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This new camera seems to have some rather
remarkable features. 10 megapixel, 12X zoom.

Has anyone here used it? Or is it too new?

Comments?

Luk

Well, I have both the 50 and the 30. My shots have shown that the 50 isn't
that great in picture quality. I blame in on the horrible noise reduction in
the new Venus 3 engine. Images compared to my 30 just aren't very good.

R


"luk" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:TICdnc-(E-Mail Removed)...
> This new camera seems to have some rather
> remarkable features. 10 megapixel, 12X zoom.
>
> Has anyone here used it? Or is it too new?
>
> Comments?
>
> Luk

> As with many new products, there are some who bash it
> mercilessly, and there are those who praise it, and still
> others take a middle ground. DPReview has quite a few
> threads about the FZ50 in its forum "Panasonic Talk".
> Some of them have posted comparison shots between the FZ50
> and its predecessor the FZ30. (I have neither camera - I
> own an FZ20).
>
> BTW, 12x zooms have been around for quite some time in
> terms of digicam age, and the high pixel count is of
> little importance for small-sensor cameras in most
> situations. What's more important is that Panasonic's
> lenses and image stabiliser are among the best, and they
> make great cameras feature-wise. Their weak point is noise.
>
> Judging from the pictures posted by users, the upgraded
> noise reduction engine of the FZ50 appears to produce
> excellent results in some shots, and significant loss of
> detail in some others. As you said, it's still very early.


As you said, the features are quite impressive.
A week or two ago there was a thread here on the FZ30.
One person said noise was noticeable on the FZ30.
at a 200 ISO setting. I wondered about improvements
made on the FZ50. I'll look for more feedback.

A non-SLR camera with tilt LCD and good zoom is
what I'm looking for. And I prefer not to go below
a 2.0 size LCD.

Luk

It helps a little, but still isn't as detailed as what I am getting from the
30. That is a 30 with everything except spot meter and spot focus set to
factory defaults. This is also how I used the 50 only those two things
changed. I think it is a clear problem with the Venus 3 engine and one that
has been reported for the other Panasonic cameras that use this engine. They
call it a painted look.

R


"Vic Dura" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> On Wed, 6 Sep 2006 11:48:48 -0700, "Hebee Jeebes" <(E-Mail Removed)>
> wrote Re Re: Lumix DMC-FZ50:
>
>>Well, I have both the 50 and the 30. My shots have shown that the 50 isn't
>>that great in picture quality. I blame in on the horrible noise reduction
>>in
>>the new Venus 3 engine. Images compared to my 30 just aren't very good.
>
> How does it compare if you set the FZ50 noise reduction to Low?
> --
> To email me directly, remove CLUTTER.

The thing with the 30 is that yes there is noise in ISO 200 shots, but there
is also more detail than almost any other 12X 8MP camera. The 50 on the
other hand has noise (the Venus 3 engine doesn't do that great of job) still
but it also smears out a great deal of image detail. It makes me wonder what
Panasonic was thinking. Now I have seen good 50 shots but they have been
resized down compressing out a lot or all of the problem. Full 10MP shots at
100% on screen look really poor even in bright day light with no clouds.

Printed they are not a clear as the 30 shots printed either. I think the
rest of the 50 is great, but that V3 engine is a really problem.

R


"luk" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed). ..
>
>> As with many new products, there are some who bash it
>> mercilessly, and there are those who praise it, and still
>> others take a middle ground. DPReview has quite a few
>> threads about the FZ50 in its forum "Panasonic Talk".
>> Some of them have posted comparison shots between the FZ50
>> and its predecessor the FZ30. (I have neither camera - I
>> own an FZ20).
>>
>> BTW, 12x zooms have been around for quite some time in
>> terms of digicam age, and the high pixel count is of
>> little importance for small-sensor cameras in most
>> situations. What's more important is that Panasonic's
>> lenses and image stabiliser are among the best, and they
>> make great cameras feature-wise. Their weak point is noise.
>>
>> Judging from the pictures posted by users, the upgraded
>> noise reduction engine of the FZ50 appears to produce
>> excellent results in some shots, and significant loss of
>> detail in some others. As you said, it's still very early.
>
>
> As you said, the features are quite impressive.
> A week or two ago there was a thread here on the FZ30.
> One person said noise was noticeable on the FZ30.
> at a 200 ISO setting. I wondered about improvements
> made on the FZ50. I'll look for more feedback.
>
> A non-SLR camera with tilt LCD and good zoom is
> what I'm looking for. And I prefer not to go below
> a 2.0 size LCD.
>
> Luk

One owner is petitioning Panasonic to offer a way to disable the over-
aggressive Venus3 noise reduction feature:
http://www.gopetition.com/online/9523.html

On Thu, 7 Sep 2006 02:24:45 +0000 (UTC), sally <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> One owner is petitioning Panasonic to offer a way to disable the over-
> aggressive Venus3 noise reduction feature:
> http://www.gopetition.com/online/9523.html

Wouldn't shooting RAW do an end-run around any post-processing by the
camera's CPU? Since the FZ30 (and, I assume, the FZ50) already support
RAW, that's probably an easier route to follow than trying to convince
Panasonic to change their firmware.

-dms

"Daniel Silevitch" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> On Thu, 7 Sep 2006 02:24:45 +0000 (UTC), sally <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>> One owner is petitioning Panasonic to offer a way to disable the over-
>> aggressive Venus3 noise reduction feature:
>> http://www.gopetition.com/online/9523.html
>
> Wouldn't shooting RAW do an end-run around any post-processing by the
> camera's CPU? Since the FZ30 (and, I assume, the FZ50) already support
> RAW, that's probably an easier route to follow than trying to convince
> Panasonic to change their firmware.

You'd have to find a third party raw converter, since most mfr raw
converters simply emulate the in-camera processing.

And then you'd have to shoot raw, which can be seriously painful on some
small-sensor cameras, since they often have slower media write times than
dSLRs.

And then you'd notice the problem that the FZ50 pixels are well under 1/16
the size of 5D pixels, making ISO 100 FZ50 images rather similar to 5D ISO
1600 images. (Of course, that's not all that bad; 5D ISO 1600 images are
quite clean. For ISO 1600, that is.)

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

The RAW files are better but still not as clean as the 30. I will see about
putting up some 100% crops. I don't have a lot server space and even less
bandwidth quota, but I will see what I can do. I went out yesterday (9-5)
and shot pictures in bright sunlight with no clouds with both my 30 and the
50 I have on loan from Panasonic.

R

I am not going to be able to post any samples, sorry. I don't have the disk
space to post anything of value. I suggest that you go to
http://www.dpreview.com and look at the posted images there. While many are
resized telling you nothing about image quality there are some than haven't
been.

Besides what I say doesn't really matter. Digital cameras are like perfum
and colonge, it is a very person thing. What I consider bad someone else
maybe fine with. I don't like the FZ50, I think the 30 is better but that is
me.

If you should decided to give one a try I highly recommend that you buy from
a place with a good return policy so you have time to check it out and
decide for yourself without getting stuck with it if you don't like it.

R