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Panasonic FZ1000 for birding? (1 Viewer)

Trasten

New member
Planning to buy a superzoom camera.
What I really like to get one is a 1 inch sensor camera like the Lumix FZ1000, but then I'm afraid I won't get enough reach. Cropping the pictures is possible of course, but what about the quality then? Any experience of the FZ1000 for bird photo?
 
Hi Trasten,

What I really like to get one is a 1 inch sensor camera like the Lumix FZ1000, but then I'm afraid I won't get enough reach. Cropping the pictures is possible of course, but what about the quality then? Any experience of the FZ1000 for bird photo?

I'm quite happy with my FZ1000. I used to to replace an older DSLR rig - a Sony Alpha 700 with the "Bigma" 50 - 500 lens -, and feel I'm getting the same quality from the FZ1000.

One thing I'm like very well is that the autofocus is very quick - seems many "bridge" cameras are rather slow in that regard.

Regards,

Henning
 
Hi Trasten,



I'm quite happy with my FZ1000. I used to to replace an older DSLR rig - a Sony Alpha 700 with the "Bigma" 50 - 500 lens -, and feel I'm getting the same quality from the FZ1000.

One thing I'm like very well is that the autofocus is very quick - seems many "bridge" cameras are rather slow in that regard.

Regards,

Henning

But don't you think the zoom length is too limited for bird shots? Do you use the "intelligent zoom" on it?
 
Hi Trasten,

But don't you think the zoom length is too limited for bird shots? Do you use the "intelligent zoom" on it?

The zoom length is nominally shorter than that of other bridge cameras, like the FZ200 my girlfriend is using.

However, when we're shooting the same bird under the same conditions, my photographs are invariably markedly better. The big sensor really makes a difference.

I usually use intelligent zoom, but not digital zoom. That results in a maximum nominal focal length of 800 mm. With digital zoom on top of that, that would be 1600 mm. However, I've not tried that so far.

I feel (without actually having done a side-by-side comparison on the same bird under the same conditions) that my FZ1000 gives at least the same quality as my old Alpha 700 DSLR rig, which due to its crop factor had a nominal focal length of around 750 mm.

Regards,

Henning
 
But don't you think the zoom length is too limited for bird shots? Do you use the "intelligent zoom" on it?

Hi Trasten a few images taken from my FZ1000, and these are not the best by far.

Cheers
 

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Which of the photos you showed used P mode and which are 4k frames? What are the focal lenght used on the photos?

Images shown were single frames from 4K. All frames taken at max 400m (optical 16x). Here's a P mode 20mp shot compressed from 2.17MB to 90.5KB.

Cheers
 

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I use the FZ1000 for birding and although 400mm is a little short, I bump that up using the extra optical zoom, which if you drop the picture size to 5mp, will give you 800mm and still keep good image quality.
 

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