While the DMC-GF1 will work with any Micro Four Thirds lens (and many other lens types, with an appropriate adapter) continuous autofocus will not work with all lenses, such as Panasonic's 20mm lens and many legacy Olympus-made lenses. Continuous autofocus automatically tracks a moving subject and keeps it in focus. Because you'll rarely need this feature when working with a lens as wide as 20mm, this is not a terrible problem.

Manual focus is surprisingly effective with the DMC-GF1, thanks to the automatic enlargement that the camera shows on its LCD. When switched to manual focus, the camera blows up the image on the LCD viewfinder as soon as you turn the focus ring. Because the screen is so good, manual focus is actually easy.

The camera's depth of field simulation feature does a very good job of showing you what the depth of field will be in your final image. With a maximum aperture of 1.7, the 20mm lens is capable of extremely shallow depth of field, so the ability to accurately preview your focus and depth of field is very handy. This is a great feature and it shows that Panasonic is thinking about what serious photographers need in a camera.

While the DMC-GF1 lacks sensor stabilization, many of its zoom lenses are stabilized with Panasonic's Mega OIS stabilization. On longer lenses, this is a welcome addition, and because the stabilization is lens-based, you can see the effects of it in the viewfinder, making for easier framing.

The DMC-GF1's pop-up flash is good enough for simple fill, and far enough from the lens that you won't have trouble with red-eye.