A short look at the EOS 7D and LUMIX GF1
27th January 2010
I promised it a while ago: A review of Canon's EOS 7D and the Panasonic Lumix GF1.
Since then it seems almost everybody has written a review of the EOS 7D so I will keep it short and sweet. The 7D is a joy to handle, it is fast, responsive with a lot of fancy features and I would so like to love it. Unfortunately the images my 7D body produced were bad, very bad. The files look mushy with a lack of detail and a lot of noise even at low ISO. After looking at the files my camera dealer decided the camera is faulty and I am about to return it. I won't get a new one so I will never know if my 7D really is faulty or if the camera isn't as good as it claims to be and just isn't able to produce good images.
The Panasonic Lumix GF1 on the other hand was a real surprise. Built around a Micro 4/3 sensor it is the smallest camera with interchangeable lenses currently available. The size takes a bit getting used to (coming from a EOS 1Ds MKIII this is no surprise) but the layout of the camera is easy to understand. I won't go into detail with all the functions and features this camera has (there are a lot...) because I still haven't worked through all of them myself. However one of the most enjoyable features is the possibility to choose between different image formats (4:3, 3:2, 16:9, 1:1) and the movie mode.
The quality of the files is what astounded me the most. RAW files right out of the camera are very sharp with very good colour rendition. For a 12MP sensor of this size the image output is brilliant so don't be surprised if you see some GF1 images in one of my next books (if you can tell the difference...).
This camera is pure fun to work with and you can take it anywhere especially if you use it with the 1.7/20mm pancake lens. The GF1 was supposed to become the new family camera but after I have seen what it can do it will probably stay in my bag. Highly recommended.
Since then it seems almost everybody has written a review of the EOS 7D so I will keep it short and sweet. The 7D is a joy to handle, it is fast, responsive with a lot of fancy features and I would so like to love it. Unfortunately the images my 7D body produced were bad, very bad. The files look mushy with a lack of detail and a lot of noise even at low ISO. After looking at the files my camera dealer decided the camera is faulty and I am about to return it. I won't get a new one so I will never know if my 7D really is faulty or if the camera isn't as good as it claims to be and just isn't able to produce good images.
The Panasonic Lumix GF1 on the other hand was a real surprise. Built around a Micro 4/3 sensor it is the smallest camera with interchangeable lenses currently available. The size takes a bit getting used to (coming from a EOS 1Ds MKIII this is no surprise) but the layout of the camera is easy to understand. I won't go into detail with all the functions and features this camera has (there are a lot...) because I still haven't worked through all of them myself. However one of the most enjoyable features is the possibility to choose between different image formats (4:3, 3:2, 16:9, 1:1) and the movie mode.
The quality of the files is what astounded me the most. RAW files right out of the camera are very sharp with very good colour rendition. For a 12MP sensor of this size the image output is brilliant so don't be surprised if you see some GF1 images in one of my next books (if you can tell the difference...).
This camera is pure fun to work with and you can take it anywhere especially if you use it with the 1.7/20mm pancake lens. The GF1 was supposed to become the new family camera but after I have seen what it can do it will probably stay in my bag. Highly recommended.
