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#1
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FZ30 review
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#2
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In article ,
"David J Taylor" wrote: http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/pa...ew/index.shtml I just read the review and NNGGGAAAAAAAA!!!! How could Panasonic make such a mistake? They've mounted the flip & swivel viewfinder with its hinge at the bottom fer crissake!! Flip & swivel viewfinders are a very useful extra, with three particular uses: photos above your head, from waist-level and from in front of the camera. The Canon S2 IS for example works beautifully in all these situations. Especially in the latter, where the remote or delayed shutter allows you to pose in your own photos, as seen from the viewfinder swung to the side. So why the hell did Panasonic put the hinge at the bottom, directly in line with the tripod socket*, blocking any view of the flipped screen from the front? Siiiigh! Does this mean I have to wait for the FZ40? -- .....NewsDroid * I guess we can be thankful the socket is in line with the lens. |
#3
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NewsDroid wrote:
In article , "David J Taylor" wrote: http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/pa...ew/index.shtml I just read the review and NNGGGAAAAAAAA!!!! How could Panasonic make such a mistake? They've mounted the flip & swivel viewfinder with its hinge at the bottom fer crissake!! Flip & swivel viewfinders are a very useful extra, with three particular uses: photos above your head, from waist-level and from in front of the camera. The Canon S2 IS for example works beautifully in all these situations. Especially in the latter, where the remote or delayed shutter allows you to pose in your own photos, as seen from the viewfinder swung to the side. So why the hell did Panasonic put the hinge at the bottom, directly in line with the tripod socket*, blocking any view of the flipped screen from the front? Siiiigh! Does this mean I have to wait for the FZ40? It's not completely clear from the illustrations at DP Review: http://www.dpreview.com/articles/pan...fz30/page4.asp but the LCD appears to swing down /and/ twist, so it should be fine for waist-level and overhead work, although not from the front of the camera. Cheers, David |
#4
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NewsDroid wrote: In article , "David J Taylor" wrote: http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/pa...ew/index.shtml I just read the review and NNGGGAAAAAAAA!!!! How could Panasonic make such a mistake? They've mounted the flip & swivel viewfinder with its hinge at the bottom fer crissake!! It is an unlucky position, and they have compounded the problem by only allowing it to flip out 120 degrees. If they had allowed it to flip down 180 degrees, the LCD would have been visible from the front at some angles of view. Flip & swivel viewfinders are a very useful extra, with three particular uses: photos above your head, from waist-level and from in front of the camera. The Canon S2 IS for example works beautifully in all these situations. Especially in the latter, where the remote or delayed shutter allows you to pose in your own photos, as seen from the viewfinder swung to the side. I'd say there are actually five distinct photographicc uses, only one of which is really killed by Pana's hinging. 1) Photos above your head. 2) Photos taken with an arm stretched out to the side. 3) waist-level shooting 4) Candid shooting without the subject realising that you point the camera at them 5) Photos composed from in front of the camera. (In addition, there is the extra advantage of being able to protect your LCD screen by turning it inwards when you don't need it - which is most of the time, really. Also this feature is enabled by a bottom hinging.) 1) and 2) are clearly different uses. With my swivel-body Nikon CP995, I can easily do 1) but not 2). Why would anybody want to do 2) ? Well, the other day I spotted an unusually big and beautiful Great Green Bush-Cricet (Tettigonia viridissima) sitting on a pole supporting a wooden getty. I got a nice photo of it with my FZ20, but only slightly from behind. In order to get the perfect side wiew, I would have had to float in the air one yard outside the getty, above the water - which unfortunately is beyond my powers. If I would have been able to flip out a flip-and-twist LCD, and hold the camera in my stretched out left hand, I would have gained almost all of that extra yard needed to get the perfect angle of wiew - I'm six foot three from fingertip to fingertip, so I have a decent reach. I probably would have needed a couple of exposures to be certain that I got one right, but the cricket was sitting there basking peacefully in the sun, and obvoiusly not bothered by my presence at the minimal focussing distance for the FZ20's full zoom, so that wouldn't have been a problem. Also 3) and 4) are different uses. To do 3), it is enough with an additional fixed LCD on top of the camera (there is one such camera on the market now, only I can't remember which one). For 4) you need at least a swivel function such as that on the swivel-body camera such as the CP995. However, I have to admit that I personally have never managed to look even half-decent in a photo that I have composed myself, so I actually prefer to let the rest of the family take photos of me - even though I am by far the most experienced photographer in the family. So the incapacity of framing photos from in front would seem as a rather expendable feature to me, personally. But I still fully agree with you. If Panasonic actually take the trouble to include a tilt-and-swivel LCD, why not include the proper kind? Jan B=F6hme |
#5
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NewsDroid wrote:
Siiiigh! Does this mean I have to wait for the FZ40? Sorry, should have included this in my previous post: The best reason to wait for the FZ40 s probably that it hopefully will contain a CCD with a better signal-to noise ratio. Now that they've fixed essentially all the other user's complaints about the FZ20, what else is there to fix, really? This said, I notice that the f2.8-3.7 zoom of the FZ30 is a bit slower than I had hoped. Apparently, it is only f2.8 below the 50 mm equivalent focal length. Above, it directly jumps up to f3.2. Which makes the low useful sensitivity of the FZ30 a bit more of a problem than it was on the FZ20. And for all of us wildlife shooting tele freaks, those three quarters of a stop that they have robbed us of at full zoom are pretty precious. I don't think that an FZ30 will be very suited to attach my Raynox DCR-2020 to. Actually, considering that it a) needs to be stopped down considerably (at least from f2.8 to f4.6) at anything like high constrast conditions in order to even start to reduce (not avoid) CA, and b) that it seems, at least in my hands, as if the image stabilisation isn't as efficient with it on, I'd say it is just borderline useful with my FZ20 as it is. So the FZ30 would need another stop of useful ISO sensitivity just to come on par with the FZ20 for the teleconverter crowd. In order to be better, it would need another two useful stops. OTOH, exactly those two useful stops is what is claimed for the new Fuji sensor... Jan B=F6hme |
#6
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NewsDroid wrote:
In article , "David J Taylor" wrote: http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/pa...ew/index.shtml I just read the review and NNGGGAAAAAAAA!!!! How could Panasonic make such a mistake? They've mounted the flip & swivel viewfinder with its hinge at the bottom fer crissake!! Flip & swivel viewfinders are a very useful extra, with three particular uses: photos above your head, from waist-level and from in front of the camera. The Canon S2 IS for example works beautifully in all these situations. Especially in the latter, where the remote or delayed shutter allows you to pose in your own photos, as seen from the viewfinder swung to the side. So why the hell did Panasonic put the hinge at the bottom, directly in line with the tripod socket*, blocking any view of the flipped screen from the front? Siiiigh! Does this mean I have to wait for the FZ40? -- ....NewsDroid * I guess we can be thankful the socket is in line with the lens. Well, I was far less disappointed in the swivel LCD than I was in the image quality of the samples. The reviewer's notes also talk about this -- just as I had suspected, this camera is too noisy. Darn...I was really looking forward to this camera. From a form & function perspective, it seems near perfect. I can't buy a camera that is going to deliver sub-par performance, however. I don't buy the argument that when printing 4x6 photos, the noise isn't an issue. Who can tell ahead of time which photo you might want to enlarge to 8x10? Guess I have to keep looking :-( -Chris |
#7
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#8
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On 22 Aug 2005 02:16:40 -0700, "Jan Böhme" wrote:
(In addition, there is the extra advantage of being able to protect your LCD screen by turning it inwards when you don't need it - which is most of the time, really. Also this feature is enabled by a bottom hinging.) This is the one I consider important. Don www.donwiss.com (e-mail link at home page bottom). |
#10
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"Jan Böhme" wrote in message oups.com...
NewsDroid wrote: Siiiigh! Does this mean I have to wait for the FZ40? Sorry, should have included this in my previous post: The best reason to wait for the FZ40 s probably that it hopefully will contain a CCD with a better signal-to noise ratio. I couldn't agree more. 8MP on a 1/1.8" sensor is just insane. It was too much for a 2/3" sensor for chrissakes, what is Panasonic thinking? |
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