Panasonic DMC-FZ50

mjcairney

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I have just returned from a holiday in Tenerife where I was sorely tempted to treat myself to a Panasonic DMC-FZ50 camera but decided that I would wait and do some homework into it before making the purchase, even though it will cost me more to buy here than it would have in Tenerife.

I have looked at a few Internet Review sites and they all seem to rate it pretty highly but I wonder what people here think of it? If you have one, or detailed knowledge of it, I would really appreciate your thoughts on it.

Thanks for reading this.

Cheers,

Martin.
 
:smashin: I think it is a great camera its my first digital & still getting use to all the settings etc. A good one to start with before you upgrade to the big boys stuff.
 
Hi Martin, my dad has just bought an FZ50 and is raving about it! He's on holiday at the moment but has promised me a test drive with it as it is a bit on the 'large size'. The 12x zoom is fantastic i have seen a shot that he's done at a distance of 90 feet+ of a squirel on the lawn, then cropped the squirrel in the shot which he blew up and is now his 19" screen saver! with absolutely no distortion. The quality is just amazing, i think, but obviously i am a true novice with high hopes for theat certain shot one day !!!! Vonnie
 
Some discussion forumns moan about picture noise at high ASA settings and the smoothing that the venus engine does which soffens up the picture. One cure is to set smoothing to low which I've done.

The image stabilization can be amazing so you can take very low light pictures which in fil turns you'd never get away with.

There is a new prosumer Panasonic DSLR due out soon BTW.
 
Thanks for that terryb - yes, I've read about the picture noise at the higher ISO settings but doubt that it would present me with a great problem.

As to the DSLR camera, I don't think I'm ready for one of those as yet.

Cheers,

Martin.
 
I should own up and say that I was heavily into photography when in my teens. Developed my own B&W film and printed, developed my own colour neg film and printed via the three filter method, also developed slides. I had a Brownie 127, Instamatic, Mamaya SLR and Nikon, I moved away from that in my early 30s to get into video. Three video cameras and with the arrival of digital with the still picture option as well as video I got back into stills... so with that I wasn't happy with the 1.5 mega pixel and decided that it would be nice to get 35 mm quality again and a Leica lens :clap:.

Well the FZ50 is just like have my old Nikon where a lot can go wrong if you don't control the variables and there are more variables to control with the way digital photography mimics film [ISO], stabilisation, sharpening, contrast etc and so forth. My Sony video digital camera when taking stills for the last five years protected me from that, with the Panasonic Leica your back at that edge of still photography. It does take great pics but all those variables have to be managed just like one use to, least you are free from developing :).

On the practical side you don't see what the pictures look like until you put then on a monitor, the screen at the back is useless except for judging composition.
 
i think noise at high iso seem's to be something which is common to panasonic camera's, having said that they do produce some great image's i had the FZ20 fo a while and really liked the image's i got from it, the downside for me was the electronic viewfinder, but the leica lens was great, as was the image stabiliser which i really miss on my DSLR, i would say overall though you won't be dissapointed with an FZ50, take a look at BISCUIT761 photo album on here, he's produced some fantastic result's with the FZ20 :smashin:
 
Thanks for that. I'm getting closer to splashing the cash.

By the way, how can I get a look at BISCUIT761's photo album? I just had a look at his latest post and he doesn't seem to have a link to it, or am I missing something?

Cheers,

Martin.
 
I can only add to what has been said. I've been quite vocal on some threads about how good I think this camera is. It is true the quality in low-light is not too impressive, but in nearly every other area it is fantastic.

Some Pros

zoom on the lens ring rather than a zoom in-and-out rocker
Fast operation
Very effective stabilisation
Equivalent to 35mm - 420mm (or with my adapter around 16-420)
very sharp, quality lens
RAW
Fully manual (if you want it to be !)
Good battery life
Swivel screen for getting those odd compositions
Force Focus button
 
Yes, I was In Puerta de la Cruz and the cheapest price I was quoted was €325 which is about £224 - the cheapest I can find it here is about £275, here, although, to be fair, that does include a 2 year guarantee.

I'd be interested to know if you go ahead and purchase and, if so, how much you pay for it.

Enjoy your holiday.

Cheers,

Martin.

Edit - This is an answer to a question posted by LFCRules which disappeared after I made this reply.
 
Sorry Martin, I ended up deleting my message as I've read just toooo many bad stories about purchasing out in Tenerife over the last few hours :rolleyes:

Yep it looks on the face of it a good price, but it's just not worth the hassle, if I can get it here for only £10's dearer, and have the security of UK based product for problems.

Thanks for the reply though :smashin:

Cheers, Andy
 
Sorry Martin, I ended up deleting my message as I've read just toooo many bad stories about purchasing out in Tenerife over the last few hours :rolleyes:

Yep it looks on the face of it a good price, but it's just not worth the hassle, if I can get it here for only £10's dearer, and have the security of UK based product for problems.

Thanks for the reply though :smashin:

Cheers, Andy

Hi Andy - I have bought a couple of items in Tenerife and had a problem with one - a Seiko Kinetic watch but, to be fair, Seiko fixed it under their International Guarantee, however I definitely know what you mean.

I could have bought the camera whilst I was there but decided to hold back, one of the reasons being, like you, the security of having purchased from a UK company and, as it turns out, probably with a two year guarantee if I purchase from the link as already supplied in my previous post.

Cheers,

Martin.
 
Definitely too late for me but not to worry, I have already purchased my FZ50 and, whilst I'm still getting used to it, I must say I have no regrets whatsoever at purchasing it.

Season's Greetings,

Martin,
 
Hi Martin

You won't be disappointed with it I'm sure. :thumbsup:
Had mine since last Feb, and yes, it does take some learning.

Although I read the instructions till I nearly went blind, I learnt so much more from dpreview Panny forum, have a look at some of the pics...amazing!

Happy shooting.

Bob.
 
The biggest joke with those instructions is that it tells you not to take any photos until you have fully read them from front to back... you'd never do that and understand them if you were that new to photography.

I found it over exposed by 2/3s, so now I bracket at 1/3 and have my centre exposure down by 2/3. I have sharpness off or down as the case may be and picture noise reduction down as other FZ50 sites recommend.

I find it's like exposing for slide film, you have to get everything spot on and then you get a decent picture. Least for JPEGs. Anti shake is amazing at the speeds it can take at.
 
Must say I always reckon that manuals are only good for fine tuning the knowledge that I get from playing with the particular piece of equipment - apart from that, I never tend to read them, as they're usually gobbledegook.

Season's Greetings,

Martin.
 

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