Panasonic Released The S9. Nice… I Got A 2009 Lumix DMC-GF1 – 20mm f/1.7.

Panasonic released the S9. Nice… I got a 2009 Lumix DMC-GF1 and 20mm f/1.7.

This is a sample photo update to a prior post. As I was preparing this post I realized that I needed to add a part 3 to my “reasoning” list (The term is used very loosely here.) below, I cut down on and edited text from that initial post, added updates on my thoughts, and added sample photos out in the wild. Here we go. Starting with the edited text from the previous post.

One image did me in.

Warning: A whole lot of utterly unnecessary nonsense camera nerdery ahead. You have been warned.

I did it to myself again. I talked myself into a purchase. How?

Part 1.

I mentioned it. This happened in a post about an affordable full frame daily carry camera. Turns out that is not a contradictory statement. Anyhoo. I mentioned Micro Four Thirds.

Started off ok:

If you compare the two on paper the OMD is a slam dunk. Smaller, better AF, has IBIS, higher resolution, does video, etc. I understand. 

But then I said:

Just not for me. Why? (Please turn away MFT adherents.)

• Full frame sensor.
• …that is all I have got.
• That is enough for me.

Then I made my mistake. I posted this photo…

…that got me looking at even more MFT photos. The photo above is a great pic. But it is not the one that did me in.

Part 2.

Since writing that post a favorite image of mine kept popping up in my head.

I love this image.

It was a moment I remember well. It was this young man’s first rehearsal and he wanted to sing a solo for the Director, Marlon West. As you can likely tell by Marlon’s face he did wonderfully. I was seated in the first or second row and raised a camera and lens so small…

…it was not noticed.

And we have now landed on one big advantage of the Micro Four Thirds system… Or at least it should be. But neither Panasonic nor OM… that is what they are calling themselves now, right?… seem interested in leaning into this advantage. Each subsequent new body seems larger than the last. Is it just me? So much so that I kind of forgot about this. The A7C upset the apple cart a bit. When looking at height and width anyway. I am getting ahead of myself.

Here is the newly added part 3.

Part 3.

Panasonic released the Lumix S9.

I wrote a post about it not being my cup of tea, which is fine of course, but it did get me looking at Panasonic cameras again. Just not their full frame offerings. Because I was looking for a small camera. But one that did not share the… well shortcomings of the S9. But more on this below.

The camera.

Here I will truncate the Panasonic Lumix GX7 comparison with the Sony A7C from the prior post. The short story is that the GX7 is as tall and wide as the A7C.

In the GX7 and A7C comparison, I had put a proper MFT pancake up against a small full frame AF FE lens (Rokinon/Samyang 35mm f/2.8.

Which led me to the spec sheet for a small camera.

• Small.
• Panasonic.
• Inexpensive.
• Good AF.

I also removed a built-in EVF and a screen that articulates (trust the good AF) from the spec sheet to save on price and size. This landed me on the Panasnoic Lumix DMC-GF1.

I will also skip directly to the lens selected in that last post. The Panasonic Lumix 20mm f/1.7.

For more detail on my path to this lens please see that last post. But here is where I pivot because the S9 and GF1 comparison was interesting to me. Of course, the S9’s video specs destroy the GF1. It also has twice the MP and a much larger sensor. But the little GF1 does fight back. Some may scoff, but here I will compare the GF1/20mm to the S9 and the 26mm f/8 pancake lens Panasonic released with it.

A brand new $1,400 full-frame camera and lens should, and absolutely does on paper, slaughter an MFT camera released in 2009 on many fronts. But there are a few things I prefer about the older camera and lens.

Camera

• The GF1 is smaller.
  • No surprises here. The MFT GF1 should be smaller, even if Panasonic and OM Systems seem intent on releasing bodies rivaling the size of faux SLR hump full-frame mirror less bodies. But the fact remains that despite all of the sacrifices Panasonic made with the S9 the GF1 is still smaller. So. Those sacrifices.
• The GF1 has a mechanical shutter.
  • Albeit with a lower top shutter speed this means it should have less rolling shutter.
• The GF1 has a built in flash.
  • Which would have been nice on the S9 since it does not have a hotshoe. But…
• The GF1 has a hotshoe.
  • Which means on camera flash is a thing and …
• The GF1 has an optional EVF.
  • A low res one by all accounts but the option is there, unlike the S9.

Lens

• Personal taste but I prefer the 40mm FF EQ of the the 20mm f/1.7 over the FF 26mm f/8.
• The 20mm has AF.
  • For $197.99 no AF for you.
• The 20mm is f/1.7, not f/8.
  • The mmcalc.com website is no more (Moment of silence.) but I believe f/8 full frame works out to f/4?… Maybe? Anyhoo I am fairly certain it is slower. Fairly certain.
• The 20mm has an adjustable aperture instead of a fixed f/8.
  • For $197.99 no adjustable aperture for you.

Sidebar: The lack of an adjustable aperture, the MF, the lack of a mechanical shutter, the lack of a built in or even add on EVF, and the cold shoe all baffle me a bit. I am all for stripping back on features… but these are not features I would leave out given an option. Not all of them anyway. I do hear that pre-orders are a flying, so maybe I have it all wrong. Or, like the Nikon Zfs, they will be piling up used on MPB soon. I find the number of Zfs on MPB surprising since it is a camera I want and it has received strong reviews… and has a mechanical shutter, an EVF, and a hot shoe, along with a 40mm f/2 lens that, even though it does feel plasticky in hand, does have AF and an adjustable aperture. A lot of those lenses are on MPB used as well. Again personal opinion but even at a higher cost and a larger size I would take the Zf before the S9. Or easier still I could just keep my A7C and 40mm f/2.5 G that is nearly as small as the S9 and has many features of the newer Zf with a better feeling/handling lens. Ok, enough S9 bashing and Zf stray shots. A mixed metaphor at work again. At the end of the day, this is a whatever floats your boat affair after all. I do not need to get it if you are happy.

Yes. The S9 has a mess of features I am ignoring in this space. Especially when considering video. But given the sacrifices made above those features make it a non-starter for this stills person.

Thoughts.

First off I purposely did not spend a lot of time pouring over specs. I only read a couple review posts. So a lot of these items below were pleasant surprises.

Close focus.

This lens focuses much closer than I expected it to. Very close for a 40mm FF EQ lens. Not Macro level but impressive.

Speed.

Not sluggish. Starts up quickly. Focuses quickly. Shutter responds quickly. Writes relatively quickly. Very impressive for a 2009 camera.

Controls.

I am very impressed. Many manual controls. A dedicated shooting mode switch around the mode dial for instance.

Also, there is a dedicated video record button right on top. Nearly any adjustment I want to access is available right on the body.

Anything else can be set using the Q. MENU button. As advertised the back dial push two mode dial is ingenious. I use aperture mode 90% of the time. So in this mode, it defaults to aperture priority and with a quick push it adjusts exposure compensation. I am trying to think of a better implementation for aperture and exposure control and I cannot think of it. It is really nice not to have to move my thumb.

Feel and build.

I read somewhere that they did not like the chrome accents. Well, call me cheesy, but I rather like the aesthetic. I find it nicer than the humorless monochrome look of some of my other favorite compact cameras. And the build is great. By my memory, it feels more solid and better built than the E-PL5 I had and loved. Oddly, this may be helped by a lack of an articulating screen. A wonderful little all metal feeling bricklet of a thing in hand. Take, for example, the pop up flash. With other cameras I have with a pop up flash, it seems obvious that it exists. But not here. It looks and feels so solid, were it not for the flash release button, I would not even realize it had a pop up flash.

I would put its build on par with the larger and significantly more expensive also no EVF having Olympus E-P5 I once had.

Unexpected and high praise. I really liked the build of that camera.

Face detect AF?

I did not expect that. Sure, I could have read the specs. But it also works well. I also really like how quickly you can switch between AF modes. I do not miss having a touch screen because center point focusing is easily accessed and focus and recompose works really well.

Size.

Stating the obvious here since I imagine small size was the point.. but this camera is seriously small. Without much thought, I put this into the front pocket of some gym shorts. There are few interchangeable lens cameras that could pull that off. It is nearly as portable as the 1″ sensor Sony ZV-1 I liked so much. Powered off anyway. With the lens extended the two are not that much different.

It even compares favorably in size to the, admittedly on board EVF having but more expensive, LX100 I had also considered.

Battery life.

This is likely the biggest surprise for me up to this point. The GF1 packs a fairly beefy battery. I did not charge the battery upon arrival and after a day of playing around with it the camera was still showing a full charge. That would not be the case with many other Pez sized battery compact cameras I have tried before. Had put extra batteries in the old Amazon cart, but I may not need them.

AI Denoise.

I am happy to report that LR AI Denoise works with the RAW files. This bodes well for cleaning up high ISO pics if need be. It is a great tool for older digital camera RAW files.

IQ and subject isolation.

f/1.7 pays real dividends with some pleasing subject isolation. See samples below.

Before I get to my sample images I said in that last post:

The hope is that it will team a fast lens, very small size, and capable AF. A tiny AF-ing bricklet of a thing is the goal.

The verdict is in. It meets that goal.

Sample images.

Nothing Earth shattering. Some quick test pics followed by some running the camera through my usual test scenes and scenarios. Quick captures on the move. Where it did as well as many much newer and much more expensive cameras. And then on to the real test case.

I have written more than enough in this post, but I will likely be writing a follow up post about how I used the camera for shooting and how I edited the photos afterward. So there it is:

The underhanded palm sized, prime lens having, low cost (In camera terms.) candid photo solution is back and it is great fun. I even shot a little video with it. I guess I should be glad Panasonic released the S9 since that played a part in my getting here.

Well done Panasonic from 2009.

Happy capturing.

-ELW