There were a few reasons to pick THIS camera instead of a Canon superzoom or something similar:
1. f2.8 aperture at all zoom ranges. What does this mean to me? The camera is capable of taking wonderful photos in low light. A lower number here means a larger diameter opening in the lens barrel, which lets more light in, so shutter speeds are very fast, which means that at a school concert you can snap a photo, zoomed in or out, and you usually have a nice, crisp, and bright shot (assuming you hold the camera still). Almost all super-zooms have larger and larger f-stop values the more you zoom - which means when you want to zoom in on your young star, the shutter speed has to be so slow to capture the scene that the slightest movement causes the picture to be blurry. Not so with this camera, because no matter how much you zoom, you still get the same amount of light. This point sells the camera.
2. The flip-and-fold lcd screen. This may not seem important, but having witnessed several people use different ones, and playing a bit myself with some models, I really liked Canon's way of hinging the screen so that you can not only fold it out, but turn it around, so you can even face the front of the camera (allowing you to set up on a tripod, for example, with a delayed shutter, run to the crowd and see what's going to shoot before it ever shoots the photo). Nikon and a few others (at least, some models) have a fold out screen, but it only folds one way, which is very limiting when you are trying to take photos near the ground. With this one you can flip it out, the angle it up so that you aren't laying on the ground to get that perspective shot. I don't mind that so much, but this wasn't for me, so I thought the flexibility to be a great selling point. Panasonic gets kudos for doing this very Canon-like (who copied who???) design instead of the less flexible alternatives of some models.
3. The bargain I got purchasing direct-from-Panasonic with the EPP discount.
4. The zoom lens. While I liked the idea of a 50X zoom on some cameras, I feel it's pretty frustrating to have the range to zoom, but have the slightest shake or movement while zoomed destroy the photo. And 24X is pretty darn good, too!
5. Stereo, and high-def recordings. This wasn't exactly a major selling point at the time, but I have come to greatly appreciate this camera's versatility and quality in video. You can zoom while recording, although I have noticed that sometimes focus suffers while you do so. I had trouble recording a single voice from a distance, but this camera does have the option for an external flash, or in this case, a directional microphone mounted to the flash hot shoe (I haven't bought one of those yet, but if the money comes my way I just may yet do that).
We've used this camera to take super quality videos of our church's music programs. See some on the Penbrook UCC Youtube page, looking at the more recent posts in particular.
After most of a year living with the camera, I'd still give it a thumbs up. I think the biggest reason for this is Robin's experiences with it. She's been using it to document her pottery efforts, (see her work on her Wheel Of Light Studio facebook page.) We have both recorded much video in addition to her thousands of photos so far (and counting).
My favorite camera "review" website is www.dpreview.com and here is the full review and test that they did for this model. Overall, they gave the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200 an 80% rating with the following summary:
Panasonic has done almost everything right with the FZ200, producing a super zoom with a no-compromises lens. It performs very well, takes photos that are comparable (or better) than other super zooms, and has a top-notch movie mode. With a few refinements in the design and image quality department, it would be darn close to perfect.I'd say they were right on target. This may not be the camera for everyone. But if you can catch one on sale somewhere for a good enough price, I'd seriously consider it along with any others you may like.
Check out the camera on Amazon, where it gets 4.5 out of 5 stars (very few 1 or 2 star ratings out of almost 250 ratings.
This is very nice blog with good info on camera. I'm using Panasonic Camera
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