FZ1000 Firmware suggestions

Having made several thousand photos with the FZ1000 I now have some ideas about improvements to the functionality of the FZ1000 which I think could be incorporated into a firmware update.  I would like to see:

1. Allow users to stop the lens retracting after the Playback button is pressed.

2. Allow users to retask the Video Button as a Fn button.

3. Adjust JPG algorithms to better protect highlights in conditions of high subject brightness range.

4. Allow users to create a My Menu with most frequently accessed items.

5. Allow the use of Timer and AEB together.

6. Rectify strange frame rate behaviour in Burst M.  At present the camera fires about 6 shots at 7 fps then fires in bursts of two or three shots with a delay between each burst.

7. Allow setting a minimum shutter speed in Auto ISO. Enable this to change (get faster) as the lens is zoomed out.

FZ1000 The most versatile camera I have ever used

Sculpture By the Sea

I have been using cameras for 60 years. In that time I have been able to own or use just about every size and type of camera ever made.

Until very recently the enthusiast/expert photographer like me had a choice:  I could have

* An Interchangeable Lens Camera (ILC) with a bunch of lenses.  This was the most capable option and probably  still is.  But it is also the most expensive, large, heavy and unwieldy due to the need to carry and change lenses.  This is the 20^th Century answer to the problem of providing a wide range of lens focal lengths. Some Micro Four Thirds (M43) kits can be very compact but you still need to buy, carry and change lenses and that is the least ergonomically satisfactory aspect of camera use.

* A fixed lens camera with good picture quality but with a single focal length or limited zoom lens.

* A fixed lens superzoom camera with a broad range of focal lengths but a very small sensor delivering suboptimal picture quality.

Many people,   myself included,  wanted  a superzoom  style camera with ILC equivalent picture quality.

I almost bought a Sony RX10  which comes close to my requirements on paper, apart from the restricted lens reach at the long end. But I was not happy with several aspects of the RX10’s ergonomics.  The handle is too thin, the shutter button perched on the tip of the handle so the right index finger has to pull back to engage with the button. The thumb support is way across to the right forcing the thumb into a vertical position rather than the preferred diagonal  position which is both stronger and more relaxed.  The user interface is a curious, and to my way of thinking somewhat incoherent mix of modern and retro features. Aperture is changed with a ring on the lens, but there is a Mode Dial and Control Dial.  There is live view on both the EVF and monitor but the top deck has an LCD panel which appears redundant to me.  There were other complaints from reviewers such as slow zooming and focussing.

Anyway I am now glad I passed on the RX10 because the Panasonic FZ1000 came along with (reportedly) the same very good 15.9mm diagonal BSI sensor, almost double the zoom range, better performance and better ergonomics at a lower price.

So I bought the FZ1000  three months ago and have now sold all my ILC gear including some very good and expensive lenses.

Of course  I could easily find an ILC with a wider lens or a longer one, but not both at once. I could find a more compact camera with better picture quality. But only at one focal length.  I could find an ILC with better high ISO image quality. But I would have to mate it to a wide aperture lens to gain full benefit of that quality. I could find an ILC which performs better with moving subjects with the right lens.

But the thing I could not find until the FZ1000 came along  is any kind of camera with enough of those things for my needs in one single package with one lens which I do not need to change.

The FZ1000 is versatile. It is:

* Quite compact considering it provides a complete camera kit in one unit requiring no accessories other than a 62mm protect filter on the lens and one or two spare batteries.   This fits into a small carry bag which is easy to carry. I use a Lowe Pro Apex 110 AW which is exactly the right size.

* Very reasonably priced considering the functionality on offer. When the FZ1000 was released, some observers cried “it’s too expensive”. I suspect they were probably comparing the FZ1000 with small sensor superzooms such as the FZ200, most of which are half the price.  But these cameras also offer half the picture quality. The real comparison is between the FZ1000 and an ILC with two or three zoom lenses. This makes the FZ1000 look very appealing even if those lenses are budget small aperture types.

* Able to quickly zoom from convincingly wide (E25mm) at one end to usefully long (E400mm) at the other and provide very good to excellent picture quality all the way.

* Able to manage static or moving subjects even indoors, with a decent percentage of keepers.

* Easy to use (practice and a good knowledge of the operating instructions are required) with good ergonomics.

* Fast and responsive in all conditions.

* Has a built in flash for those who require this feature.

* Can do 4K or less ambitious video.

* Can be driven from a smartphone.

The march of progress  in camera design has seen the SLR morph into the DSLR. In recent years we have seen  the  Mirrorless Interchangeable Lens Camera  (MILC) challenging the DSLR for market dominance in the ILC category. 

But now we are starting to see fixed lens long zoom cameras which question the need for any kind of ILC at all for many enthusiast/expert photographers.  This is the 21^st Century’s answer to the problem of providing a range of focal lengths.

I was intrigued  and frankly a bit surprised to see that at the recently concluded Photokina in Germany not a single manufacturer challenged Panasonic with an offering to compete with the FZ1000.  Even Sony which started the trend and supplied the sensor, did not upgrade the RX10.

Maybe they are waiting to see how well the FZ1000 performs in the marketplace.  Maybe they don’t want to challenge their own ILC product lines.

Maybe they are just dozing at the wheel of their product development convoys.

We shall  see. In the meantime I am enjoying the FZ1000 and making more photos with it than I have  done with any other camera.

FZ1000 Close Up Options

The FZ1000  is a tremendously versatile camera.  With no additional equipment or accessories it can deliver good results with general photography, sport/action, wide angle, telephoto and much more.

This post is about close up options.

Several years ago  I  used to de- stress from a hectic workplace by going into the bush on weekends and photographing flowers of the Sydney region. I used a 35mm SLR with a macro lens, cable release, slow transparency film, tripod and  light diffusers which required at least one more tripod.  It was all very peaceful but setting up for a photo would take at least 15 minutes.

Fast forward  to the digital era and much has changed. But the basic operation of a modern DSLR is just the same as a 1960’s  SLR using film.  The greatest leap forward in versatility has been in cameras with a fixed zoom lens and this has come from new technology in the construction of zoom lenses, particularly the use of multiple aspheric elements. 

This has enabled lenses with a long zoom range and also the capacity to focus very close.  Both of these capabilities have been available on cameras with very small sensors (usually with 7.5mm diagonal)  for some time, but the FZ1000  adds a decent sized (15.9mm diagonal) sensor and very good picture quality to the equation.

At the same time cameras have acquired improved quality in the middle  ISO settings range and more capable focus and drive capabilities.

All these developments  have granted the intrepid close up photographer new freedoms and have encouraged new ways of working in the close up domain.

A traditional macro lens,  when used for close ups,  works within a limited  range of distances between the camera and subject. But the FZ100 introduces a new set of options.  Close ups can be had with the front element of the lens almost touching the subject or with the camera one meter from the subject or anywhere in between.

I will illustrate some of the options with reference to the photographs: By the way all the photos have been cropped for publication.

The picture above was made in my front garden.  The camera was hand held. RAW capture. Focal length E86mm, f8, ISO 125, 1/225 sec. I brought the camera as close as possible without provoking the red AF box and “too close” warning.  I used autofocus and a largish AF box (size 6/15).  There was some wind, causing the subject to move about and the insect was moving about, as insects are wont to do.  I set the Drive Mode to Burst M and fired off a series of short bursts of about 5 frames each.  Many of the resulting frames were unsharp but several were quite sharp and I selected one.

This is an example of a close up with the camera at an intermediate distance of about 250mm from the subject.

For the photo above the front element of the lens was almost touching the flower. I had to remove the lens hood. I usually find little use for this option which brings the camera so close it blocks light from the subject and would spook any little creature thereupon. But this little flower was mostly backlit so the light was not a problem.  The flower was up high, above my head on a small tree. It was a windy afternoon causing the flower to wave and bounce about all over the place.  It appeared to be an impossible challenge for a close up shot.

So I set Burst M (7 fps) and AF continuous, swung out the articulated monitor so I could view above my head and fired off a series of bursts. Of course most of the frames were blurred but some were acceptably sharp. This is the first time in my life I used Shutter Priority, Burst and AFC for a close up shot and it worked.

ISO 160, Shutter Priority AE, 1/640 sec at f5.6, Focal length E25mm. RAW.

Now we come to a close up shot with a camera to subject distance of  just over 1000mm.  The bees were working little flowers which flourish in the grass. I bent over at the waist, pointed the camera straight down,  used AF Single and Burst M, shooting in bursts of about 5 frames with RAW capture.  Of course plenty of the shots had either the bee or the flowers or both unsharp but quite a few got both the bee and flower acceptably sharp.

RAW capture, Shutter Priority AE, 1/640 at f4, ISO 125, Focal  length E400mm.

This  photo is of the same little flowers and bee (well maybe it was a different bee) but this time I set the Quality to JPG and enabled i-Zoom for a focal length of E800mm. I think you can see the RAW version is better.   In fact after making many hundreds of photos with i-Zoom I have come to the conclusion that I get better quality results with RAW capture, cropped in post processing.

This is another shot which would have been almost impossible in the good old days. The spider in its web was moving back and forth about 50mm  in the breeze making focus very difficult.  The web was back lit with the sun only just out of frame.  I put the camera on a tripod but left the head unlocked so I could change the camera angle.  I used Manual Focus as the AF would not focus on the spider  because the background was so busy.  Again I used Burst M with multiple bursts when the spider appeared to be coming into focus.

Nobody is about to enter this shot in a competition but the fact the FZ1000 enabled me to take any kind of photo at all in such complicated conditions is somewhat remarkable.

RAW capture, Aperture Priority, f8, ISO 250, 1/80 second, Focal length E93mm.

The last photo illustrates the use of a close up lens, screwed to the front element of the camera lens.

I used a 58mm Canon 500D which is a 2 element 2 diopter lens.  It is optically very good and enables real macro shots towards the long end of the FZ1000 range.  This permits a useful working distance between the camera and subject.

The photo was made in the early morning in low light. Hand held, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority f8, 1/160 second, focal length (as recorded by the EXIF data) E398mm.  The flower is about 25mm across.

Technically the close up lens probably offers the best close up performance of all the options covered in this post.  It provides the smallest angle of view, a useful working distance and good optics while retaining OIS, AE and AF.

But I hate it.  This is the ergonomics blog and the ergonomics of using one of the available good quality close up lenses are dreadful. I have a B+W slimline protect filter on the FZ1000 with no front thread. There are currently no 62mm double element CU lenses available new and the (very) old Nikon ones available second hand are often exorbitantly priced. 

Update: Thanks to Brad on the DPR Panasonic Compact Camera Forum I learned that Marumi makes a 62mm achromatic close up lens of +3 diopters  (Marumi 330).  I will investigate.

So to use the 58mm Canon 500D I have to remove the front filter from the FZ1000, put it in a clamshell container, take out the 500D, dig the 62-58mm step down ring from my bag, attach it to the 500D then finally attach the step down with 500D affixed onto the front of the FZ1000. The whole process is much worse than changing lenses.  Every time I do this I drop at least one of the (fairly expensive) bits and the whole process is so time consuming it is hardly worth while.  In addition I have to carry an oversized bag to contain the accessory bits and pieces.

Now IF someone made a good 62mm 2 element or aspheric CU lens I would consider getting a protect filter which does have a front thread and trying again. But for the moment I will pass on the CU option.

Hoya makes  single element 62mm CU lenses, which I might try at some stage.

    

A Simple Way to Describe Sensor Size - Diagonal Dimension

Impressionist Painting Effect
FZ1000  Subject 1.3 kilometers from the camera over ocean and beach, I-Zoom at E800mm. Strong atmospheric distortion.

 

In the good old days  of film there were not many sizes from which to choose. Most people used 35mm film which was actually 35mm wide,  and I suspect many would  have been only vaguely aware that any other  size existed.

However since the beginning  of digital photography there has been a profusion and confusion of sensor sizes. Adding to the muddle, camera makers got into the habit of naming their sensor sizes in the most bizarre way. They used as reference the diameter of a notional cathode ray tube which would have been required in the 1950's to incorporate the particular sensor. To make matters worse they described this in inches then expressed the dimension in a weird inverted fashion like [1/1.7 inches].  Nobody presented with this bit of nonsense would have the faintest  clue how large the sensor might actually be.  

Maybe the manufacturers were deliberately obfuscating the size issue, perhaps to divert consumer's attention from the fact that most digital cameras used a sensor very much smaller than the imaging area given by 35mm film.

There is a simple, useful alternative  namely to designate a sensor by it's diagonal dimension. Lets' see how this works in the table below:

Sensor Type	Aspect Ratio	Nominal Dimensions (mm)	Diagonal (mm)	Area (squ.mm)	Focal length Factor
Medium Format	Various	Various, about 44x33	Various about 55	Various about 1452	Various about 0.78
Full Frame	3:2	36x24	43	864	1.0
APS-C Sony et al	3:2	23.5x15.6	28	367	1.5
APS-C Canon	3:2	22.3x14.9	27	332	1.6
Four Thirds, Micro 4/3	4:3	17.3x13	21.6	225	2.0
One inch	3:2	13.2x8.8	15.9	116	2.7
2/3"	4:3	8.8x6.6	11	58	3.9
1/1.7"	4:3	Various about 7.5x5.6	Various about 9.3	Various about 42	4.6
1.2"	4:3	6.4x4.8	8	30	5.4
1/2.3"	4:3	6.1x4.6	7.7	28	5.6

 

So, instead of calling  the sensor in the Panasonic FZ1000 and several other cameras,  "one inch" which means nothing it can be described by the diagonal which is 15.9mm which is at least something real and useful for those consumers who might want to know the size of the sensor in their camera.

I really don't know  why this simple naming system has not become universal, it seems so completely obvious to me. Not to others apparently.

 

 

All My ILCs Have Gone

FZ1000 at E400mm focal length

 

And all the lenses

ILC:   Interchangeable lens camera

This Blog is about  camera ergonomics. In my view the most ergonomically unappealing feature of any camera or system which I have used over the last 60 years is the whole business of changing lenses.

The first camera I ever used  was a Baldafix folding medium format film camera.  By modern standards it was a  primitive device  with a lens just barely adequate for contact prints from the 6x9cm negatives. But it was very compact and simple.

Then along came  the Single Lens Reflex (SLR)  and the camera world changed forever. We got interchangeable lenses, a  20th Century  solution to the problem of  providing wide, normal and narrow angles of view.

A 21st Century  solution to the same problem is the zoom lens, the size of which has shrunken dramatically in the last few years with the use of  sophisticated aspheric lens technology, even in consumer products.

This has allowed manufacturers to produce fixed lens cameras with a very versatile zoom range, compact size and consumer accessible price point.

Six months ago  I bought a Panasonic FZ1000 and recently realised that I had not picked up any of my very sophisticated and expensive Micro Four Thirds kit since the FZ1000 arrived. The M43  kit was based on a Panasonic GH4 with a full suite of the best M43 Panasonic zoom lenses.

Now all of this gear has been sold on E-Bay.  I am sure the new owners will be very happy, it was all top quality equipment in excellent condition.

What have I lost (that I might have wanted) ?  

* The  ultra wide angle view provided by the Panasonic 7-14mm (E14-28mm) lens.  If  I  was an architecture or  real estate photographer that would be a crippling problem and a definitive reason to keep the ILC kit.   But I am neither of those things and for occasional use the E25mm wide end of the FZ1000 does well enough for architectural subjects.   The truth was, I hardly ever put the 7-14mm lens in my bag and rarely missed it.  For a wide view I can use the sweep panorama function or make several overlapping shots and stitch them together  in Photoshop.

* An ultra long lens. The Lumix 100-300mm zooms out to E600mm at f5.6.  The FZ1000 stops at E400mm  at f4.  That is good enough for most purposes and gives good results. I have explored the various JPG only options for longer effective focal lengths and concluded that cropping from RAW probably allows for slightly better results.  Some people have tried attaching a teleconverter optical module to the front of the lens but none has yet reported  very good results.

* A bit of high ISO noise performance. I can usually compensate for this by using a slower shutter speed, relying on the very effective 5 axis OIS built into the FZ1000.

What have I lost (that I didn't want) ?

* Four  lenses, which had to be bought, at great cost, carried about and changed whenever the need for a different focal length range presented itself.  Towards the end of my time with ILCs I had become so averse to changing lenses that I usually just mounted the Lumix 14-140mm on the GH4 when going forth to take photographs and I always used just this one lens when going away or on holiday.

I soon realised that the FZ1000 was a more versatile and much less expensive option than the GH4 + Lumix 14-140mm.

What have I gained ? 

* Some funds recouped from the sale of the M43 gear.

* The freedom which comes with knowing that my entire photographic kit is one camera in one small carry bag.

* A renewed interest in photography and increased use of the camera precisely because my kit is now so compact and portable so it comes with me more often and I use it more often. I can have the camera ready to shoot in a fraction of the time which was normal with my ILC kit. I don't need to mount a lens onto the camera because it's already there.

What is the next step for me ?  The evolution of my camera kit over the last 10 years has been a story of downsizing,  from SLR to DSLR to Micro Four Thirds Mirrorless interchangeable Lens Camera to Fixed Zoom Lens Camera.  I think the next step is further downsizing, plus a little diversification. At the moment there are two FZ1000s in our family, his and hers.  This is fine but do we need them both ?

Panasonic has just introduced an even smaller full featured camera, the LX100.   This lacks the long lens range of the FZ1000 but in the wide to normal range looks very appealing.

I am very keen to stay with fixed lens cameras and will probably get an LX100 in addition to at least one of the FZ1000s.

Which way  are the other camera makers going on the downsizing issue ?  At the recently concluded biennial Photokina in Germany we saw camera makers going in all directions looking for a profitable niche.

Nikon really wants you to buy a full frame DSLR camera. Fuji, Samsung and even Olympus have released big, look-at-me zooms in the upper enthusiast/professional category. Sony appears to be fully engaged with downsizing camera bodies but both their 28mm and 43mm (diagonal) sensor sizes require large lenses at the telephoto end of the range.   Canon appears to have lapsed into copying either itself or Sony.

Panasonic appears to have an edge in the production of aspheric lenses which has allowed them to push ahead with fixed lens designs which would have been impossible just a year ago.

We live in interesting times.

FZ1000 Another Day in the City

With  help from Adobe Camera Raw, the FZ1000 was able to handle the extreme brightness range from the stained glass windows to the interior of the building with a single RAW image.

I am enjoying  the versatility of the FZ1000 which provides me with a comprehensive photographic kit in one small carry bag. My interchangeable lens kit has not been used since I got the FZ1000.

Telephoto.  Photographed through a wire fence

Underground shopping mall. Although well lit there is much less light here than outside.

Construction

I saw these flowers with their busy ants by the wayside. No need for a macro lens with the FZ1000

Geometric building, wide angle




 

Panasonic FZ1000 A Day in the City



New Apartments. Verticals corrected in Photoshop Camera RAW

 

I have been   playing tourist in Sydney lately and  making use of the photo opportunities which the FZ1000 makes available. This camera handles almost any photographic scenario with its excellent super zoom lens, good performance and good picture quality. I really like not having to change lenses and I really appreciate the compact size of the FZ1000.

All photos were made with the FZ1000, hand held. I used the full range of focal lengths available. Inside the submarine I found the fully articulated monitor very useful for waist level shooting

Darling Harbour new conference center

 

Inside a submarine-1

 

Injured seal

 

 

Submarine, engines