Having reviewed and mused upon the photos taken with the GF1 in preparing this post, I have the following impressions on its two lenses, namely, the Lumix G Vario 14-45mm/ F3.5-5.6 ASPH (with MEGO O.I.S) and the Lumix G 20mm/ F1.7 ASPH.
^Check out this 100% crop of the above photo taken with the 20mm lens to see how sharp and crisp the image is.
For easy reference, I set them out in a table:
| Lumix G Vario 14-45mm | Lumix G 20mm |
| Aperture starting at 5.6 at the long end is restrictive. I was forced to push up the ISO to attend a higher shutter speed in less brightly lit situations | Aperture starting at 1.7 is superb. Makes nice bokeh effect too. |
| Barrel distortion at the widest end is mild. | Barrel distortion is mild. |
| For sharpness of images, 3.5 stars out of five. The lens fares just okay in areas being too contrasty. | For sharpness of images, 4.5 starts out of five. |
| The 35mm-equivalent 28-90mm befits it to most occasions even though you would wish for a lens with a longer reach. | The 35mm-equivalent 40mm focal length is suited to general use, but not really for landscape. |
| Focusing is fast under good light situations but hunts more often than the case with a DSLR for low-light, less-contrast or close-up objects. | Focusing is faster than the other lens under good light situations but also suffers the same hunting problem. |
| Focusing is silent. | Noise is persistently audible in the course of focusing. I have no clue as to why. |
| Built-in optical shake correction works nice. | The same built-in mechanism is unavailable. Surely users may, when shaking is a concern, resort to a wider aperture for a faster shutter speed in case the object is at quite a distance. |
| The lens cap doesn't click and grip the lens easily. In fact, it popped out several times without anybody touching it. | The same lens cap gripping issue doesn't exist for this lens. |
The following are two reference photos taken with the 20mm prime lens (upper)/ the zoom lens at 14mm (lower) and their 100% crops (left for the prime and right for the zoom):
It should be mentioned that although the image of the zoom lens is kind of soft, it won't show on prints of normal size. You'll get the clue by just comparing between the GF1 IQ @ the zoom lens and the GX200 IQ:
The scene:
100% crop of the GF1 image:
GX200's 100% crop image of the same scene:
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