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Panasonic DMC-FZ20



 
 
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  #1  
Old March 16th 05, 09:20 PM
Rob
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Default Panasonic DMC-FZ20

Just bought the DMC-FZ20 to replace a Fuji FP4900Zoom and the inital
impressions are interesting. Firstly, it makes me realise how
advanced the 4900Zoom was in 2000 when it was introduced.
The 4900Zoom ergonomics were/are excellent - although the FZ20 is
good, I find the location of the EVF a strange one being at the far
left side of the camera - the LCD gets smudged by ones nose!!
The Fuji has one more choice of file compression in the highest
resolution, it also had 2 locations to operate the zoom.
Fuji has little things like a lanyard on the lens cap and a dedicated
case which used the camera strap, and not another strap on the case.
The FZ20 does however that amazing stabilised Leica lens and the
double the zoom of the Fuji.
I wait with interest the quality of some pics - first impressions are
good.
  #2  
Old March 16th 05, 10:38 PM
Pete Fenelon
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Rob wrote:
Fuji has little things like a lanyard on the lens cap


My main quibble with the FZs, apart from the terrible neck strap!

pete
--
"Send lawyers, guns and money...."
  #4  
Old March 17th 05, 06:27 PM
YAnewswatcher
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In article , Pete Fenelon
wrote:

Fuji has little things like a lanyard on the lens cap


My main quibble with the FZs, apart from the terrible neck strap!


Can't you buy little stick-on lanyards?

I leave the lens adaptor/hood on semi-permanently and have replaced the
supplies cap with a generic 72mm one.

--
YAnewsWatcher.
  #5  
Old March 17th 05, 06:57 PM
measekite
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Is the Panasonic FZ20, overall, the best Point and Shoot 5-7MP camera on
the market today. Is 5MP enough to do a 30% to 40% crop and print a
sharp 8.5x11?

Is the Leica lense on the Panasonic that much better than the
competition? I do know of Leica's reputation on cameras and their own
slr lenses.

YAnewswatcher wrote:

In article , Pete Fenelon
wrote:



Fuji has little things like a lanyard on the lens cap


My main quibble with the FZs, apart from the terrible neck strap!



Can't you buy little stick-on lanyards?

I leave the lens adaptor/hood on semi-permanently and have replaced the
supplies cap with a generic 72mm one.



  #6  
Old March 17th 05, 08:45 PM
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measekite wrote:
Is the Panasonic FZ20, overall, the best Point and Shoot 5-7MP camera

on
the market today. Is 5MP enough to do a 30% to 40% crop and print a
sharp 8.5x11?


Do not know.

Is the Leica lense on the Panasonic that much better than the
competition? I do know of Leica's reputation on cameras and their

own
slr lenses.


Believe so - the comparison resolution pics at dpreview.com shows that
it resolves to greater detail than some of the opposition. See
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/panasonicfz20/page8.asp.

  #7  
Old March 17th 05, 10:23 PM
David J Taylor
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measekite wrote:
Is the Panasonic FZ20, overall, the best Point and Shoot 5-7MP camera
on the market today.


It depend what you want to do with it! Do you want very wide-angle
shooting, an articulated LCD, a very small camera, or 640 x 480 movies?
Then, no, as it doesn't offer those features. Do you want an image
stabilised long zoom camera with a top-quality f/2.8 lens? Then yes.

Is 5MP enough to do a 30% to 40% crop and print a sharp 8.5x11?


Your question about prints begs the question: what do you mean by sharp?
I have seen good A4 sized prints from 3.2MP cameras, so cropping 35% of
the pixels from a 5MP image should be OK. That's a 17% linear crop.

David


  #8  
Old March 18th 05, 03:37 AM
Ken
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"Pete Fenelon" wrote in message ...
Rob wrote:
Fuji has little things like a lanyard on the lens cap


My main quibble with the FZs, apart from the terrible neck strap!


I hope you didn't buy it just for the neck strap. You forgot to snipe about
the off center tripod hole and the lack of a swivel LCD. I personally bought
it for the quality of the optics, the IS and the beautiful f2.8 12x zoom lens.
I can forgive them the mediocre neck strap and the lack of lens cap tether.


  #9  
Old March 18th 05, 12:33 PM
Michael Meissner
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"Ken" writes:

"Pete Fenelon" wrote in message ...
Rob wrote:
Fuji has little things like a lanyard on the lens cap


My main quibble with the FZs, apart from the terrible neck strap!


I hope you didn't buy it just for the neck strap. You forgot to snipe about
the off center tripod hole and the lack of a swivel LCD. I personally bought
it for the quality of the optics, the IS and the beautiful f2.8 12x zoom
lens. I can forgive them the mediocre neck strap and the lack of lens cap
tether.


My main quibble has always been the external flash interface -- when you shoot
in manual mode (which you need to do with non-TTL flashes), the EVF/LCD
reflects the actual aperture you select (ie, f/4, f/5.6, etc.) which means it
is very dark, and hard to frame.

A secondary quibble is the placement of the memory door in the battery
compartment, which means you have to remove the camera from the flash bracket
or tripod just to change memory cards. Having the tripod screw that close to
the battery door means you can't use any of the standard quick release
adaptors.

It also would be nice to have a less aggresive JPG compression.

--
Michael Meissner
email:
http://www.the-meissners.org
  #10  
Old March 18th 05, 04:05 PM
Ken
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"Michael Meissner" wrote in message ...

My main quibble has always been the external flash interface -- when you shoot
in manual mode (which you need to do with non-TTL flashes), the EVF/LCD
reflects the actual aperture you select (ie, f/4, f/5.6, etc.) which means it
is very dark, and hard to frame.


Yes, it would be nice if the display gained up in low light situations. The darkend display
is actually a design "feature" that backfired on them.

A secondary quibble is the placement of the memory door in the battery
compartment, which means you have to remove the camera from the flash bracket
or tripod just to change memory cards. Having the tripod screw that close to
the battery door means you can't use any of the standard quick release
adaptors.


I solved the tripod hole problem by making a simple adapter. I can keep a tripod quick release
plate on the camera and still change the battery or memory card. Still have to take the camera
off the tripod but at least I don't have to remove the quick release plate.

http://ken.smugmug.com/photos/17316489-L.jpg

There is a guy on ebay that is selling a FZ-20 tripod adapter for $12. Not quite as versatile
as the one I designed but better than nothing.

http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZrobobear


 




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