Jan Böhme wrote:
I recently bought a Panasonic FZ20, which I, by and large, am very
pleased with. (Blown highlights seem much more of a problem than with
my CP995, but they seem to be minimised by setting "Contrast" to low,
and exposure compensation to -2/3 when photographing essentially any
subject in sunlight.)

But one remaining peeve is that my camera behaves in a way that seems
illogic to me at high shutter speeds. Maximal shutter speed in all
modes other than shutter priority is 1/1000. In shutter priority, one
can go up to 1/2000.

However, as one decreases the shutter time beyound 1/1000, an aperture
limit is introduced. At 1/1300, the widest accepted aperture is f4.0,
at 1/1600, it is f5.6, and at 2000, it is f8.0, the minimal aperture
of the camera. The manual - at least my Swedish version - doesn't say
a word about any such aperture limitations when it discusses the
shutter priority mode, though.

To me, this means that two of the three possible uses for high shutter
speeds are disabled. You can´t use it to get a shallow DOF at high
light intensity, and you can't use it to stop a very fast movement in
less-than-very-intense light. The only thing that remains is the
capacity to take properly exposed photos in very intense light - which
would have been equally well catered for by instead including an f11
aperture and doing away with the 1/1000+ shutter times altogether.

Is this the way the camera is supposed to work - which means that I
basically should regard it as a camera with 1/1000 as its fastest
shutter speed and some limited additional capacity to expose properly
in very intense light - or should I complain to the vendor?

And if it is the intended way it works, does anyone kow why on earth
this is so? Is it there in the FZ5? And is there, by any chance,
hacked firmwares around also for the Panasonic FZ series? :-)

I think the FZ5 is similar. My guess is that there is a physical limit to
how fast the aperture can be stopped down, which can limit the shutter
speed with small apertures (where the aperture has its greatest movement
from fully open to stopped down). Won't a neutral-density filter help
with the DoF issue? The problem with including apertures lower than f/8
is that diffraction starts to be an issue, and the resulting image will be
less sharp.

I think you can get an English language manual he
http://panasonic.com.au/content/libr...es/F000741.pdf

Does the camera work as described in the specifications? If so, it's not
faulty.

I haven't heard of any hacked firmware.

Cheers,
David