T E C H F O C U S > > > >
14
Photo Review AUSTRALIA www.photoreview.com.au
Panasonic Lumix
DMC-FZ5
FIXED LENS ENTHUSIAST
Available in black or silver, Panasonic’s Lumix
DMC-FZ5 sports the same Leica 12x optical
zoom lens as its successful predecessor, the
DMC-FZ20, but unlike the FZ20, it cannot
maintain the f2.8 maximum aperture
throughout its full zoom range. With a plastic
body that is almost identical to that of the
3-megapixel FZ3, the FZ5 is smaller, roughly
40% lighter, and 20% cheaper than the
FZ20. The camera’s body is well made and
feels comfortable in the hands.
Panasonic has made the FZ5’s grip slightly
larger and moved the shutter release button
forward to make room for the ‘Mega O.I.S.’
button that sets the three stabilisation modes
(continuous, standby and off). The default
continuous setting works for both viewing
the subject and image capture and can be
helpful when composing tele shots. The
drain it places on the battery appears to be
negligible. Standby can only be used for still
shooting and activates the stabiliser when the
shutter button is pressed. It offers a higher
degree of stabilisation that is particularly
useful when the digital zoom is used.
The FZ5’S viewfinder is remarkably good
for an EVF and covered the sensor’s field of
view very accurately. Its colour reproduction
was excellent and it was less prone to
streaking in backlit conditions than most
EVFs we’ve encountered. Its high eyepoint
makes it easy to use when wearing glasses
and adjustment of +/-4 diopters is provided,
the widest range we’ve encountered yet. The
larger 1.8-inch LCD screen gives the FZ5 an
advantage over its predecessor - and some
competing models.
Most controls on the FZ5 are
straightforward and the mode dial has a
special ‘Simple’ setting that allows it to be
used as a point-and-shoot camera. The menu
design is, as usual, excellent and very quick
to use. However, once you switch to the A,
S and M modes, changing camera settings
requires use of the Exposure button in
conjunction with the four-way controller. This
is both clumsy and slow.
Like the FZ3, the FZ5 lacks
manual focusing but has a focus
button that lets users pre-focus
on a subject without using the
shutter release. A handy feature
for shots of fireworks and
anticipated events, the button
locks the focus on the selected subject and
maintains that setting until the focus button is
pressed again.
Three burst modes are supported: high
speed, low speed and continuous. The first
records four Fine (or seven Standard) JPEG
images at 0.3 frames per second, while
the others capture at 0.5 fps for the same
number of shots (in low speed mode) or
to the card’s capacity (unlimited mode). In
Simple mode the burst speed is fixed at low.
The FZ5’s movie modes are similar to those on
the FZ3: QVGA resolution at 10 or 30fps with
sound. Focus, zoom and aperture settings
are fixed at the start of each clip and a 25-
second clip at 30 fps fills the supplied 16MB
memory card, so you need a much larger card
to use this function. Video quality was good
for the resolution but not quite good enough
for TV display.
On the whole, the test camera delivered
nicely-exposed pictures with accurate colours
and modest saturation levels, although skin
tones were rendered slightly warm. Imatest
testing showed the lens/sensor combination
delivered above average image sharpness
and chromatic aberration was negligible.
The auto white balance delivered good
results with fluorescent lighting but failed to
eliminate the orange cast of incandescent
lights. However the pre-sets and manual
control produced excellent results. Highlight
details were lost in bright outdoor conditions
but the overall image contrast range was
excellent in subdued lighting and image noise
was low at all ISO settings in long exposures
after dark. The image stabiliser performed
well in both modes, allowing candid shots to
be taken in indoor conditions without flash.
The flash was comparatively weak, requiring
ISO 400 sensitivity to adequately illuminate
an average-sized room. It also produced poor
results for close-ups because the lens tended
to block much of its light.
The test camera took approximately
three seconds to power up and shut down,
which is good for a long zoom camera. We
measured an average capture lag of 0.6
seconds when focusing was required, which
reduced to 0.1 seconds with pre-focusing.
The camera took less than a second to
process a high-resolution JPEG file but almost
three seconds for a TIFF image, both of which
are relatively fast cycle times.
Need help?
General
Weight and Dimensions
