Smoky's next camera

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Smoky

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Oh, Betty I almost forgot.  Jim's message reminded me.  Wondering what camera is behind those great photos you guys are shooting?  I am beginning to think about a new one, and the colors are really crisp and clear with that camera.
 
Smoky said:
"It is a "Jerry"(Fitzgerald) camera....Panasonic DMC-FZ30"What is a Jerry Fitsgerald camera?
Smoky,
The camera is a Panasonic DMC-FZ30 and is the camera Jerry has and he tells everyone how wonderful it is, so several have made the purchase per his recommendation.

Betty
 
Smoky said:
Well danbg, your photos prove Jerry knows something.? Off to google it.

Same camera as Russ and I have.  I did a lot of research but just couldn't find anything else that I thought was better. I really like my Panosonic DMC-FZ30 and highly recommend it.
 
Well I googled the Panasonic and the price appears to be under $500.  And that includes 8 mega-pixels of resolution..  Wow!  Now to find a brick and mortar store.  I have heard horror tales of ordering cameras by mail.

Ron, Russ, Betty, others ... any other features you found especially good about the camera?
 
Oh I liked the reaction speed too.  My Olympic sometimes takes 3 or so seconds to execute.  Drove me crazy today trying to catch the baby in a smile.
 
Smoky said:
Well I googled the Panasonic and the price appears to be under $500.  And that includes 8 mega-pixels of resolution..  Wow!  Now to find a brick and mortar store.  I have heard horror tales of ordering cameras by mail.

Ron, Russ, Betty, others ... any other features you found especially good about the camera?

Over the years, I have purchased 4 camera's (including 2 professional NIKON digitals) and numerious lenses from B&H. They are with out a doubt the most honest and easiest to deal with camera source on the web, plus have the largest selection.  They have the best reputation and offer 30 day money back guarantee--which I have used twice for lenses that did not do what I wanted. Their prices are not the lowest, but they are reasonable.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com

Chet18013
 
Chet18013 said:
Over the years, I have purchased 4 camera's (including 2 professional NIKON digitals) and numerious lenses from B&H. They are with out a doubt the most honest and easiest to deal with camera source on the web, plus have the largest selection.  They have the best reputation and offer 30 day money back guarantee--which I have used twice for lenses that did not do what I wanted. Their prices are not the lowest, but they are reasonable.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com

Chet18013

I second buying from B&H Photo. I have made many purchases from them over the years including cameras and printers and their service is great.

Bob
 
Chet:

I will look at www.bhphotovideo.com?

One of the reasons I am avoiding internet camera purchase is that I will be on the move for the next 2 months and not comfortable about mailing a camera to a campground.? I also want to take pictures of our New England trip which begins this week.

Anyone know what brick and mortar stores carry this Panasonic?
 
Betty:

You said, "but only the 15.3x magnification lense could take advantage of glimpse of him"

Does the Panasonic DMC-FZ30 come standard with that lens?  Are there additional lenses that can be purchased for that camera?  If anyone else knows the answer jump on in.

Great pics Betty and keep 'em coming.  Oh yes, and could you return to showing your mileage each leg as you were doing originally?  It is really interesting to get a feel for the mileage rolling by.  Also I like the slow pace, shows you are smelling the roses.  You have not yet listed any mileage 200 or above.  That is our style of travel!!
 
Smokey,

I realize that I'm late in getting into this thread re the Panasonic FZ-30 but here goes.  There are no lenses for this camera.  It has one lens that allows 35mm through 420 mm plus 556mm, 668 mm, and 1728 mm long telephotos.  The resolution can be 8 MP (mega pixels), 5 MP, 3 MP and 1 MP.  I normally shoot at 5 MP with FINE (least jpeg compression) which gives a 2,000,000 bit picture file size which is more than enough for an 8X10 photo should you want to print it.  On the other hand, sometimes I bump it up to 8MP for something very special.

At the INDY 500 this weekend, by using shutter priority at 1/640 of a second and the FZ-30s built in image stabilization I could stop race cars on the main straight away at 240 MPH plus with ease.    To do this I would pre focus by pressing the shutter button half way down and then press it the rest of the way down when I saw the car.  BTW, the fastest lap driven at INDY was 240 MPH average speed for the entire 2-1/2 mile oval.

Also, the continuous fast shooting works GREAT to catch the perfect shot.  It will shoot photos until you release the shutter button so you can keep the best photo.

Attached are four telephotos that I took at MOAB a few weeks ago.  I took them for the top of a hill next to the Sunset Restaurant about 3/4s of a mile away from the Portal MH park where we stayed.  The 1728 mm photo is our MH.

JerryF

 

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Smoky said:
Anyone know what brick and mortar stores carry this Panasonic?

Smoky,

I saw it at Fry's Electronics, but I'm not sure if that helps because of your location.
 
I saw the DMC-FZ30 at Fry's Electronincs and at Ritz Camera priced at $699.  I bought mine through www.Dbuys.com  for less than $550 including overnight shipping and spare Battery.  Ordered Wed afternoon had it in my hand Thurs morning as I recall.  I ordered via telephone.
 
Smoky said:
Does the Panasonic DMC-FZ30 come standard with that lens?? Are there additional lenses that can be purchased for that camera?? If anyone else knows the answer jump on in.

Hi Smoky:

The FZ30 is probably the best camera around right now (new stuff comes out very fast these days? :). I helped my sister buy a camera while in Texas last year plus have discussed the camera with JerryF on several occasions prior to his purchase. That plus the feedback you read here on the forum makes me feel comfortable in recommending it.

If you are going for the super stuff such as you will see from our friend from Dallas, Ron M., you may want to consider a digital SLR with interchangeable lenses -- but from what I read about your projected images, the FZ30 should last you a lifetime.

Tho the FZ30 only has one fixed lens, it is a "super" lens. The other features are pretty standard with the competition, but the FZ30 sports an incredible Leica lens. My sister was able to work with 3 different cameras in the same price range, and looking at the resulting images, the FZ30 won hands down. Note the size of the piece of glass (the lens) in the front. The bigger the glass, the more light it can let in, so that gives you the f2.8 f-stop for those low light situations. The other feature of the lens is Image Stabilization.

I'm still pondering my next SLR. I currently have the best at the time Oly 2500L SLR with a fixed lens and a shutter speed of 1/10,000. In order to get Image Stabilization in a lens for my next digital SLR, I would have to come up with at least twice the price of the camera itself. So that feature alone for someone shooting stuff on the move makes the FZ30 a solid value.

Some of the advantages you would find by going to a digital SLR such as the popular Canon EOS Rebel XT, would be a pure optical TTL view finder and interchangeable lenses. Digitals are able to do a lot of of battery powered smoke and mirrors stuff (which is actually a "good" thing). For example, the FZ30 has an Electronic View Finder (EVF). That means it is essentially an LCD with more light. With an SLR you are optically looking thru the lens that is currently on the camera. The EVF will have a bit of a lag time catching up and the resolution & will not be the same as the lens itself so fine manual focus will not be as pure as with an SLR. It also takes battery power. The FZ30 has a 12x optical zoom if I recall. The rest they advertise is just electronic smoke and mirrors.

Smoky, I read that Circuit City carries that camera -- and perhaps Best Buys, and they can be found pretty easily along the way. Let us know what you come up with.
 
Abe's of Maine is in Old Orchard Beach, ME. They are a well known discount camera shop with both internet and brick locations.

New York City is loaded with discount camera shops - some of the most widely known photo stores in the world. 47th St Photo and B&H are two biggies. Ritz  Camera is a big discount store in Boston.
 
JerArdra said:
At the INDY 500 this weekend, by using shutter priority at 1/640 of a second and the FZ-30s built in image stabilization I could stop race cars on the main straight away at 240 MPH plus with ease.? ? To do this I would pre focus by pressing the shutter button half way down and then press it the rest of the way down when I saw the car.

Hi Jerry:

Am enjoying keeping up with you and Ardra this spring. You sure have come a long way in the field of photgraphy in the past couple of years. Of course, I can remember way back when  I taught you all I knew about DOS and the next AM you knew much more than I did.  :D

Are you also backing off of the fast shutter speed to give the race cars a little tail to show movement? If you get it just right, you can still get solid images of the car while still demonstrating movement. Otherwise, the resulting image of a race looks like a parking lot on the final print.  :) It's a good technique with other types of shots such as a waterfall.
 
Bob,

The race is over and I'm sorry that I didn't think of backing off the speed to get a little blur in the photo.  Oh well next time I'll try that.

JerryF
 
JerArdra said:
The race is over and I'm sorry that I didn't think of backing off the speed to get a little blur in the photo.? Oh well next time I'll try that.

Maybe they would run it over for you?? ??? ???

That's why I stopped doing weddings when I was heavily into photography there in San Mateo. It gave me some income to keep the rest of my little side line photography business going -- but I just couldn't take the pressure anymore. If I really screwed up, asking the Bride's family to do the whole thing over was just not an option.? :(

Here's a photo (500kb jpg) that I posted as a gif on the thread Jack & Liz asked about Ruidoso. It exemplifies why shooting a horse race is different than an auto race. A running horse is obviously running vs. a moving car. When I got back to my computer, I was amazed at the detail the camera picked up that a viewer of the race would not even notice. For example, note the dirt thrown by the hoofs -- and also, note the horse to the left of my horse (I had $3.00 on the blue horse). All four legs are completely off the ground.

http://www.rvspacemanager.com/MyHorseWinning.jpg

The shot was not at the highest resolution of the camera. Shots such as this make me glad that today's digitals can shoot RAW at max res and still get enough frames on a single shoot w/o a second card. I would have loved to have had 8 meg on this shot.? :)

BTW, the blue horse won this race at Ruidoso Downs.? ;)

Travel safe, my friend . . .
 

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