Doug Kerr
Well-known member
The new Panasonic Lumix SMC-G1 is a Micro Four Thirds system camera with a back-panel monitor screen and an "electronic view finder"
It does not use the SLR scheme, and the Matsushita press release (at least as cited on dpr) does not call it an SLR:
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0809/08091202panasonic_DMC_G1.asp
But interestingly, press reports of the new camera characterize it as "the world's smallest digital SLR camera":
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080912/tc_nm/matsushita_dc_1
Unlike the Four Thirds system Lumix DMC-L1, the body of the -G1 has a nice little hump surmounted by the flash shoe, no doubt in part intended to link it through appearance more to the SLR genre than to the "large compact" genre.
We have had two cameras with electronic viewfinders (a Sony MVC-FD91 and a Fujifilm S602) and feel that the concept is extraordinarily valuable. (More frames are shot on EVF cameras, by a gigantic factor, than with any other scheme.)
The S602, incidentally, was one of a number of cameras that were at the time described as "SLR-like", a term that was never defined but which perhaps alluded to their "humped" body design.
It will be interesting to see how the new "Micro" branch of the Four Thirds genre unfolds.
The frame size of the Micro Four Thirds system is nominally the same as that of the Four Thirds system - approximately 17.3 x 13.0 mm. Compared to the full-frame 35-mm frame size (based on diagonal dimension), this would be described by some as a "2.0x" format.
It does not use the SLR scheme, and the Matsushita press release (at least as cited on dpr) does not call it an SLR:
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0809/08091202panasonic_DMC_G1.asp
But interestingly, press reports of the new camera characterize it as "the world's smallest digital SLR camera":
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080912/tc_nm/matsushita_dc_1
Unlike the Four Thirds system Lumix DMC-L1, the body of the -G1 has a nice little hump surmounted by the flash shoe, no doubt in part intended to link it through appearance more to the SLR genre than to the "large compact" genre.
We have had two cameras with electronic viewfinders (a Sony MVC-FD91 and a Fujifilm S602) and feel that the concept is extraordinarily valuable. (More frames are shot on EVF cameras, by a gigantic factor, than with any other scheme.)
The S602, incidentally, was one of a number of cameras that were at the time described as "SLR-like", a term that was never defined but which perhaps alluded to their "humped" body design.
It will be interesting to see how the new "Micro" branch of the Four Thirds genre unfolds.
The frame size of the Micro Four Thirds system is nominally the same as that of the Four Thirds system - approximately 17.3 x 13.0 mm. Compared to the full-frame 35-mm frame size (based on diagonal dimension), this would be described by some as a "2.0x" format.
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