Hasta La Gadget!

Panasonic’s HD Micro Four Thirds shooter honestly can’t arrive soon enough, with its continual autofocus while shooting, on-the-fly aperture switching and all around loveliness. Thus, it’s with a heavy heart that we present to you the following tidbit: according to Doug Borbath, a senior project manager at Panasonic Canada, the DMC-GH1 won’t ship to North America until “late May,” though the pricing remains pretty much in line with what we’ve been hearing. It’ll sticker at $1,899CDN, which equates to just over $1,500 here in the United States. That price does include the pretty astounding 14-140mm (28-280mm in Four Thirds terminology) stock lens, though it doesn’t include the optional external microphone ($200; available “around the same time”) nor the super wide angle Lumix G Vario 7-14mm/f4.0 ASPH (price unknown; available at GH1 launch). Check the read link for some seriously enviable footage.

[Thanks, Jive]

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Panasonic DMC-GH1 handled on video, coming to North America in May originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 31 Mar 2009 16:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’re still picking up our jaws (and eyeballs) off the floor at Panasonic’s announcement of the many wonders the new Lumix DMC-GH1 has in store for us, but some lucky folks out there on the internet have actually handled the new camera and have a few impressions up for us poor GH1-less souls. The camera has an easy-access video button, to let people record right away without the voodoo associated with recording like on the D90. Panasonic samples the stereo mic at 46Khz for audio recording and along with the Wind Cut function the GH1 gathers what Lets Go Digital calls “impressive” results. Panasonic’s iA functionality for automatic scene detection and face recognition is much improved in this camera, and the new VENUS Engine HD processor (one of two processors in the camera) apparently improves noise on ISO 1600 shots. The camera also has a new sensor which allow sit to shoot in multiple aspect ratios, with a total of 14 megapixels to play with, though the camera is still rated at 12.1 megapixels. We’re looking forward to a review, but things already sound very promising!

Read – DMC-GH1 at Lets Go Digital
Read – DMC-GH1 at Digital Photography Review

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Panasonic’s HD wonder Lumix DMC-GH1 gets previewed originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 03 Mar 2009 13:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Usually, we’d just brush something such as this off and carry on about our day, but there are just too many stars aligning to ignore this one. Given that Olympus pledged its allegiance to Micro Four Thirds early on — not to mention that we’ve already seen proof of prototypes — we’re really, really tempted to believe the latest rumors from Russia. As the story goes, Olympus is gearing up to launch a pair of MFT cameras, likely named the M-1 and M-100. Both units are apt to be about the size of a bulky point-and-shoot, with the former boasting a 3.2-inch LCD monitor and HD video capture. Oh, and did we mention that PMA is just over a month away? Sounds like a perfect spot to launch this duo into the mainstream.

[Via Engadget Spanish]

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Two Olympus Micro Four Thirds cameras rumored for soonish release originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Jan 2009 11:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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