My old, aged and trusted 5MP Lumix DMC-FZ5 is still working but needed a more modern replacement. So I went shopping on eBay and acquired a used (but near mint condition) GH1

. I am thrilled to now having a (pretty) current digicam but also one that is (more than capable of) near broadcast quality HD video. The video quality out of the box is ho-hum (nothing spectacular, but nothing particularly bad) but with a firmware hack it shows its true colors: That is why I "updated" (read: hacked) it with a 75MBit/s firmware - working absolutely fine

.
It is said to be capable of 100Mbit/s with another firmware version but it is also said to be unstable at times, so I stuck with 75Mbit/s which is largely enough. Straight out of the box it uses only 17Mbit/s (i.e. unhacked --> about 2 MB per second of video data) leading to 'mud' --> block artifacts, for example in dark areas. Now it goes up to 75Mbit/s, but only when it is needed (i.e. when there is much detail in a scene or to smoothen color grades).
Also I can use almost any lens know to man (and woman)

with adapters (about 20-30 apiece) --> see the pics from "Rhein in Flammen" in my gallery - they're made with an over 20 year old manual focus Nikkor 50mm/f1.4

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Ah the joy

)))