Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ7 Pros and Cons
Pros
- Leica zoom lens produces detailed images, super-telephoto reach
- Natural color balance, contrast and saturation
- Auto white balance handles indoor light well
- Joystick control provides fast access to primary settings
- Easy to handle SLR-like design
- Usable electronic viewfinder (EVF)
- Start-up time about 1 second
- Size is relatively small for an SLR-style camera
- Burst-shooting mode very fast
- Light-weight
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Cons
- Maximum ISO of 400 limits low-light usefulness if not using the flash
- Infamous chroma noise at all ISO levels, especially noticeable at ISO 200 and 400
- At max zoom, image stabilization "drift" makes it difficult to frame precisely for a tight crop.
- Occasional focus hunting
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Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ7 Features and Design
Cameras in the super-zoom class must have everything going for them if they're going to be successful: camera usability, quality optics, image processing, image stabilization, and consistent auto focus. The FZ-7 is notable for its overall mix of accomplishments in these areas. It's a very capable camera. But as always, photographers must be aware of their own needs to determine whether the FZ-7 is the right camera choice.
The 6-megapixel sensor produces a file 2112 x 2816 pixels, or 8.8 x 11.7 inches at 240 dpi. For most people, that's plenty for normal printing and sharing, including an occasional enlargement up to 11 x 14 inches.
The FZ-7's physical controls are very similar to the Panasonic DMC-LX1 I reviewed earlier. The main usability feature is the thumb joystick which, when held down a moment, gives you quick access to major photographic controls like white balance or ISO sensitivity. I like how this keeps the back of the camera relatively clean and simple.
Panasonic is good at usability details like how easy and quick it is to change exposure compensation or flash compensation via the "up arrow" button on the keypad. Adjust the compensation to your liking (I generally shoot at -1/3) and return to "shooting-ready" by pressing either the center "SET" button or just pushing the shutter button down halfway.
Focus toggles between auto focus and manual via a button on top. This is a useful button but I would prefer an auto-exposure lock button instead of the standard half-push of the shutter release button. The Panasonic LX-1, which I reviewed recently, has an exposure-lock button as well as a dedicated switch for AF/MF/macro focus. An AE-lock button would be more useful for my shooting style and the MF/AF settings might instead be assigned to the joystick control.
Left: Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ7 Controls
Right: Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ73 Flash
The Panasonic FZ7's coolest focus feature is not the manual focus button, but the depth of focus display. In manual focus mode, depth of focus is represented by a distance scale that changes according to your aperture and zoom ratio. So, you can set your focus for a given range - say 5 feet to infinity - and know that everything in that range will be in focus. And when you shoot like this in manual focus mode, the shutter lag is greatly reduced. Rangefinder camera enthusiasts know all about this technique. (Note that this applies to wide angle zoom settings at f/5.6 through f/8; longer telephoto settings generally cannot achieve deep depth of focus except at infinity.)
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Mirrors, Venice, Italy (©2006 Gena Morgan, all rights reserved.)
Speaking of shutter-lag, another way to avoid it is to use the Panasonic FZ7's burst-shooting mode. The FZ-7 can capture up to seven frames at about 2.5 frames per second, which helps with timing shots like the woman and mirrors, above.
Panasonic FZ7 Record mode with histogram |
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Panasonic FZ7 Playback mode with image info and histogram |
Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ7 main menu |
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Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ7 MEGA O.I.S. image stabilization menu |
Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ7 Party Scene Mode |
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Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ7 Party Scene Mode description |
Camera Performance and Image Quality
Since the FZ7 is adorned with a Leica lens, one expects good image quality. And indeed, the FZ-7 delivers strong images with a few caveats.
We should remember that zoom lenses have inherent optical compromises. One trade off is image quality across the entire zoom range, i.e., it's unreasonable to expect tack-sharp images from widest wide to longest telephoto, especially with 32mm to 432mm zoom range(35mm equivalent). Also, every digital camera model has its own processing characteristics, which reflect the engineer's choices about image quality, making lens comparisons a bit less cut-and-dry (not that they ever really were).
Tre Chime, Italy (©2006 Gena Morgan, all rights reserved.)
The Panasonic's 12x Leica zoom lens, in and of itself, does not disappoint. Images from the FZ-7 show that distant trees and other fine details are largely well-resolved, but for the limitations of the image sensor and some JPEG sharpening/smearing. For a serious evaluation you really must download some sample files and compare how well different cameras reproduce fine details. Although there is some distortion at the wide and telephoto end of the FZ7's lens, it's not overtly noticeable in everyday photographic subjects. There are chromatic aberrations (purple fringing - see "Stanley Park Cairn Forest image", below) in some backlit situations - but again, it's not overtly noticeable. And purple fringing is pretty standard with compact digital cameras.
In my opinion, Panasonic made good image quality choices relative to other digital camera manufacturers in these areas:
- JPEG sharpening is not overdone. Images may seem a hair soft but they are definitely not the over-sharpened, blocky digital-looking files that some other cameras produce.
- Color is relatively natural and well balanced to my eye, especially the blues and greens.
- Auto-exposure tends to protect the highlights, and the gradient from complete whiteout to detailed white has a natural appearance; blown highlights are not just globs of white (assuming reasonable exposure and composition).
On the other hand, there is the infamous Panasonic chroma noise. If you make many large prints you may want to invest in some noise reduction software or your prints might be mistaken for pseudo-impressionistic paintings. For casual web/computer viewing and 4x6 prints most people will not have a problem with the FZ7's image quality. ISO 400 does present distracting noise depending on the subject. For example, you can see the distinctive speckle-clumps of digital-noise in the woman's blue shoulder bag below.
Scene inside the Duomo. Milan, Italy (©2006 Gena Morgan, all rights reserved.)
Another online reviewer measured actual ISO sensitivity of a similar Panasonic camera and found that the rated ISO sensitivity is actually less than advertised (ISO 80 is really about ISO 64, ISO 100 is 80, and so on). My experience suggests this is the case with the FZ-7 as well.
The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ7 would be outstanding if it produced cleaner files (less noise) and usable ISO sensitivity up to ISO 400 or ISO 800. As it stands, the camera's noise characteristics may be a significant drawback for those wanting to shoot in light levels and situations requiring ISO 400 or higher.
Stanley Park Cairn Forest, Vancouver, Canada
Crop of Cairn Forest shows minor purple fringing around the right side edges of the sculpture.
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