New Firmware for the Panasonic GF1

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Panasonic has released new firmware for its micro four-thirds photography equipment, targeting its GF1 camera and the Lumix range of lenses.

This update takes the Panasonic GF1 to version 1.1, with six new features.  The first three represent improvements in areas that are particularly likely to interest regular consumers:

• improved image quality at high sensitivity
• automatic white balancing
• continual autofocus while shooting video

Another change will appeal to photographers who reuse their old lenses.  When you click the scroll wheel in, you can turn on focus assist.  The other two changes affect different scene modes, with an adjustment in handling of lighter shades in portrait mode and better exposure in landscape and architecture modes.

The whole range of lenses is affected: 14-45 mm and 45-200 mm (the G1's kit lenses), 14-140 mm (GH1 kit), 20 mm (GF1 kit) and 7-14 mm.  The handling of video autofocus is improved on all of these lenses, but there's also more work on the aperture handling on this last option, the 7-14 mm lens.

Updating your camera is a simple task.  You start by downloading a compressed file from Panasonic's website--either a Windows executable or a Zip 'for Mac', which will actually work in any OS--and then decompress, copy it onto an SD card.

When you put the card into the camera and switch it on, it should be able to tell that there's a new version of the firmware on the card and offer to install it straight away.  It takes a few minutes, during which time you shouldn't do anything else with the camera.

> Panasonic: Joint Update for Four Thirds Lenses

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