Hi all
Just watching this thread develop with interest. I bought one of these a few month back. I have a DSLR & big lens (and back ache associated with that lol). This is my 5th digital camera, and probably the best to date - I do love the Nikon Coolpix CP4500 for normal use and as a digiscoping camera.
This is the first Digicam where I find reading the manual was of interest and helpful. i know most people never read them, but it is useful. There are a couple of tricks on here, and as mentioned previously on the thread a few good Panasonic forums.
The EOZ (Extended Optical Zoom) turns the superb LEICA lens from 18x to 28.7x zoom if the camera is reduced to 3MP. This has been the subject of much debate on various forums. It is NOT Digital zoom, but probably fair to say it is a auto-cropped picture giving the equivalent of 28.7x magnification. Basically, the camera takes the image from the centre of the picture and uses the unused pixels - a sort of inter-polarisation but I'm not explaining it very well
- suffice to say as birders it should suit us as we tend to centre-frame our images.
Anyway, this camera is more than a point and shoot (I have a far inferior 12x Konica Minolta Z5) but has some really useful stuff - most of which needs more tinkering with. Face Recognition, 2 different optical stabilisation methods, Intelligent auto programme (which apparently actually works!) and the ability to set the highest ISO setting (the small sensor is very noisy) From what I can gather no higher than 400ISO is acceptable - but all down to user choice and opinion of course.
As the light improves here in the UK, this little beauty should get more of a run out - I might start leaving the scope at home:eek!:
Oh yes - please, please anyone who has used the extended optical zoom with the 1.7 converter, please let us know of your experience/findings. 48.79x optical seems unworkable (1366mm equivalent) - as standard it is a 28-502mm equivalent (18x) and using the EOZ 803.6mm (28.7) for those who like the numbers.
Very much a compromise - DSLR's are much better, but the compromise between both cost and especially weight means a lot more of these will be taken out into the field - oh and they don't "hog" hide space like their larger brethren.
I'd like to see more people listing their own personal user settings. This camera can be used for birding but to me is the ultimate all round camera. Few superzooms have 28mm at the narrow end and as a bonus this one has superb macro facility too.
