Our lovely vintage-style GF1!

This is the ‘Girlfriend’ that Catherine and I have been eyeing for quite a while — The Panasonic Lumix GF1 camera! It is in fact the answer to our search for a camera that will provide the convenience of a compact and yet possessing the quality and versatility of a DSLR. You may wish to check out its review here.

Making a simple physical comparison with our point-and-shoot Canon IXUS 860 IS and the DSLR Canon EOS 350D, it is evident that although it’s slightly bigger than our IXUS 860 IS, it’s much slimmer than a traditional DSLR. In fact, the GF1 is so compact that it fits easily into my waist pouch, like when I bring Darius downstairs for a short walk! It’s also very light, weighing only 448g including the 20mm lens, SD card and battery.

So how did we finally end up getting the GF1?

Actually, Catherine has been wanting to have a DSLR for a long long time (see Darius at Play) but no progress towards that goal has been made, mainly due to my lukewarm response to it. Unlike many typical guys (as Catherine put it), I did not have much interest in photography. ^^|

It was until recently when we discussed about getting a DSLR again that I started asking my colleagues about them, learning on technical terms and cameras/photography tips. I then began to grow more interest and awareness in photography. Out of my seven male colleagues, already four are photography enthusiasts. Guess Catherine is right about me being a non-typical guy afterall.

Then while we were considering getting a DSLR (our first choice then was Canon EOS 500D), one of my colleagues offered to lend us his 350D, an earlier version of 500D, so that we could get a feel of a DSLR which could help us decided on our purchasing decision. I’m very thankful for his kind gesture, as it has indeed helped us realise what we really wanted from a DSLR.

Upon laying our hands on the 350D, we were excitedly carrying the camera with us and taking photos when bringing Darius for walks. However, this did not last long, because of two main factors: Size and weight.

We started realising that the bulkiness of the EOS was giving us having second thoughts before bringing it out with us, whether to a short walk downstairs or out shopping in town. We also felt uncomfortable taking photos using such a professionally looking camera as it was attracting unwanted attention.

Considering these factors, it came to me that a traditional DSLR would not be able to cater to our needs. We thus redirected our attention to the Panasonic Lumix LX3 and GF1 cameras, which Catherine had been researching on too previously. Unlike the traditional DSLRs, these cameras are compact and yet be able to produce DSLR-quality photographs. These would certainly fit into our requirements.

So following this, our next step would be to decide if we were to get the LX3 or GF1? The former is cheaper but it doesn’t have the verstaility of changing different lens and it is more of a point-and-shoot (PnS) than a DSLR camera. We won’t be needing another PnS since we already have the Canon IXUS 860 IS. So naturally, our attention turned towards GF1 instead, which is newer (it was just released in September this year) and has a greater resemblence of a DSLR in terms of its capabilities. However there is one catch — its high price. Costing about twice as much as a LX3, we had to consider carefully before we take the decision to buy the GF1.

I’ve also been reading a number of professional and user reviews of the camera and it has received numerous positive feedback. It’s actually so popular that the stocks sell out very fast every time new stocks arrive in Singapore! In fact, its supply is unable to meet the high demands globally!

So while we were still deciding, I received an unexpected special bonus from my company just few days later, providing us with extra cash to get the GF1! What a timely bonus! ^^

With this, I’m all geared up to lay my hands on the GF1, and I started calling up reputable stores yesterday morning to enquire on their availability and prices. Indeed, most of the places already have all their stocks sold out (most only just got their stocks the day before yesterday) and the only remaining reasonably-priced shop that was still holding it was Cathay Photo at Marina Square.

I had actually wanted a red coloured GF1 but unfortunately it is very rare and only the black coloured ones were available (which were also selling very fast). Still, a black GF1 will do as good and so I placed my reservations with the staff from Cathay Photo, just in case they were all sold out by the time I had arrived there.

When we reached the shop, one of the staff named Jason attended to us. We were actually frank and told him upfront that we couldn’t be 100% sure we would be buying the GF1 on the spot. This is because although we had read and seen about GF1, we had never seen or touched a real one before and were worried the camera might not turn out to be what we had expected (e.g. too bulky or not user friendly). He was a little taken back but still, he took out a new boxed set and let us have some hands-on (there was no display set as stocks were sold out as soon as they arrived). Jason was very friendly and provided many useful information about the camera, which helped us a lot in confirming our decision to buy the camera. He was in fact the most courteous camera salesperson I’ve ever come across. No wonder Cathay Photo is doing very well and has stayed in this business for many years.

As an additional 14-45mm lens would cost us much lesser when we buy the camera as compared to getting it separately, we now have two lens (the other one is the 20mm pancake lens) to experiment with.

And so with our new toy, we started snapping photographs all over (mainly it was me snapping only as Catherine was busy with Darius) and I would like to share some of the more satisfactory photos I managed to take. Of course, I still have a lot to learn about photography and on the vast functionalities the GF1 provides. ^^

Random shots: (all straight from Camera with slight editing of the level lighting only)

Photos of Darius:

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1. Darius at Play Hiya, It’s been sometime since we updated.  That’s very unusual....