FZ7 first impressions

[bmccoy]

You asked for it so here it is. The room has only two lamps on and is very dark. I would normally never even think of not using flash in this situation. But no flash on this image, the camera selected ISO1600 f 3.3 and 1/15 sec. Full exif is preserved.

[fmoore]

bmccoy wrote:

the camera selected ISO1600 f 3.3 and 1/15 sec.

That's not all THAT bad and it was at 6x zoom to boot! What scene mode were you in? As I understand it, high sensitivity is only available in Scene Mode and the camera chooseseither iso800 or1600? What was the final out-of-camera resolution?

[bmccoy]

Yes, you select High Sensitivity mode from the scene menu. Then you can use the joystick to select Auto, 800 or 1600 when taking pictures. This was a full 6mp image to start with. I don't have the image with me now but I'll try to post a 100% crop later. What area of the photo would you like to see?

-Brett


P.S. None of these photos have been "touched up" I want to give a clear view of what I'm seeing right out of the camera. Also, the only change I made in the camera on images settings was to change the noise reduction setting to "low" all other settings are at factory default. Like the FZ20 you can change a lot of what the camera does for processing, I just haven't yet.

[fmoore]

bmccoy wrote:

Yes, you select High Sensitivity mode from the scene menu. Then you can use the joystick to select Auto, 800 or 1600 when taking pictures. This was a full 6mp image to start with.

I'm not really interested in a 100% crop on that. So you selected auto and the camera went to 1600. Is this available inall scene modes?

You say the original of the iso1600 was at full 6mp resolution. I was under the impression that iso800 and 1600 were at dcreased resolution; like maybe 4mp for 800 and 2mp for 1600. Not the case? Thanks for answering all these questions, Brett.

[bmccoy]

I believe it does an internal interpolation back to a full resolution size. I'll check the original when I get home it's on my laptop. I only had about five minutes before I had to leave for work so that test was a little rushed. Sorry if I'm causing confusion.

-Brett

[Smith]

bmccoy, thanks a lot for your samples. They really look not that bad, especially compared to dpreview samples with the same resolution...
100 crop of any area with small details in it would be nice.

Thanks a lot!

[steven766]

So Brett, How does this thing work on a pure auto mode? My wife will not want to touch anything except the on and zoom buttons. Also does the flash pop up onit's own, or is it like the Cannon S2 and you have to manually pop it? By the way great Pictures! Steven

[bmccoy]

steven766 wrote:

So Brett, How does this thing work on a pure auto mode? My wife will not want to touch anything except the on and zoom buttons. Also does the flash pop up onit's own, or is it like the Cannon S2 and you have to manually pop it? By the way great Pictures! Steven

I'm pretty sure the first pic at the top of the building are all in "P" mode. As with all the Panasonic FZ cameras you can leave it on P and just point zoom shoot. It works very well. There is even the heart mode or super simple mode that greatly reduced the menu system so as not to intimidate. If she can use an SLR in auto mode then this would be no problem. The flash must be manually opened for use. I MUCH prefer it that way!

All that being said my wife is still uncomfortable with it. I will be looking at the TZ1 in the future as a camera for her and my son. But for me the FZ7 was the way to go. Hope that helps.

-Brett

[fatalysis]

Notes from a 1st time Panasonic FZ series camera owner...

I just received my FZ7 from buydig.com (ordered it Sunday received it today through two day shipping). Right out of the box, my initial impression is that the quality of the camera is built well. The textured grip makes it really comfortable to hold the camera and take pictures with one hand if you really wanted to (I upgraded from an Olympuc C-740 where you really needed two hands to keep the camera steady because there was no image stabilization).

The LCD on this camera is huge! I'm still charging the battery, but I can't wait to see how images look on both the EVF and LCD.

As far as size goes,even though it's a tad bigger than the FZ5, the FZ7 is stillmore compact than the Canon S2 or the Sony H1. I wouldn't recommend carrying this in an oversizedjacket pocket for fear of damaging the LCD (did I mention that the LCD is huge!).

I'm really excited to take some pics once the battery charges up. And it's perfect timing that the camera came because I'm going to a hockey game tonight. For you Panasonic users out there, can you please recommend some settings I should set the camera to? I hope to snap a few pics using the 16 mb card supplied; my 1gb card is coming tomorrow. Thanks!

[bmccoy]

fatalysis wrote:

I'm really excited to take some pics once the battery charges up. And it's perfect timing that the camera came because I'm going to a hockey game tonight. For you Panasonic users out there, can you please recommend some settings I should set the camera to? I hope to snap a few pics using the 16 mb card supplied; my 1gb card is coming tomorrow. Thanks!

If you are stuck with the 16mb card I would suggest you set the camera for a lower rez maybe 3mp and use the extended zoom feature. Try out the high sensitivity mode and see if you can get some high shutter speeds to stop the action. Above all come back and post some results!!

-Brett