As it is my birthday soon I was able to get hold of the much anticipated Lumix G1 yesterday for the grand price of US770 with the kit lens and an 8 gig card. I went out this morning very early without having a chance to read the manual so will update with all the features later.
The good news for digiscoping is that the kit zoom (14 - 45 ) lens is internally focusing and has a 52 mm thread. My DCA adapter screwed straight in and as the camera/lens combo is light I was able to use it unsupported. Vignetting was only slight on the Swarovski 30x eyepiece ( 20 mm of ER ) and disappeared with one zoom click at 18 mm (42 mm in the old money or 1260 mm ) . Auto focus seemed to work well using the Electronic Viewfinder as well as the LCD screen as you would expect. I took this image at iso 400 as light levels were low when I started but there is still no apparent noise. I took photos down to iso 100 and all steps in-between, but I didn't try higher today. The shrike was at iso 160, flycatcher at iso 400 and the wagtail at iso 100 .
A nice feature is that when you move your eye up to the viewfinder the lcd screen cuts off automatically.
I shot some RAW images as well but haven't processed them yet. The camera does slow down when shooting RAW but you can get a short series of shots first before it needs to process which takes some time.
I got the maroon colored one which makes a change from boring black.
I was interested in the Olympus 50/2.0 Macro lens for this but no-one had stock and they didn't have the adapter either but I'm quite impressed with the kit zoom.
The old 8400 has a worthy successor.
Neil
Panasonci Lumix G1 plus Swarovski STS80HD scope and SW 30x eyepiece and DCA adapter
Lamma Island,
Hong Kong,
China.
February 2009
The good news for digiscoping is that the kit zoom (14 - 45 ) lens is internally focusing and has a 52 mm thread. My DCA adapter screwed straight in and as the camera/lens combo is light I was able to use it unsupported. Vignetting was only slight on the Swarovski 30x eyepiece ( 20 mm of ER ) and disappeared with one zoom click at 18 mm (42 mm in the old money or 1260 mm ) . Auto focus seemed to work well using the Electronic Viewfinder as well as the LCD screen as you would expect. I took this image at iso 400 as light levels were low when I started but there is still no apparent noise. I took photos down to iso 100 and all steps in-between, but I didn't try higher today. The shrike was at iso 160, flycatcher at iso 400 and the wagtail at iso 100 .
A nice feature is that when you move your eye up to the viewfinder the lcd screen cuts off automatically.
I shot some RAW images as well but haven't processed them yet. The camera does slow down when shooting RAW but you can get a short series of shots first before it needs to process which takes some time.
I got the maroon colored one which makes a change from boring black.
I was interested in the Olympus 50/2.0 Macro lens for this but no-one had stock and they didn't have the adapter either but I'm quite impressed with the kit zoom.
The old 8400 has a worthy successor.
Neil
Panasonci Lumix G1 plus Swarovski STS80HD scope and SW 30x eyepiece and DCA adapter
Lamma Island,
Hong Kong,
China.
February 2009