At 01:42 PM 2/22/2005 -0800, you wrote:
>At 10:29 AM 2/22/05 -0600, Joel W. wrote:
> ><snip>
> >
> >There are worse EVFs than the C-8080's. The Lumix FZ20's
> >EVF is generally regarded as one of the worst things about
> >it, but to me it is fine. I find the camera simpler to use
> >in manual mode than the C-8080 and it can then easily toggle
> >in grid overlays and other sorts of stuff or just remove
> >everything altogether but the scene itself.
> >
>Joel,
>
>Either on or off list could you speak more about the Lumix? Am curious if
>this may be the 'bridge' for me because of the image stabilization if all
>else is AOK. Your comments appreciated.
>Barry H
Sure Barry, and I've just discovered that Gene Wilburn is a Lumix guy
too. I hope he'll add his bits and that the list won't mind, since
Panasonic is a 4/3 partner, after all. ;^)
I got the FZ20 to cover telephoto stuff that I can't get with the
C-8080. I had originally thought I'd get one of the Olympus or Kodak
models with 10x optical zoom. Then I learned about the FZ3, which gets a
very nice review in dpreview and should be considered before you jump on
the FZ20, because it might just do all that you want. I decided on a Lumix
because of the image stabilization feature, which works very well, and the
slightly farther reach of the 12x zoom.
Interestingly, the camera works very well in manual mode. With live
histogram it is quite easy set exposure, and adjusting shutter speed and
aperture is very easy. Manual focusing is really sweet with that lens,
provided that you don't expect the EVF to give you exactly the same kind of
feedback as an SLR viewfinder. I've found that I like the manual modes
with it a lot because there is no AE lock such as one finds on Olympus
digicams. The shutter button locks both focus and exposure. What do you
do if you focus and exposure points are different? Not too good. But the
manual modes are more than a kludge. They are well-thought out and
actually a lot easier to use than the counterpart on the C-8080.
Menus are good and intuitive.
Here are my dislikes. Focusing is more difficult in low light than the
C-8080, which is not even that great in low light. The feel of the camera
is chinzier than any made by Olympus (but the camera is nevertheless
well-made). The camera supports only TIFF and JPG, not RAW. You'll need
a lot of SD cards if you shoot in TIFF, which always makes a jpg as well
when you shoot a TIFF (WHY?). Auto white balance works pretty well and
custom WB is easy to set. The preset WB settings (cloudy, sunny, etc.) can
seem a bit off. I just use auto or set a custom WB. The camera comes with
an adapter made to take 72mm filters and a Leica teleconverter that costs
as much as the camera. This stock adapter was a non-starter for me and I
purchased a Phayee adapter from a guy in Hong Kong through eBay. This
adapter is a beautiful piece of work and has 62mm threads. There are
several different TCs that work well with the lens to get you out anywhere
from 1.4x to 1.9x. One of the Olympus TCON-17s works very well from what I
have read.
It is apparently not for use much above ISO 100 unless you really need the
speed. There will be noise at higher speeds. I have not used the camera
above 100 yet. It hasn't really been necessary because of IS. (I can
easily shoot crisp handheld shots of =435mm at 1/125.) Noise has not been
an issue for me as yet.
I intend to use it when soccor gets going again around here in April. I'm
not expecting it to do a great job following the action, but it reportedly
does quite well in burst mode. It writes to the card very quickly.
The lens is fantastic. In the final analysis, I don't think the capture
quite matches the C-8080 in sheer quality, but it is very very good.
Hope this helps for starters.
Joel W.
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