Exemplary Camera

After reading about the FZ10 I was almost about to buy one this summer when Panasonic announced the FZ20. I waited until October and got the FZ20 and am glad I waited. This camera is very versatile, easy to use, and takes great pictures. There are some things I would like to change in this camera, but short of getting a digital SLR (with a less capable zoom) I don't think you can do better at twice the price.

This camera is a rather large digital camera, but the size feels comfortable and makes the controls easier to find and use. The camera comes with a shoulder strap and rather large 2 piece lens hood that can be attached and which also has a standard 72 mm filter thread. I keep the hood on with a UV filter most of the time to protect the lens from dust and damage and another lens cap over the filter when the camera is not in use. The camera weighs about 20 oz. with hood, UV filter, battery and strap but doesn't seem overly heavy.

The viewfinder is an electronic viewfinder which shows you the exact image that the camera will take (no parallax errors and overshoot as with most optical viewfinders), but has the drawback of being a rather low resolution image (approximately 390x290 by my estimation). The other disadvantage of the electronic viewfinder is that in very low light situations there is not enough gain in the video image to be able to see what you're shooting. This is particularly problematic in manual exposure mode. In addition to the viewfinder there is also a 2 inch LCD monitor on the back of the camera with a resolution of about 415x312.

The big 12X zoom lens is the main attraction of this camera. It's equivalent to a 36-432mm zoom on a 35mm film camera. It works smoothly and the optical stabilization makes a definite difference in the ability to reduce camera motion and take handheld shots at high magnification. I have had no problem getting good shots at full 12X zoom with shutter speeds as low as 1/30 second. Of course a high shutter speed and tripod will give the best results, but you don't always have the luxury of bright lighting and I don't want to carry a tripod everywhere. The pictures are quite sharp, with a touch more noise than the Olympus C3020 I had previously used.

The camera has a plethora of exposure options, from point and shoot, to aperture or shutter priority, to full manual, as well as a number of preset "scene" modes designed for optimal shooting in varying conditions (ie snow, night, sports, landscape scenery, etc). The exposure modes are easily accessible from a dial on top of the camera with minimal need to step through menus (menus are really only needed to choose from one of the 9 scene modes and you can preset two scene modes directly from the dial). Beyond the exposure modes are multiple options for bracketing exposures, changing metering mode and even adjusting the camera's choice of shutter speed and aperture in the point and shoot mode.

The camera also offers 4 different autofocus modes as well as a very nice manual focus mode which utilizes a focusing ring around the lens. The autofocus is generally very good, except that, even with spot focusing, when there is a low contrast subject the camera sometimes has a tendency to focus on higher contrast objects in the background. The manual focus allows you to pick EXACTLY what you want to focus on (just like my trusty old Nikon FM). There is also an orange autofocus light for focusing in low light conditions. Its range is about 10 feet. The autofocus light is partially blocked when the lens hood is on and even the lens itself without the hood when trying to focus very close to the camera (ie macro mode).

The camera has a nice burst mode that will take continuous pictures at 2 shots per second as long as the shutter button is held down and up to 3 shots per second for up to 7 shots. Very handy for sports shots.

Macro mode allows shots as close as 5 cm in wide angle. It's not the closest focusing distance I've seen, but it is acceptable.

There is also a movie mode with sound, but I've only tried it once and don't think that most purchasers would use this camera to take movies.

The feature that, next to the zoom lens, that I really like about this camera is the hot shoe. The built in flash is powerful, with a range up to 23 feet, but an external flash can be even more powerful and, more importantly, gives you the ability to bounce the flash (with an appropriate tilt/swivel head unit) off ceilings and walls for much less harsh lighting with your indoor flash shots. I bought a Sunpak 383 for this purpose and have been getting much nicer shots than the built in flash allows. Be sure when using an external flash that the trigger voltage on the flash unit is no more than 24 volts. Some of the old flash units (like my circa 1978 Vivitar 283) have trigger voltages upwards of 200V which can fry the circuitry on a digital camera.

The memory card is Secure Digital which comes in capacities up to 1 GB (and possibly higher). SD memory is relatively economical (especially compared to xD memory used in Olympus and Fuji cameras). I bought a 256 MB card for $30 and get about 108 shots in "fine" mode 5 megapixel jpeg. There is also a normal mode with more compression and a TIFF mode with no compression.

The camera has a USB 2.0 interface. With a Kingmax SD card I have been able to write to the camera at a bit more than 4 Mbps and read at more than 8 Mbps. The transfers are not what I would call zippy, but I don't have to wait too long to download a group of pictures to the PC. The USB port also has video and audio output to a TV.

The battery is a proprietary Panasonic model. It recharges in 2 hours and will last long enough to take about 250 shots with some use of the flash. It really is only about as powerful as a couple of AA batteries and costs at least $50. It's too bad they didn't use standard AA's.

Overall I am very happy with this camera. That 12 power stabilized zoom lets you get shots that are just not possible with the standard 3X zoom on most digital cameras. The multitude of other features and the hot shoe are just icing on the cake. The things I wish this camera had would include an optical viewfinder and the use of standard AA batteries.