found my spare FZ50(2007) in my basement, still in mint condition, but is it "good enough" in 2022?

[Dan Monroe]

found my spare FZ50(2007) in my basement, still in mint condition, but is it "good enough" in 2022?

Even found a pile of Panasonic-made accessories in the box: 1.7x telephoto converter, wired remote shutter, 4 batteries, 2 different ND filters, etc....

 

[Bob A L]

I'm sure it's trash, if you send it to me, I will find a way to dispose of it (or take photos with it) ;-) Actually, I looked up the specs and it looks like a interesting camera that might well make great photos. It has the 1/1.8" CCD sensor that is probably the same one used by other manufacturers in that era which provided much superior image quality in my opinion over the typical point and shoot camera with the 1/2.3" sensors.

 

[arnoud venema]

It's the big sister (or brother?) of my FZ30 which is still in working order with the remote shutter release and Olympus Tcon17.

Anyone interested?

Arnoud

 

[Castaway]

found my spare FZ50(2007) in my basement, still in mint condition, but is it "good enough" in 2022?

Even found a pile of Panasonic-made accessories in the box: 1.7x telephoto converter, wired remote shutter, 4 batteries, 2 different ND filters, etc....

Certainly good enough.

I had and still have the FZ30. Great camera.

A couple of images from way back when:







Chipmunk in the bushes.



Have a print of this hanging on the wall. One of my favourites.

The 30 & 50 had some great features including internal extending lens, zoom and focus wheels around the lens. Also as you say, connection for remote shutter. Also good for macro as the front element didn’t move when focussing.

I used mine taking 100 photos for the local paper basically paying for itself.

I’ve had it out in the last few days with good results but haven’t yet got any ready for posting.

--
Malcolm the Old Sea Dog
Galleries at http://www.pbase.com/oldseadog/galleries

 

[arnoud venema]

Would it be an idea to open a FZ30/50 thread to post our best shots with these classics?

Arnoud




something to remember



--
keep on shooting!

 

[Castaway]

Would it be an idea to open a FZ30/50 thread to post our best shots with these classics?

Arnoud

Great idea Arnoud. Classics in deed, several unique features.

I have a few more ready to go if you want to start it.

something to remember

--
Malcolm the Old Sea Dog
Galleries at http://www.pbase.com/oldseadog/galleries

 

[Castaway]

A few more FZ30 images.

A trio of gophers at the side of the road from 2006.







A Blue Lobelia taken last month.



An open cockpit Tiger Moth, again in 2006, that I was lucky to be taken for a short flight in that day.



--
Malcolm the Old Sea Dog
Galleries at http://www.pbase.com/oldseadog/galleries

 

[Dak on cam]

found my spare FZ50(2007) in my basement, still in mint condition, but is it "good enough" in 2022?

Even found a pile of Panasonic-made accessories in the box: 1.7x telephoto converter,

Somewhat sad to say, you'd probably be able to sell the DMW-LT55 for double the price than the rest. It's still the "default" extender for current-day FZ300/FZ80 and the build date (which possibly could correlate with the expected quality) is not printed on...

wired remote shutter, 4 batteries, 2 different ND filters, etc....

The FZ50 has an internally zooming lens that is manually linked. It's absolutely the greatest (no other cam will zoom and frame with that ease and reliability) but comes at a cost in bulk.

The autofocus action sort of quirky/distracting, the LCD is nothing to write home about really. Remember that pressing the display button for 2 seconds will turn on/off extra light: that is really handy. The viewfinder can only be activated when you fold in the LCD. That is a nuisance.

The sensor has 10MP and that is just too much for its time and size. The images get "fixed" by the Venus III (I think) processor that gets, too put it mildly, mixed reviews for the kind of noise reduction it applies. The camera will create raw images which you can postprocess yourself, but the small pixel size on a CCD sensor does provide challenges.

It's pretty nice for macro photography due to the combination of a solid zoom range and a tiny aperture (F11 on 1/1.8" sensor corresponds to about F45 full-frame with regard to depth of field), of course at a cost in diffraction.

Here is a combination with a ring flash and a Raynox DCR-250:



which is good for photographs like these:



The largest SDcard it will accept is 32GB and it works fine with those. Except that you should not attempt to delete non-keepers on camera. With large media like this, it takes an absolutely ridiculous amount of time to delete single photographs, and bulk deletions scale that delay up and thus don't help. There is considerable danger that the camera battery will give up during deletion and leave inconsistent memory cards.

So do your cleanup afterwards on the computer.

For everyday photography, I probably would not carry it around due to its bulk and mixed image quality and handling. But it's a reasonable closeup shooter when you add the right equipment: particularly if you are adding flash/lens contraptions, it is nice that they stay fixed in place.

Oh, and it has the sneakiest "Extended Zoom" implementation I've seen yet. If you choose a smaller image resolution, the resulting extended zoom range gets spread over the whole 12x optical zoom range by using a smaller cropping region in synch with the position of the optical zoom.

--
Dak

 

[SterlingBjorndahl]

I agree, especially regarding the value for macrophotography, where the 6 second write time for RAW is not so much of an issue. I got some of my favourite macros with the FZ50 and Raynox 250 close-up adapter.

But he last time I took mine out for a walk in the streets, a couple of years ago, I came home disappointed both with the quality of the results and the general shooting experience. Back in 2007-2008 I was completely in love with it (especially after having created quick-release adapters for the wide and tele converters, made by sawing down extra lens shades and gluing in 55mm threaded rings), but I couldn't recapture that feeling on walkabouts any longer, having in the meantime invested first in the DMC-L1 with the Panny-Leica 14-150 and then the MFT system with the 14-140 (not as good as the 14-150 but good enough for most purposes) and gotten used to the responsiveness, larger LCD displays, reasonable RAW write times, extra dynamic range, etc. That said, the captures I did in 2007-2008 are of perfectly acceptable quality for web and even printing 8x10. I remember it fondly but nowadays it's just too frustrating for my everyday use. I'm sure someone with more patience than I can still do wonders with it.

Best wishes,
Sterling
--
Lens Grit

 

[Bob A L]

Oh, and it has the sneakiest "Extended Zoom" implementation I've seen yet. If you choose a smaller image resolution, the resulting extended zoom range gets spread over the whole 12x optical zoom range by using a smaller cropping region in synch with the position of the optical zoom.

Newer panasonics still have this. As a new panasonic owner and one that is not bashful about using digital or crop zooming techniques have found this to be a really neat feature. I can shoot 20mp full sensor resolution up to maximum optical zoom, then it seamlessly starts cropping sensor variably up to max extended zoom range. And no, I did not say with fantastic results, but certainly good usable results. But no deterioration of anything up to maximum optical zoom. I've never seen this in any other brand I have owned.

 

[Bob A L]

Just how bad do you want to get rid of it? Or should I rephrase to how cheap?

 

[Dak on cam]

Oh, and it has the sneakiest "Extended Zoom" implementation I've seen yet. If you choose a smaller image resolution, the resulting extended zoom range gets spread over the whole 12x optical zoom range by using a smaller cropping region in synch with the position of the optical zoom.

Newer panasonics still have this.

No, they don't.

As a new panasonic owner and one that is not bashful about using digital or crop zooming techniques have found this to be a really neat feature. I can shoot 20mp full sensor resolution up to maximum optical zoom, then it seamlessly starts cropping sensor variably up to max extended zoom range.

That's not what happens with the FZ50. I repeat: the resulting extended zoom range gets spread over the whole 12x optical zoom range by using a smaller cropping region in synch with the position of the optical zoom.

What you are talking about instead is switching to increased cropping after exhausting the optical zoom range. That is not an option when working with a manually linked zoom.

And no, I did not say with fantastic results, but certainly good usable results. But no deterioration of anything up to maximum optical zoom. I've never seen this in any other brand I have owned.

Panasonic has extended zoom beyond the end of its optical zoom range for its motor zoom models (essentially all models these days). Sony has the same and calls it "smart zoom". If you take a look at the mechanically linked DSC-R1 from Sony, it has chosen to provide a button that will switch between scaling down the whole sensor to final image resolution and cropping in the final image resolution. That's an either/or choice at any optical zoom position. The normal extended motor-zoom gives you a gradual scale-to-crop pseudo-zoom after the optical zoom is exhausted. The FZ50 spreads that transition all across the optical zoom.

It's really sneaky.

 

[Bob A L]

[No message]

 

[Eric Belko]

I've got one of those too. It's still a nice camera.