i immediately thought of the prince of Egypt cartoon movie... where pharaoh screams out "I WILL NOT BE THE WEAK LINK!" me and my bff always say this when we are determined to not cave in on something... lol we'd both be texting you "WEAK LINK!" about now ;D hehehehehe
After reading Sue's post I was reading the specs of the TZ60 and marveling over how much can be squeezed into today's cameras. It got me thinking about the earliest iterations of the TZ series that I have at one time or another, and in doing so I just discovered the most bizarre thing about the original TZ1: it had a "bent" optical path that utilized a prism partway through the lens to turn the incoming light 90 degrees to a sensor that sat perpendicular to the body. Check out the cutaway in the image below. http://www.optyczne.pl/aparaty_image/488_panasonic_TZ1_4.jpg
Damn. I got "forbidden" on that link, Nic Bill, last TZ I had was the 10 (ZS7), and I always kinda regretted getting rid of it. 10Mp and 12x zoom. Good stuff. Eliot, I cracked up when I read your post!
Well, that's as bizarre as a TZ1 lens :smile: I'm getting the same error now too, so I found the same image hosted on another site.
Congratulations, Sue! I must admit that I have been looking at this camera for quite some time. It seems that, no matter how many other cameras I have, there's always room for a pocketable superzoom. I really like my Olympus Stylus 1 but I can't tell you how many times 300mm just wasn't enough in certain situations. I'll be looking forward not only to the images you post but your written impressions as well. Right up front, I want to know how useful the EVF is and just how far you can hike the ISO before things really turn south.
LOL re ISO, Steve!. My photography has always been "go low" and I nearly never push the ISO at all, I'll go for a slower shutter before I start boosting ISO. I looked at the EVF in the store and immediately it seemed to me that it was a little larger than the one in my FZ100. It probably isn't, but it seemed more usable. Cameralabs observe that it has "improved lenses" compared with the LF1. http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Panasonic_Lumix_DMC_TZ60_ZS40/. Well, I may be only doing stuff around the yard. Car broke down yesterday and I'm back to not trusting it very much so wont be straying too far from home.
oh. so you did. They dont like hotlinking though. That is a strange little thing but I suppose they are doing the same or similar now.
Well, leaving aside for a moment double standard websites who happily let Google Images link them but no one else and who also see no problem in plastering their watermarks across images that was distributed by Panasonic as part of their promotional material and as such have no right to be claiming ownership of said image, the most important question here is: Did you get the silver and black model?
ROFL!! No I did not. I'm not that fond of the combo and tend to prefer black. If I had not jumped on the X100 so quickly, I would have got the black instead, when it came out. Camera house clever dicks gave me a case thats too small for it. Fortunately I have another which is just fine, I'll make use of the smaller case to carry additional batteries and cards when needs be..
All black, stealth! I'm a bit partial to the silver and black model (which is not often the case for me).
I went for the silver-and-black X100T (Amazon says it'll be delivered tomorrow!) but I'd get all-black with this camera.
For Steve Theres no screenie of a 100ISO, as you might assume, I cant hold it steady for that, under a desk lamp light. What I've done to get the comparison is call up Nik's DFine2 with its most basic controls. There has been no additional editing, smoothing, or size reduction in post. I had to use CS6 (PS15 and dont ask) because nothing else I have except picasa (UGH) can read these RAW files. You can see I have camera shake at 200 in this light. Interestingly, choosing iAuto means that the camera chooses 400ISO under this lamp. There are more shots in the tuckeroo seed thread. Some were taken outdoors and some at the desk. All shots here were in Aperture Priority (fairly obvious, really) 1/8s, f/3.3, ISO 200 {} 1/15s, f/3.3, ISO 400 {} 1/30s, f/3.3, ISO 800 {} 1/60s, f/3.3, ISO 1600 {} 1/125s, f/3.3, ISO 3200 {} I will not be using ISO 800-3200 at all, I detest lots of noise. (I also hate doing sample/test shots so these will be the only ones forthcoming). There's an option to extend ISO but it only extends up and not down, so you get a H6400 option which I will not be testing or using, given how woeful 1600 and 3200 actually are. iAuto chooses a decent balance between shutter, aperture and ISO. Manual is somewhere I have been but not for publication. I'm going to be using auto for the foreseeable until I work out where the best performance is, so I can then begin tweaking. Thats what I do with every new camera. Steve I hope that these are sufficient to give an indication of the ISO performance. Another place to look is on flickr, especially at sparth's B&W, he uses his TZ quite a lot.
Yes, I can see one would more-or-less want to limit ISO to 400 with 800 only in a pinch. Thanks, Sue!
Of course, those were all at a full resolution, just cropped from DFine2.... When pix are size reduced, it wont look nearly as terrible.
And here are a couple from this evening, and one from yesterday daytime, though it was a very dull day. I'm reasonably happy with them but there were quite a few at full zoom which looked terrible. I don't think I'm very good at keeping a camera steady much past the mid 20x or so. Even with Image stabilisation on. I think this will be a bright day camera, and possible B&W at other times. Its not going to be a camera I would normally take out in the evenings or to parties etc. Not that I go to many!! View attachment 102744 {} {} And of course, theres the figbird I posted in the birds thread.
Pound for pound (weight), or dollar for dollar, the ZS40/TZ60 is the best all-round camera I've ever had. The optical zoom, and the detail at the long end of that zoom, is phenomenal.
An observation: The grip on this camera is really crappy. I hope Richard Franiec comes up with something because I already tried Grip 4 from Flipbac and it doesn't quite fit over the top of the existing, which protrudes too far from the surface.
