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Panasonic FZ200 topic, 24x zoom with constant F2.8 aperture
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  • wielkiczarnyafganwielkiczarnyafgan

    Personally I love the detail that serial FZ200 generates :) I like it's image as much as image of mine GH2 :)

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    One more review

    The Lumix FZ200, Panasonic's Flagship super-zoom, marks a turn in the road for the FZ range and maybe even for the Super-zoom market generally. Rather than continue striving to produce ever longer zoom ranges with increasingly powerful telephoto focal lengths, Panasonic has taken a time out and thought of other ways of improving things. The result is one of those things that looks obvious in restrospect, but in truth takes a company with vision to bring about. The Lumix FZ200's killer feature is its f2.8 constant aperture lens.

    http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Panasonic_Lumix_DMC_FZ200/

  • wielkiczarnyafganwielkiczarnyafgan

    lovely detail :)

  • tcarrettitcarretti

    Wow, that wildlife video really looks great! I need to take my FZ200 out and play with it some more. The problem is too many cameras and not enough time!

  • jcmrjcmr

    Its a wonderful video. I have posted two more videos from that collection on page 8 of this topic.

  • vicxvicx

    Nice video but I think the original 60fps must look even better for nature footage. Youtube and Vimeo only support 30fps max.

  • markr041markr041

    Having no African safari in the immediate future I shot a test video with my new FZ200 to see how well it did in low light (color and noise) and in very bright light at full extension, with particular attention to whether it would focus quickly on what I wanted. Interested in bokeh too. I think it did ok:

    Manual WB indoors, auto WB outdoors, with ND filter. Shot at 1/60th, mostly using 600mm outdoors, NR at -2. All handheld (as is obvious for the indoors close-ups):

    Select 1080p. No reconversion from the camera clips was done by me.

  • markr041markr041

    And more of a real video, complete with bird shots and a macro:

  • markr041markr041

    FZ200 Video: Palm Beach

    Boats, ships, the intercoastal, bicyclists, walkers, fountains, flowers, hedging and trimming, inside two Palm Beach landmarks, ducks, cranes, gulls, the beach and wind.

    Indoor shots used the Panasonic LX7.

    All 108060p, with shutter at 1/125th and ND 8 filter outdoors.

  • trevmartrevmar

    Don't forget to try using Creative Video shutter-preferred with the "STD" mode selected as your "Film mode"

    "STD" gives the widest dynamic range, and I find it is excellent for editing. I just stretch the blacks back to zero baseline, and whites to 245ish, using the Levels plugin in Vegas.

  • markr041markr041

    "Don't forget to try using Creative Video shutter-preferred with the "STD" mode selected as your "Film mode""

    That is exactly what I used for both the Whitney Falls and Palm Springs videos. The videos did not undergo any recompression.

  • tcarrettitcarretti

    Here's a quick project I shot with the FZ200 this morning. Shot at ISO 200, SS 50, F4.0 in STD profile with -1's all the way down except for sharpness which I left at 0.

    Audio was done with a cheap Olympus pocket recorder and a Neewer Lav mic that costs $1.44...

    Pretty happy with the original quality. Used the default 720p HD Youtube export settings in Premiere Pro CS6 so I'm sure it could look better with some custom export settings. Bottom line is the camera made it a breeze to shoot this. Great blogging camera!

    Tony

  • markr041markr041

    You can add an optical tele-extender (Panasonic LT55+adaptor) and get a 1142mm lens (672mm*1.7). And the OIS is good enough to handhold at that level of magnification:

    Shot at 108060p, 1/125th shutter, handheld. Clip is straight from the camera, only processed (degraded) by Youtube.

  • trevmartrevmar

    Amazon.com has the FZ200 for $475 and $499 today (two different Prime sellers)...

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    @trevmar

    This is proper topic for such

    http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/3156/deals-all-compacts-and-camcorders-deals#Item_14

  • tcarrettitcarretti

    Here's a good example of how the FZ200 compares to a Sony superzoom in less than good light. The main shots are with the FZ200 and the side shots are with the Sony HX20v:

    The audio was recorded using a cheap Olympus VN-8100PC digital voice recorder and a $1.44 (yes your read that right...) Neewer Lavalier microphone.

  • markr041markr041

    FZ200 video documents one crew's experience cleaning up after an unprecedented 36" snowstorm:

    Shot at 1/60th shutter priority, 108060p, some shots with the LT55 tele extender. Rain (and fog) prevented much movement by the camera operator, so the zoom came in handy.

  • valdi99valdi99

    Any news regarding hack progress? Or are we waiting for the firmware update to be released and then hacked?

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    @valdi99

    I'll make comment with time, do not worry.

  • valdi99valdi99

    @Vitaliy - I am not worrying, I just need it ;) Need to switch from PAL to NTSC and get rid off slower frame rates and stupid 29'59'' limit...

  • valdi99valdi99

    Hi guys, is it possible to see clipped highlights blinking - before I start recording, or only when I playback my pictures..? By the way: I've tested a little bit different styles and "Natural" gives definitely widest dynamic range! Even at all sliders default (0, 0, 0, 0) it has lower contrast than any other style and is less prone to clip the highlights. So with contrast -2 might be even better...

  • tcarrettitcarretti

    This was recorded on the FZ200 using the Rode Video Mic going straight into the camera via a 10' extension cable and a 3.5mm to 2.5mm right angle adapter. The mic was placed on a short tripod about 3 feet away. It sure would be nice to have audio level meters on the camera. I don't know if that's possible, but I figured I'd put the suggestion out there just in case.

    Still like the simplicity of the camera for blogging. The swivel screen is so helpful when you're on your own.

    Tony

  • wielkiczarnyafganwielkiczarnyafgan

    I am currently shooting some corporational commercial using FZ200 together with GH2, the high-speed mode results are quite fine:

  • eyenortheyenorth

    Had a shoot for a dance short the other day and while we were shooting a long take with a static camera setup, I took out the FZ200 to shoot some high-speed material as extras. Since we were aiming for BW, I could shoot BW and because of the constant bitrate the image quality held up better than in colour. The director and choreographer fell in love with the stuff, so a lot of it ended going into the film. The two slomo shots in this trailer are both FZ200:

  • eyenortheyenorth

    This little monster is really growing on me. The grain structure in video mode is just lovely - even if it starts making its presence known pretty quickly going up in ISO's, in a lot of shots it comes out as a compliment to the image. Which is more than I can say for most other cameras I use. A quick example:

    Download high quality version here: https://mega.co.nz/#!otYxzL5J!dMcG-Fup8aeMwI4zrYYcEGV5ltBo3qKz65dendyMZ0M

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