Hi folks,

I've had my GH1 now for a couple of months and have finally gotten the bits and pieces together to try out various lenses.

I shot some pics last week using the stock lens. I also used a Canon 50mm f1.8 and a Vivitar 200mm f3.5 using a Canon FD adapter. I shot in RAW format hoping to yield best possible image quality.

I noticed that all images had an issue with focus. I thought maybe it was the polarizer or the UV filter attached to the stock lens, but the same seems to be on all my shots. They look good, but compared with my wifes D-40 shooting similar shots there was no comparison.

Tonight I was browsing my shots and noticed that I had also tried shooting in RAW+JPG mode and I thought for grins why not compare identical shots? Imagine my surprise when the RAW shots are filled with what I would call compression artifacts while the JPG shots are clear.

The following two files are about 5MB in size.

http://www.richardpnixon.com/jpg_picture.tif
http://www.richardpnixon.com/raw_picture.tif

Am I nuts or what?

Camera has not been modded in any way (firmware, etc). Images were produced using the Panasonic utility, full-screen then zoom, then a screen capture utility.

EDIT: Hmm, could the issue with the artifacting simply be the Panasonic utility? Doesn't help the focus but would explain the poor quality raw files.

Can't you use Silkypix, or another RAW convertor? You're right there is something not right there!?

I downloaded Photoshop Elements trial and while the images are still different, I don't see the artifacts I saw with the Panasonic utility. I think that's just amazing, but I guess the Panasonic utility is just for viewing to get an idea of what was shot. But whew! At least it doesn't appear to be an issue with the camera!

Paul, can you please explain to me what is RAW file?
I'm not familiar with the term.
Thanks

RAW photo's are uncompressed image files using all the data exactly as it is recieved from the sensor. There is much less or no compression than there is with JPEG, and the data is not processed with adjustments to contrast, saturation, white balance, size etc.

It means you have a much larger image file, and that file is not easily read by all software (unlike JPEG which is pretty universal) because there are some differences between RAW files from different cameras/manufacturers. In effect, they are like digital negatives - they are not directly usable as an image which can be printed, but they have all the information contained within them to make a viewable/usable image.

RAW files allow more extensive, accurate post-processing because none of the data is thrown away during the in-camera processing and compression.