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| The FZ80 has no trouble following focus at 6 fps on fast moving subjects outdoors. |
The FZ80 is one of the best performing budget superzooms ever made. Indeed there are many much more expensive cameras which cannot match the FZ80.
Start up time is about one second and the on/off lever is easy to operate without having to look at the camera.
Shot to shot time is 0.3 seconds. With RAW+JPG capture, AF and AE on every shot and pressing the shutter for each shot I made 10 shots in 3 seconds.
There is a very brief EVF blackout after each shot but it is so short I could not measure it.
AF single is almost instantaneous on most subjects and is reliably accurate in most circumstances. In very low light AF slows with the camera switching to “low” mode as indicated by an icon top right in the EVF and monitor. This takes a second or two to focus but is reliably accurate.
The camera has an AF assist light but I never feel the need to use it.
Sometimes the focus will miss at the long end of the zoom with strong backlight, a black subject (such as black birds) or multiple bright light sources. I have found this with all cameras which use contrast detect AF. There are various strategies to minimise this issue, such as adjusting the size and position of the AF area and focussing on an area near the subject but at the same distance.
AF Continuous is very fast allowing the camera to follow focus on moving subjects at 6 frames per second in bright light. Panasonic is the only maker at present to use DFD for AF-C and it works well. The camera is suitable for outdoor sport/action. The percentage of sharp frames depends on subject, conditions, focal length and user experience but is about 80% for easy subjects like motor vehicles approaching or moving away from the camera and much lower for very difficult subjects like birds in flight.
With burst M set, AF, AE and live view are available on each frame.
With JPG-Fine capture the camera will shoot at 6 fps indefinitely or until the card is full. After 60 shots the buffer clears in 3 seconds with a fast card (260 Mb/sec).
With RAW+ JPG-Fine the camera shoots 14 frames at 6 fps before slowing abruptly. The buffer takes a further 14 seconds to clear.
The camera remains fully usable during this time. The EVF and monitor display normally, AF works, shooting parameters can be altered and photos can be taken albeit at a slow rate.
The camera responds to all user inputs promptly. When using it I never feel the camera gets in the way of taking photos.
Overall the performance of the FZ80 is very similar to that of the FZ300.