Beginner Upgrade from Panasonic GF1

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ChalfontStGiles

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This is a bit old now and above ISO400 it's very noisy but apart from that I find it the perfect everyday camera and it's been a loyal companion. I'm therefore looking to upgrade to something similar. I can get a good s/h GX1 for under £150 which will leave me enough for a long lens. Alternatively, I could raid the piggy bank and get a GX7 (hopefully cheaper now that the 8 is out). Olympus bodies are another option but I'm not at all familiar with the range. There's also the Panasonic GM series. Please help me decide!
 
I stayed with Panasonic and got a GX7 which does give better image quality. Some grumble about the EVF and to be honest it spoils the camera for me but some don't see a problem and it's probably my only serious gripe with the camera.

I'm a bit phased by your comment about the GF1 being very noisy over ISO 400 as I used mine at 1600 and occasionally use my G1 (same image quality as the GF1) at 3200 and find the results are ok if care is taken.
 
I started with a GF1, then got a GX1. To be honest, I never thought there was much between them - perhaps a stop better on noise but nothing to write home about. I then jumped ship and bought an Olympus E-P5 - Glad I did, it's a World apart. Noise is considerably better than the GX1 and the body IS is very, very good.

Saw some recently selling for circa £400 - I know it's probably outside of your price range it's so worth it.
 
Until recently I used an Olympus OMD E-M1 (which for me was an upgrade from the Panasonic G2). It gave good quality images even at higher ISOs and once I got my head round the menus it was very easy to operate. I did, however, find its autofocus was not as quick as I would wish; I like to photograph wildlife, birds in particular, so a move to Nikon was the way forward for me.

I don't know about other brands but the E-M1 can be picked up for a reasonable price second hand. In my very amateur opinion, it's worth looking at.
 
I loved my GF1 but went through several Panasonic bodies afterwards and was disappointed with them all. I would recommend the E-P5 or E-M10 if you want something compact, if you don't mind a step up in size then the E-M1 will blow your mind and can be had for a good price second hand.
 
woof woof said:
I'm a bit phased by your comment about the GF1 being very noisy over ISO 400 as I used mine at 1600 and occasionally use my G1 (same image quality as the GF1) at 3200 and find the results are ok if care is taken.
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Maybe I'm doing it a disservice but I recently took some night time shots and those above ISO400 were noticeably rougher and the colours more washed out. Luckily I had a wall to rest the camera on so I could set a sensible shutter speed.
 
I've got a GF1 and GX1. As another poster said, there's not a whole lot of IQ difference. I like the GX1 feel, handgrip, IA button and touch screen. I like the GF1 Dynamic B&W and effect bracketing. But you can't have it all in one camera.
The GX7 is a much bigger beast.

I've tried (extensively) to like a number of Olympus bodies - EPM2, OM5, OM10. In all cases I didn't get on with the menu/screen/switchery - too busy and cramped. And not a step change in IQ either.

I'd stick with a GX1 idea or try something that will really upgrade your IQ, like a Sony a6000 - fab camera body, poor lens selection unless you're willing to fork out. Having said that the Sigmas are extraordinary value. Personally now I use the A6000 in preference to my Nikon D7000 - smaller, easier, same IQ. Just stick on a Sigma 30mm.

So, in sum, if you don't want to "upgrade" your system, I'd stick with the GX1 option, unless you're in love with Dynamic B&W! (-:
 
Thanks for your replies so far.

I've only ever tried one Olympus body (the middle OMD model) and I didn't find it very intuitive. The buttons and Q menu on the GF1 otoh make it a delight to use. So do the P series have similar interfaces to the OMD cameras then?

I came to the same conclusion about Sony too - the lens selection seems poor in comparison to m43.
 
I picked up a GM1 with 12-32mm from Jessops yesterday for £250. If you're happy with no viewfinder and not many physical controls, it's fantastic. Even with the small size and lack of buttons, it's much more intuitive than the lower end Olympus Pens, imo. The GM1 also has the latest 16mp sensor, which is also used in the GX7.

If you are interested in the GM series, you should really see one in person. None of the pictures online accurately show just how tiny it is. I'd watched many reviews on it before purchasing, but I still couldn't believe the size when I opened the box.
 
ChalfontStGiles said:
Maybe I'm doing it a disservice but I recently took some night time shots and those above ISO400 were noticeably rougher and the colours more washed out. Luckily I had a wall to rest the camera on so I could set a sensible shutter speed.
Click to expand...

Just a quick note on GF1/G1 image quality... I was initially disappointed with performance at the higher ISO's but I found that a few things helped a lot...
- I stopped using Silkipix and started to use CSx.
- I realised that they overexpose and that once I backed it off a bit post capture higher ISO performance looked a lot better.
- I started to ETTR whenever possible and this too helps the higher ISO performance.

Not that I'd try to teach you to suck eggs :D but if you aren't coaxing the old GF1 along and giving it as much help as possible maybe you could try the above and see if things improve?

I don't file my pictures by camera type or ISO setting but I managed to remember some night time hand held ISO 1600 GF1 shots and each whole image is followed by a 100% crop. Personally I don't think that these are too bad, I haven't used excessive NR and although there is noise there's detail and these probably don't compare too badly to the Canon 20D I also had at the time. The latest bodies will do better and I'll use my GX7 at ISO 25,600. The last shot is a test shot taken under artificial lighting (which I think makes things look worse...) with my G1 at ISO 3200.













Of course it is possible that you just have higher standards than me and that for you above ISO 400 is too poor :D and in that case... sorry to waste your time :D I have lowish standards.
 
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@woof woof : thanks for the info. I guess I perhaps need to try a bit harder :-\. I looked through my photos again last night and the ones I was referring to were processed from RAW but looking at the JPEGs the latter have less noise. Something else I need to investigate.
 
woof woof said:
Just a quick note on GF1/G1 image quality... I was initially disappointed with performance at the higher ISO's but I found that a few things helped a lot...
- I stopped using Silkipix and started to use CSx.
- I realised that they overexpose and that once I backed it off a bit post capture higher ISO performance looked a lot better.
- I started to ETTR whenever possible and this too helps the higher ISO performance.

Not that I'd try to teach you to suck eggs :D but if you aren't coaxing the old GF1 along and giving it as much help as possible maybe you could try the above and see if things improve?

....

Of course it is possible that you just have higher standards than me and that for you above ISO 400 is too poor :D and in that case... sorry to waste your time :D I have lowish standards.
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Just to chip in that I agree with all of the above from Woof Woof. If you expose and process properly the GF1 will be decent up to ISO 1600. Some examples of the "poor ISO 400" would be interesting to qualify what we're talking about.

The GF1 is still a great camera - ideal size, great controls, feels sturdy, gives good results. Of course ISO performance isn't state of the art any more but it's a really good camera that in most normal conditions will perform well. I've been through loads of M43 bodies and there's nothing else like it, really. I note you mention the ability to use a wall for bracing - if you're doing night landscapes, you could invest in a mini tripod which would of course enable longer shutter speeds and consequently lower ISO. Final word - I'm still happy to use a G1 (same sensor as GF1) for low light gig photography (albeit with the fast 25mm f/1.4) - with a fast lens the results are really good. This one was taken at ISO 800 in really dim conditions, and it's sharp and good on noise:


Rob Heron and the Tea Pad Orchestra with the Wiyos, Cumberland Arms, 18-11-14-1170333 by Martin Sharman, on Flickr

If you must upgrade, the newer, smaller Olympuses have the EM-5 sensor in, which will admittedly be a noticeable step up in quality. The E-PM2 used to be a bargain, but now the E-PL5 is the same price at £300 with a kit lens. But TBH I'd just stick with the GF1 and work a bit harder on exposure and RAW processing.
 
martsharm said:
If you expose and process properly the GF1 will be decent up to ISO 1600. Some examples of the "poor ISO 400" would be interesting to qualify what we're talking about.
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One thing I forgot to mention which will help higher ISO performance is to expose for no boost post capture or expose to the right and back off post capture but... when using the higher ISO's avoid boosting the exposure post capture.
 
martsharm said:
Some examples of the "poor ISO 400" would be interesting to qualify what we're talking about.
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I'll see what I can dig out. Need some sort of photo upload account first though ;). Note that I wrote "above ISO400 it's very noisy". I had no issues with the IQ at 400 but at higher values, but reading the above it seems my technique just needs a bit of improvement. Bad workman blames his tools eh?

Great photos BTW @woof woof and @martsharm (y)
 
woof woof said:
One thing I forgot to mention which will help higher ISO performance is to expose for no boost post capture or expose to the right and back off post capture but... when using the higher ISO's avoid boosting the exposure post capture.
Click to expand...

That makes sense now. I'm assuming that knocking back the exposure a bit in PP brings everything down, including any noise?
 
ChalfontStGiles said:
That makes sense now. I'm assuming that knocking back the exposure a bit in PP brings everything down, including any noise?
Click to expand...

Yes, pretty much. If you expose to the right (careful not to blow highlights though) then the whole picture will need darkening in post. That means any luminance noise will also become less bright / noticeable. Or in other words, the relative brightnesses of the subject and the noise is changed in favour of the subject.

However, ETTR is only relevant in certain situations where you can choose any shutter speed you like - ie. on a tripod. And if you're on a tripod you can use a lower ISO. Swings and roundabouts.

In the live music example above, would I rather shoot in ISO 800 for a normal exposure, or ISO 1600 (ETTR) and darken in post? I reckon it makes no difference to the end result, except in ISO 1600 there's the risk of blown highlights. So I stuck to 800. Hope some of this makes sense! Anyway, back on topic...
 
Just on the ETTR thing.

I normally have the histogram in view and use that as a guide. Sometimes of course you can stay well off the right hand side and still blow highlights (if for example the highlights are a smaller proportion of the view) so it's a matter of getting used to how far you can push the histogram to the right. I think it's worthwhile getting the hang of though as if you can increase the brightness of your main subject and then push it back post capture the image quality seems to be better and of course there is the theory that much of the dynamic range is over to the right hand side and worth capturing. The main thing though, I think, is to avoid boosting the exposure post capture when taking higher ISO shots (lower ISO shots seem to withstand quite a bit of post capture exposure boosting) and to instead either get the exposure either so that you don't have to boost anything post capture (for higher ISO shots) or better still to ETTR and back it off later.
 
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That's all really useful info, thanks chaps. @martsharm: no, it's not OT. I came here with a problem that I thought could be solved by upgrading my camera. Instead I probably need to upgrade my skills. I'll do some experimenting when I have some time.
 
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