FZ50 and TCON17 Review (1 Viewer)

I purchased the FZ50 camera and the Olympus TCON17 telephoto lens about 3 weeks ago. Have taken about 200 bird photos and the results are very, very good. I am still refining my technique and it may take a few more months to find out what works best. I still have the the FZ10 which I used for about 4 years with no problems. Autofocus is much faster, everything is much better and is a much more advanced camera. The TCON17 screws directly onto the FZ50 and I have used both the 55mm polarizer and haze filter stacked with no problems. The TCON17 is on all the time with just the haze filter. I adjust the megapixel amount for what ever power or extended zoom I want. Currently the ASO is set at 100, 1 area spot high speed focus, centered weighted metering, mode 2 IS, but remember I am still working things out. So far it has been a lot of fun and works very well, its very light even with the TCON and good results hand holding at 1100mm, just dont drink tooo much coffee. I am in the market for a monopod and a DMW-RS1 remote shutter cable. Hope this helps, I highly recommend this outfit, especially at $650 total cost. I just realized I did not set the camera for use with a telephoto lens, oops, its set now, see if it makes any difference.

I ordered the remote yesterday directly from Panasonic, a review at DPReview showed the part number as VYC0913 for $15. Thats $10 cheaper than the DMW-RS1, which has been replaced by the VYC0913, and $60 cheaper than the DMW-RSL1, either will work according to the FZ50 manual and I do not know the difference. I am not so hot on using the monopod and after changing the camera settings to use a telephoto lens I get an error if it is not zoomed out all the way. I am not sure what the change does but I may go back.

I ran a test and the conversion setting does make a difference, exposure. I could not find any information on how it changes the camera but I will keep looking. I also looked at a 2mp, 3mp, 5mp, 8mp, 10mp, photo and to the best of my abililty, for now, I could not see any difference when enlarged in Photoshop to the same size. I did notice a difference when the lower mp photo was pushed higher and the 10 mp was pushed to match, the 10mp was better.

Hi PCC. Good to hear from someone using this outfit as it's one I've been considering, although I'm tempted by the new Olympus too. Thanks.

Here are some other photos, remember I am still working on the camera settings.

Fz50

PCC said:

Here are some other photos, remember I am still working on the camera settings.

Click to expand...

Hi PCC

I am very interested in purchasing the FZ50 with a teleconverter lens. Presently I have the FZ20, but my main complaint is trying to focus a bird in flight. Seems to take so long to focus and release the shutter. Still shots are great.

Can you comment on this please ?

Thanks

FZ 50 and flight shots

Med said:

Hi PCC

I am very interested in purchasing the FZ50 with a teleconverter lens. Presently I have the FZ20, but my main complaint is trying to focus a bird in flight. Seems to take so long to focus and release the shutter. Still shots are great.

Can you comment on this please ?

Click to expand...

Hi.

Think you're right. I am still trying to get the optimal settings for flight shots. The autofocus is just too lame. I won't recommend Continuous AF and I'm not sure if the IS could be contraproductive when tracking a flying bird. One of the problems I see is that you don't have a "real" Continuous AF that always focuses on the object so that you just have to press the shutter. Using the Continuous AF of the FZ50 means that only the viewfinder picture is always focussed but when you press the button the camera still has to focus. On the other hand it's not possible, too, to press the shutter when tracking a bird so that the camera takes a photo when focusing has finished: The problem is that the camera takes a photo immediately when you press the shutter, no matter if it's focussed or not.. It's a pity..

Any other experiences/hints how to get flight photos without those red-dot sight equipment things?

When I first got this outfit I had very good results taking in flight shots, now I am having trouble. I hate to comment on this subject now but will get back as soon as I figure it out. I am going to look at the default settings and see if I changed something.

For flight shots with the Panasonic, practice with no teleconverter and no filters with zoom at about at about 3/4 and iso 400. The subject should be flying horizontal to you or lazy circles ( like raptors ). It does take a lot of practice. Good luck. Neil.

FZ50 and TCON17 Flying Birds

I have been using this set up for awhile with good results, not great but very good (take a lot of pictures, burst mode). For in flight shots i use high speed center focus, IS #2, ISO 100 and follow the bird in the viewfinder. Set the focus and hold down the shutter (the bird will blank out of the picture for a split second) re center the bird and press the shutter all the way down to take picture. It takes a little practice, I have not tried the other focus just above the high speed one yet. One thing I have found that you need a lot of light and when enlarged to 13x19 it usually is fuzzy. Birds that are close enough to crop to 13x19 without reducing the number of pixels from the total size too much come out very good.