Hi,Y'all. New Panny owner here! (fz50)

Greetings from a new convert. I received my FZ50 from the DHL guy this afternoon. This is a substantial piece of hardware!

BTW: I ordered from http://www.6ave.com , rated 7.97 on RR; The sale was perfect! Despite where they are located, they are not the typical Brooklyn store...no tricks, no nonsense, absolutely perfect. The price was $469.00 + $0.06 shipping! Yes, that was six cents.

USA cam/warranty/no attempt to 'sell' me anything! Cam arrived one day early to boot! Meet the Happy Camper!

Ahem...a little background: I bought the FZ50 (my first Panny) as an "upgrade" to my C2100UZi. I'll bet you've seen quite a few of us joining your ranks! (I love the UZi but I would like to have enough pixels to be able to reliably print 11x14.) I have about six years of digicam history, mostly OLYs with the UZi being my go-to cam for most pics. I have been using a Promaster flash for four years and now am going to have to figure out how to make it work properly with the FZ.

I'll deal with the flash in another thread, just wanted to say that this seems to be one awesome camera! This is the first camera I have ever bought without having seen one in person...I read all the reviews/comments/threads for weeks and discovered that no 'real' stores around me stocked it. What I had read convinced me to take a chance...I'm definitely not disappointed! Now I just have to take the time to learn the controls, but I'm already in love with the zoom & focus rings!
Cross your fingers for me.

Thanks,
Ricky



--
R. Slaughter
'DEMOCRACY' is two wolves and a lamb voting on lunch.
'LIBERTY' is a well-armed lamb denying enforcement of the vote.

C+54.772256^2Z;F+Z+7.0710678^2

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That's a huge flash. You are better equipped than me. Till now I'm still without a flash gun. Since you have read so many reports, you must be aware of its capabilities and you're one of those rare breed that was not discourage by the noise. Don't worry if you're not aware. This camera is really superb.

--
My Gallery: http://david-low.smugmug.com/

Yeah, I've heard all the noise about high ISO problems and I've seen the pics and it doesn't bother me in the least, here's why:

1. For years I've been using digicams that are noisey above 200 ISO. The UZi is noisey at 200 and most of my cams don't even have settings higher than than 400. I've had my UZi "locked" at 100 ISO for many years and have just dealt with it. It means slower shutter speeds and steadier holds but I've been dealing with the issue for all these years and it hasn't stopped me from taking pictures. Yes, I would like to have better low-light capability, but I'm not gonna worry that the cam won't do 800 ISO... I've never had a digicam that would. (Does anyone?)

2. The FZ doesn't have a noise problem...it has an excessive-noise-reduction-problem resulting in a severe loss of detail at high ISO. You can actually eliminate this problem if you REALLY need to do some low light work by using RAW mode which turns off the noise reduction. Then you can post-process to remove the noise yourself. That would be a PITA but its do-able.
Its still a net gain...the UZi won't do raw.

Just my opinion

Ricky

--
R. Slaughter
'DEMOCRACY' is two wolves and a lamb voting on lunch.
'LIBERTY' is a well-armed lamb denying enforcement of the vote.

C+54.772256^2Z

http://www.pbase.com/nufsed/galleries

Yes, it is a nice piece of hardware!

You will be happy, I'm sure.

--
JF

R. Slaughter said:

Yes,
I would like to have better low-light capability, but I'm not gonna
worry that the cam won't do 800 ISO... I've never had a digicam
that would. (Does anyone?)

Click to expand...

Ricky,

I'm glad to hear you're happy with your new camera. I'm a working photog but I've found the FZ50 makes a great family/vacation camera and I find it more convenient to grab nice shots around the house or outdoors at parks with the FZ50 than it is to use one of my DSLRs.

I think the majority of the people complaining about ISO 800 are either people who spent money on DSLRs and feel the need to justify the cost of the body and lenses, or are new FZ50 owners who have made some mistakes using the FZ50 (thinking that high ISO would be a magic solution to poor technique).

Most of the time that I use the FZ50 I'm using the ISO 100 setting. That said, I've taken many photos with higher ISOs (even messing with 1600 and 3200 a few times). In my personal opinion, ISO 800 on the FZ50 is good enough for excellent 8x10 and smaller prints.

Here are a couple of ISO 800 images that I turned into 8x10 prints:
http://cincyjacksonfam.smugmug.com/gallery/2150247/2/115727195/Large
http://cincyjacksonfam.smugmug.com/gallery/2150247/3/115733039/Large

Both photos were taken indoors in low light.

If I recall my post processing correctly, the only thing I did to either of these images was run them through the "weaker noise" setting in the Noiseware Pro plugin in CS2.

While I'm sure I could have produced cleaner ISO 800 images if I had used one of my DSLRs, these 8x10s from the FZ50 are as good as any 8x10 prints I made from ISO 800 35mm film.

My point is that you don't have to worry that your camera "won't do 800 ISO." The FZ50 in the right hands can produce acceptable/excellent results at ISO 800.

I'm not going to stop using my DSLRs for work, but for "family snapshots" I couldn't have asked for a more convenient camera than the FZ50.

--
http://www.jjjphotography.com
See 'The Big Picture' at http://jjjphotography.blogspot.com/

Right on. Just got my FZ50 a week before Christmas. Shooting Raw all the time!! I don't mind some post production time. Used to spend many hours in the darkroom with film. What can be done with software on a RAW file is awesome and you don't have to smell the chemicals!!! I am going to acquire Bibble Pro. It works RAW files, has Noise Ninja plug-in and a host of other features.

Assuming the same battery for the 30 fits the 50. This:
http://www.power101.com/item.htm?id=60191PLUMDMCFZ30
Would be the battery I mentioned before...

And should ya have a few more bucks left & want a car charger, since the Pany charger isn't supplied with a car-cord:
http://www.power101.com/item.htm?id=60185

I've used both with success for the past few months & haven't noticed any large differences than the Pany or other generic I have....
Can't beat the price....
--

The Amateur Formerly Known as 'UZ'pShoot'ERS' 'Happy Shootin' Comments, Critique, Ridicule, Limmericks, Jokes, Hi-jackings, EnthUZIastically, Encouraged... I Insist!



* [email protected] * http://www.pbase.com/rrawzz * EffZeeThreeZero / CeeEightZeroEightZeroDoubleUZee / CeeTwoOneZeroZeroUZee / EOneHuderedAreEss

Thanks Ross. I'll definitely check 'em out. Car charger? Yeah, I'll have to have it...what's just one more, right? Between the camera and flash stuff as well my other hobbies such as RC cars and airplanes and generally being a gadget-head, it seems that I've got more Chargers than a Hazzard county junkyard.

It looks like I'm going to have to get an FL36 flash. I bought the PM module but it doesn't seem to work...at least not 'fully' work. I'm still working on that ... >
Thanx again for the links!
--
R. Slaughter
'DEMOCRACY' is two wolves and a lamb voting on lunch.
'LIBERTY' is a well-armed lamb denying enforcement of the vote.

C+54.772256^2Z

http://www.pbase.com/nufsed/galleries