What happened to the forum structure?

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Ben_B said:
I guess what I was trying to say is that yes, it doesn't have a mirrorbox, it uses an EVF, etc. It uses focus assist and other video like features.
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That's all coincidental. These are found on all Micro Four-Thirds still cameras. Point-and-shoot and super-zoom still cameras have most or all of these features as well. There's nothing special about them. They're not "video-like"; they just happen to be found in highly-digitized cameras (video or still).

It says HD and AVCHD on the body, and HD on the lens...all prominently placed.
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It can't get any more shallow than that. It almost sounds like you're grasping for straws.

It has a kit lens designed pretty much specifically for video shooting.
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It was optimized for video, not designed "specifically" for it. As far as I can tell, the only notable optimization was an AF motor that was quiet and yet still fast. It's still a slow lens without a constant maximum aperture value. Still photographers complain less about F4.0 maximum aperture than videographers do. Plus, if your claim were true, then owners of other Micro Four-Thirds would have little interest in this "video lens," but there's plenty of interest among them. It's a very desirable Micro Four-Thirds still photo lens.

It uses the m4/3 system which hopefully we'll be seeing some prosumer and pro level dedicated video systems from Panasonic using....
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Currently, Micro Four-Thirds is billed as a consumer format (even for photography), and I don't see any reason why Panasonic's broadcast division would have any interest in using it. On top of that, there just simply isn't any interest yet from the broadcast division's core customer base. They just don't care about the GH1, just like they don't care about the other DSLRs. Frankly, there's been much more professional interest in the 5D so far, even in only the last few months (in which the GH1 has taken the spotlight in places like this).

basically myself and others too think of the GH1 as first and foremost a video camera and secondly a still camera,
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Good for you. However, you seem to be a minority. The GH1 is the best Micro Four-Thirds camera available. And most Micro Four-Thirds users are primarily still photographers. Outside of this and a couple of other videography forums, the majority of the interest and discussion about the GH1 is about its capabilities as a still camera. You're suffering from the myopia of being a member of a niche community. It's the same kind of myopia makes others so eager to believe that a RAW module is coming for the 7D/5D.

As for Panasonic, the official marketing literature bills the GH1 as an "equal-parts" hybrid, but at the same time, do you see Panasonic getting rid of its consumer camcorder line? No. The GH1 is a member of its still photo line. Panasonic created Micro Four-Thirds as a way of entering the enthusiast photographer market, in order to compete with other companies' DSLRs.

and I think the feature set reflects that....really all it has in common with DSLRs is the body shape.
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It has about 90% of the feature set of DSLRs. In fact, as far as still photo features go, the only significant difference between the GH1 and a true DSLR is the lack of a mirror box. The manual controls for video are directly inherited from, and work exactly like, ones from a still camera. Manual controls in proper camcorders work a bit differently.

Keep in mind that the GH1 is essentially just a G1 with a better sensor, a few more still photo functions, and a video function. Since it has far more in common with the G1 still camera than it does with any proper camcorder, it has more in common with still cameras and DSLRs than it does with video cameras.

They could just as easily have put it in a handheld video camera shaped body, with the same flip-out LCD, viewfinder, etc, and it would function exactly the same as it does now, probably even better....you can't really say the same for the vDSLRs...they're pretty much bound to that form-factor by the nature of the system. I mean sure you could put them into something shaped like a videocamera, but it wouldn't function like one the way the GH1 would...not really sure what point I'm trying to make there other than that the GH1 is clearly more stacked toward video than the others in terms of overall design and feature-set.
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If you're going to play the what-if game, then you could also speculate any number of changes or additions to the DSLRs. So it's a specious argument.

What about the GH1's clear shortcomings as a video camera? Let's see, there's the inferior AVCHD implementation, the lack of video-out while recording (which is standard on consumer camcorders nowadays), no zebra stripes, poor audio capabilities and AGC, NO HEADPHONE JACK, etc. Objectively speaking, that makes the camera look more like a still camera with a video function slapped onto it than a real video camera.


I am not trying to be a total GH1 fanboy,
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You're certainly not speaking objectively.

it just bothers me that everyone is acting like the camera is being supplanted in the hearts and minds of everyone here when I don't believe it actually is,
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Who's acting like that? You know, the exact same thing could be said by D90 fans, 5D fans, HVX200 fans, DVX100 fans, etc., about any new camera that is released that captures a lot of attention. So why should it bother you?

and that there are mainly a few people from the Canon sections coming over and trolling,
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Evidence, please. If there was any trolling, it was gone weeks ago.

and that a few people were upset by the 7D (which I really don't understand...that camera is not more attractive to me than the GH1...it's too heavy and doesn't have the live-view features I need.)
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Your opinion doesn't make the GH1 a better camera. It's just better for you. So stop complaining and enjoy your GH1. Over in the 5D forum, newly-minted Canon convert commanderspike doesn't understand the excitement over the 7D either. That doesn't give you any standing to blow-off the needs of others, for whom the 7D might just be a much better camera than the GH1.

I really don't think anyone is fleeing from the GH1, and new threads on people asking about buying one, the fact that when I had it out next to a full-on HVX (with letus, rails, mattebox, monitor, etc) a 5D mk II, and a D90, at the club festival at our university I got more questions about it and people who had heard of it and people wanting to see it and wondering how I managed to get my hands on one and how it was, etc, than any of the people with the other camera setups did. That said I had it up on rails with a monitor and a microphone and handles and all that good stuff.
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All conjecture and anecdotes. You can't make a substantive claim without deep analysis and some numbers.

So put it in the vDSLR section if you want, put it under the 7D, or the new 1D or whatever other stuff comes out that is STILL A DSLR first and foremost, but let nobody say that this camera is irrelevant, or in it's twilight hours...it is not. I suspect we're looking at the DVX of the vDSLRs. You know, that one that everyone bought and used for waaaaay to long even as all the new stuff was coming out but it didn't matter beacuse they were making kick-ass images? Yeah. That one. My GH1 and I will see you in 7 years. (ok I might get the GH-100a or the 100b.)
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You seem extraordinarily touchy about this... Why are you so sensitive and paranoid? It makes you rather thin-skinned, as if you "doth protest too much."
 
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