Panasonic DMC-GH1K with 14-140mm Lens Black

I AM SORRY TO SAY I RETURNED THE CAMERA TO YOU. THE MAIN REASON IS THAT WITHOUT A POWER ZOOM, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO TURN THE BARRELOF THE LENS TO ZOOM IN OR OUT WITH OUT SERIOUS CAMERA MOVEMENT. RIGHT NOW I AM WRITING FROM SHENZHEN CHINA. I AM HERE ON A 3 MONTH VISIT AND HAVE BEEN TO 3 MAJOR CITIES. I WANTED TO BE ABLE TO SHOOT STILLS AND VIDEO WITH ONE CAMERA. IT WOULD HAVE BEEN A DISASTER IF I BROUGHT ONLY THE LUMIX. I DID BRING MY PANASONIC MINI DIGITAL 3 CHIP CAMCORDER, PV GS 500. AND A 10 MEGA PIXEL DIGITAL STILL CAMERA.I ALSO COULD NOT EDIT SMOOTHLY THE VIDEO I DID SHOOT AS A TEST ON MY COMPUTER USING ADOBE PREMIERE PRO 2.EVERY CLIP HAD TO BE RENDERED AND IT TOOK FOREVER.BILL GAROFALO [...]

Wanted better quality than current Canon S3 IS. Specifically lowlight and better detail. Overall, I got it. Small (see photo) and light enough to actually WANT to carry around. (In research I found a lot of people w/ DSLR's did not take them with them due to size/weight). Wife not intimidated by it either. Observations below are from two weeks in mountains and over 2300 photos taken.Stills: Focus seems a little soft on distant objects. I suspect it may be as much camera operator as camera, though jury is still out. Closeups ( and lt;30ft, and lt;10m) focus is spot on. I did confirm some focus hunting issues shooting glaciers and other distant objects in SP, AP and Program AE, but switch to mountain scenery mode cleared up.VERY occasionally, exposure would not meter, but roll it from Program AE and back forced it to re-meter, suspect it may not come out of standby correctly all the time (FW is current). No big deal, IMO above should be fixable via firmware update.Like a many telephotos, it would extend during vigorous horseback or hike. Solved with thick rubber band. (see photo)Video is to die for. Tack sharp. Better than expected. See for yourself, we were going upwards of 100Km/H (60MPH)...[@]Currently nothing out there that puts it all together, size, weight, video and amp; stills. I will predict this camera will prove the viability of the M4/3 form factor. Thanks Panasonic, you really made my vacation memorable!

This is a great camera for it's size, weight, features and image quality. The kit lens is extremely versatile but a bit slow for low light situations (hence my con of poor low light performance, which applies mostly to the kit lens and not the camera body). This is fine because more m4/3 lenses are coming out all the time and due to the design of the GH1 you can adapt almost any old manual focus lens to the camera. Focus speed is fast for contrast detect, and the electronic viewfinder is very impressive. The camera controls were easy to figure out and the manual is comprehensive. I took one star off my review due to the issues with the AVCHD video codec. For a camera in this category to take such beautiful images but be muddled by a poor codec implementation (google it, but it causes blurring and image breakdown in areas of really high detail or during fast motion) is a shame. Also the video is difficult to deal with, especially the 1080 mode as you need to de-interlace and remove the 3:2 pulldown to really get a quality video. I assume this process is handled by the software on windows, but as a Mac user I was unable to do so without some research and the use of third party tools. When you avoid the codec issues and properly convert the files they do look FANTASTIC, and the kit lens is as quiet as advertising when focusing.