Why I got a FZ30 and no other camera

[chip_de]

... and about macro + S9500: It can get as close as 1 cm, but that's at max wide angle as well!

[chip_de]

@tiger98

That are really great pictures of the planes , I wouldn't have thought that was possible with that cam. But as you showed us, it is!

Maybe I'll post some macro shots with the raynox soon.

[chip_de]

Inspired by your discussion, I just posted some macro shots with the converter here:

http://www.stevesforums.com/forums/v...mp;forum_id=23

:shock:

[carloswoz]

Much thanks about your review. It helps me much. Anyway I'm still not completely convinced. I'm looking for a camera and thinking about few : FZ30, s9500 and EOS 350. As for now I'm closer to FZ30 than Fuji ( I was also thinking about pro815, but I have stopped:idea. What about FZ30 and EOS350D here is more difficult choice. Of course price- EOS with nice glasses cost much more. Sometimes I need also to make some movie. But at the other side I'm making many shots on weddings. In churches light conditions are rather not very good and here EOD would be probably better -what all of you think? Have anyone been making shots on weddings using these cameras? What's your opinions? Formats of photos I'm printing are not bigger than 20x30cm and the most of them are rather smaller (15x21cm).

And if I didn't need such a big zoom range...maybe better would be Sony R1?

What about external flash for FZ30? Maybe FZ30 with good flash would solve problems with low light condition, like these in churches? What flash would all of you advice me? Which one are you using? I'm asking because till now I was using Canon S1 that haven't got a possibility to use external flash. This camera was OK at the begginnig of my adventure with fotography, but now is not enough for me. I have read about few older extarnal flashes - vivitar and sunpack and also Panasonic DMW-FL28. What would you advice me?

I would really appreciate any of your adwices as you are probably more experienced photographers.

Thank you in advance

Carlosw

[eddie_kirst]

I'm quite happy using the Sunpak 383 flash with my FZ30. Its very powerful so might work well in Church. I mostly use it in smaller spaces and bounce the flash off the ceiling to get beautifully lit people pictures.

There is a learning curve to using an external flash on the FZ30, since it is nota TTL metering flash. Just takes reading the manual a couple of times and getting some experiementing time before you need to do a wedding.

Good luck,

Ed

[rduve]

carloswoz wrote:

Much thanks about your review. It helps me much. Anyway I'm still not completely convinced. I'm looking for a camera and thinking about few : FZ30, s9500 and EOS 350. As for now I'm closer to FZ30 than Fuji ( I was also thinking about pro815, but I have stopped:idea. What about FZ30 and EOS350D here is more difficult choice. Of course price- EOS with nice glasses cost much more. Sometimes I need also to make some movie. But at the other side I'm making many shots on weddings. In churches light conditions are rather not very good and here EOD would be probably better -what all of you think? Have anyone been making shots on weddings using these cameras? What's your opinions? Formats of photos I'm printing are not bigger than 20x30cm and the most of them are rather smaller (15x21cm).

And if I didn't need such a big zoom range...maybe better would be Sony R1?

What about external flash for FZ30? Maybe FZ30 with good flash would solve problems with low light condition, like these in churches? What flash would all of you advice me? Which one are you using? I'm asking because till now I was using Canon S1 that haven't got a possibility to use external flash. This camera was OK at the begginnig of my adventure with fotography, but now is not enough for me. I have read about few older extarnal flashes - vivitar and sunpack and also Panasonic DMW-FL28. What would you advice me?

I would really appreciate any of your adwices as you are probably more experienced photographers.

Thank you in advance

Carlosw

If you end up going with the FZ30, you definitely need a very powerful flash if you want to shoot inside churches. Especially if you are wedding photographer, you want it to be perfect. ISO 400 is just absolutely horrendous on this camera. If you check out the gallery here: http://www.dpreview.com/gallery/?gal...cfz30_samples/, and click on the last shot, you can see that thephoto at ISO 400 inside a church looks like it's a watercolor painting. Not usable for professional purposes.

I also recommend the Sunpak 383 (or 423, 433 or 443). It is powerful and not too overpriced. I got the one for my FZ20on ebay for $60 or so. However, you got to figure out the correct exposure manually which in a church will be probably be at the full aperture of 2.8 and 1/60 shutter speed.

If you are getting paid to shoot wedding pictures, I would go with the DSLR and the largest sensor and as many MP as you can afford. It is in those kind of photographs, enlargements of 30x40 or so, where the new Canon full size (24x36 mm) CMOS cameras show their prowess. And even the EOS 350D should produce a significantly superior image. But for most purposes, the FZ30 is a very able camera.

[W Tracy Parnell]

I agree completely with rduve. If you are serious about wedding photography (paid or unpaid) then you need a DSLR or at least a Sony R1 if you want to stick with digicams. In that type of photography you need to do available light shots and also have aTTL flash system. You would be looking at at least a Digital Rebel XT or something like that.

[kalak]

Unfortunately, the lack of TTL flash is one of the shortcomings of FZ30 (and Fuji S9500/S9000). For wedding photography, a DSLR would be better suited for the job, mostly for the available light photography. At the minimum, you need a camera with a powerful TTL flash (e.g. KM A200 has TTL flash and you have wide variety of OEM or 3rd party flash guns to choose from). Yes, you can use FZ30 with one of those auto flash or even use manual mode, but TTL flash would make your life a whole lot easier.

TTL flash allows you to use any aperture you select, balance the flash / ambient light ratio very quickly and easily with the flash exposure compensation, and automatically adjust exposure for any filters or bounce flash. And flash exposure is also more accurate with multi-segment metering (some systems even allow spot metering).

carloswoz wrote:

What about external flash for FZ30? Maybe FZ30 with good flash would solve problems with low light condition, like these in churches? What flash would all of you advice me? Which one are you using? I'm asking because till now I was using Canon S1 that haven't got a possibility to use external flash

[carloswoz]

And what DSLR can you advice me? I can afford only these lower cost as for now. I was thinking about EOS 350D as it has 8mln sensor and I'm many times cropping images, sometimes also very small part of the original one. 8mln sensor seems to be a minimum. I do not know much about DSLRs. What lenses can you advice me, as I have read that this one that is in the kit with body - 18-55mm are not very good glass. Maybe could give me any links that would be useful for a person that want to change from digital to DSLR?

Thanks in advance

Carlos

[rduve]

Go to the "Which camera should I buy?" forum: http://www.stevesforums.com/forums/view_forum.php?id=87, or other DSLR specific forums.