-45 kit lens look pretty nice, too,  
but I hardly spent any time with it and can't really comment beyond  
that.

That's it for now.   More later, I expect.

Regards,

Dick
off-list comments to r.s.taylor at comcast dot net please.