wanna play?

[piranha]

new camera! panasonic DMC-FZ28K, 10.1 megapixels, one of the newish superzoom cameras (35mm equivalent of 27-486mm). i figured i was looking at about C$ 3K of DSLR and lenses, and i simply couldn't justify it with a lot of equipment still to buy for the boat. but i have really outgrown my coolpix 4500; it's a great, little camera, but it doesn't have enough lens, and definitely not enough megapixels for printing.

well, this one has enough lens for a while, and it's a leica lens to boot. just playing around with the first 100 pics has already netted me a bunch of cat pictures that beat most everything i've taken before. and i can handle this much zoom without a tripod, at least in decent light. it's very intuitive to use, and fast! got a lot of DSLR features, fully manual controls if one doesn't want to use its rather smart automatic systems. it even shoots raw. 2.7" LCD-- o can SEE whether the image is in focus instead of sorta guessing! i'm loving it already; it's gonna be the perfect bridge camera for me.

i shall have to burble much more once i actually had some sleep (insomnia zapped last night's attempts).

[TA: i was apparently so tired last night that i wrote this post and previewed it, but then forgot to post it. :)]

Comments

[sara]

I think you'll be very happy with it -- my srs bznss camera is the DMC-FZ7, and it's great (it just doesn't fit in my purse).

srs bznss cameras

[piranha]

yeah, the days of carrying the camera in my jacket pocket are over. i'm eyeing kata's torse packs right now.

Re: srs bznss cameras

[sara]

I have mine on a nice neoprene strap that I took off the SLR (a 1960s Zeiss Ikon that I've been shooting with since I was...meep, not a lot older than my daughter! Oh man, I feel OLD now!), and I have a padded bag I could put it in, but in practice it seems to end up in my attache case. I used to carry a big Overland purse that could fit it, but C. gave me a really nice tooled leather purse last summer, and it just will not accommodate the big camera.

[invisionary]

I shoot a FZ-50 and really enjoy it also. My suggestion would be to always shoot in RAW mode and buy the fastest SDHC card you can. You'll be glad you did.

And use Lightroom if you don't already for your post-processing.

new camera

[piranha]

i bought 4GB @ 133x and 8GB @ 60x SDHC cards since they were on sale, which should do fine for my purposes. after testing i'm now shooting RAW with a small jpg from which to make the dailies. and yes, i use lightroom; accept no substitutes. :)

the image stabilization is impressive; i really notice it compared to my old camera (which has none). i can actually hand-shoot the entire tele range. and its smart auto mode is pretty decent; i shot everything manually with my old one because i didn't care much for the pre-chewed modes, but man, i can actually leave this camera do its thing and in many situations it does it just fine. that's a real step up from the smaller digicams my partners have.

catsquee

[aquaeri]

So you have a new camera and all the technical specs is well and fine, but wow that is a cute cat in a great pose. I totally approve of the uses the new technology will be put to.

Re: catsquee

[piranha]

*grin*. yes! i have loads of better cat pictures already. whenever i get too close, they just pay too much attention to me and don't do cool cat-like things. so it's awesome to now lurk at a greater distance. oh, and i can shoot movies with this thing too; i will have to film the daily sandbaths and the lurk-and-pounces.

[crantz]

cutecute kitty. I wish my camera wasn't constantly blurry, but it also cost 30 bucks.

the blurriness of the long distance runner

[piranha]

yeah, 30 bucks worth of camera isn't much. though, wait -- didn't you take some pretty good pictures a while ago? or wasn't that you? i think a dalek was featured.