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What is the best Panasonic for me (1 Viewer)

TheBirdGarden

I don't have the money
To continue my research to find the best camera for me I am now into Panasonic territory. Looking for a new camera has been very stressful and a pain in the bum.

Now with my canon s70 the lens is wide angle and I think that might have been why there was only no vignetting on full zoom and with full zoom only this decreased the quality of the photgraphs so the camera cannot have a wide angle lens (unless you can correct me why there was so much vignetting on the canon s70)

I also at the moment have little or no use for manual modes and I have a habit of using the macro and by my last picture it sure isn't no problem so good macro quality is a plus. I am also planning on getting a fixed wide 55° apparent field of view eyepiece for my scope and this should lower the vignetting (correct me if I am wrong).

AT the moment I am using the Panasonic LS60 and I can no vignetting in two click of the zoom and it took this picture and you may be asking why don't you just stick with that then? well it is borrowed from my dad's work and I only have it about 4 days a week and instead of buying my own I would like to getter a better Pano.

So if you can just give a list it will be fine, I have seen many Pano compacts have 5X zoom which is a problem with digiscoping? The scope I am using is the Celestron Regal 80mm F-ED
 
I am at the moment attracted to the Panasonic FS7. Cameras.co.uk give it a good review and it fits my preferences 4x zoom. The FS8,FS9, FS10 and FS15 seem to all have 5x zoom and the FS15 has a wide angle zoom which would just give me the same problem with the S70.

Would anyone recommend the Panasonic FS7 for digiscoping?

EDIT: just found out it also has a wide angle lens. Can anyone tell me is it the wide angle lenses can cause more vignetting?
 
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I haven't tried these small Panasonics but the lens range should be ok for digiscoping with 17 - 20 mm of Eye Relief eyepieces ( most common ones ). The frame rate at 2.5 fps is useful too. Much better than the Nikons.
Neil.
 
Then can anyone please explain to me why the Canon zooms in like this:

The LS60 zooms in like I expect it to and there is not vignetting when it gets to half way and with the canon I am using the official adapter

Picutre 1
No Zoom

Picture 2
Zoomed Halfway

Picture 3
Full zoom

Picture 4
Is this Panasonic LS60 on no zoom notice how it is more or less a perfect circle
 

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Lens is probablly kept too far from the eyepiece by your adapter.

How sure are you on that? Sorry I just can't waste money if it the wide angle lens and because of the Canon S70's shape I can't try it with the other adapter nor could I use it with the universal adapter. The regal eyepiece claims to be wide angle aswell
 
Just for reference/comparison on the FS7, these shots show the vignetting using our custom lens mount (please excuse the crappy focus and misaligned image - this took me about 5 minutes to do!). Distance to target is around 10 metres.

1. 17x fixed mag eyepiece on 60mm scope, no camera zoom
2. Same eyepiece and scope with approx 2x camera zoom
3. 15-45x HDF zoom on 60mm scope, no camera zoom
4. Same eyepiece and scope with approx 2x camera zoom

Cheers, Pete
 

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This has now confused me more. It seems you got better results with the zoom eyepiece rather than the fixed eyepiece....Also is 5x optical zoom too much for digiscoping?
 
There are two causes of vignetting in play, optical and mechanical. A circle with fuzzy edges indicates the lens/sensor plane is too far from the eyepiece focal point, aka its eyerelief. This is mechanical.

Optical vignetting is determined by a combination of the apparent angle of views of the eyepiece and the lens at a particular focal length PLUS the size of the exit pupil at the eyepiece AND the aperture of lens.

The typical wide angle eyepiece has an apparent angle of view between 64°-72°. To avoid vignetting, the camera lens angle of view must be ≤ this 64°-72° angle. Thus the camera lens focal length generally cannot be wider than ~33mm. But anything less than ~50mm and the image on the sensor will be SMALLER than the image seen visually at the eyepiece. Thus most of time when you zoom your camera lens vignetting tends to disappear between the 1x-2x boundary. Note if you are using a standard eyepiece or a zoom, these typically have angle of views of 42°-60° so will require more camera zoom to minimze vignetting.

Vignetting will also occur when the exit pupil of the eyepiece is smaller than the physical aperture of the lens. This tends to be more of an issue at higher eyepiece magnifications/wider focal lengths.

Bottom line is your brightest image with least vignetting in most cases occurs with a wide angle ~30x eyepiece and camera lens focal length of ~50mm, ±10%.
 
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