Camera Labs

Hey Gordon....
Please, don't forget to update "Best premium and super zoom cameras", with this winner..

$436.35 at Amazon.

This past weekend they were being sold/shipped by Amazon, now it's some other company.

Mine should arrive tomorrow...VERY EXCITED!

_________________
Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3 (Lumix DMC-TZ7)

Hello Mitchel,

I saw that myself. $445.31 total out the door, Amazon A-Z Guarantee? OK you got me, take my money, i'm tired of thinking about it. ANTOnline, 92% feedback, most negatives not packed well. Delivery 4-10 days.

Gordon,
I buggered it up. I flip flopped on doing the purchase and forgot to buy it going through you partners page. So I bought you a coffee at the PayPal cafe instead.

I also bought the wireless version of the intervalometer as this camera wouldn't work for me period without that function. This unit with a slightly more versitile set of functions I suspect.
http://www.amazon.com/Studiohut-WIRELES ... 189&sr=1-4

I do not have a Rode Directional VideoMic or anything similar myself. But expect to buy one in a couple months. Worse case scenario I would buy the Panasonic hot shoe mic. Which is not very good according to a couple reviews. So I will be keen to hear your feedback on that if you manage to find an adapter.

I know this will be a fun camera. I just hope it makes the grade for my specific needs so I do not have to return it.

Hi everyone, I just got hold of the v1.0 firmware, so hope to share some samples and comparisons with you in the next couple of days...

PS - thanks for the coffee bugbait, much appreciated! I'm looking forward to hear what you think of the intervalometer. I'll also see if I can find a 2.5mm to 3.5mm adaper to try my rode mics with the FZ150.

Hi Gordon.

I don't know how I haven't found your site before this year but I'm very glad I have. Your reviews are very informative, well thought out and honest. Very useful indeed. Kudos to you, sir!

I've been shopping for a superzoom and actually bought 3 (and returned 2) before settling on the FZ150 this past Sunday.

I'm very happy with how it handles and the image quality (relatively speaking that is... my other camera is a 7D) but I do have a question.

One of the other cameras I recently handled was the Canon SX40 HS and its focus review when "chimping" is exactly as I expected it to be from my 7D experience: the more you magnify the better for checking acuracy.

But on the FZ150, I'm finding that the maximum review magnification, 16X, is nearly useless for this purpose. The detail gets progressively better until 8X and then takes a huge turn for the worse at 16X. I'm assuming this is related to the quality of the jpeg that the camera uses internally for review purposes... or am I missing something obvious in the settings that would make 16X useful for focus review?

Can you comment on this based on your familiarity with the camera?

Thanks in advance.

Julio

Hi Julio, I am also in the market for a superzoom camera. Can you please share why you settled on the fz150 as oppose to the canon SX40?

Thanks

Welcome on-board Julio!

Yes, I've noticed that too - Panasonic at 16x always gives a fuzzy view. Maybe it's operating beyond 1:1 on the screen. I'm meeting with them next week, so will discuss anyway.

I'm looking forward to testing the SX40 HS...

Hi Wizard,

This is just my opinion and I'm sure when Gordon reviews the SX40 you'll have way more info to go on but here's what I think.

Both cameras are excellent but they are, of course, slightly different. The SX40's extra reach at the telephoto end is seductive if you like to shoot sports, birds, etc., and the Canon IS is very, very good. Add to that an excellent approach to high ISO processing of jpegs by Canon, who seem to have the knack for reducing enough noise and preserving enough detail without at the same time creating artifacts or blotches. The third camera I tried, by the way, was the Sony HX100V and I found their noise reduction, even toned down to the lowest setting, overly-aggressive and prone to producing artifacts even at low ISO settings where you normally wouldn't expect that.

The Panasonic's jpegs are very close in quality to the Canon ones but I think I'd give a slight nod to the Canon. However, I've been shooting and processing RAW for many years so I know that I can repurpose the FZ150 RAW to suit my preferences. It's likely that the Canon's raw files will be accessible eventually through a popular Canon firmware hacking utility (CHDK) but it will be a slow cludge at best. The Panasonic however has been optimized with the native RAW in mind and will happily do it at 5.5 fps while autofocusing . The Canon's maximum fps with autofocus is at best 1 frame per second. A very large difference for anyone who thinks they might want to shoot sports or even just kids at play with their superzoom.

Those were the 2 biggies that Canon was missing. The things that I'm missing by choosing the Panasonic is the extra reach and the ability to use my Canon flash units in ETTL mode with the Panasonic (I think my 550 EX will still work in manual mode but I haven't tried it yet.)

But even the flash thing is more theoretical than real since the reason anyone with a DSLR already would think of buying one of these is for the convenience of not having to pack a bunch of extras to take along. I doubt that there will be many times when I would use a flash other than the pop-up.

Additionally, the Panasonic just "feels" like a better thought out tool with nice extras like a button dedicated to shooting speed only (bursts with or without AF), a dedicated focus mode (normal, macro, manual) button, the ability to limit the auto ISO maximum, the ability to limit the longest allowable shutter speed, the ability to set the noise reduction intensity for jpegs. All of the above and many more features are missing from the Canon.

In my opinion Panasonic has kept up better than Canon with the R&D on what are useful features in a superzoom. The SX40 despite the obvious IQ increase over their previous model, feels dated by comparison.

I'd love to have the longer reach, Canon's better IS and the more useful focus review at maximum magnification of the Canon in the Panasonic but in the end, I can live without what the Canon offers and the Panasonic doesn't more easily than the reverse.

Good luck with your search.

Thank Julio, for your quick and thorough reply. I was hoping you wouldn't have loved the fz so much ( : I wanted the 35x......

Hi everyone, as promised I've retested the FZ150 with firmware v1.0, and took the chance to do so in-the-field, allowing me to take a sequence of ISO samples with v0.2, followed by v1.0 from exactly the same position a few minutes later.

After seeing some previous comparisons online, I was expecting a bigger difference, but for my particular composition there was essentially nothing to comment on other than a fractionally longer exposure for the v1.0 samples. See for yourself at:

http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Panas ... vs_1.shtml

As I said on that page, I realise this will be a controversial statement, but I'm simply reporting what I captured on the day and have provided each of the original images for download via flickr for you to see for yourself. Maybe the scene in question doesn't have enough really fine detail to really tell them apart.

I'd be very interested to hear what you think.

I also reshot a series of samples for my sample images gallery, so you now have a page with v1.0 samples and the older one with v0.2 samples for comparison.

In other news I tried the FZ150 with a 2.5-3.5mm adapter and successfully recorded audio with a Rode SVM and VMP. I've made a short video comparing them with the built-in mics which I'll publish in the next 24 hours.

In the meantime, I hope you find this latest update useful.

Gordon

Gordon I downloaded all the images, both 0.2 & 1.0. I viewed every 1.0 & .02 sample side by side in Faststone Image Viewer.

And I am also surprised I found no difference. What minute things I saw could be credited to a passing cloud or perhaps a soul coming back for just one more sermon.

I would think the lack of difference between your samples and others is likely due to one of the following or a combination of them.

Their studio artificial lighting vs your natural light.
Their emphasis om fine detail vs your on greater.
Their particular camera Unit different than yours.

I would bet mostly artificial vs natural light. Which in my particular case will be more crucial. While I would be in the minority.

It certainly speaks volumes about your journalistic tenacity that you went the whole nine yards re-shooting so much.

This is much appreciated by me. Also very good news about the Rode microphones. I will look forward to viewing the video!

BugBait

Julio - With the FZ150 you'll miss the Canon SX40's 35x / 840mm equiv?

Doubt it - the FZ150 continues Panasonic's custom of optional conversion lenses.

You'd be able to get a 1.7x TC extender that takes the optical zoom out to 1,020mm - about 180mm more than the SX40.

The only price I could find was US$180.00 - I'm not sure how accurate that is, though. You also need an adaptor - possibly $24.00...?

They also offer a Stereo mic, filters including Polariser, and several External Flashes to suit.

Have a look - you'd then have to find your local Dealer's prices - at:

Ref: - http://panasonic.net/avc/lumix/compact/ ... ories.html

- This is starting to look like one VERY desirable camera...

Regards, Dave.

Hi there,

I believe you can save some money on the 1.7x TC extender by buying the Olympus version, which is about the same quality wise but should be about half the price of Panasonic's offering.

It's called the Olympus TCON-17. You have to be careful which one to get, as Olympus has a few 1.7x models. I'm pretty sure you should NOT get the one with an "f" behind the model name.

You would still need Panasonic's DMW-LA5 adapter-tube though.

Oh, and with a focal range this large you would need a stable tripod and a remote shutter release.

Thanks bugbait!

BTW, I noticed someone talking about it on the DPR forum and said I'd used two different sample4s.

This is not the case. The camera was the same model. I updated the firmware myself in the church where I made my comparisons. Could you let them know for me please!

One possible explanation is my v0.2 firmware originally tested could have been a little further developed then theirs - hence Panasonic's happiness for me to evaluate it as final, whereas describing theirs as pre-production.

Or it could simply be the type of detail we're comparing. Either way it's an interesting result, but the bottom line is my opinion remains: the FZ150 is a great camera and the image quality is a big step up from the FZ100.

Hmm, I just looked at those 0.2 vs 1.0 firmware shots. I agree they seem to be virtually the same. Personally I don't see this as a problem with the FZ150, because the former pictures were already quite good for a bridge camera. About the best I've seen.

So what's going on? We can only speculate. It could be DPReview or Gordon made a mistake, but I doubt it. What could be going on is some sort of mislabeling of firmware. In other words, DPR's firmware was a different 0.2 than Gordon's. Maybe they used 0.2.001 and Gordon got 0.2.999 and the camera only reports the frontmost digits? Personaly I think its something benign like that.

We shouldn't let that spoil the experience. In the end it seems like the FZ150 is a great camera, lets enjoy it!

Gordon, thanks for testing and enjoy you coffee!