Panasonic FZ20
After the trip to Mexico, and the trouble getting photos of the Brown Pelicans and Turkey Vultures - and also the problems getting good pictures of the Spider and Howler monkeys, I decided it was time to upgrade to a camera with better zoom. I didn't want an SLR with all the lenses and other assorted paraphernalia, one of the new breed of SuperZooms seemed to fit the bill. So, with 12x zoom (giving 36-432 in 35mm terms), image stabilisation, very fast lens - Panasonic got my money. Here are the results of the first weeks snaps.
All the shots on this page are handheld, and the camera on auto most of the time.
Click on the thumbnails for a larger image, these larger images are all cropped or scaled to 1024x768.
The first day with the camera, and uninspiring weather (this is the British summer after all), so a wander around the garden to see what I could see.
A garden spider and web, not a very good web, but good to see a spider close up.
A very contented Cat, this is at full zoom, and the full length of the garden.
'If I hold onto both these blades, maybe I won't fall off again!'
Cat brought home a little present, and some ants got a meal!
A pigeon at full zoom, the fast shutter means it's possible to catch it in flight, and when the image is cropped to 1:1 it turns out not too bad for dark object against a light sky.
A starling at the end of the garden (about 30ft), full zoom - I like this camera.
I'm getting the hang of this macro now, some more amazing images of flies
[left a Flesh-fly, right a Greenbottle].
More bugs - the tiny depth of field is great, although it does make focusing a challenge.
Some bees, the left one is still busy at work, the right one is very slow, I suspect about to die.
Day one complete, and some nice pictures, next a late evening walk and a chance to see how well it performs in low light.
A lovely country scene, the contrast of old windmill and modern communication tower, and a sunset sky.
Another day, another different place. Out to the lakes behind the village to see what is happening.
Canada geese heading for the lakes before sunset, this really does show how good the camera is a quick shots of moving subjects in low light.
Another example of the amazing zoom, both shots taken from the same place. Low light and handheld, but the zoom is still quite sharp.
Another trip to the lakes at midday.
Two types of dragonfly, they both have a coloured 'cell' at the end of the wing - like aircraft navigation lights.
[left ?, right a Blue Damselfly]
A kestrel in the hover, it didn't stay around long so this really was a point and shot, I should've thought a bit
further ahead and turned on burst mode - the camera can burst about 2fps until the memory card is full.
More closeups, I'm impressed that the camera managed to get a hoverfly in the hover!
[Hoverfly, Peacock butterfly, Horntail]
Some geese, again full zoom. With my eye I couldn't really make out exactly what they were, but the camera has nicely frozen the moment
so I can check with the books back home [they are Greylag Geese].
The camera can do regular shots too. This one shows nice control of depth of field and no trouble keeping the focus away
from the centre of the frame if needed
So, basically I'm very pleased with the new camera. I have the adaptor tube on order so I can add a polarising filter.
It does show I need better books at home,
if I can't identify things from these shots there is no hope!
This camera really does seem to offer all those SLR features without the cost and hassle of an SLR. There are shortcomings, the EVF is
nowhere near as good as the SLR optical viewfinder, and the LCD is as good a useless in very low light (eg stars in the night sky) so
it really becomes a case of point and pray. But for the money it is a very good performing camera - it does make me wonder what
I'll get for the same money in another 5 years....
