Write a review. Design 1. Flip-out screens can be useful for tricky shots. The focus motor moves the lens in order to autofocus. For system cameras, having a focus motor in the camera's body allows you to use a wide range of lenses, including lenses which do not have their own focus motor.
For compact cameras, a focus motor is usually built-in. We consider a lower weight better because lighter devices are more comfortable to carry. A lower weight is also an advantage for home appliances, as it makes transportation easier, and for many other types of products. A hot shoe can be used to attach an external flash, as well as light meters, viewfinders, rangefinders and other attachments.
Resolution is an essential indicator of a screen's image quality, representing the maximum amount of pixels that can be shown on the screen. The resolution is given as a compound value, comprised of horizontal and vertical pixels. A higher screen resolution provides a sharper image, making it easier to review your photos. A system camera has many interchangeable components such as lenses, flashes, and other accessories.
System cameras offer greater flexibility than compact cameras. Pixel density is a measurement of a screen's resolution, expressed as the number of pixels per inch PPI on the screen. A higher pixel density translates into more clarity and sharpness for the images rendered on the screen, thus improving the quality of the viewing experience.
You can operate the device easily, by pressing the screen with your fingers. Optics 1. The larger the sensor the more light the sensor captures yielding in better image quality. The number of megapixels determines the resolution of the images captured with the main camera. A higher megapixel count means that the camera is capable of capturing more details. However, the megapixel count is not the only important element determining the quality of an image.
Click through to read more. Want to learn more about the Nikon Z9? Do you have a burning question you haven't seen answered anywhere else? Join us for a live Twitter Space on Thursday, November 11, and be part of the conversation. Click through for details. The four firmware updates bring improved autofocus performance in a number of different shooting modes, as well as support for Nikon's new FTZ II mount adapter and Nikkor Z mm F4 S lens. Adrian Smith is back with another excellent slow-motion video of insects filmed with a high-speed Phantom camera.
The original Tamron mm F2. Now Tamron is back with a second gen version that promises to be even better. Does it deliver on that claim? Chris and Jordan did a side-by-side comparison to find out. Check out their gallery of sample photos to judge critical image quality for yourself.
The lens will be a part of Panasonic's F1. Aptolux is a new company formed by videographers to create lighting solutions for videographers. Its first product is the Aptolux MP-1, a modular, transforming LED light that can be as compact as a lunchbox when not being used yet deliver bright, efficient light. Sony's latest a7-series model is the most capable yet, but also the most expensive.
We've been using Panasonic's new Lumix S 35mm F1. Panasonic has announced the Lumix S 35mm F1. Panasonic has released firmware version 1. The Hubble Space Telescope is in safe mode as engineers work to investigate what's wrong with the telescope's onboard instruments.
This is the second time the venerable telescope has faced extended downtime after being offline for a month earlier this year. Panasonic China has posted a pair of images to various Chinese social media sites that tease what appears to be a new lens launch.
Gordon Laing is back at it again with another Retro Review. In this episode, Laing goes back 25 years to provide an in-depth overview of Nikon's unique Coolpix camera, which was half compact camera, half PDA. The adapter includes optics to help offset the crop factor of APS-C cameras. OM Digital Solutions — the company that's bought the Olympus imaging division — has just launched the M. Zuiko Digital ED 20mm F1. Click through for a closer look. Chris and Jordan tease-out the differences.
After quickly selling out of its first batch back in , Lomography has announced that it's re-releasing its color-shifting LomoChrome Turquoise Film in 35mm, and format. Submit a News Tip! Reading mode: Light Dark. Login Register. Best cameras and lenses. Tags: panasonic , update. We are retrieving offers for your location, please refresh the page to see the prices. View Comments 3. Comments All 3. EddyKilowatt What Hans-Helmut said! Hans-Helmut Does it improve speed or acurracy of the AF or?
Also, for what lenses? Mode switching on the GF3 was reasonably fast and it only takes 0. Perhaps the best thing about the Panasonic GF3, though, is that I never felt I had to wait for it to focus on what I was shooting.
When trying to inconspicuously photograph people on the street at what French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson once called 'the decisive moment," it's important your camera be swift, silent, and accurate. While Cartier-Bresson didn't enjoy the benefits of such quick autofocus -- he was more of a manual focus, Leica rangefinder type of guy -- you will love it on the GF3.
The camera also focused quickly and effectively in low light. That's a big plus because while the GF3 has a small, pop-up flash, it's rather weak and you probably won't use it often.
And as mentioned before, there's no hot shoe on the GF3 for attaching an external flash. The Panasonic GF3's built-in flash pops up with a rather erratic clatter, but settles into the right position well enough.
It may not be very powerful, but it's fine as a fill for portraits. It also does fairly well in close-up, low-light portraits. I wouldn't recommend using it in a pitch-dark room though. In our lab testing, the flash performed well in the center at up to 8. Overall, though, the flash tested to be very center heavy, falling off rapidly toward the edges.
The GF3's mode, is great for limiting your subject in wide-angle shots. The benefit of the Panasonic GF3's small size is that it's easy to transport, whether it's in your coat pocket while walking the streets of New York or in your carry-on bag for your trip to Acapulco.
The downside is that it makes the GF3 hard to hold comfortably. This is exacerbated by the camera's tiny grip, which I could only wrap two fingers around. Holding onto the GF3 is something of a challenge for anyone with large hands and its tiny body and consumer-style interface is bound to turn off more serious photographers. Include me as someone who wishes Panasonic also made a slightly bigger and more professional version of the GF3. Call it the GF3-P? The Panasonic GF3 is definitely a camera you wouldn't want to drop since its lightweight, polycarbonate body would certainly be damaged.
Our advice is to use a wrist strap or the included neck strap to better secure the GF3 in most active shooting situations. Though great for landscapes the 14mm lens requires something as large as a sunflower to demonstrate its macro abilities it can focus closer, but not much.
It also has nice bokeh. As a colleague put it, once you take the Panasonic GF3 out for a spin, it's pretty much love at first click. I brought the GF3 along to shoot some of my favorite neighborhood haunts and was immediately impressed by its speed and image quality.
Another big plus is the GF3's 3-inch, ,dot-resolution LCD touchscreen, which is one of the best I've tried on a small camera. Since there is no optical viewfinder on the GF3, you'll be leaning entirely on the live preview of the GF3's display to compose your shots.
The decision to leave off a hot shoe helps makes the GF3 smaller and lighter but it also leaves out the possibility of adding an optical or electronic viewfinder accessory. This is not as big a sacrifice as you might think, thanks to the high quality of the GF3's LCD screen.
I would have appreciated an articulating or tilting screen on the GF3. At the very least, being able to tilt the LCD up would've really helped its usage as a waist-level viewfinder. That way, you could keep the camera at your belly so as not to attract attention and compose your shots just by tilting the camera.
Also, I'm still not crazy about the touchscreen capabilities Panasonic has been putting into its cameras. This is somewhat a matter of taste and there are likely many photographers out there who might enjoy this touch functionality. I'm not sold on it yet. It all seems more trouble than it's worth, including the interesting but seemingly unnecessary Touch Shutter. I kept inadvertently taking pictures of the sidewalk or walls with Touch Shutter on and ended up turning this feature off.
Expressive mode did a good job of adding some flare to this silhouette of the George Washington Bridge. Though it relies more on the touchscreen interface, the GF3 only lost two controls from the GF3: The Rear dial and its button you pressed down on the dial for confirmation.
To change mode and display settings, you can either toggle through the menus or use the LCD's touchscreen overlay. There's no mode dial on the GF3 but there is a physical rotary dial integrated into the navigator to scroll through menus and make adjustments.
If you're used to changing important settings such as specialty modes and ISO on the fly, the GF3 can take some practice. I like that the camera still has the dedicated red movie button on top of the camera near the shutter, which immediately starts video recording.
The major difference on the GF3 relates to its audio recording. Panasonic's replaced the GF2's stereo internal microphone with a monaural mic, which is sure to irk some video buffs who want their movies in stereo. On the plus side, the maximum movie record times on a charge have been improved slightly: where the GF2 was good for to minutes of video capture, the GF3 gives you to minutes. Then there's the dedicated Intelligent Auto button on top of the camera.
While some photographers might see this as another consumer-centric feature, I liked having the button as an all-purpose settings override. I spend a lot of time tweaking settings while shooting and the IA button is a good way to bring the GF3 back to its general, all-purpose mode when a quick, candid photo op presents itself. Overall though, I think making so many of the adjustments menu-based was a mistake by Panasonic.
I've been shooting with the GF3 for about a month and still find myself fumbling with settings and button presses when I want to change something simple. Not to mention, the touchscreen control just makes everything worse. Making adjustments. Wheeling through the various specialty settings on the Panasonic GF3 is a chore, partially because adjustments are all menu-based and partially because of how the menus are organized.
The Creative Control adjustments are where you'll probably spend most of your time, if you can get to them. Since there's no Mode dial, you need to press either the Menu button at the center of the navigation cluster or the Quick Menu button below that to launch either the Menu or the Quick menu, both of which work differently.
With the Menu, you're pretty much limited to navigating using the four arrow keys or the dial; but in the Quick menu you can use a combination of the dial and the navigation keys, or opt instead to touch the icons on the screen.
It's a little befuddling at first, but touching is obviously the easiest approach. Again, by diving into the Menu, you can employ digital zoom in a pinch, of marginal value with the 14mm lens, but value all the same. You can zoom to 2x or 4x with the normal loss of quality from interpolation. Several animations play as you switch between modes; when in a hurry, I'd love the option to ditch the animations and get to the controls.
By the end of my testing, I started to get the hang of the virtual mode dial but I still wasn't crazy about it. There seems little reason that it should be arranged in a circle, except to emulate a mode dial, and it makes dialing in the modes just one step more difficult. The virtual mode dial is where you'll find Creative Control under the palette and brush icon, providing you with access to six effects. Of all these, I had the most success with Expressive for pumping up drab settings with punchy color; and High Dynamic, which did a fairly good job of evening out exposure.
Overall though, Panasonic's special effects are a step behind more robust art filters sets such as those offered on Olympus' latest PEN cameras.
Architecture mode helps with shooting buildings in the city by providing horizontal and vertical gridlines on the LCD to help you frame your shot while bringing out architectural detail.
There are also 17 Scene modes with most of the standard presets including everything from Portrait to Sunset to Party mode, which helps you get more natural color in indoor light. City folk will like Architecture, in which features and details in buildings and structures appear sharper. It also offers an overlay of guidelines to check the horizontal and vertical axes.
If you like delving into these specialty modes, prepare to spend a lot of time jumping from menu to menu to get the effect you want. Miniature mode helped make this image of a UPS vehicle look like a toy truck.
And that's the conundrum of the Panasonic GF3. There's a lot to like with this camera including its lighting fast autofocus and good image quality overall, but you may find yourself getting frustrated with the decidedly beginner-focus of this camera.
For all its upgrades, these limitations are enough to make you miss the more manual and straightforward approach of Panasonic's earlier models in this line.
If you can get used to the GF3's quirks, though, you just may love this little sharpshooter. Image quality. Overall, I was quite impressed with the Panasonic GF3's image quality.
With the 14mm prime lens, there were slightly soft corners in my images of Ft. Chromatic aberration was also minimal, because the GF3 corrects for it in JPEGs, just as it does for geometric distortion. Using the Intelligent Auto feature and sometimes Intelligent Auto Plus, which is like IA but also lets you adjust brightness and color , the camera often guessed correctly, choosing the Landscape Mode, which provided nice, wide depth of field and crisp detail in my park and river shots.
There's still a slight problem with yellows that look more greenish in the Panasonic GF3's yellows. Even the orange threads in this shot appear more brownish, thanks to the green influence not the vibrant orange furthest left, but the second set. It's hard to tell without something to compare the yellows to, but once you look at the Olympus E-P3's rendering bottom , the two yellows bundle 4 and 5 look positively green in the GF3 image top.
RAW images don't seem to have this problem. Things got softer at ISO , but we could still make a usable 16xinch print. That's saying a lot. At first we found this confounding, because digging the AVCHD files off obscure folders on your memory card leaves you with an MTS file that you can't import into iMovie. However, if you plug the card or camera into the Mac, and then open iMovie '08 or later , it will import the files either automatically, or when you select, "Import from Camera" in the menu.
It won't be full HD -- just p -- but you'll be able to easily grab them and play them back. Very likely, both soon will. The good news is that SilkyPix is bundled on the software disk. Recent advances in sensor technology have made ISO 1, look a lot more like ISO , but there are still cameras whose quality starts to fall apart at this setting.
We also choose 1, because we like to be able to shoot at least at this level when indoors and at night. Looking at crops onscreen doesn't tell the whole story, or even the most important story, so we print our Still Life and Indoor test shots to see how large we can print at each ISO setting. ISO shots are usable, if a little soft at 20x30; sharpening with unsharp mask fixes that a little, making a crisper 20x Printing at 16x20 eliminates the softness, making a great print straight from the camera.
ISO images soften up, but still make a usable 16xinch print. Reds seem to soften more quickly as is the case on most cameras.
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