FZ330 early experience – Introduction and Contents

This is not a well-rounded product review. I bought the FZ330 for a very specific purpose - to replace a broken FZ200 which is my go to camera for photographing small animals using close-up lenses and flash. I have looked at three other of my favourite subject areas - flowers using natural light, cloudscapes/sunsets, and birds in flight.

I shoot raw and produce images intended for viewing on-screen at 1300 pixels high. All my images are post processed, using at least two editors, often three and occasionally more. I have concentrated on images produced using my normal workflow, so (with one exception) I have not looked at JPEG images, whether out of the camera or post processed, and not looked at camera JPEG customisations. I have not looked at full size images, whether JPEG or raw. I have not looked at touch screen operations and options, video or 4K photo, and probably quite a lot else too.

Even so, this is lengthy. I have tried to arrange it in separate posts to make it easier to dip into only those areas that interest you, although there is still some overlap between the posts. These are the posts.

If you are most interested in seeing images jump to Sections 7, 8, 9 and 10.

2 Background
3 Physical construction and controls
4 Customisation and operation
5 Performance
6 Noise and detail retention
7 Insects and spiders, using flash
8 Flowers, using natural light
9 Cloudscapes and sunsets
10.1 Birds in flight - Background
10.2 Birds in flight - FZ330
10.3 Birds in flight – Battling with noise
11 Early experience summary

I have two FZ200s that I use mainly to photograph insects and spiders using Raynox close-up lenses and a Venus Optics KX800 twin flash. After 101,000 shutter activations, the older of my FZ200s died recently.

I have been thinking for some time about trying a 1" camera for my close-ups, but none so far has seemed suitable. I have been eagerly awaiting the Nikon 24-500 but that has been delayed for many months now and at about the time my FZ200 died the rumour emerged that the 24-500 is not now expected until next year. The FZ1000 is not suitable because it only goes to f/8 (I need f/16 on 1 inch). At the time I was considering all this it was not known when or if an FZ1000 update would arrive and if it did, whether it would go to f/16.

Although I still have a working FZ200 I felt some urgency about making a decision about a new camera. The FZ200 works really well for my purposes but there is a question as to how much longer it will be available. If, in the absence of the Nikon 24-500 or FZ1000 replacement, the FZ330 turned out to be unsuitable for some reason, then I would want to get hold of at least one additional FZ200 while they are still available. I therefore bought an FZ330 to see if it was suitable for my purposes.

Having tested the FZ330 with around 600 captures I returned it within 24 hours and swapped it for another copy as my tests showed that it produced images that were significantly less sharp and detailed than my FZ200. I then spent four days working intensively on capturing around 2,200 photos with the replacement FZ330 and selecting and processing several hundred of them, eventually keeping about 300 of those that I worked on. During that period I also had two sessions with my Canon 70D capturing birds in flight for comparison with the FZ330, capturing around 1600 70D images and selecting and processing 55 of them.

In the four days since then I have captured another 4,000 or so images, almost all to do with attempting to see whether I could use the FZ330 successfully for birds in flight. After processing a number of these I ended up keeping 150 or so.

--
Nick
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gardenersassistant/collections/
GardenersAssistant Photography Videos - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmBgEwRDfiQMYTPORSzDxvw
https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/t...-dslr-primes-a-journey-of-exploration.531050/

Unless stated otherwise, comparisons are with the FZ200.

FZ200 on the left. FZ330 on the right.

Top view





Rear view





Left side view





Right side view



The FZ330 is about 100 grams/3.5 ounces heavier than the FZ200, it is also slightly larger in all three dimensions. Especially given the improved grip these differences did not seem significant to me.

The FZ330 grip has a deeper indentation for the second finger of the right hand. On the rear the movement of the thumb wheel on to the top of the camera and the repositioning of the Display button leaves a clear space for the thumb to rest on (and that space is all textured rather than just the small textured area on the FZ200), and the area above and to the right of the thumb position has been raised. These changes provide for a much easier, firmer, positive grip of the camera with less risk of accidentally pressing buttons. It felt better for one-handed operations and for carrying the camera around in one hand (I don't use a camera strap).

The thumb wheel on the FZ330 has a much taller ribbed area on the edge of the wheel to press against and I found it easier to operate than the FZ200 thumb wheel. The thumb wheel on the FZ330 only turns; you cannot change its function by pressing it as with the FZ200.

The four-way controller does not protrude as far out from the surface as on the FZ200, and it has a slightly raised border outside it. This border is not the full height of the controller, and it is not as thick as the Lensmate ring for the FZ200. Despite this the four-way does feel somewhat less prone to setting the white balance accidentally by pressing the right hand button of the four-way. Because of the raised border around the outside, which has a rounded profile, it may not be practical to fit one of the Lensmate rings - it may not stay in place and it may leave the four-way control too deep inside the ring for effective operation.

The Mode wheel on top now has a Panorama setting, and this takes the place of one of the cutom settings, so now there is only one (C) custom setting rather than two (C1, C2) previously. Using the custom setting on the Mode dial (or pressing the Menu/Set button if the Mode dial is already set to C) leads you to a choice of three custom setups (C1, C2, C3). This is one less than with the FZ200, which has C, C2.1, C2.2 and C2.3 custom setups.

The electronic viewfinder is larger and clearer than on the FZ200 and has a rubber surround. I wear glasses and found the EVF fine to use (mostly, but not always – see below Section 10.2 Birds in flight - FZ330).

The LCD is the same size as on the FZ200.

The 3-way Focus mode switch on the side of the FZ200 lens (with options AF, AF macro, Manual focus) has moved on the FZ330 to a 3-way switch around the AF/AE lock button on the back of the camera. I found this very conveniently placed. It has a slightly different function, its three options being AFS/AFF, AFC and Manual focus.

There is now a dial on the side of the lens where the Focus mode lever was on the FZ200.

The total button count on the FZ330 has gone down to 11 (one on the lens barrel, four including the shutter button on top, 6 including the Menu/set button on the back) compared to the 12 on the FZ200 (which has the same numbers apart from one extra button on the back). The FZ330 has two wheels compared to one on the FZ200. Both cameras have two levers (around the shutter button, and on the side of the lens) and three switchs (on/off, Focus mode and Raise flash).

The FZ330 filter thread is the same size as on the FZ200. The FZ330 can use the same adapter tube as the FZ200. The FZ330 uses the same batteries as the FZ200.

The FZ330 is water and dust resistant, the FZ200 is not.

I believe the lens on the FZ330 is the same as on the FZ200. The sensor may be the same as on the FZ200, but Panasonic have not made any statement about this. (Also see below Section 6 Noise, which suggests that the sensor might be different.)

In a brief side by side test that I carried out, using raw, the resolution/detail of images from my FZ200 and FZ330 appeared to be, overall, pretty much the same, with sometimes one camera and sometimes the other producing sharper/more detailed results in particular areas of an image. Even though I used raw for these comparisons, and gave all of the images the same (default) processing in Lightroom, the colours were rendered differently by the two cameras. I was surprised by this and do not know why that is the case. It might be that Lightroom's default profiles for the two cameras handle colours differently, or perhaps the FZ330 has a different sensor that renders colours differently, or perhaps one of the sensors is operating off-specification.



--
Nick
GardenersAssistant Photography Videos - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmBgEwRDfiQMYTPORSzDxvw

Note: I think I have used "dial" and "wheel" to mean the same thing.

Despite having one less button than the FZ200, the FZ330 offers a significantly larger range of customisation than the FZ200. This is in terms both of the variety of button/switch/wheel/lever combinations that are available, and in terms of the configurability of particular options. I have not explored all the options, but here are some customisation features of Recording (shooting) mode that drew my attention, along with some related operation/ergonomic features.

There are three customisable buttons (Function, Fn) on the FZ200. There are four on the FZ330. The Drive mode button on the top plate of the FZ200 is not customisable. The equivalent button on the FZ330 is customisable. The LCD on/off button to the left of the viewfinder is not customisable on the FZ200, on the FZ330 it is (made possible by the addition of an eye sensor, so the LCD on/off fuction button is not essential).

Each of the three function buttons on the FZ200 can have one of 13 options assigned to it. Each of the four function buttons on the FZ330 can have one of 55 options assigned to it.

There are three custom setups on the FZ330 rather than four on the FZ200. This is the only area I noticed in which the FZ200 is more cusomisable than the FZ330.

When using a single focus area with the FZ200 there are four sizes of focus area available. With the FZ330 there are eight sizes of focus area, and the smallest of them is smaller than with the FZ200. For my insect photos this is a definite benefit.

When using the “Direct focus” option the four-way controller moves the focus area around on the screen. This is very attractive for my purposes, but it means that you can no longer get quick access via the controller to ISO, Focus mode, Drive mode or White balance. I want quick access to all of these except White balance, and I explain below how I have customised the buttons and wheels to retain this quick access.

With the Direct focus option, the size and location of the single focus area can be altered more easily and faster than with the FZ200. Pressing any of the 4-way controller buttons activates the adjustment of the focus area and it can be moved using the 4-way buttons and resized using the top wheel. Pressing the Display button re-centres the focus area without resizing the focus area (unlike the FZ200, which very annoyingly resizes the focus area to the default size when recentring it). A half press of the shutter button takes you back to shooting mode with the new focus area size/position.

Unlike with the FZ200, the FZ330 remembers the size of the single-area focus box when you turn off the camera. This is a significant benefit for me as I frequently turn the camera off while searching for my next little animal subject, and it avoids me having to do an awkward button press sequence every time I turn the camera back on to get back to the small focus area size.

The FZ330 has 49-area focusing, with a 7 x 7 grid of focusing areas covering most of the screen. Unlike the FZ200 it also has a “Custom Multi” focusing mode which uses one of three sets of focus areas – five areas in a cross, 13 areas in a diamond or 21 areas in a diamond with the the points chopped off. As with single area focusing, these patterns can be moved around using the 4-way buttons and you can change between the 5, 13 and 21 area patterms using the top wheel.

Unlike the FZ200, the FZ330 has a Pinpoint focus mode, which the manual says "enables more precise focusing on a smaller point than 1-area-focusing". (But see my doubt about the effectiveness of this below in Section 5 Performance.) When in pinpoint focus mode a half press of the shutter button produces a magnified view of part of the scene. This can be shown as a “picture in picture” so you retain the context, or it can use the whole screen. The 4-way buttons can be used to move the magnified area around the scene, and the top wheel can be used to alter the magnification.

In manual focus mode the side dial can be used to focus, with a bar optionally showing a mountain at one end and a flower at the other to indicate which way to turn for near and far focus. An area of the screen is magnified, to help with the focusing, and the area can be shown as a “picture in picture” or using the whole screen. The 4-way buttons can be used to move the magnified area around the scene, and the top wheel can be used to alter the magnification.

The side lever is now dedicated to zooming. Unlike with the FZ200, it cannot be reassigned to focusing.

The AF/AE lock button can be configured to lock focus, exposure or both. It can be configured to hold the lock as long as the button is pressed, or to lock when pressed and hold the lock until it is pressed again.

Focus behaviour can be configured to give priority to gaining good focus or capturing an image whether in focus or not (although I have doubts about how effective the “gain good focus” option is).

The two wheels can be configured to rotate in the opposite direction to obtain a particular effect. (You cannot reverse just one of the wheels. You have to reverse both.)

Focusing peaking can be turned on to aid focusing.

Zebras can be turned on to show areas in the image above a certain level of brightness. Two Zebra settings can be configured, each with a brightness limit of between 50% and 105%. If 100% or 105% is used then areas which are (in JPEG terms) overexposed are shown. I don't know if this means that one or more channels is clipiping, or whether the areas are completely blown to white (or something else).

When zooming in and out, instead of showing a bar with the zoom ratio (from 1X to 24X) like the FZ200, the bar in the FZ330 shows the 35mm equivalent focal length (from 25mm to 600mm). The zoom can be set so that it jumps in larger steps with equivalent focal lengths of 25, 28, 35, 50, 70, 90, 135, 160, 200, 250, 300, 400, 500 and 600mm.

There are many other options that I haven't touched on. We each have our own preferences for configuring our cameras, but it may be helpful illustrate the sort of thing that can be achieved by summarising the configuration I have set up for shooting. I set up the C1 custom mode for doing close-ups/macros using Manual exposure (M) mode (with a manually controlled external flash). I set up the C2 mode for general purpose Aperture Priority (A) shooting using natural light. I set up C3 for birds in flight.

I set up the custom modes so that one function button on the top plate is used to get at ISO adjustment. The side wheel is used to adjust aperture and the top wheel is used to adjust shutter speed in M mode and exposure compensation in A mode.

I set the other function button on the top plate to temporarily change the functions of the two wheels. It switches the side wheel to choosing autofocus mode (49 area, single area, Custom muli-area, pinpoint, tracking, face/eye detection) and switches the top wheel to choosing Drive mode (Single, Burst, 4K Photo, auto bracket, self timer). Half pressing the shutter button switches the wheels back to their previous roles.

I set the AF/AE lock to hold the lock until pressed again.

Default behaviour: The green Playback button switches to Playback mode.

Default behaviour: The Display button cycles through several screens showing more or less information on the screen/viewfinder. However, one of its options gives a screen that looks like the top plate window on a dSLR and gives an alternative to the Quick menus for adjusting a number of settings.

Manual focus and Pinpoint focus are set up to show picture in picture. The 4-way is used as described above to invoke and control movement of the focus area or the picture in picture source areas, during which operation the top wheel alters the size of the area/picture in picture and the Display button centres the area/picture in picture.

Default behaviour: Normally the Menu/set button inside the 4-way invokes the menus. When the Mode dial is in C mode the Menu/set button gives a choice of the three Custom setups as well as entry into the menus.

Default behaviour: The Q.menu button is used to invoke the Quick menu.

I set the button to the left of the viewfinder to turn Macro mode on/off.

I set the side button to switch the side wheel between changing aperture and focusing when in Manual focus mode.

When you save a custom setup settings such as aperture, shutter speed, ISO and exposure compensation are saved and reset to those values whenever you go into that custom setup.

I have found these customisation facilities very helpful, and as now customised to my preferences I am finding it easy to get at most of what I need without needing to take my eye away from the viewfinder or LCD screen. Compared with the FZ200 I can make changes faster and more reliably, with fewer mistakes and I am less frequently changing settings by accident.

The FZ330 is faster in operation than the FZ200. For example, in a test I carried out the FZ200 captured 11 raw shots in a fixed focus burst until the buffer filled. It then took 20 seconds to clear the butter (shown by the red “writing to disk” icon on the left side of the screen disappearing). The FZ330 captured 23 raw shots until the buffer filled and cleared the buffer in 14 seconds. That is, it took only two thirds of the time to clear twice as many raw files.

The FZ330 also focuses faster than the FZ200. In order to test the FZ330's focus speed (and accuracy) I did a test with the FZ330 and my Canon 70D dSLR with 55-250 lens. Here is what the central area of the scene looked like, the first focused on the forground and the second focused on the background.





Shooting raw, I used a single, central (phase detect) focus point with the 70D and a single, smallest, central focus area with the FZ330. With each camera I alternated between focusing on the foreground and background. I tried to do this as fast as I could.

I captured 67 shots with the 70D. The 70D halted several times, giving me focus confirmation but not capturing a shot. This was because the buffer had filled.

I captured 56 shots with the FZ330. It let me keep going fast, with no halting.

I captured the 56 shots with the FZ330 in 24 seconds. With the halts, it took 37 seconds to capture the first 56 shots with the 70D.

In the 70D series there was one occasion when the focus was on the background when it should have been on the foreground. It might be that I simply had the focus point wrongly positioned – I was working as fast as I could. However, looking at the image, and knowing that the focus point was centred, it seems that the camera might have got it wrong.

With the FZ330 there were 5 occasions when the focus was wrongly on the background rather than the foreground. Two of these five cases were “back to back”, meaning that the camera focused on the background five times in a row. Here too, it looks like these might have been camera errors. (The central crops of both series are in this album at Flickr.)

In this test I got a much higher proportion of failures with the FZ330 than with the 70D. I only did the test once, but the result was consistent with my experience discussed in Section 10 Birds in flight. It is also consistent with a worrying misfocusing result I got with a very simple shot. I was photographing a pier.



This was my second attempt. The first time I half pressed the shutter button the image was completely out of focus even though I got the double beep focus confirmation, so I let go of the shutter button and tried again, and captured the above shot. When I tried again I once again got focus confirmation with an out of focus image, so this time I captured the shot. Here it is.



The next attempt was fine.

I can understand that when using a very small focus area it may point at something with little contrast and so meaning the camera can not focus. That is fair enough. What I don't expect is to get focus confirmation when that happens.

Pinpoint focusing is potentially beneficial for my purposes as I want to place the centre of focus as exactly as I can in my close-up/macro shots. However, when I tried it on the plant subject shown above, aiming for the background in small spaces between the plant's leaves, I found that it was actually less able to focus on those small background areas than the smallest of the single focus area boxes. When pointed at very small areas of background Pinpoint focus would focus on the adjacent leaf in the foreground. The smallest single focus area would often focus correctly when pointed at the same small background areas.

Pinpoint focus also has a delay of perhaps half a second or so between half pressing the shutter button and gaining focus.

In terms of focusing speed relative to the FZ200, my overall impression is that on average the FZ330 focuses somewhat faster than the FZ200, and sometimes much faster. But I found it difficult to pin this down. I spent some time doing half shutter presses indoors at full zoom under artificial light pointing back and forth at subjects presenting different amounts of contrast, at different distances, with varying degrees of illumination. The FZ330 was sometimes clearly much faster, but on other occasions (with the same subjects, illumination etc) it was not clearly enough better for me to be sure about it. The FZ330 seemed rarely to be slower than the FZ200. One thing that was clear was the the FZ330 will focus in lower light levels than the FZ200, because I had one poorly lit area on which the FZ330 would focus, slowly, but the FZ200 would not focus no matter how many times I tried.

--
Nick
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gardenersassistant/collections/
GardenersAssistant Photography Videos - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmBgEwRDfiQMYTPORSzDxvw
https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/t...-dslr-primes-a-journey-of-exploration.531050/

There have been some discussions about the noise characteristics of FZ200 and FZ330 images. There are two aspects to this – the performance of the JPEG engine and the performance of the sensor (which may or may not be the same sensor in the two cameras). Curious about this, and following on from a request from Mike (@Mikedigi), I did a test.

Shooting RAW+JPEG I photographed this scene with both cameras.





Both cameras used Standard Photo Style. The FZ200 used -2 for Contrast, Sharpness, Saturation and Noise Reduction. The FZ330 used -2 for Contrast, Sharpness and Saturation, and -5 for Noise Reduction.

Both cameras were in Av mode with aperture F4. I shot hand held sitting on a typists chair with the arms supporting my elbows. Image stabilisation was on. With each camera I shot the scene using ISO 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200 and 6400.

The pairs of FZ200/FZ330 images are consistently 1/3 stop different in exposure. I wondered if the light level had changed between capturing the two sets of images. When I tried again later the exposures up to ISO 800 or so were identical but the higher ISO exposures had the same 1/3 stop difference.

There are out of the camera JPEGs of the images in this album at Flickr.

I imported the out of the camera JPEGs and the raw files into Lightroom, and then increased the shadows by the maximum amount allowed by Lightroom, like this.





I then exported the images as full size JPEGs with 85% JPEG compression. These images are in the same album at Flickr.

(The FZ200 is on the left, FZ330 on the right in the following comparisons.)

Looking at the shadows at 200% in the ISO 100 OOC JPEGs the FZ200 image is noisier.





Looking at the books in this pair the noise and definition of the lettering on the books look similar.



As the ISO increases the FZ200 OOC JPEGS continue to be noisier in the shadows than the FZ330 OOC JPEGS. However, up to ISO 3200, as the ISO increases the definition of the lettering on the books increasingly favours the FZ330 images. Here is how it looks at ISO 400, also at 200%.





Here it is at ISO 3200 at 150%.





This pattern is also present in the raw files (which had default chroma noise reduction in Lightroom but no luminance noise reduction). Here is a comparison at 150%, with the FZ200 on the left as before, showing ISO 400 on the top and ISO 3200 on the bottom. Even here, the lettering on the books is better on the FZ330 versions. This might be something that Lightroom is doing differently to the raw files, but it would also be compatible with the two cameras using different sensors, or with there being significant sample variation in some key component(s) as between the two cameras.







--
Nick
GardenersAssistant Photography Videos - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmBgEwRDfiQMYTPORSzDxvw

I have had four sessions (one very brief indeed) in our garden photographing insects and spiders with the FZ330, mainly with KX800 twin flash and Raynox 150 close-up lens, and one session using the Raynox 150 and 250 stacked to give more magnification. The “keepers” from these sessions are in these albums at Flickr:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/gardenersassistant/albums/72157673791350935
https://www.flickr.com/photos/gardenersassistant/albums/72157673696339386
https://www.flickr.com/photos/gardenersassistant/albums/72157672661782382
https://www.flickr.com/photos/gardenersassistant/albums/72157670502639634
https://www.flickr.com/photos/gardenersassistant/albums/72157672834558511

The raw files were processed with DXO Optics Pro 11, Silkypix Developer Pro 7 and in some cases Nik Dfine to produce the 1300 pixel high JPEG images.

As has been the case all year, there were not many subjects around. However, there were enough to convince me that in terms of image quality it looks like I can do as well with the FZ330 as with the FZ200. I also found the FZ330 pleasant to use. With it customised as described in 4 Customisation and Operation I preferred its usability to that of the FZ200.

I have a suspicion that faster focusing coupled with some of the improved handling characteristics may improve my success rate. Like most people who do close-up/macro, I have a high failure rate, with many images out of focus or with the focus falling in the wrong place. There are so many variables involved that it is impossible to be confident about this, but I got the impression of having a (relatively) good (less bad) success rate than usual. For early use with a camera I am not yet used to using I think that is a very promising sign. I certainly don't feel the need to get another FZ200 “just in case” the FZ330 doesn't work out.

For those who prefer not to click away from the site here is an example from each of those five sessions.

The first is one of the very few insect shots I captured with natural light. The others here used flash.



This springtail was fairly small, probably around 3mm in length.



A hoverfly grooming



A greenbottle fly. A difficult subject because of its highly reflective body.



This bee was difficult for a different reason. It and the other bees were moving around a lot. I had very little time to line up and capture shots. When I came to review the bee images from this session I was surprised at how many had worked. Actually, I don't photograph bees very often when they are feeding because of the difficulty of (a) getting to them in time and (b) getting the shot to work well while working fast.





These results (not just the bees, although that is very telling, but more generally too) make me feel positive about the FZ330 for close-up/macro work.

I don't use manual focus very often, but it is sometimes necessary, for example for shots like this where the subject is behind a web which confuses the autofocus.





I found that the way manual focus has been implemented works well (for me). Unlike some other implementations I can easily get the picture in picture magnified area when I want it, and only when I want it, and can dismiss it easily, and can easily move it where I want it to be in the frame.

I have never used focus peaking before, and that too appears to be useful in some cases.

--
Nick
GardenersAssistant Photography Videos - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmBgEwRDfiQMYTPORSzDxvw

My Canon 70D is my go to camera for flowers as I prefer how it captures and lets me render colours, textures and light, including highlight and shadow recovery. I was concentrating on other things and only captured a handful of flower images with the FZ330. These examples were all natural light shots, the first four in poor light and in rather a hurry with shutter speeds down to 1/20 sec, shooting hand-held. I think the FZ330 (and its image stabilisation) probably did as well as I could reasonably have expected. Or a bit better.

All of these were shot raw and processed with DXO Optics Pro 11, Silkypix Developer Pro 7 and possibly, for the first four, Nik Dfine. I probably used the mild Canon 500D close-up lens for most of these.































There are a very small number of other FZ330 flower images in this album and this album at Flickr.

I don't expect the FZ330 to take over from the 70D for this sort of subject, but the FZ330 was pleasant to use. It didn't present any problems that I recall and I think it produced (with suitable post processing) some very acceptable results. Here too the manual focus implementation proved helpful at times, as did focus peaking and zerbras (another thing I have never used before, but quickly came to like).



--
Nick
GardenersAssistant Photography Videos - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmBgEwRDfiQMYTPORSzDxvw

I don't have a go to camera for cloudscapes and sunsets. The 70D produces nice images, but I like to use a wide range of focal lengths, especially when there are ships passing by, and I don't like the hassle (and the shot-missing delay, and the spots on the sensor) from changing lenses, either with the 70D or my other larger sensor camera, a Panasonic G5.

On the other hand small sensor cameras, especially the FZ200, can be very noisy, especially as the light levels fall after the sun has set, which is when some of the best skies occur. This is one of the areas where I think a 1 inch sensor might be optimal for my purposes. For now though, I just wanted to test the FZ330 to see how it got on with a sunset.

There was only one sunset worth photographing in the time I was doing the tests, and even that turned out to be rather mild. However, photographing it did reveal one benefit of the FZ330. The way manual focus has been implemented makes it easy to get the camera suitably focused, and to keep it there without the risk of accidentally altering it. The bar which illustrates where the focus point sits between furthest and nearest focus has a small red area at the long end. With the indicator on the bar moved exactly over the join between the small red area and the rest of bar, the clouds were in focus. Getting (and retaining) good infinity (or almost infinity) focus is an area I have had trouble with in the past with sunsets and cloudscapes, so this aspect of the FZ330's handling was very pleasing.

Here are several images from that sunset. Once again I shot raw and processed with DXO Optics Pro 11 and Silkypix Developer Pro 7. I don't recall using Nik Dfine in this case, which I find surprising as FZ200 images can get very noisy as the light falls enough to see the lights on the opposite side of the estuary.





















The rest of the keepers from that session are in this album at Flickr.



--
Nick
GardenersAssistant Photography Videos - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmBgEwRDfiQMYTPORSzDxvw

Photographing birds in flight is a fairly recent interest for me. It came about when I needed some test shots and went to a little local boating lake because there would be some ducks and swans that would do as subjects for whatever it was I was up to. I had three cameras with me and was switching between them – it was quite tedious and boring – but some gulls started flying around when I had my Canon 70D in my hands, with a 55-250 zoom lens. Much to my surprise I dicovered that I could photograph them in flight, and it was really rather exciting. I tried with the other cameras but it didn't work with them. The difference seemed to be the extremely rapid response of the 70D's phase detect focusing. Obviously I missed loads of shots, but I liked what I got from those that did work enough to want to go back and try again. And I have done. Several times.

So that's my background with birds in flight. Not a birder. Not very skilled. Just content to have a go in a target rich environment with some very ordinary birds – mainly seagulls. This sort of thing.





















I had recently read some posts about how the FZ1000 compared to a dSLR for birds in flight. The FZ330 has the same type of rapid focusing (Depth from Defocusing) as the FZ1000. I wondered if the FZ330 could capture this sort of image.



--
Nick
GardenersAssistant Photography Videos - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmBgEwRDfiQMYTPORSzDxvw

Even though the FZ330 focuses quite fast, I found it a lot harder than with the 70D. My failure rate was very high, with lots of images completely out of focus, and a lot of the rest not properly sharp. I was also having great difficulty locating the subject some of the time. The FZ330's EVF didn't give me anything like as clear a view as through the 70D's optical viewfinder. Even when I knew the subject was somewhere in the frame I might not be able to see it. I lost a lot of shots that way.

Another issue was finding the subject when it was outside the frame. With the 70D I can very quickly turn the zoom ring to zoom to a wider angle, locate the subject and zoom in on it. That works both for initial subject acquisition and when I lose the subject and need to find it again. In contrast, the zoom on the FZ330 is very slow, and that was the cause of losing a lot more shots.

A related issue was that these birds move fast, and as they get closer the angles and the size of the subject in the frame change fast. That is another reason why it is important to be able to zoom in and out quickly.

With the FZ330 the zooming was not fast enough a lot of the time. This problem was made worse by the fact that with the FZ330, the shutter button is deactivated while zooming. This means you have to clearly separate the acts of zooming and shooting, which slows things down and results in shots being missed because of pressing the shutter button too early before the zooming process was deactivated.

As far as focusing went, sometimes I got sharp images but even when I was tracking a bird that was moving steadily, and keeping it well placed in the frame, I might get perhaps two in focus then a whole string of images out of focus.

I tried various things – using fast shutter speeds (which needs a bright day), turning off image stabilisation, trying various arrays of focus points, changing the Focus/Release priority from Release to Focus, so the camera would give priority to getting the images in focus rather than capturing the shots quickly, using bursts and not using bursts, using and not using Electronic Shutter, trying various approaches to post processing. While all this was going on I had a couple of sessions with the 70D just to make sure I wasn't misremembering how hard or easy it was with the 70D, and/or how successful or not I was with it. (4 of the 5 images in the previous post were from those two sessions. The “keepers” from those two 70D sessions are in this album and this album at Flickr.)

Eventually things fell somewhat into place with the FZ330. Having worked out what settings to use, and getting a bright day on which to try them out, I did have a bit more success, although frustratingly a lot of the birds weren't there that day, and activity was thin on the ground, mostly just flying around rather than the more interesting interactions. Anyway, here are some shots from that latest session.





















The next one was particularly difficult. Pigeons are small and fly fast.















The rest of the “keepers” from that session are in this album at Flickr.

There are some more gulls in flight shots from a sunny day at the local marina early on in the test period in this album at Flickr.



--
Nick
GardenersAssistant Photography Videos - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmBgEwRDfiQMYTPORSzDxvw

It seems to me that fast shutter speeds are needed, preferably over 1/1000 sec. In order to get enough depth of field I didn't really want to use a wider aperture than f/4 on the FZ330. And keeping the ISO at 100 with the FZ330 was a good idea if at all possible, one of the issues with using higher ISOs being the need to crop extensively. It is difficult to get the subject “composed” in the frame. It is more a case (for me at least) of “get it somewhere in the frame and work out some cropping afterwards”. So quite a lot of cropping can be needed. Also, the subject may simply be too far away to fill enough of the frame without cropping. As ISO increases noise can become a serious issue after significant cropping.

So getting fast enough shutter speeds with a low enough ISO needs a bright day. But bright days bring problems of controlling highlights. That needs underexposure – with both cameras I was shooting with at least a full stop of negative exposure compensation and sometimes more, and even that wasn't enough to prevent localised burnout on some of the subjects. And if you underexpose a lot you may have to bring up shadows a lot, introducing more noise.

These are not problems just with the FZ330, or just with small sensor cameras in general. I encountered similar problems with the 70D. This may seem surprising because the 70D has a sensor with 10 times the area of the FZ330. However, as with close-up/macro, “equivalence” comes into play.

I want to get a certain amount of DoF and this means using a smaller aperture with a larger sensor. In the two sessions with the 70D I used f/11 on one day and f/13 on the other. In order to get the same DoF with an FZ330 you would need to use f/3.2 and f/3.5 respectively. This is a difference of three and two thirds stops. For a given shutter speed this means using an ISO three and two thirds stops faster. So if using ISO 100 on the FZ330 I would need to use ISO 1250 on the 70D. And this is roughly the settings I used – ISO 100 and f/4 on the FZ330 and f/11 or f/13 with mainly ISO 1000 or ISO 1250 on the 70D. In both cases, the more I cropped the more serious the noise issue became.

With both the 70D and FZ330 I spent a lot of time and effort with several combinations of software and both global and local adjustments trying to rescue some images that I thought could have been quite nice if not for the noise. This was more of a problem with the FZ330 because apart from the final session I had been shooting in lower light levels with the FZ330 and had to use higher ISOs to keep the shutter speed fast. Despite my best efforts I had sacrifice detail for the higher ISO FZ330 shots on not so bright days and am uneasy about the image quality I was left with, or lack of it. Here is an ISO 400 example from one of the not so bright days with the FZ330. Nice sequence – a pity about the noise and lack of detail.





































FWIW the rest of the (sort of, IMO not really) “keepers” from that session are in this album at Flickr.



--
Nick
GardenersAssistant Photography Videos - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmBgEwRDfiQMYTPORSzDxvw

I like the FZ330. It handles well, especially when customised to my personal needs and preferences. It is letting me capture images of insects and spiders that I like the look of, and although I haven't used it much for flowers and sunsets it looks so far to be ok even if not stellar for both. Photographing birds, even the easy, plentiful ones I deal with, is rather difficult (for me at least) with the FZ330.

My preferences are now lining up like this.

For insects and spiders it looks like FZ330 will be my go to camera. I may take both the FZ330 and FZ200 with me, perhaps using the FZ200 and appropriate close-up lenses, or the bare camera, for larger and smaller subjects, and the FZ330 with the Raynox 150 for the middle sized subjects that I spend most time with.

For birds in flight, the 70D will be my go to camera.

Unless/until I get a 1” sensor bridge camera, I'll try the FZ330 for sunsets and cloudscapes on the estuary.

For flowers I'll probably continue to use the 70D, G5 or FZ330 depending on mood and possibly (the FZ330 being rain resistant) depending on the weather.

And I'll continue to use the TZ60 when I want to put a little camera in my pocket “just in case”.

gardenersassistant said:

I like the FZ330. . . . . . .

Click to expand...

Phew!!!

Thanks Nick, I think I was reading 1-10.2 while you were writing 11.

Both the FZ200 and the FZ330 come out of this quite well and it does not appear that the FZ330 JPEG engine has been "screwed up" re Noise Reduction, versus the FZ200, as was alleged elsewhere. Rather the contrary.

Your earlier suspicions that the FZ330 gave softer images seem to have evaporated too.

Very helpful, thanks again. I admire greatly but cannot start to match your patience, objectivity, attention to detail and dedication.

Mike

Fantastic stuff..
Well done Nick and thank you for your effort.

My experience of such matters is insignificant compared with yours and others but I am happy with the camera. There are certain things I would like to improve..the in camera flash and the general low light performance, but with both of those the issue might be that I haven't set the camera up properly for them yet.

Regards,
David
***************************************
Growing old is inevitable; growing up, however, is optional.
And I have opted out.

Hello

Very complete and IMHO fair review of the first experience with the Panasonic's Lumix FZ 300/330 camera. It was a delight to read. Good observations and meaningful conclusions on the camera's abilities.

Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts.

First of all: woh! 4000 plus images in a few day's ánd at least 1/4 gone true the processing street... great and big job!

really respect.

second, ive done some skipping im afraid (not that good in speed reading in english) but from what i have bin capturing in general is the FZ330/300 a good and firm step forewards in image, handling and build specs. keep in mind that it still a small sensor cam is and probably the same lens and sensor, so they tuned the "thing" to get more out of it.

So if the new Nikon 24-500 or hopefully 24-600 fz1000mkII (maybe they shrink the sensor a bit to fit a 24-600mm, or i don't know if this is possible use shrinking crop for the last 200mm like the izoom in the fz200.) , are delayed for a long time and the FZ200 isn't covering the needs any more this fz300 can be the jumpstep before "lift off" for the final leap forewards : a general purpose 1" fixed lens body.

About the colour "problem" is this adjustable towards the fz200? or do you need this to manualy pp in sp or lr to get the same color tint out of both?

(I realy don't want to buy the upgrate and discover a few months later that the "holy grale" is found and for sale) but if and only if my fz200 died in my hands i think the fz330/300 is a bit of a nobrainer as a replacement.

a other choise would be leap over the fence and get a G7 14-140mm , shutter blurr or not, or even go to aps-c and a superzoom lens. (This will cause a loss in one for all kind of gear.)

Choises choises!

i think i try to make mine in 2017-18 ;-)

Excellent work Nick. You 'hit the nail on the head' when talking about noise. Fact is, even with f2.8 available, which isn't always appropriate/possible, for fast action you really need good light so that ISO can be kept low, ISO100 ideally and no more than ISO400. This is a compromise that has to be accepted. The FZ330 imo, in many ways, is certainly a leap forward compared to the FZ200: retention of settings when switched off/on; manual focus controls; dust/water resistance( but no-one would deliberately test this); speed of operation; EVF; touchscreen; no indent of control wheel; 4k goodies.; plus a great feel in the hand.

I'm very interested to see what the new FZ2500 has to offer. Potentially, it may offer the optimal compromise between the FZ330 and M4/3, and might therefore replace two cameras and long zoom with one device. Though I'd setill keep some M4/3 kit for UWA.

Agreed, the TZ60 is a great 'just in case' camera to put in the backpack or on the belt.

Well Nick as others have stated, what a fantastic unbiased honest comparison. The time devoted and brain cell activity used I think I would want a good drink and a rest. :-D

I thought you would learn to like it, but never imagined how you would run it through it's paces. Well done, and thanks for some very interesting results, which in all honesty I fully agree. I would think that the one who must be obeyed is happy to see that you are not disappointed with your new tool.

I'm happy with mine now I have my Android Tablet and FZ330 connecting easily, just want some spare time to make more use of it.

gardenersassistant said:

For birds in flight, the 70D will be my go to camera.

Click to expand...

Yesterday, with just the FZ200 at my local Bluegrass Scrambles - solo and sidecar motor bikes - I was only about 10-40 metres from the action, making the action very fast and hard to follow, whether crossing or coming towards me.

Compared, I suspect, with using the D90 I sold, and in spite of having bright sunshine, I had these impressions of the FZ200:

1. The EVF felt pathetic compared with a DSLR OVF.

2. The zoom was so slow that it was unfit for purpose. Speeding it up would not solve the problem, nothing can compete with the fast control of a mechanical zoom, going from wide angle to full zoom in a quarter turn.

3. AutoFocus was too slow.

4. At the end of a short 5.5 fps burst, I got EVF View Freeze (or Playback?) for seconds, long enough to miss the next piece of action. Why?

5. When the action was coming towards me, and shooting a burst, the first bike quickly went out of focus, and I was dithering, wondering whether to use Continuous AutoFocus, which seems to get a bad press here. [ ??? ]

6. When lighting became difficult, like shooting into sun at a scene full of exhaust smoke (start of a race), Noise happened.

This is not to denigrate the FZ200, these problems are typical of EVF cameras with power zoom. I love my FZ200 for the stuff I usually do, but here, amongst the chaos and the exhaust smoke, I have to tell the brutal truth. I'll post a few pics later, in another thread.

Nick, reverting to your birds in flight, I guess that if you only had the FZ330, you might try a Red Dot Sight, if you were serious about your hit rate.

But if you were really serious about birds in flight, you might buy a DSLR, like the 70D.

Mike