Field Report on the Panasonic GH1

In September I was fortunate enough be be invited on board the MV Orion as a guest lecturer on a 9 day cruise to some of the more obscure parts of Indonesia. As part of my role as Editor of Better Digital Camera magazine here in Australia I often have cameras under review, and so I chose to take along the new Panasonic DMC-GH1 as an alternative to my usual Canon 5DMk2. It turned out to be a very interesting camera.
Out of the box my first reaction was that it's so small, without the lens it looks like a toy, but with the 14-140 lens it starts to look more serious. In fact the lens almost dwarfs the body and you tend to hold the camera more by cupping the lens in the left hand than by holding the body in the right. The grip is deep and positive and the controls, whilst necessarily cramped, are easy to find by feel without taking your eye from the viewfinder – this is a good thing.
Quality of build is excellent, the lens in particular reminds me of the Sony Zeiss lenses in style a...