So if you don’t know anything about this camera, you’re probably best off starting with DPreview’s conclusions.

The GH2 might not be a revolutionary development (in all essential points it is very closely related to its predecessor, the GH1) but we’re confident in saying that it is the best mirrorless system camera that we’ve ever tested, bar none.

There are a few big reasons I wanted to try out a Micro 4/3 system:

• I wanted something smaller and lighter.
• I wanted a system where the lens makers weren’t in competition with themselves
• I wanted video, and live-view
• I wanted all this, w/o sacrificing image quality and camera performance of a DSLR.

I can say that the Panasonic delivered on all counts.

The GH2 is way lighter than my D70. And it makes a big difference when carrying it around. It could be a tad smaller, but the controls are pretty cramped already, so I’m not sure what they could really do.

The lens thing I’ve written about before. Basically, I don’t like that both Nikon and Canon are stuck in a place where they’re competing with themselves when designing lenses for APS-C format cameras. Their high-end stuff is always going to be for full frame, which means the mid-range bodies are going to be suboptimal. There’s no getting around that. If they went all out on their APS-C lenses, then people would have less reason to go full frame. It’s the classic cannibalization scenario. And I don’t trust either company to have enough vision to make things interesting for my market segment.

I paired the GH2 with the somewhat famous Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 “pancake” lens. This one’s actually been out for a while, and people have been raving about it in combination with the GF1. I can confirm that it’s quite good. 1.7 is really handy in a lot of situations, and the images are sharp. There’s possibly a little bit of vignetting in certain scenarios, but nothing serious. If anything, it’s made me realize that 1.7 actually can be pretty hard to work with. It means your focus has to be spot-on, because the DOF is so shallow. I’m still getting used to it.

I wrote above that I also wanted live-view. Many DSLR purists are all about the live view finder. Sure it’s nice, but I actually really like seeing what the camera “sees” not what my eye sees. Even though the built in LCD doesn’t always show the image as it would display later on my desktop screen, it still saves me from having to keep a mental model of what the camera might be seeing given a particular lighting situation. Sure, the pros are really good at doing that, and I’m getting better, but it’s always nice to have the reassurance.

Video on the GH2 is of great quality, but I’ve learned how hard it is to shoot good high-res video. The same f/1.7 problem comes up. If you’re not in focus, then, well, you’re REALLY not in focus. And with video, it’s not like you can just release the shutter and try again. The moment is passed, and all you’ve captured is fuzz. I’ve still yet to figure out which of the autofocus modes does what I want most of the time (which is mostly running after my kid, trying to keep him in focus).

And finally the most important part: image quality and perf.

As for IQ, I’m very happy. It’s probably because I’m coming from the D70 which is so old (announced in 2004), but I’m really digging the increase in resolution, and I’m constantly surprised by the dynamic range that this thing can handle. Like the DPReview article says, the camera tends to underexpose, but that’s fine. I shoot all RAW, and am happy to correct later. ISO 1600 is totally fine, and I haven’t had to go much higher given the 1.7.

For some reason also, the images that I get out of my GH2 are much sharper than I ever got out of the D70 + 35mm prime. I think it’s a combination of more pixels, better SNR, a good lens, but also contrast-based focus. I was reading about focusing systems, and while contrast detection can be slower, it usually nets a better result, because you are actually optimizing the one measurable trait of proper focus (edge contrast).

I was a little worried about the actual focus performance, but I’ve been quite happy with that too. The 20mm 1.7 doesn’t even have the firmware that makes for the fastest focusing (only the 18-140 zoom lens has it), but it hasn’t given me too many problems. When the face-tracking mode can actually detect my kid’s face, focusing has been really easy, even if he’s moving around quite a bit. It could be better, but it’s definitely as good if not better than the DSLR I had, which was my core requirement.

Ok, so that’s all the good stuff. Nothing is perfect, so I’ll just write down all the rough edges that I’ve found:

• The live view gets laggy when the camera is writing out images. The continuous shooting mode seems quite fast actually, but it penalizes you for the next few seconds with lower frame rate, which is pretty annoying.
• The touch screen is pretty meh. Resistive. When you’re used to all the nice apple touch stuff, it just seems amateur.
• Controls are pretty cramped, so there are only a few ways you can meaningfully hold the thing without actually hitting buttons
• Battery life is a little disappointing, though a full charge will get me through a day no problem. I definitely have to think about it though, if I’m going to shoot a lot on a particular day.
• The video records MTS files, which only windows media player seems to be able to playback well. VLC kinda chokes on them, and the mac doesn’t recognize them out of the box. Also, because of the way they get stored, Lightroom doesn’t even “see” them on the SD card. I end up using Windows Live Photo Gallery to pull the videos off.
• The 20mm lens doesn’t have image stabilization. Which makes it pretty unsuitable for certain kinds of video situations. I’ll probably end up getting one of the more video-optimized lenses soon.

These all seem like problems that will get solved in the coming years with incremental improvements in the technology. To me that means it’s ok to invest in m4/3, and I’m excited to see where Panny and Olympus take this thing. They’ve got nothing to lose, and I hope they keep building in more high end features to their mid-range cameras. 

It’s certainly good enough that I’m not sad to part with my Nikon gear. Speaking of which, anybody need some used Nikon gear?