jeaston

Hope to discuss this with you in 4 to 5 years. Or maybe over a beer sometime where it is sunny and an ocean.

Hydrocruiser

It's been a good discussion. I think the bottom line is knowing there is a lot of much better stuff coming out soon and to save your $$ for the more revolutionary new 64 bit processors and 4" CCD's.

jeaston

Point made, point taken. Has been a good discussion, there was one person who had asked about reading material and I refered him to you. Don't really have to wait 4 to 5 years for the beer.

NJgr8ful

Hydrocruiser, Sorry if this was covered already, but could you give me an idea of how effective the 430mm zoom lens is in real life while handheld?? I have the Fuji S5000 with a 370mm zoom and find it's really difficult to gt a steady shot/non-blurry pic when fully zoomed?! Tri-pod would do the trick, but not practical for real life conditions. Really considering an upgrade to the DMC-FZ-20 ... what to do with the s5000 though lol

Hydrocruiser

As you know the max optical zoom on a Panasonic/Leica is 436mm. That's a huge telescopic lens. One factor in whether you need a tripod or not is going to be shutter speed. So on a sunny day with a shutter speed at say 1/500 th of a second or higher with the lens stabilizer you can take handheld shots all day long. Any shutter speed below 1/60th of a second and you need the pod.

Also, on any camera...using a tripod or monopod will always give a slightly better picture. At boat races a monopod is not a bad idea. But you don't have to have one with higher shutter speeds usually.

Hydrocruiser

If you have a Panasonic/Leica DMC-FZ-10;15 or 20 and a Sunpak 383 or Quantary 383 flash..(same units made by Sunpak)...here are the perfect settings:

Set the camera as follows:

Ext flash to "manual".

Aperature setting to "f4 and iso 100"

White balance to "Auto"

Metering to "Center Weighted"

Auto focus to "One area focusing"

Set flash to:

Yellow Auto mode

iso 100 (corresponds to f4)

This gives 7 1/2' to 60' Auto flash .


The camera program mode is set to all "auto" settings.

SO when you put the external flash on you just set the camera to "a" aperature and the iso 100 and f4 show up as having been preprogrammed.

take the external flash off and put the camera on "p" program and it is fully automatic.

Very simple when you have it all programmed into the camera.


It took me 2,000 test pictures and 2 weeks to get it perfect.


Here is a test picture of a poster my kid has on his wall. His friends have a good laugh when they come over. Boots or flip flops??.. Boots won
But the sign is perfectly exposed using that flash. Looks pretty good for a $ 600.00 set-up?
My Nikon can't do as well sometimes.

White Balance; Focus; Color Saturation; exposure; absolutely everything is crystal clear and perfectly rendered. Taking picutres outdoors is a no brainer just put it on the "P" program mode and it's a point and shoot if you desire.

Below is a very tricky shot of a (Zoomed-in from 25') Christmas floral arrangement. It is supurb for a digital camera or any 35mm camera for that matter.

Hydrocruiser

Got a PM...lens on the camera and hood have a 72mm opening. Adapters can reduce the need to use such large filters. A 55mm PD-55 works great. Use the larger lens shade system for outdoor shots if you like.

Hydrocruiser

Was asked what a Leica Zoom goes for on their SLR's

Take your pick.

http://www.epinions.com/elec-Photo-L...cus_Lens-Leica

Hydrocruiser

I was also asked why I am not more pro-SLR digital vs. the Panasonic DMC-FZ20?

Well sinece this new camera has a toatally redecigned lens and CCD here are my findings.

I have a couple Canon, Nikon and Leica 35mm cameras. I still maintain that the day where the digital camera can perfectly math the best SLR's is almost here but not quite.

The Leica lens on the FZ-20 was totally designed by Leica and the new lens is now made form their expensive ED glass. All are designed to eliminate chromatic aberration (color fringing). This is especially important in a digital camera that can pick up such abnormalaites and magnify them. The Leica lens is then multi-coated and totally assembled at the Leica plant and individually tested. The lens itself has the "anti-shake" feature built into it. The lens itself does perform as well as any ED glass multi-coated lens you can buy for a SLR camera. Expect to pay $ 400.00 for an ED glass lens with a short zoom range. You can not buy a lens for an SLR camera that is made of ED glass that zooms from 36-432mm. You usually buy a 20-70mm for $400.00 and then a 70-300mm for about $ 600.00. Then you buy a 400mm or 500mm lens for $ 2,500.00.

In any case you have to switch lenses. Additionally, with a good quality 1.4x telescopic lens you can extend to 600+mm.

So this camera set-up with the extender is a $ 600.00 unit. Until we get an SLR that has excellent ED glass anti-shake lenses I am saving my money. I sent a digital SLR I had gotten back for that reason. I didn't expect the Leica/Panasonic to be as good as it is. The color are more vibrant.

That's my perspective. If I want a "better" picture" that is "digital". I will use my Nikon 35mm and have the prints put on a CD disk. I can then lod it on my computer and use photoshop etc.

I tried the Contax Digital as well and while the lens being a Zeiss is great the pictures are not as colorful as they should be.

Is the D-70 better? In some regards yes..but not worth the spend for the system as everything changes in 2006 I was told with mostly improved CCD's.

Hydrocruiser

I was also asked why I am not more pro-SLR digital vs. the Panasonic DMC-FZ20?

Well since this new camera has a totally redesigned lens and CCD here are my findings:

I have a couple Canon, Nikon and Leica 35mm cameras. I still maintain that the day where the digital camera can perfectly math the best SLR's is almost here but not quite.

The Leica lens on the FZ-20 was totally designed by Leica and the new lens is now made from their expensive ED glass. All are designed to eliminate chromatic aberration (color fringing). This is especially important in a digital camera that can pick up such abnormalities and magnify them. The Leica lens is then multi-coated and totally assembled at the Leica plant and individually tested. The lens itself has the "anti-shake" feature built into it. The lens itself does perform as well as any ED glass multi-coated lens you can buy for a SLR camera. Expect to pay $ 400.00 for an ED glass lens with a short zoom range. You can not buy a lens for an SLR camera that is made of ED glass that zooms from 36-432mm. You usually buy a 20-70mm for $400.00 and then a 70-300mm for about
$ 600.00. Then you buy a 400mm or 500mm or 800mm lens for $ 2,500.00+.

In any case you have to switch lenses. Additionally, with a good quality 1.4x telescopic lens you can extend to 600+mm on the FZ-20.

So this camera set-up with the extender is a $ 600.00 unit. Until we get an SLR that has excellent ED glass with the "anti-shake" lenses I am saving my money. I sent a digital SLR I had gotten back for that reason. I didn't expect the Leica/Panasonic to be as good as it is. The colors are more vibrant.

That's my perspective. If I want a "better" picture" that is "digital". I will use my Nikon 35mm and have the prints put on a CD disk. I can then load it onto my computer and use photoshop etc.

I tried the Contax Digital as well and while the lens being a Zeiss is great; the pictures are not as colorful as they should be.

Is the D-70 better? In some regards yes..but not worth the spend for the system as everything changes in 2006 I was told with vastly improved CCD's and more ED glass lenses. The non "digital" lenses just are not as sharp.

The DMC-FZ-20 is about 98% as good as my D-70 I sent back. If you try one you will see what I mean.