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14

Photo

 

Review

 

AUSTRALIA

       

www.photoreview.com.au

       

Panasonic Lumix 

DMC-FZ5

FIXED LENS ENTHUSIAST

Available in black or silver, Panasonic’s Lumix 
DMC-FZ5 sports the same Leica 12x optical 
zoom lens as its successful predecessor, the 
DMC-FZ20, but unlike the FZ20, it cannot 
maintain the f2.8 maximum aperture 
throughout its full zoom range. With a plastic 
body that is almost identical to that of the 
3-megapixel FZ3, the FZ5 is smaller, roughly 
40% lighter, and 20% cheaper than the 
FZ20. The camera’s body is well made and 
feels comfortable in the hands. 

Panasonic has made the FZ5’s grip slightly 

larger and moved the shutter release button 
forward to make room for the ‘Mega O.I.S.’ 
button that sets the three stabilisation modes 
(continuous, standby and off). The default 
continuous setting works for both viewing 
the subject and image capture and can be 
helpful when composing tele shots. The 
drain it places on the battery appears to be 
negligible. Standby can only be used for still 
shooting and activates the stabiliser when the 
shutter button is pressed. It offers a higher 
degree of stabilisation that is particularly 
useful when the digital zoom is used.

The FZ5’S viewfinder is remarkably good 

for an EVF and covered the sensor’s field of 
view very accurately. Its colour reproduction 
was excellent and it was less prone to 
streaking in backlit conditions than most 
EVFs we’ve encountered.  Its high eyepoint 
makes it easy to use when wearing glasses 
and adjustment of +/-4 diopters is provided, 
the widest range we’ve encountered yet. The 
larger 1.8-inch LCD screen gives the FZ5 an 
advantage over its predecessor - and some 
competing models.

Most controls on the FZ5 are 

straightforward and the mode dial has a 
special ‘Simple’ setting that allows it to be 
used as a point-and-shoot camera. The menu 
design is, as usual, excellent and very quick 
to use. However, once you switch to the A, 
S and M modes, changing camera settings 
requires use of the Exposure button in 
conjunction with the four-way controller. This 
is both clumsy and slow.

Like the FZ3, the FZ5 lacks 

manual focusing but has a focus 
button that lets users pre-focus 
on a subject without using the 
shutter release. A handy feature 
for shots of fireworks and 
anticipated events, the button 
locks the focus on the selected subject and 
maintains that setting until the focus button is 
pressed again. 

Three burst modes are supported: high 

speed, low speed and continuous. The first 
records four Fine (or seven Standard) JPEG 
images at 0.3 frames per second, while 
the others capture at 0.5 fps for the same 
number of shots (in low speed mode) or 
to the card’s capacity (unlimited mode). In 
Simple mode the burst speed is fixed at low. 
The FZ5’s movie modes are similar to those on 
the FZ3: QVGA resolution at 10 or 30fps with 
sound.  Focus, zoom and aperture settings 
are fixed at the start of each clip and a 25-
second clip at 30 fps fills the supplied 16MB 
memory card, so you need a much larger card 
to use this function. Video quality was good 
for the resolution but not quite good enough 
for TV display.

On the whole, the test camera delivered 

nicely-exposed pictures with accurate colours 
and modest saturation levels, although skin 
tones were rendered slightly warm. Imatest 
testing showed the lens/sensor combination 
delivered above average image sharpness 
and chromatic aberration was negligible. 
The auto white balance delivered good 
results with fluorescent lighting but failed to 
eliminate the orange cast of incandescent 
lights. However the pre-sets and manual 
control produced excellent results. Highlight 
details were lost in bright outdoor conditions 
but the overall image contrast range was 
excellent in subdued lighting and image noise 
was low at all ISO settings in long exposures 
after dark. The image stabiliser performed 
well in both modes, allowing candid shots to 
be taken in indoor conditions without flash. 
The flash was comparatively weak, requiring 

ISO 400 sensitivity to adequately illuminate 
an average-sized room. It also produced poor 
results for close-ups because the lens tended 
to block much of its light.

The test camera took approximately 

three seconds to power up and shut down, 
which is good for a long zoom camera. We 
measured an average capture lag of 0.6 
seconds when focusing was required, which 
reduced to 0.1 seconds with pre-focusing. 
The camera took less than a second to 
process a high-resolution JPEG file but almost 
three seconds for a TIFF image, both of which 
are relatively fast cycle times.  

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SHARP AND STABLE TELEPHOTO SHOOTING FROM A 
STYLISH CAMERA WITH HIGH FUNCTIONALITY.

IMAGE SENSOR: 

4.54 x 3.41mm CCD with 5.36 million 
photosites (5.0 megapixels effective)

LENS: 

Leica DC Vario-Elmarit 6-72mm f2.8-
f3.3 stabilised zoom (36-423mm in 
35mm format)

ZOOM RATIO:

 

12x optical, up to 4x digital

LENS MULTIPLIER FACTOR:

 7.9x

DIMENSIONS (WXHXD): 

108 x 68.4 x 84.8mm

WEIGHT: 

290g

RRP: 

$879

QUALITY RATING (OUT OF 10) 

Build: 

8.0

Ease of use: 

8.5

Image quality: 

8.5

Value for money: 

8.5

SPECIFICATIONS

DISTRIBUTOR: 

Panasonic Australia; 132 600; 
www.panasonic.com.au

Reviews: