Panasonic FZ150 (5 Viewers)

scodgerott · Jan 6, 2012

Thanks Wendy. The camera helps a lot.

scodgerott · Jan 6, 2012

Here are some more "action" shots taken with the FZ150. Its summer down here at the moment and I'm making the most of the sunny weather.

val1449 · Jan 6, 2012

hi, many thanks to all who replied with advice about which to choose- fz150 or Canon sx40. i have also been looking at images posted on here and think i have finally decided on fz150. I will be ordering a little later in the year ready for holidays and look forward to sharing my images when i work out how to use it

Neil · Jan 6, 2012

terryeyre said:
was very pleased with some of the flight shots i got of short eared owls the other day using the 5.5 frames per second

Excellent work. Well done.

Neil · Jan 6, 2012

val1449 said:
hi, many thanks to all who replied with advice about which to choose- fz150 or Canon sx40. i have also been looking at images posted on here and think i have finally decided on fz150. I will be ordering a little later in the year ready for holidays and look forward to sharing my images when i work out how to use it

I would just make the observation that the range of the two cameras is very different. At 840 mm the SX40HS has a range that almost 30% more than the Panasonic. It is a significant difference. It is one of the most impressive photographic experiences I've had to watch the zoom go from 24 all the way out to 840 mm. I've put up a video here to show the effect http://www.flickr.com/photos/7892550@N03/6551208949/in/photostream
In fact it goes a little into digital zoom too for about 1000 mm. The video was hand held.
The other thing I'm impressed with is the Image Stabilising on the Canon. It's much better than the Nikon P500 .You can hand hold for HD video at full zoom. I haven't tried with the Panasonics but this is very important to me so I would be interested in seeing how they do.
The feature set of the Panasonic is better eg Raw
I would also be considering the Fuji http://www.dpreview.com/products/fujifilm/compacts/fujifilm_sl300 if I was buying now.
The trouble these days is there is a lot of choice of very good cameras. I wish I could buy them all.
Neil.

scodgerott · Jan 7, 2012

Just a few more shots of birds in flight. Just in case you think I just go out a get some swallows in flight, I took over a 1000 of these pesky little devils this morning and got maybe 6 or so that were of this standard. They are one of the hardest birds to get shots of in flight.

mosaicwendy · Jan 7, 2012

Looks like a good day ahead weatherise, so I'm off to Rutland Water nature reserve to try the camera (can't wait!)

Quick question - do you recommend RAW or JPEG?

Thanks for all your help

Wendy

graham bowers · Jan 7, 2012

mosaicwendy said:
Looks like a good day ahead weatherise, so I'm off to Rutland Water nature reserve to try the camera (can't wait!)

Quick question - do you recommend RAW or JPEG?

Thanks for all your help

Wendy

I'd recommend to try both whilst you are getting used to the camera, then decide yourself.
When I say both, you can choose either jpeg only, raw only of raw and jpeg simultaneously.
Raw slows things up if you are shooting in burst mode.
Enjoy, the light is just getting nice here in NW Leicestershire.
Graham

mosaicwendy · Jan 9, 2012

Thank you Graham - you know what they say about best laid plans - well mine were thwarted by unexpected visitors!

So I didn't get to go out :-(

Now I have to wait another week. I'll keep practising with the dog and still life - it helps to be able to access the menus quickly, although I've not really worked out the custom settings yet.

Does anyone have a favourite setting they could share?

Have a good week everyone

Wendy

J.D · Jan 9, 2012

mosaicwendy said:
Now I have to wait another week. I'll keep practising with the dog and still life - it helps to be able to access the menus quickly, although I've not really worked out the custom settings yet.

Does anyone have a favourite setting they could share?

Have a good week everyone

Wendy

At the moment i have Izoom 12mp and Izoom 8mp on my Custom buttons, but i will probably change it in time.
I find the Quick settings menu button really useful especially for EZ zoom.

scodgerott · Jan 10, 2012

Hi Wendy, I have the custom settings set up in this way. The first 2 are on shutter priority, iso400 and one has the side lever set to zoom, the other set to focus. The third setting is set to aperture priority, with iso400 and the side lever set to focus. I'm sure most people will have different settings, I find those work for me, but you may settle on something different. The only way to find out is to try some of these settings posted by myself and others and see if they do what you want. If not you can modifiy them. I might modify mine with time, but at the moment I'll probably stay with them for a while. I also have my sharpness setting set at +1 and my noise reduction set to 0. I have my mp setting to 8mp and izoom turned on, but digital zoom turned off. That gives me a zoom of 39.5x, which is the equivalent of 987mm in a 35mm camera.

terryeyre · Jan 12, 2012

fz150

a few more photos

punta · Jan 12, 2012

Great photo of the owl :king:

scodgerott · Jan 12, 2012

I like the owl and the last photo of a small bird. Good work.

mosaicwendy · Jan 13, 2012

Terry - the owl photo is great, and the detail on the last photo is amazing.

Thank you for sharing, I've been counting down the days to the weekend!

I'm definitely going to try and get out with the this weekend - I've banned visitors and my other half is going to the football for the day so.... I'm all set!

I was reading on a different photography forum about a challenge of taking a photo every day for 2012. I can't do that as I'm stuck in an office all day - but I think I could try for photos every weekend...

Have a good day everyone

Wendy

mosaicwendy · Jan 22, 2012

First try

Finally made it to Egleton Nature reserve today - first proper outing with the camera. It was so windy!

I only managed to take photos of the birds on the feeders - boy those birds are fast!!!!

I'm going to try and upload some photos but not sure how to do it - so fingers crossed!

They have been tightly cropped and have some slight adjustment but other than that I'm pretty pleased for a first time. All taken handheld, full zoom in 5 frames burst mode. Still a lot to learn!

Wendy

scodgerott · Jan 22, 2012

Both shots look good Wendy. Don't worry about having a lot to learn, we all started off like that, even those of us who had the FZ100 before the FZ150, as the two cameras are similar, but different.

christineredgate · Jan 24, 2012

Hope to receive my pan 150 tommorrow.If it is fine on Sat,want to give it a try for the rugby shots.So,any advice please,for taking moving shots ,if possible taking several at one press of the shutter,obviously would perhaps work for birds as well,seeing as my lifting a heavy set up skywards is now not a good idea.
I am going to send for a written manual,but may not be here for the weekend.
Thanks
Christine

scodgerott · Jan 24, 2012

Hi Christine, Good luck with the camera, it is a good one and one that is very fast in its response times - most times. I say that, because sometimes when I'm trying to get fast moving birds it just doesn't focus on anything. I think the best way to get fast moving action shots is to first try the 12 fps burst mode, but it has a couple of disadvantages over the 5.5fps. It will only go for 1 second and doesn't focus between shots. On many occasions this will work quite well, but if the action is coming towards or away from you and is likely to last longer that a second you would be best to use the 5.5 fps setting. One good thing about the 12 fps is that after the 12 shots have been fired off you can use it again almost immediately, even though its still processing the shots you have already taken. One other way you can get action shots is to use the video function and while using that fire off stills during the video. The 3.5mp stills are quite good, but the video has one snag that will make it hard to use quickly. After you activate the record button, the screen goes black for about a second. This makes it extremely hard to follow any action, but it should work well for rugby scrums, which is action, but not moving fast. I used to used a video camera all the time for birds, as the camera sprang into action as soon as I pushed the record button, but now I rarely use this function on the FZ150 for anything fast moving, as it just doesn't work as well as a video camera.

christineredgate · Jan 25, 2012

Thanks scodgerott,I have kept the reply on my Blackberry,'cos then I can check it outside
just need to send for a manual..

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