bargain GH1 or GH2 --purely still quality

You can get a GH1 with the kit lens directly from Panasonic USA for $375 aka £235. It used to be $350 but the price has gone up a bit.

 

I had an LX3 and a G1, then upgraded to the GH1, then sold the GH1 and upgraded to the GH2 - and sold the LX3 three to buy another G1 as a second body. For me, the GH1 to GH2 upgrade made sense not because of one outstanding feature of the GH2 but because of the sum of little things I appreciate: the one-buttom zoom for manual focusing, the wheel on the back, slightly better high ISO perfomance, faster auto-focus, slightly better EVF etc. And I sold my hacked GH1 and the LX3 for good prices, so that buying the GH2 and a new G1 body in the end cost me about $150 extra.

I am sure that you will see differences in the image quality on your screen at 200% zoom or if you print them out in 4x3 feet. For what I use the camera for, I honestly have to say that the IQ improvement of the GH2 would not justify the $900 or whatever it is in the UK. The GH1 already is an excellent camera. I consider the step from G1 to GH1 a bigger improvement than the one from GH1 to GH2. So, the rational thing to do in my opinion is to go for a GH1 if you can get it for a cheap price. But then again, since when has buying cameras anything to do with rational decision making...

Stefan

 

I've used and owned all three. I would definitely recommend the GH2 if you can stretch to it. Its an amazing camera both for video and stills, and you'd probably never need to change it for years. (You could wait for the GH4 then!!) Its better for high ISO noise than the GH1 by about 1 stop for stills, and 2 stops for video. At its base ISO of ISO160 its very sharp and detailed, if you avoid the 14-42 kit lens which is a bit of a disappointment, and produces great files. Like you I always shoot raw files and they are capable of very high resolution.

I did a 12-part personal user review of it. If you look in the blog archive for DEC 2020 you'll see all the posts on it. Soundimageplus

Its not a technical review, more a user experience, though I have got some noise comparisons. I have kept my GH1 but since the GH2 arrived I haven't used it once.