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| After sunset hand held, hands resting on a fence. 1/20 sec focal length equivalent 285mm The tall buildings are about 3 kilometers from the camera. |
My all time favourite camera is the Panasonic Lumix FZ300 compact bridge model.
Over the last ten years I have bought and used many bridge
cameras from Canon, Nikon, Panasonic and Sony. I am attracted to the bridge cam
genre because of the versatility and potential but not always realised capability offered by this camera type.
Only three of these stayed for long in my camera drawer, the
Sony RX10, Panasonic Lumix FZ1000 and Panasonic Lumix FZ300. Each of these is
still available new.
Of these three the Sony, now in Mk4 version, has the highest specification and the highest
level of capability, features and technology. It is also the largest, heaviest
and most expensive. I owned one for several years but have no desire to
re-visit this camera which I never really enjoyed using. After three years I
was still making mistakes with camera settings due to the overly complex nature
of the user interface.
Next up is the Panasonic Lumix FZ1000 now in Mk2 version.
This is smaller, lighter and less expensive than the Sony and in my hands
provides a more enjoyable user experience. But the lens extends only to 400mm
(35mm equivalent).
The one to which I keep returning is the FZ300. This is the smallest, lightest and least
expensive of the trio and is I believe the only camera ever made with a lens
which spans the 25-600mm (full frame equivalent) range at a constant widest
aperture of f2.8. The actual focal
length of the Leica DC Vario-Elmarit lens is 4.5-108mm giving a crop factor of
5.55. The lens has 14 elements in 11
groups, 5 aspheric elements with 9 aspheric surfaces, and 3 ED elements. On my tests the lens is sharp in a large
central area of the frame right from f2.8 at every focal length. The image
periphery and particularly the corners are soft at f2.8 but sharpen up
noticeably by f4. Closing the aperture to f5.6 produces no further improvement
in sharpness. Indoors I use f2.8 (full frame equivalent f16) , outdoors, f4
(full frame equivalent f22) and for macro I use f5.6 (Full frame equivalent
f32).
This lens is the unique selling point of the FZ300 but there
is much more to like about the camera.
In use it feels more compact than side-by-side product
photos might suggest.
The camera with wrist strap (leave the neck strap in the
box) lens hood, spare battery, memory cards, cleaning cloths and wet wipes fits
as if bespoke in a Think Tank Mirrorless Mover 10 shoulder bag.
The handle provides a full five finger grip for my average
sized adult male hands. The EVF and touch screen monitor provide a pleasing
view of the subject. The monitor screen is fully articulated making easy work
of overhead and underhand camera positions in both landscape and portrait
orientation. The tactile controls are well implemented with many options for
user selected functions. The menus are straightforward and easy to understand
with a bit of help from the advanced operating instructions. I can quickly
switch camera settings from one use case to another or zoom from wide angle to
super tele in three seconds with few actions, no fuss or confusion and no need
to change lenses, ever.
It is also well endowed with capabilities including weather
sealing, 4K video, 4K photo, auto-panorama, and face/eye detect autofocus. Close-up
capability is very good without the need for any accessories, just switch to
macro mode.
The size and position of the active AF area can be adjusted
quickly and this can be combined with face/eye detect for accurate control of
AF function. The AF/AE Lock button can be configured to lock focus for a series
of shots, something which even high end Canon MILCs cannot do without engaging
manual focus.
If we just read the spec sheet we can see the FZ300 lacks some
features often found on current model MILCs. However in use the camera works
very well without a joystick and with just one main control dial on top plus a
roller wheel on the side of the lens barrel. Everything can be configured to
individual user requirements.
Autofocus is by 2015 vintage Panasonic DFD contrast detect
system which is quick and reliable on still or slowly moving subjects, less so
on fast moving things like birds in flight.
The camera can capture still photos at 6 frames per second
with AF and AE on every frame. This might sound a bit pedestrian compared to
the latest MILCs but in practice is actually fast enough for many subject
types. Using a Sandisk Extreme Pro 170 MB/s card (UHS-1) and Raw capture the
camera fires 30 frames in 5 seconds before slowdown. The buffer clears in 8
seconds.
The image stabiliser functions very effectively to steady
the EVF image. This makes hand held long zoom captures easy. At a focal length
of 200mm (full frame equivalent) the stabiliser gives a shutter speed advantage
of about 1 EV step using my usual test schedule. At 600mm equivalent the
stabiliser provides a benefit of about 2.3 EV steps. If these figures sound a
bit modest compare them to my results using the latest Canon RF mount bodies
and lenses which I find deliver about a 3.5 EV step advantage with IS and IBIS
both engaged and about 3 EV steps when either the body or lens lacks a
stabiliser. I have no idea how they can claim a figure of 8 stops.
The FZ300 uses a diaphragm type leaf shutter in the lens. As
it is in the middle of the lens groups where the elements are small it is able
to achieve a top speed of 1/4000 sec which is very handy for fast moving
things. The shutter is very quiet, it will never cause shutter shock and it can
flash sync at any speed.
Who and what is it for ?
Let’s start with the who. The FZ300 is quite suitable for a
beginner moving up from a smartphone to photography with a proper camera.
However those who will enjoy the FZ300 most and get the best results are
experienced, enthusiast amateur photographers who are not immediately concerned
with providing output for clients. These people want to engage fully with the
experience of photography using a well featured proper camera without having to
spend enough to buy a new motor car and without having to lug a backpack full
of gear around in order to take photos.
It appears there are plenty of these camera users. Posts on
this blog about the FZ300 have consistently scored the highest number of page
views over the last 8 years.
Now the what. Basically the FZ300 can competently manage
almost any subject type in almost any conditions. However in my view it really
excels in the urban jungle where street
and documentary captures are the main fare and rapid responsiveness is essential.
In my previous reviews of the FZ300 I was not so enthusiastic about indoors
and/or low light work due to the digital noise issue. But with Denoise AI, ISO 1600 is entirely usable. This opens up a
new realm of photo opportunities for the FZ300.
Small sensor cameras like the FZ300 have great depth of
field so they are useful for photos which call for the documentary style with
everything in the frame rendered sharp. They are not so good for photo styles
which require the subject to be sharp but the background softly blurred. However
there is a workaround for this using the select subject and select
background functions in Camera Raw. These functions use AI to make the
selections which is super fast and more accurate than old fashioned selection
tools even with feathers, fur and hair. These allow us to keep the subject
sharp and apply soft blur to the background.
There are a few subject types which can be a challenge for
the FZ300. One is birds in flight. Let’s be clear the camera can do BIF and I
have plenty of shots to prove this. But the keeper rate is quite low which can
be a bit frustrating. Another is the “bird in a bush” type of subject. Those of
us lucky enough to have one of the latest Canon MILCs get accustomed to the
almost magical way they are able to identify and focus on a bird’s eye even
when it is surrounded by a clutter of foliage. The FZ300 is not in that league,
having no subject detection modes other than (human) face/eye detect. So we
have to position the active AF area the old fashioned way which is not quite as
magical but works well enough in experienced hands.
The FZ300 uses the same sensor and lens as the erstwhile
FZ200 which dates from 2012. So the two
key components of the FZ300 use technology which is at least 11 years old.
This, we might imagine should make the FZ300 an antediluvian relic of a bygone
era, way past its use-by date in the fast changing world of electronic
technology.
But, here I am posting yet another series of posts about this evergreen classic bridge camera.
Why ?
The FZ300 sensor measures just 6.17 x 4.55mm giving an area
of 28.07 square millimeters. This is about one third the size of the nail on
our pinky finger. We could fit 30 of these into the size of a standard 24 x
36mm full frame camera sensor.
On that tiny sensor there are 4000 x 3000 = 12 million
photo-sensitive pixels. Each pixel occupies a microscopically small space of
only 0.0015mm.
One of the main drawbacks of these very small sensors is
their tendency to produce a lot of digital noise, seen in pictures as grain.
Adobe has been very busy recently adding artificial
intelligence capabilities to Camera Raw, Lightroom and Photoshop. In June-July
of 2023 they have been issuing updates almost weekly.
I wanted to discover whether Denoise AI and some of the
other new AI capabilities could produce a significant improvement in image
quality from the FZ300.
So I bought a new FZ300 which I have been testing in a wide
range of conditions over the last few weeks using Raw capture to extract as
much imaging information as possible from each picture file. The camera and firmware (Ver 2.2) are
unchanged from previous copies. However I do have a subjective impression that
the lens is a bit more consistent across the focal length range than previous
copies which I have owned.
I have found that the new Adobe features, especially Denoise
AI, enable a game changing improvement
in image quality obtainable from the FZ300. This makes the FZ300 even more
appealing than it was on introduction.
I find that Denoise AI produces a greater benefit in FZ300 pictures
than it does in images from full frame cameras such as the Canon EOS R5.
Presumably this is because the FZ300 pictures are much more
noisy to start with and so have more to gain from the new denoise capability.
In many cases the difference between FZ300 images pre and
post enhancement is so great that we could easily believe they had come from a
different camera.
This is the first of a new series of posts which I will
publish on the FZ300.
Here are some photos from recent outings all made hand held
with the FZ300. Be aware that they have been compressed for the blog. The
originals have more clearly resolved detail.
Just after sunset from the deck of a moving ferry
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| Just after sunset from the deck of a moving ferry |
