Balance sheet after 9 months [SHIFT] + Balance sheet after 25 months

Amateur and happy owner of a TZ5 for 4 years, I wanted to spend a notch in the picture and experience, after many wanderings my choice fell on the GX1-K.

At 1 First, I found the iA mode which allows you to take simple photos but good quality (always to my taste, it goes without saying), and which is useful in situations where you want to quickly take a snapshot without have time to make adjustments.
The menu navigation is easy, we can find what we seek, then I realized that most of the "common" settings (format, resolution, balance, contrast, reticle) are accessible via shortcuts, it still synonymous with saving time. Again it sounds obvious to some but when you come from a compact that changes. Short.

In terms of controls, the dials are well placed and manipulations quickly become instinctive. Note that the unit comes with an instruction manual on DVD explaining the different modes and other details that may go unnoticed.

Regarding the device capabilities itself, I can not say more than what can be read on various merchant sites or that of Panasonic. As for me I have always been pleased with the pictures I have taken. I secondarily acquired a 45-200mm lens and a tripod that quickly proves necessary for long lenses, especially when shaking like a leaf.
I appreciate the 16 megapixel that allow me to edit photos, even in JPEG detailed and they remain the printouts is quite correct.
As for the touch screen, I do not think it is essential. I use it to make a focus on a detail (with varying accuracy) in iA mode, but in the end I prefer to focus manually if I have time. the screen also has some shortcuts but I'm using it very little.
Side autonomy, I agree with other reviews: this is not the moon but hey we can largely hold a day with between 150 and 200 photos (maybe more, but I do not scrap the more I think). The small trap is the battery indicator, which remains long on 3/3, then 2/3 and 1/3 gauges down quickly. So if you go a day in the mountains or who knows where, and the day before you are to 2/3 of battery, I advise you to fully charge, unless you have a second battery of course.

The 14-42mm lens (eq. 24-84mm) suitable for me is in terms of landscape pictures to portrait, its opening is in the middle of what was done, so I find it critical point how, he does his job and does it well, it is essential!

I had forgotten the details, but in the end, I remember:
By positives: a pleasant grip, well-placed controls and instinctive, good image quality, satisfactory autonomy despite many on / off, 4 burst speeds, full HD video, stereo sound, camera relatively light, built-in flash.
In bad: still a little background noise (which seems to be normal), the touch screen is for me superfluous, no standby mode? (Or so I have not found it ...), I tend to add a "lack of sight" but being cross-eyed and having tried an external viewfinder against which I constantly banged my glasses, they do not mind the final ; it depends if it's important for you or not.

In the end I do not regret this move to this hybrid Lumix GX1, which fills me the past nine months and that always makes me discover more about its possibilities.

+++++ [Update: Total 25 months] +++++

Hello again.

Let me leave new comments on the Lumix GX1, as I have generally been around (I think) to date.

Already first clear change from my first comment: the touchscreen is much more useful than I thought. Indeed to focus by pressing the screen became an automatism; whether semi-automatic or manual modes, I am used to frame first and then to focus on the interesting topic. It may be heresy to some, that make the MAP and then move the camera, but good. ^^ Not really a fairly intuitive process!
Note also that all-auto mode (iA or iA +), to focus on a moving subject will trigger a monitoring target (although with varying efficiency: to track a person walking or dog playing in the garden it goes;! but with a bird or a car drop Autofocus hybrid is not known for being the fastest), which can be convenient.

Another point that was not noticed immediately, the rear wheel (above the thumb rest) is clickable! True but ... Actually in manual mode, to change between the aperture than the shutter speed (and vice versa), you must click on the dial, which is not noticeable at first stroke (I had not seen it in testing the GX1 at the time, I probably missed that detail). Also in A and S modes, a click will increase the aperture setting or speed to that of the exposure (-3IL to + 3EV).

Before I forget, I wanted to point out what I consider as THE BIG BLACK POINT of the unit. So I do not know if this is recurring all APN or if it's mine who has a problem. If this is not the same at home I do not mind you telling me it would be nice! This is where I want to achieve a long exposure, there, from 4 seconds of exposure and beyond, latency (proportional to the exposure time) when recording of the image that makes the unusable unit. For example, if I make a break 10 seconds, the camera takes the picture (so far it's going ...) and then it takes 10 seconds to save the photo on the memory card. So when I do a pose of 4, 5 or 6 seconds (fireworks style), lose 4 or 5 seconds because recording it passes. But wait 40 seconds after a long exposure (40 seconds so) when we want to photograph lightning, very very annoying, although the situation is not very common. I rattle against the NPC and not the memory card, which is a Class 10 UHS-I, therefore compatible with the GX1. With another card the problem remains. So lovers of long poses that must always be photographing a scene, you have been warned!

That was the big key points I wanted to address, the following are perhaps less important:
+ Optical Park in MICRO4 size / 3 becomes well supplied, and it is unlikely that you do not find your happiness. A taste mout missing one or two long bright focal (type 300 f / 4 and 200 f / 2.8), but certainly we would lose in compactness. Furthermore I believe that Olympus is working.
+ The compactness of the system is significant. When I see a journey that I have my little tote my GX1 with a trans-standard lens (14-140mm V2) and a bright fixed focal length (20mm V1) and that's all, while others have reflexs or APS-C bulkier hybrid, I say that the image / weight-space value is still very good. Please note I do not denigrate the other types of hybrid or reflexs APN, APS-C or full-huh format. I'm just saying for a hobbyist who wants to make beautiful pictures, a MICRO4 / 3 is a good start!
GX1 + the cleaning of the sensor with the inner mechanism (micro vibration or something like that) is quite effective. I increasingly use regularly (as I often change lens before I n have never had huge dust or stubborn grease stains (knock on wood), but whenever I had small deposits, cleaning once made them leave in almost all. After I not feel clean my sensor with liquid and spatulas, etc ... To see people as As small bonuses: for those who do not know, always change lenses turning his camera sensor down as that dust does not come to lay on for the maneuver (yes it sounds obvious, but I did not do it before!).
+ If not always well chosen location of the keys and quite a degree of customization Fn1 keys FN4 enough for an amateur. Now that I am used to my settings I modify and adapt to shooting (MAP mode, ISO speed, shutter speed, aperture, white balance, self-timer) in 5 seconds, it is really fun!
+ The presence of a virtual horizon are very valuable again for landscape photos it's still handy, although beware there is a small lag time between when you tilt the device and when the Virtual horizon indicates the level.
- The minimum sensitivity is a little high 160 ISO. It's a shame when you know that some go down to 125 or even 100 ISO (but the devices are perhaps a little more recent).
- Video mode is in my opinion a bit limited (relatively slow autofocus among others), but I'm not a filmmaker so I can not really find out about it.

That's what was my little summary of 25 months. So my overall rating does not change it's still a beautiful 5/5. Quite honestly there was not a day I regretted choosing this Lumix GX1. The only thing that will put me in this story is 4/5 of the recording latency during a long pause. Problem of this model, NPC problem in general, I do not know. It's annoying especially for thunderstorms, but because I wanted to take a picture 2 times in 2 years, this is not the most serious problem. To my taste I'm versatile, this camera is also there for me every day and that's what counts!

Thank you