witwald
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 p.1 #9 · Camera for my daughter | |
akreager wrote:
Problem solved - someone at work knew I was looking and brought in their wife's Panasonic FZ20. A reply from another thread also reccomended it. It is a very nice little camera. Small enough to meet my daughters requirements and has all the features/controls that will let me slowly teach her about photography.
I have had the new Panasonic FZ30 for almost a week now, as an adjunct to my F100, and I would recommend the FZ30 over the FZ20. My father-in-law has had the FZ20 for a while now, and he's pleased with the results and flexibility that the FZ-series cameras offer in a lightweight package.
I prefer the FZ30 over the FZ20 for a number of reasons:
a) it has a manual zoom which allows fast and fine control of framing;
b) it has quite fast autofocus, especially in high-speed AF mode;
c) the EVF is quite good, being double the resolution of that on the FZ20;
d) the LCD is also higher resolution than that on the FZ20;
e) the lens does not extend when zooming;
f) it has a flip-out LCD, which is handy sometimes (I usually use the EVF);
g) it can capture a burst of up to 5 images at almost 3 fps;
h) the shutter release seems to be better positioned;
i) it has front and rear control dials;
j) it seems to have a nicer color rendition.
The FZ30 is quite DSLR-like in some respects, while still being quite light and relatively compact.
However, a disadvantage is that the FZ30 does not allow much creative control of depth of field as a result of it having a much smaller sensor than than a DSLR such as the D70. Even with the aperture wide open, the FZ30's depth of field is usually equivalent to about f/16 on your D70, so it's quite considerable. The FZ30's flash seems to default to a 1/30 shutter speed, which is a bit slow for some applications where subject motion is present (I don't think you can alter that, but I could be wrong).
When an external flash is attached, in Program mode the FZ30 defaults to f/4, 1/30 sec and ISO 100. This makes it relatively easy to set up a flash that has its own light sensor to work with the FZ30.
If you already have a D70, then I consider that a camera such as the D50 fitted with a Nikon 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5 lens will offer superior image quality and greater creative control. A relatively inexpensive Nikon 50mm f/1.8 lens would make a nice portrait lens with lots of control of depth of field, more so than the 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5 zoom lens. Other than an SD memory card, there would be commonality with your existing equipment, which is handy, and a proper TTL flash metering capability would also help achieve a high standard of image quality when doing flash photography.
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Witold
Edited on Sep 28, 2005 at 03:06 PM
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