First off the block
Panasonic G1
http://www.dpreview.com/Previews/PanasonicG1/
Not much smaller than the Olympus E410 ; the new 100% coverage High Res EVF could be better .....
Stand by for the Olympus (and Leica) version to be announced.
Franco
Having just examined the Australian Press release ( it's official even here now !) it starts to look a bit better than it did a few days ago.
First the sensor (live MOS) is the same size as the standard 4/3 , a bit smaller than the APS-C sized version used by most others but about the same size as the one inside the Sigma DP1.
Next, the EVF (Electronic View Finder) is rated at 1,440M dots , that is 6 ( Fuji S8000) to 12 x (Canon S5IS) more pixels than inside the typical superzoom compact.
The 3" swivel LCD is also high res at 460k compared to the 230k used in the Nikon D40x/D60 and the Canon 450D/1000D.
The best part of the High Res EVF it is its 100% coverage , achieved only by the top of the range Canikon and Sony DSLRs. At DPReview the image seen through it is described as looking 50% bigger than the ( admittedly rather small) Olympus E420.
Another nice feature is the 16:9 still capture (regrettably there is no movie mode) that can be displayed on your HD panel via the optional HDMI cable . Having seen stills from some Pana compacts on a full HD 50" Pana panel, this feature will allow the re-birth of the "slide show"
One lens that I am looking forward to is the 7-14mm F4 (14-28mm in 35 lingo) due out in 2009 ( I guess a PMA release, early spring)

Edited by Franco on 09/14/2008 18:14:46 MDT.

Franco, I don't see where it offers that dust removal ability like the Olympus. It has everything else, why not this? Or did I miss that in the description?

Franco, Panasonic has said it's planning to release newer versions with movie mode in 2009. It's somewhat surprising that they haven't managed it with this first version, and I suspect a lot of potential buyers will hold off until movie mode appears (I know I will). If they are offering full-time live view at good resolution (460k) then movie mode is pretty much just a matter of recording the information being sent to the LCD. Not a big technical challenge anyway. I suspect they just needed to get their new camera out in time for Photokina and movie mode didn't make it in time. There will be micro 4/3 with movie mode at PMA for sure... perhaps the Oly version will already have it at Photokina.

I'm interested in these new cameras because I'm not really ever happy with the quality of the images produced by the tiny sensor compacts, but I also really like having a movie mode. The result is that I often lug a dSLR and a small compact along (the compact for the movie mode).

Of course, the new nikon d90 gives you the choice of getting your movies through a true dSLR. Lots of good choices in the next couple of years anyway...!

Hi Donna,

Yes, the Panny definitely includes Oly's "Supersonic Wave" dust reduction system, a system I can attest works very well indeed in the Oly E-cameras.

The 12 MP sensor is new, and I suspect will be rolled out into the next generation 4/3 dslr bodies, which are currently 10 MP.

I don't think Panasonic are capitalizing on the µ4/3 small size potential at all with this effort--either in the body or the lenses. I await Oly's first stab with much anticipation, hoping they keep the body small and by incorporating in-body IS (which they surely will), keeping the lenses small as well.

I sometimes shoot with an EVF camera w/0.5 meg resolution, and it's not bad considering how much lighter and smaller it makes the camera compared to an slr. 1.5 megs, especially if it's also bright and contrasty, might just be a breakthrough for the technology (although I suspect OLED will dominate displays eventually).

Panny's target market for the G1 sure ain't woodsy outdoor types, based on their own Web page.

http://panasonic.jp/dc/g1/small.html

Edited by halfturbo on 09/17/2008 10:18:31 MDT.

Looks like mucho Yen-o

Sometime we forget that there is a considerable lead time before a product like this hits the market. The other day I had a play with the Sony A900 , I knew of this FF (Full Frame) product development about 2 years ago (BTW a good clue at the time was that most of the new lenses were for FF) ...
Panasonic and Olympus learned with the L1/E330 not to mess with the perceived appropriate "look" of a digital SLR, note the fake viewfinder bump on the G1.
Now that both Nikon (D90) and Canon ( 5DMarkII) have a movie mode inside a serious DSLR body, Pana/Olympus can easily do that to without risking the "it's a toy feature" criticism from the Canikon fan club.
I am confident that we will see a "backpaker" friendly version in the very near future. By that I mean less emphasis in trying to look like an SLR and more on size,weight and dust/moisture resistance. Some have criticised the 5 min limit on the Nikon D90 movie mode, in reality I cannot think of many situations outdoor when I would wont such a long sequence. On the positive side, the much larger sensor affords some interesting effects (perspective and shallower deph of field) not available on domestic video cameras.
Franco

The Oly micro-4/3rds offering has been released as a prototype.... and hooray it looks like they have really gone for small and light. No specs to hand at the moment, but the body looks very much like a chunky point-n-shoot. Except it has a 4/3rds sensor and interchangeable lenses. Check out the story at story at dpreview. No doubt more details to come, but at the moment it seems it is still in the prototype stage.

Nice! This could be the camera I've been waiting for.

Right! Much more along the lines of a DP1 with interchangeable lens. We'll see what else Oly has to say during Photokina, but I'd not expect any product before mid-'09 at the earliest, based on Oly's track record following non-working prototypes.

From the Aussie press release :
22 September 2008: Olympus Imaging Corporation (President: Masaharu Okubo) has today announced the development of an interchangeable-lens type digital camera based on the Micro Four Thirds standard. Designed to bring dramatic reductions in size and weight to the Olympus E-System, a concept mock-up of the new camera will be exhibited at Photokina 2008 – the world’s biggest trade fair for the photographic and imaging industries at Köln Messe, Cologne, Germany.
(we did not get any pictures with that)
Yes looking at the DPReview “mock-up” the Sigma is the intended target.
There was no expected release date, a second E Mail announcing their “prosumer” DSLR (between the E520 and the E3 feature wise) stated spring 09 for that, so I would expect the Olympus launch for the micro version also to be ready for PMA .
Franco
BTW, the video version of the G1 sounds very interesting