Doug Kerr
Well-known member
Our new Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200 arrived last evening about 7:00 pm (we are near the end of the Alamogordo UPS truck route).
Most of our work with it last night was devoted to functional testing (how is the EVF, various response speed issues, etc.). There was essentially no shooting that would lead to image quality assessments (that will begin this morning).
Overall we are well impressed by the machine.
It is almost exactly the size of our Canon Powershot SX20 and just a little lighter.
The user interface is well organized, and in many ways quite superior to that of the SX20.
The EVF is superb. It uses a field-sequential approach to "tricolor" display, and so there might be some color ghosting in some situations; we we have not yet seen any of this.
The display panel is very nice too. It fully articulates. When facing forward (for "selfies"), the image reverses, making it act like a mirror. I don't prefer that, but that's because I am used to dealing with orientation challenges. I think that feature cannot be canceled (but I'm not sure).
Shutter release time (an important factor here) is very short (even considering the matter of finder lag). Shot-to-shot time (reported as 0.85 s) seems to be about that. As I had suspected, by putting the machine into a burst mode (there is a dedicated button for that), one can then fire individual shots at much closer intervals.
The onboard flash recharges fairly quickly for "close" shots (although we will probably use an external flash much of the time—likely a Metz 24A-1, which comes in a version dedicated to the Olympus/Panasonic/Leica interface).
I have never liked motorized zoom control, but this machine has a pretty good one, with a nice user interface feature: in addition to the traditional swing arm around the shutter release button, there is also a slide bar on the lens mount. (In manual focus mode, one can have that be the focus control, while we zoom with the regular "swing arm".)
The rear control wheel (often reported to be "spongy") seems pretty snappy in our copy. It has a "push in" aspect, which can be used to change what parameter it sets, or to make it do exposure compensation setting.
The menu system seems pretty nice.
One review complained about the time to switch to "play" from "record" (shoot) as being about three seconds, but I suspect there is a decimal point awry there; the change is pretty snappy.
Unlike on the SX20, if one is shooting with the EVF, the default for "play" is the display panel (often most appropriate). But if we want to review the shots in the EVF, we can easily switch to that, and once we have done that a couple of times, the machine makes that the default.
The machine comes with a nice lens hood; of course it is the common "petal" design, so it is pretty useless with respect to errant light coming in from diagonal directions.
More later.
Best regards,
Doug
Most of our work with it last night was devoted to functional testing (how is the EVF, various response speed issues, etc.). There was essentially no shooting that would lead to image quality assessments (that will begin this morning).
Overall we are well impressed by the machine.
It is almost exactly the size of our Canon Powershot SX20 and just a little lighter.
The user interface is well organized, and in many ways quite superior to that of the SX20.
The EVF is superb. It uses a field-sequential approach to "tricolor" display, and so there might be some color ghosting in some situations; we we have not yet seen any of this.
The display panel is very nice too. It fully articulates. When facing forward (for "selfies"), the image reverses, making it act like a mirror. I don't prefer that, but that's because I am used to dealing with orientation challenges. I think that feature cannot be canceled (but I'm not sure).
Shutter release time (an important factor here) is very short (even considering the matter of finder lag). Shot-to-shot time (reported as 0.85 s) seems to be about that. As I had suspected, by putting the machine into a burst mode (there is a dedicated button for that), one can then fire individual shots at much closer intervals.
The onboard flash recharges fairly quickly for "close" shots (although we will probably use an external flash much of the time—likely a Metz 24A-1, which comes in a version dedicated to the Olympus/Panasonic/Leica interface).
I have never liked motorized zoom control, but this machine has a pretty good one, with a nice user interface feature: in addition to the traditional swing arm around the shutter release button, there is also a slide bar on the lens mount. (In manual focus mode, one can have that be the focus control, while we zoom with the regular "swing arm".)
The rear control wheel (often reported to be "spongy") seems pretty snappy in our copy. It has a "push in" aspect, which can be used to change what parameter it sets, or to make it do exposure compensation setting.
The menu system seems pretty nice.
One review complained about the time to switch to "play" from "record" (shoot) as being about three seconds, but I suspect there is a decimal point awry there; the change is pretty snappy.
Unlike on the SX20, if one is shooting with the EVF, the default for "play" is the display panel (often most appropriate). But if we want to review the shots in the EVF, we can easily switch to that, and once we have done that a couple of times, the machine makes that the default.
The machine comes with a nice lens hood; of course it is the common "petal" design, so it is pretty useless with respect to errant light coming in from diagonal directions.
More later.
Best regards,
Doug