Panasonic Lumix DMC-G3 ups the interchangeable lens ante with fancy new touchscreen

from Engadget by Dana Wollman

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Right on schedule, Panasonic's gone and made its thinly-veiled Lumix DMC-G3 Micro Four Thirds shooter official. The camera succeeds the G2 with a 16 megapixel sensor, support for 1080p AVCHD video recording with stereo audio, 4fps burst shooting at full resolution, and an articulating, 3-inch touchscreen that supplants some of the dials adorning the last-gen model. In addition to poking around menus, you can touch that display to focus on your subject, and slide your finger to tweak exposure, white balance, and depth of field -- all in all, not unlike how you might interact with a smartphone camera. And, at 11.8 ounces, the aluminum-clad body weighs about ten percent less than its predecessor. Look for it in June for $700 in brown, red, and white -- in addition to your garden-variety black. In the market for something more compact? Panny also trotted out the Lumix-FH7, a 16 megapixel point-and-shoot with 4x optical zoom and 720p movie recording. Oodles of photos below with a press release after the break.

Panasonic intros Lumix G3 MFT cam with tiny design, fast AF

updated 07:40 am EDT, Thu May 12, 2011

Panasonic makes Lumix G3 MFT official

Panasonic confirmed rumors Thursday by launching its first third-generation Lumix, the G3.
The camera is considered the smallest swappable-lens model to still pack a viewfinder and
does so by moving some of its button and dial controls to its three-inch, swiveling
touchscreen. Autofocusing is also much more powerful: it now can not only get finer-grained
tap-to-focus control but has a new precise contrast AF routine that can lock in as quickly as a
tenth of a second (on a 14-140mm lens) by doubling the CMOS sensor's live sample rate
to 120FPS.

The camera normally shoots at 16 megapixels, making it only the second Panasonic
Micro Four Thirds camera to do so after the GH2. It has improved, subtler noise reduction that
more selectively cleans the image and keeps it looking sharper, especially at very low and
very high (up to ISO 6,400) settings. It captures video at 1080p with stereo audio and, in
normal autofocusing, uses a 23-point area system.

Staring through the viewfinder gives an 800x600 view with 100 percent coverage and
an 0.7X magnification factor, though the touchscreen gives extra advantages for beginners.
A new iA Plus mode gives some level of manual control through the touchscreen that
might be difficult to understand otherwise, such as "background defocusing" (aperture),
exposure, and white balance.

The G3 will come in Panasonic's favorite black, red, and white colors but will also have
a rare brown option. Only a kit version with a 14-42mm lens has been unveiled so far
and will cost $700 when it arrives in June.