Panasonic Lumix G1 Preview

When you consider the incredible flexibility offered by digital capture (unencumbered by the physical need to put the film behind the lens and to advance it frame by frame) it's perhaps surprising that the digital interchangeable lens camera has remained so firmly rooted in a basic design that hasn't changed since the 1950's. The single lens reflex does its job very well, but building a camera around a mirror box seriously ties the designer's hands - not only in the physical size and shape of the body, but in the lenses too (the distance to the sensor means retrofocus designs are needed to overcome the distance from the sensor to the flange).

The reasons for this seemingly dogmatic attachment to the single lens reflex are fairly obvious; the main players in the market have a vested interest in maintaining compatibility with legacy lenses and offering as seamless a transition from film to digital as possible for their millions of existing users. Besides, it's a lot easier to design a body that works in the same way SLRs always did than to launch an entirely new lens system.

There have also been some technological barriers to deal with; the lack of digital displays good enough to produce an electronic viewfinder that can even get close to a good mirror and prism, and the fact that current phase-detect autofocus systems won't work without a mirror being the two most commonly cited.

It is perhaps unsurprising then, that the first company to challenge the SLR hegemony is Panasonic, a manufacturer with no legacy film SLR system to support and a share of the digital SLR market so small that it's relatively easy to simply drop it and move on. We strongly suspect that the L10 will be the end of Panasonic's brief foray into the standard Four Thirds System and that - for all the joint development statements - it was Panasonic, not Olympus that was the driving force behind the introduction of Micro Four Thirds.

Simon Joinson and Richard Butler

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