Gordon Laing wrote:
Hi Björn, welcome on-board!
Where are you getting your sensor dimension information from? Panasonic Japan supplied me with the information I used in the preview.
I agree there could be some ambiguity in the figures, but that's how they explained it to me. Let's get to the bottom of this, and if necessary I'll correct the preview.
I appreciate the welcome.
Both the G1 and the GH1 produce 4000x3000 pixel (4:3) images within the same imaging circle. In order for each MFT lens to have the same zoom range on each camera body, the diagonal has to be the same length. In other words, the 12 megapixel, 4:3 images have to cover the same sensor area on both cameras.
That means that the GH1 sensor's additional 2 million pixels have to be outside the area covered by the 12 million pixels on the original G1.
The horizontal pixel dimensions of the GH1's 3:2 and 16:9 crop support this - both are greater than 4000 pixels. And they would have to be, as the diagonal always has to touch the imaging circle, otherwise the different aspect ratios can't have the same focal length.
Thus, on the GH1, the 14-45mm lens will have exactly the same zoom range at each aspect ratio: a 35mm equivalent range of 28-90. On the older G1, the equivalent zoom range varies from 28-90 at 4:3 to 30-97 at 16:9 (from EXIF data).
Hopefully I've explained my reasoning in a relatively clear manner.
There's also a graphic on Panasonic's site which shows the corners of the new sensor being outside the standard MFT lens imaging circle:
http://panasonic.net/avc/lumix/systemca ... image.html
(see section on Multi-Aspect Ratio)
I hope this makes sense.