Released in 2008, the DSLR-styled Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1 introduced the world to the Micro Four Thirds standard.
Micro Four Thirds - and by extension the Panasonic G1 - represented the first complete break with legacy SLR technology going back well over half a century, and as such it represented an important moment in digital photography's short history.
It would be fair to describe it as the first truly 'all digital' interchangeable lens camera, and a camera that arguably, finally delivered on the promise made for the Four Thirds system when it was first introduced back in 2002 to allow the design of dedicated, high-performance digital camera lens systems that are more compact than their 35 mm film SLR camera lens counterparts.
It was only a matter of time before someone made a camera that replaced the SLR's mirror with an electronic viewfinder showing a live video preview fed directly from the imaging sensor, and perhaps unsurprising that it was Panasonic, a company relatively new to the market, and one without the baggage of a legacy system to support, that was the first to introduce it. The G1 was, and still is a slightly curious camera; it is technically innovative but it's far from revolutionary; it simply replaces one means of getting the image into the viewfinder for another one, and the result brings some benefits (it's small, has some clever features and is darn cute) but also some disadvantages.
Whilst it had a transformative effect on the digital camera market, the G1 certainly didn't reinvent the digital SLR, because ultimately, it was designed to look, handle, operate and feel like one, and it's still far from pocketable.
But in hindsight it represented an impressive debut for a system that has turned out to have huge potential.
Micro Four Thirds - and by extension the Panasonic G1 - represented the first complete break with legacy SLR technology going back well over half a century, and as such it represented an important moment in digital photography's short history.
It would be fair to describe it as the first truly 'all digital' interchangeable lens camera, and a camera that arguably, finally delivered on the promise made for the Four Thirds system when it was first introduced back in 2002 to allow the design of dedicated, high-performance digital camera lens systems that are more compact than their 35 mm film SLR camera lens counterparts.
It was only a matter of time before someone made a camera that replaced the SLR's mirror with an electronic viewfinder showing a live video preview fed directly from the imaging sensor, and perhaps unsurprising that it was Panasonic, a company relatively new to the market, and one without the baggage of a legacy system to support, that was the first to introduce it. The G1 was, and still is a slightly curious camera; it is technically innovative but it's far from revolutionary; it simply replaces one means of getting the image into the viewfinder for another one, and the result brings some benefits (it's small, has some clever features and is darn cute) but also some disadvantages.
Whilst it had a transformative effect on the digital camera market, the G1 certainly didn't reinvent the digital SLR, because ultimately, it was designed to look, handle, operate and feel like one, and it's still far from pocketable.
But in hindsight it represented an impressive debut for a system that has turned out to have huge potential.
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