Review of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-L1

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-L1 is the company’s first DSLR. This camera is the result of a collaboration with Olympus, in as much as it uses the Four-Thirds standard, which Olympus launched as an open standard.

Panasonic is the first company after Olympus to launch a Four-Thirds SLR.

The company have also collaborated on the sensor, which is the same as that found on the E-330. Panasonic has also strengthened its ties with Leica, and the kit includes a Leica-designed and badged lens and more are set to appear.

The Live MOS sensor, as previously seen in the Olympus E-330 has the 4/3 sensor, populated by 7.5 effective million pixels out of a total 7.9million. Like the Olympus, the sensor offers Live View – real-time viewing of the subject on the back LCD.

Unlike the Olympus, there is just one easy-to-use mode: press the Live View button, the mirror and shutter open and the image is fed from the sensor to the monitor. Once the shutter release button is pressed, the shutter drops, then opens for the exposure and the pixels become ‘live’ (ie, they capture the image), and the shutter closes, the recording pixels switch back to video feed mode, and the shutter and mirror open once again so you can view the monitor stream again.

This all happens within a second or two, and the monitor blacks out while the exposure is made, much the same way as an optical prism viewfinder blacks out when the mirror is lifted.

Also unlike the Olympus E-330 mode B the Live View mode allows autofocus operation. Finally the system allows a manual focus assist function to enlarge the image by up to 10x, theoretically to check focus details, something usually only available in preview mode.

The sensor itself is like a cross between CMOS and CCD, offering the image quality of CCD with the low power consumption of CMOS, according to Panasonic. This is achieved by allowing the large pixel receptor ratio of 50% typical of CCD, with the single pixel signal reading as used by CMOS to lower power consumption.

Panasonic has managed this by reducing the number of control wires to each pixel from three to two, allowing the larger light-receiving area. Panasonic also claims that this system results in lower noise, further enhanced by making use of embedded photodiode technology and lower voltage technology to reduce dark noise.

Another of Olympus’s technologies within the camera is the Supersonic Wave Filter dust reduction system. When the camera is switched on, the filter generates 30,000 supersonic vibrations to shake dust from the sensor to keep it clean.

Processing in the camera is performed by Panasonic Venus Engine, now at version III, which the company claims produces better colour reproduction, higher resolution and high-speed processing.

Furthermore, the new processor has 80% of the power consumption of version II. The company claims that the processor reduces luminance noise in shadow areas, to enhance the effect already achieved by the sensor. It also isolates and processes chromatic noise found in high ISO images and reduces colour bleeding.

Panasonic has also migrated other features from the LC-1, its digital rangefinder-alike camera. Like that, the L1 has a traditional shutter dial on the body and an aperture ring on the lens. Both have an auto setting, allowing aperture priority or shutter priority AE modes, or ignoring the A settings allows manual. Setting both to A gives full auto mode.