Camera Labs

HA!! just surfaced and bought a FZ150 myself because i cant see any reason why not.

This weekend i will not be at home

(you can stop smiling now Maarten, yes, you propably already new where i was going to land

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Panasonic: FZ150 & TZ3 and lots of accessories from my OM2n's flashback

Is sandisk SDSDRX3-032G-A21 the best SDHC for the fz150
http://www.sandisk.com/products/camcord ... sdhc-cards

or the SDSDU-032G-A11 is fast enough

http://www.sandisk.com/products/camcord ... card-30mbs

Hello Hydron,


I bought this one, and it works realy fine,

http://www.xstra.eu/index.php?page=shop ... 1&Itemid=3

although i must tell you that even my class-4 !! works fine, so the class 10 Pretec is propably a "overkill".

But over here in holland the class 6 costed 22,50 euro, and the class 10 24,25
and for that tiny difference, i take the class 10

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Panasonic: FZ150 & TZ3 and lots of accessories from my OM2n's flashback

Your review along with a couple others is the reason I have a FZ150. You and others might find my experience with a telephoto lens I bought of interest. (By the way I really like the camera so far.)

Below is a Flickr link to two sets of pictures I took with my Panasonic FZ150 that show a comparison of using digital zoom only versus using 24x optical in the camera plus a Digital Optics 2.2x telephoto lens with the Panasonic adapter. I think you will agree that the digital zoom only produced better pictures.

The company (http://www.igadgetnow.com) has agreed to let me return the lens, although it is not in accordance with their policy. The MM Gadget people have been very responsive to my concerns with this Digital Optics lens. (They did recommend it over the Panasonic lens, so that is probably why.) They have been quick to answer emails and phone calls. You might want to check them out. They did make a full refund on the Digital Optics lens, which is also above their stated policy.

The Flickr site explains the photos. I have a lot of examples like this. All give similar results. I really don't have an explanation of why the "optical only combo" pictures are NOT better. I had one person tell me he has had similar results with some telephoto lenses. Perhaps the optics don't quit match?

All pictures were taken using a tripod and I used the camera's timer for the shots.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/smhamilton ... 277805068/

Has anyone checked out the Panasonic 1.7x DMW-LT55 lens with this camera? I would love to here about it.

Hi Gordon,

Thanks for the great reviews, I just ordered an FZ150 through your links. Can anyone tell me if 'handheld nightshot' is a form of HDR?

Thanks

Skenn158

Skenn158, the handheld night shot shoots and combines multiple exposures like HDR, but unlike HDR, the actual expsoures are the same. So it minimises noise, not extend dynamic range.

Welcome on-board smhamilton41, and thanks for the comparisons with the extender lenses.

I hope someone here can help, but in the meantime, your information is useful to us all!

Gordon

Ok, these last days i used for some "testing" the new cam.
Although the weather wasnt perfect, i'm getting a GOOD feeling about this FZ150 camera.
I even took pictures in 62x zoom (lol) from buzzards who where showing-off to eachother,
and those where so high in the air, that you could barely see them,
but i was just able to get the cam pretty "stable"
and it shurely should have been a NO-GO for my olympus-film reflex ultrazoom.

This morning i woke up with the idea: PUT your Olympus 50mm inverted on your cam and try MACRO hehehehe..

WOW, that works fine and guess what?? i think i found another NICE option on the FZ150 that is NOT registrated,
(well, i could not find it in my Dutch- BAD- translated manual)

When i was playing around in MANUAL mode en pressed the release button half-way down
i noticed a little darker LCD screen, and... much more.. A BETTER view of depth field... wowwwww

I selected aperture 8.0 and tried again.. YESSSS pressing the button halfway closes the aperture Manualy!!
and you get a realy nice view of your depth.

So becarefull bugs, im coming after you

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Panasonic: FZ150 & TZ3 and lots of accessories from my OM2n's flashback

update to my original post below: I've bought a Rodes StereoMic I found a post on dpreview http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1033&thread=39710813 where someone had tested the Rodes and the Panasonic internal and external Mikes. Some of the tests were removed because the music infringed copyright, but there was enough there for me to decide that the Panasonic mike was quite a bit better than the internal mike and that the Rodes was a step above the external Panasonic. I think the Panasonic mike, being lightweight plastic would be good enough for most things and easier to have on the camera, but I found a Rodes 2nd hand on ebay for very litttle more cost, so have bought that. If I find it is too heavy for my use I'll sell it and get a Panasonic Mike.

I posted this question when the camera was new- now we have 6 months of it, can anyone recommend what microphone to get ?

I love the camera - the mice is the worst part of it- who would ever design a mike pointing vertical!!

I think I want a shotgun mike to collect audio from whatever the camera is videoing

Appreciate any suggestions

Rob

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"The world is so fast that there are days when the person who says it can't be done is interrupted by the person who is doing it."

I finally got a Panasonic LT55 telephoto lens and LA5 adapter for my Panasonic FZ150 camera. I took several photos of subjects near and far using a tripod and a remote switch. (I highly recommend a remote switch if you use a tripod!)

I took the photos with the camera's "Conversion" setting set to telephoto lens. This automatically zooms the camera lens out to its maximum 24x optical setting inside the LA5 adapter tube which screws directly onto the body of the camera. The LT55 lens then mounts on the end of the LA5 tube positioning it near the end of the camera's zoomed out lens. This setup keeps the weight of the telephoto lens off the camera zoom lens mechanism.

I took shots with the LT55 lens in place followed by trying to get equivalent shots using the FZ150's digital zoom feature only without the lens. While I tried to match shots exactly, you will notice my attempts are not perfect. However, I think you can see how the LT55 lens performed versus using digital zoom only. I used fine quality JPEG format for all shots. I have not made a comparison using RAW format yet.

I posted several comparisons on my Flickr site. The pictures taken using the LT55 lens have "lens" in the name. The equivalent pictures using digital zoom only have "dig" or "EZ" in the name.

Here is the link to the Flickr site with the lens versus digital comparison shots:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/smhamilton ... 354286184/

THE BOTTOM LINE is I could see little or no advantage in using the LT55 telephoto lens. I almost always got better pictures using the FZ150's digital zoom only. In fact, if you drop down from the maximum 12M picture size, you can take advantage of the "Extended Optical Zoom" (EZ) feature. This is supposed to digitally extend the camera's actual 24x optical zoom without “deterioration” in the picture quality. I have to say this certainly seems to be the case. I got much improved long distance pictures using this feature.

The only time I thought the LT55 lens improved the picture is in the case where I also added digital zoom to get a total magnification of about 108x. Matching the same magnification using digital only was not as good. Pictures 452 and 455 in the Flickr site are an example of this. Mt. Baldy is about 9 miles away.

Earlier I had tested a Digital Optics 2.2x lens. The Panasonic LT55 lens is better, but still not up to the quality you should expect in my opinion.

I hope somebody can tell me if I am doing something wrong so I can get better results!

MORE INFO ADDED (4/5/12):
I have found that the LT55 lens does improve pictures when you go beyond the Extended Optical Zoom (EZ) offered by the FZ150 in reduced picture size settings. I started using a setting of 16:9 aspect ratio with a 6MEZ picture size. With this setting, EZ goes to about 40x. Total zoom power is hard to determine. I have found that what the camera says when zooming and what the zoom is based on 35mm focal length shown in the picture properties don't seem to match. AND, the amount of digital zoom is only given to the nearest tenth. Also, I question if the LT55 lens is really giving 1.7x when mounted using the LA5 adapter.

Let me try to explain what I did a little better. I mounted the LT55 lens and let the camera zoom out to the EZ of 40x using the above settings. The resulting picture should be about 68x total zoom. Then I removed the lens and added digital zoom to the EZ of 40x to get a matching picture size to the one taken with the lens. When comparing those two pictures, the picture with lens seems to be better. This tells me the lens does a better job then digital zoom by itself, which is what one would expect. However, if you take pictures where the desired total zoom falls within the Extended Optical Zoom (EZ) or Intelligent Zoom range, then the camera does better without the lens I believe.

I have added comparisons to my Flickr site above for you to review.


MORE ZOOM EXAMPLES - YELLOWSTONE PARK (6/9/12)
I added few more examples of pictures taken to my Flickr site. Pictures pairs 2 & 3 and 4 & 5 show pretty spectacular (I think) examples of the zoom capability of the camera going from 1X to 32X (iZoom). It was cool and windy which made it clear.

The rest are samples of shots I took along the way. As I said, it was windy, so some shots were really hard to get, especially when using full zoom. The camera actually picked up more than I could see when taking some of the pictures and they turned out better than I expected. See Flickr link below:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/smhamilton ... 097164086/

Further discovery -- in order to lock the Focus in memory I have to put the camera slider switch on Manual Focus, zoom in on the subject, and hold down the Focus button *until the indicator turns green.* Then I can zoom back out to whatever framing I want, and turn the camera off until the shot is set up. Then, when I turn the camera back on, it immediately goes back to the pre-established Zoom and Focus settings. Neglecting to hold the Focus button until the green will result in the camera going back to the same zoom, but not the same focus. Found that out the hard way. <wry grin>

Initially, i accidently posted this message on the main Panasonic page, thinking the "new topic" button meant within the FZ150 thread:


Love this site, there's a good air here. Seeing the images in Gordon's tests brings back memories of holiday times in the 70's. Been away from Kiwiland for almost 30 years now, so those scenes strike a chord.

Right now i'm in Germany, and can't find a FZ150 in stock in any of the towns in this area, so I hope I can get some help from someone who owns one. I actually purchased one online a couple of weeks ago, but had to send it back cos i couldn't get my eye close enough to the EVF to see the whole display, due to the fact that i have to wear specs all the time to cope with a bit of astigmatism. My web searches haven't turned up any complaints about this phenomenon, so i an hoping it was just the unit i received which was at fault. i could test this by ordering another one online, but don't want to give another vendor the hassle of having to deal with a return if it doesn't work out again. Maybe my eyes are deeper set than the average bloke's?

The camera i tried was a UK version FZ150 EB-K, but i don't suppose the EVF is different than other versions.

If anyone has some experience with this issue i would be happy to hear from you.
Cheers

had2b - what I've discovered with the FZ150 is that I actually prefer to use the LCD screen -

I've ALWAYS preferred to use the optical viewfinder in every camera I've had, but this LCD screen is really good - it can be twisted to any position, works in bright sunlight far better than any other screen I've used - I haven't used the viewfinder since about 2 days after getting the camera. I wear glasses and I am short sighted, one eye is -9 the other -7.

As a test for you, I just fired the camera up and looked through the viewfinder. My glasses were pressed against the viewfinder and my nose was hard up against the back of the camera, not comfortable, but seemed much the same as other cameras.

The viewfinder extends backwards 10mm from the back of the camera, but if you open out the lcd screen, that almost doubles the distance for your nose to about 19mm
You can switch the LCD off even when it's open. Don't forget to adjust the viewfinder to your eyesight with the wheel on LH side of viewfinder.

I have had my FZ150 since October. I did 3 months of research and I'm very happy with the photos and extremely happy with the video quality. I still read reports on the camera - eventually another make will be better but at the moment it does seem to be the best bridge/superzoom.

Rob

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"The world is so fast that there are days when the person who says it can't be done is interrupted by the person who is doing it."

Thanks for checking it out Stingraynut. I agree that the LCD is a very good one, but i have a problem viewing that also. I wear vari-focal lenses which correct for astigmatism at all distances plus add a bit of magnification for near vision situations. This magnification only kicks in (gradually) when i look thru the bottom of my lenses. To see the LCD screen sharply i must hold the camera 30-40cm away in a position as if it were a book near my lap, either that or tilt my head back at an uncomfortable angle while holding the camera at head height. I have difficulty with composing the shot if i try these methods, also the stabilization factor of having the camera pressed against my face is lost.

If Panasonic hadn't masked off most of the available window area of the EVF there would have been no problem for us. Then we wouldn't have to press our specs against the housing, thus avoiding the lens scratching that occurs if the lenses are the common polycarbonate type, as mine are. Look carefully at the EVF and you will see what i mean about the masking.

Greetings!

Thanks as always for your review of this camera Gordon. Do you get any sleep at night? You seem so busy on here all the time. Anyway, this camera finally looks like the answer to my dreams. I've been looking for a new camera for a while now because my photography has been changing over recent years. I still shoot landscapes but, perhaps as a side-effect of living in the country, I'm leaning more & more towards wildlife shots. I can't afford the kind of lenses I'd need to pair with my D80 for this kind of workand so have been hoping for a bridge style camera which ticked one very important box - the ability to shoot in RAW mode. After becoming fairly proficient with Photoshop over the years I just couldn't contemplate going back to deal with jpeg's and so this camera suddenly looms large. I do appreciate that the images it produces might not be as crisp as I'm used to with my SLR but it's the difference between getting the shot and not. It's that simple.

I have questions

What's the optimum memory card for this camera? I don't envisage a lot of video work but you never know. It's not an option I've ever had before.

How long does the battery last on a single charge and what type of battery does it use?

zorro.

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http://zorrofox4.deviantart.com/



Various lenses, SB800 & Manfrotto 190 with 460MG head