I primarily shoot with higher end DSLR cameras. I bought this camera mainly because of its ability to shoot at 40fps and to have a fun, pocket sized snapshot camera. It certainly does delivery on its promises, and does a great job of doing it! It is about the same size as common P&S cameras but is loaded with great features that gives it an edge over other cameras.
The button to switch from single shot to high speed and back to single shot is conveniently located at the top of the camera. Push the button and you are in high speed mode. Push it again and you have a regular camera. If you shoot action shots and are not good at timing your shots to 'capture the moment', you will love this camera. If you have kids and they do sports, you will LOVE this camera.
The camera can be used in a fully automatic mode, fully manual, or anywhere in-between. Access to all the shooting settings is accomplished by pushing one button as well (on the command dial), so you can adjust aperture, shutter speed, ISO, exposure compensation, white balance, frame rate for high speed shootings, buffer settings, etc. The MENU button allows you to access typical setup features and reformat the memory card.
Auto focus is fast and accurate. The focus tracking feature works, and works great. Metering is excellent as well giving consistent, correctly exposed images.
The lens gives very sharp pictures with nice color and contrast. The zoom on the long end to too strong to use effectively without a tripod, even with the image stabilizer on. It is easy to get good 12x shots though.
Like just about any P&S camera, good lighting is the key to success. Very low light performance is only good at best, but keep in mind it is typical just like any P&S camera. If you plan to use your camera in low light often, you may be better off with a P&S that has a f2.8 (or faster) lens, or a micro 4/3 or DSLR camera where you can put a fast lens on the camera. The flash works well when needed, providing even, accurate light without hot spots and naturally looking pictures.
Video quality appears to be very good although I have not viewed the HD video on my HDTV. Video can be recorded in slow motion but resolution is quite low and probably only suited to viewing on a computer. It also requires a lot of light. Shooting under fluorescent lights in slow motion can produce a flicker effect in the lighting.
I have owned several P&S cameras. This one is loaded with features that give it an advantage over many other P&S cameras. Although it is a little bit more expensive than some typical cameras, because of its high speed image capture features, it is an excellent value (if you need and can use those features, of course).
One other drawback is is slow write speed to the memory card. I did not notice any difference using a high speed memory card to a slower speed card. This is not an issue for single shots or if you shot in small bursts. But, if you shoot a burst of 30 shots, you might have to wait 20 seconds for all the images to be written to the memory card, You can of course still continue to shoot (up to the buffer capacity). You cannot view images while the buffer is clearing. I don't know if this camera is any faster or slower in write speed to other similar cameras. But of course, I don't believe there are other cameras that take 30 frames in 3/4 of a second and have to write so many images to a memory card at one time!
The panorama mode of this camera is excellent, providing seamless panorama shots with ease the entire process is automatic. All you have to do is pan the camera smoothly as you hold the shutter down.
I did a side-by-side comparison of this camera Vs a Lumix P&S that my friend has. His camera has a Leica lens. The image quality was basically identical and indistinguishable between the two at both low and high ISO. I have read a couple of reviews about this camera not giving sharp images. If you are not getting sharp images, there is something wrong with your technique as the lens on this camera is excellent.
0 comments:
Post a Comment