 CAMERA INDEX Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1 I had a bit of a crisis this spring when i looked around for a new camera and couldn't find anything in Sonys lineup that i liked. In general i have become more and more tired of bulky DSLR:s and wanted something more nimble. Maybe not pocket-sized but at least light-weight and discreet, but also something that still had a large sensor and good image quality. Preferrably also DSLR-handling and an optical viewfinder. So, said and done and i pre-ordered the much-awaited Fuji X100. After a while though i got cold feet. A fixed-lens camera that in Sweden cost about 2 000 USD was just not a sensible purchase, and also the camera was delayed first a little, and then more so due to the earthquake in Japan. So i cancelled the order and bought one of the last available Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1 along with Panasonics electronic viewfinder. So what is this? This is an interchangeable lens mirrorless camera system. The sensor is m4/3 which means that it's smaller than an APS-C sensor and has a 2x crop factor. Losing the mirror let's Panasonic build a very small camera despite the relatively large sensor. I also had a look at the Sony NEX system, but i found ergonomics and design to be poor to say the least. While the GF1 has a lot of manual controls and buttons the NEX relies on a touchscreen and in general feels more like a point and shoot. Of course it has a bigger sensor than the GF1 so image quality is probably better. But this felt like a good compromise, especially considering the price. Since the GF2 arrived the GF1 had become a really good value, and so far i'm very happy with it.  Lenses I bought the GF1 in a kit with the 20mm f1,7 pancake lens, then soon after i bought the other kit-lens, the 14-42 zoom. So far the pancake lens has been on the camera constantly and it's an excellent little lens. Bright, very sharp and with an almost perfect length of 40mm, a classic normal lens.
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