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| 200mm f5.5 |
Superzoom lenses typically perform well in the mid part of their zoom range and the FZ80 is no exception.
From (equivalent) 50mm to around 600mm the lens delivers very good resolution right across the frame and into the corners.
Optimum aperture is the widest available (lowest f-number) at each focal length thus:
70mm f4.3, 135mm f5.3, 400-600mm f5.6.
Any distortion and chromatic aberration are corrected digitally in JPG and RAW (Adobe) files.
Purple fringing can sometimes occur at high contrast edges.
The only matter of some concern which starts to creep in at the longer end of this focal length range is a level of inconsistency in sharpness usually caused by camera shake. I find that if I take five hand held shots of a subject sometimes all five will be of equal sharpness but more often one or two frames will be seen on close examination to be sharper than the others.
Therefore I recommend that users take several shots of static subjects and pick the best later.
Of course this is not a practice particular to the FZ80 but has been standard operating procedure for all types of camera for many years, particularly as the lens focal length rises.
I will post about strategies for photographing moving subjects shortly. Suffice to say for the moment that the FZ80 manages moving subjects very well including birds in flight and increasingly often of late, drones in flight.
The OIS (stabiliser) is very good but noes not remove the need to exercise careful camera work with good posture and breathing practice, optimal camera holding and shutter release.
So here are the photos, all handheld, all shot in RAW and processed in Adobe Camera Raw then converted to full sized JPGs for publication. As usual Google Blogger presents the files at considerably lower resolution than the originals.
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| 500mm f5.6 The boatshed is about 350 meters from the camera on a warm day producing some atmospheric distortion. |
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| 400mm f5.6 The crane is about 400 meters from the camera on a warm autumn day so there is some loss of resolution due to atmospheric effects. |
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| 250mm f5.5 The buildings in the foreground are about 800 meters from the camera. There is some loss of sharpness due to atmospheric haze and distortion. |
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| 500mm f5.6 I was quite close to the bird. Closer is better. |