FZ1000 A Day at the Zoo

The FZ1000 holds detail in the off white painted bricks in direct sun and also inside the entry foyer. RAW capture, processed and verticals corrected in Photoshop Camera Raw.

 

I took the FZ1000  to the zoo yesterday.  No more fretting about which lenses to bring.   No need to change lenses.      No more large camera bag.    The FZ1000 managed everything I wanted to photograph with no trouble at all.

RAW capture. Converted in Photoshop Camera RAW.  In the original the background appears overly bright and busy. This is partly due to the enclosure and partly due to the out of focus rendition given by the FZ1000 lens. This can be, as here, somewhat busy and distracting. So I transferred the image to Photoshop, where I selected the "non chimpanzee" parts of the image, lowered the brightness and applied Gaussian blur. A more realistic treatment of the foreground would have required more time in Photoshop.

 

The only downside issues I noticed with the FZ1000 were

* JPGs tend to blow out highlights. A fix for this is to have Zebras switched ON and apply negative exposure compensation as required.

* The small sensor delivers considerable depth of field even with the lens at full aperture. This can be perfect for documentary style pix where you want everything in focus. But it's not so good when you want the background to blur away softly.

A fix for this which I used on some of the photos shown here is to select the background in Photoshop then darken and/or blur it.

All photos are hand held.

In this situation the extended depth of field provided by the small sensor works to the photo's advantage. Everything is sharp at f4.5. I held the camera above my head, viewing on the fully articulated monitor. Verticals etc. corrected in Photoshop Camera Raw.

 

Wallaby with joey in pouch. This is another photo with a distractingly busy background, tamed a bit with Gaussian blur in Photoshop. Focal length E419mm, JPG.

 

There are many different species at the zoo. This guy was building a new facility. The FZ1000 handled the detail and brightness range very well

 

The eclectus parrot posed quietly unlike most birds in this dimly lit enclosure. I had to use ISO 6400 due to the low light. This is a JPG. I would have preferred RAW as I can always get a better result.  E369mm. In this case the red color is not quite right.

 

The kingfisher stayed in one place just long enough for me to get a shot. I-Zoom at E800mm focal length then cropped. This illustrates the problem I have had with JPGs in bright light. The collar around the bird's neck is overexposed with unrecoverable blown out pixels. I should have dialled in negative exposure compensation but there was not enough time.