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The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
As you may know, I have planned to acquire a camera to be used for the preponderance of my shooting. Today, I mostly use a Canon EOS 40D equipped with a Canon EF 18-200 mm IS zoom lens.

This rig is too bulky and heavy to suit my current outlook. Among other things, Carla points out that:

• We can't keep it on the console in the front of the car.
• At a banquet, we have to reserve a separate place at the table for it to sit.

Our search for a successor rig followed our customary combination of intense technical study followed by intuitive and emotional choice. This time, the spinning bottle ended up pointing at the Panasonic DMC-FZ200. One is already on its way.

This is a "baby SLR-oid" package with a 7.7 mm, 12 M sensel sensor (maximum output resolution 4000 px × 3000 px). It looks like this:

Z_fz200_beauty-s.JPG


Panasonic DMC-SZ200 (image from The Imaging Resource)​

It is not a "pocket" machine.

Factors that led to this choice included:

• The camera has a non-interchangeable Leica-badged lens with a ff35 equivalent focal length range of 25-600 mm and a constant maximum aperture of f/2.8. (The long end there is perhaps more than we need, but hopefully is not too greatly at the expense of optical performance.)

• The camera is equipped with a 430 k pixel electronic viewfinder, which said to be superb. (For us, a viewfinder is a necessity, and I am a big fan of EVFs.)

• The time-to-fire from "half press" (prefocus) has been reported at 11 ms. (This is a very important factor to us.) Non-burst shot-to-shot time is reported at 850 ms, not too bad for a machine of this class. Burst rate with full AF and exposure update is 5 fr/sec; about 10 fr/sec with AF and exposure frozen.

We recognize that the fairly small sensor will likely lead to modest image performance. We do not see this as a disadvantage, as most of our work ends up in blogs or on other Web sites, or printed at perhaps 3.5" × 5". But this is the biggest gamble.

By the way, essentially this same camera is available as the Leica V-LUX 4, for those who want to spend USD 500 more for a red dot.

And in that regard, we ordered our camera from Amazon.com at USD 499.00 (shipping is free for us; we have a yearly "subscription" to that end).

We have no flash unit to collaborate with the new machine, and the civilized Panasonic units are pretty expensive. We may look into "third party" units. (The camera has a built-in "pop-up" flash, but it is of limited potency and is not too fast to recharge.)

We'll let you know how the new machine does.

Best regards,

Doug
 

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
Hi Doug,

I am glad to hear that you have found an acceptable solution eventually. I will be looking forward to seeing some samples from this nifty camera.

....
We'll let you know how the new machine does.
The funny thing is, we call a camera in Turkish -literaly translated- a "photograph machine". It is interesting to hear the word machine used in the same context in English. :)
 

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
As near as we can reckon from various things said in test reports, the guide number of the onboard flash system in the DMC-fZ200 is about 7 m (ISO 100). That is pretty feeble (but typical for such things).

We plan to get a Metz Megablitz 24AF-1-OPL (Olympus-Panasonic-Leica dedication) flash unit. It has a rated guide number (ISO 100) of 24 m. (That is 11 times the luminous output of the onboard flash system.) It has a tilt capability for bounce (not too elegant, I must say). Its size should be a good match for the camera.

It will cost about USD 90.00.

Best regards,

Doug
 
Hi Doug,

I am glad to hear that you have found an acceptable solution eventually. I will be looking forward to seeing some samples from this nifty camera.

Yes, looking forward to Doug's findings. I've recommended Panasonic Lumix cameras to some of my friends in the past, also for specific shooting scenarios.

The funny thing is, we call a camera in Turkish -literaly translated- a "photograph machine". It is interesting to hear the word machine used in the same context in English. :)

Interesting, in Dutch it is a "fototoestel", a 'photo appliance' or 'photo apparatus'.

Cheers,
Bart
 

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
Hi, Cem,

The funny thing is, we call a camera in Turkish -literaly translated- a "photograph machine". It is interesting to hear the word machine used in the same context in English. :)

Interesting. Thanks for that insight.

My habit comes in part from my background in telephone switching, where years ago the switching systems were formally called "switching machines", and it was common in a equipment building for someone going to the switching system are to say "I'll going to the machine".

(Today, the systems are commonly called "switches" - not by me.)

During the early days of automation of the US telephone network, "dial" service (as contrasted with the use of manual switchboards) was spoken of as "machine switching".

I worked once with an engineer whose expertise was in microwave links for telecommunication, and he would refer to a transmitter-receiver assembly as "the machine".

Best regards,

Doug
 
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