I've had a G1 for a couple of months, and I'm generally ecstatic with it, particularly the fact that I can now tote around a small, light kit, and the weight is barely noticeable. Coming from Nikon 35mm cameras & system, I guess I was spoiled by the terrific auto-balanced fill flash in daylight; I would often rely on this on images of people in sunlight. It worked like an absolute charm. But the G1 with onboard flash doesn't seem to have any of that (particular) intelligence. I'm probably missing something in how it's best used. With the old Nikon's, you only had to pop up the flash and shoot, no special settings required. Now it seems I have to go into the menus and manually turn down flash strength in stops, and the right subject exposure is trial and error. Crap! Your comments? Am I overlooking something?
Which mode are you shooting in? IIRC, once you adjust the flash compensation, it's set, you don't have to redo it every time.
Mostly shooting in aperture priority. I do recall that there is a difference in how the flash interacts between that and, say, full auto (or maybe it's iA . . .). Setting compensation - you're right, it remains where you set it, but for different situations, you have to be on top of it. With the old Nikon stuff, it would just work automatically, no user changes necessary. The lighting would almost always be beautifully balanced between a subject in the foreground and the daytime background. I'm just surprised that a much more modern camera doesn't do the same. But it's a small nitpick.
The flash implementation is one of the key reasons I chose the E-PL1 over the GF1 (all the panasonic models are similar, I believe). There are heaps of threads out there bitching about the Panasonic flash. I found a blog entry that talks about how to manage it on the GF1. Will see if I can dig it up.
See Using the GF1's Built-In Flash - FM Forums for a reasonable summary of what you can/can't do and a few tips for making it work.
