Lumix Z28

jandrewnelson

Hopefully this is the right place to ask this question.

Anyone know of a thread here (or site elsewhere) that can help me max out the potential of my Lumix Z28?

Thanks
Jerry
www.meesoon.smugmug.com

ziggy53

Start with the review here:

http://www.digitalcamerareview.com/default.asp?newsID=3744

Note that they recommend using "single-area high speed focus" for the best focus speed, but the they mention that it is not a very consistent AF speed.

Do be careful not to cover the AF assist light when working in low light.

Remember to remove the lens hood when shooting macros with the flash. Even then, the lens may cast a shadow because of the extremely close focus distance especially when the lens is fully wide.

RAW shooting is available and provides some additional DR so use it when you don't need the faster shooting preformance that JPGs provide. RAW mode will also help with color balance as the camera appears to sometimes miss white balance especially in artificial lighting.

It looks like ISO 100-400 is excellent and ISO 800 very usable especially with some noise reduction. ISO 1600 is probably pushing it a bit for anything too serious. Very small prints and web work might be OK especially for simple subjects.

It looks like the video section is more usable than many small cameras and the 1280x720 HD video appears to be competent and the zoom works during recording, a very nice touch.

Shima

After excessive and obsessive reading of reviews on this camera and a few others the past few months, I finally picked up one myself to use on my business trips (because as much as I love my 5D Mark II it's way to heavy and cumbersome to take on a short business trip for my "just for fun" photos)

btw - the FZ28 was the joint winner for the super zooms on dpreview:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/Q109superzoomgroup/page16.asp

One neat thing I've noticed is that if you set your image to quality in RAW, even the preset image options (action, portrait, scenery, etc) will still shoot raw quality! only the IA will switch back to JPG. That's different than most camera's I'm used to where only Program, Aperture, Shutter, and Manual were the only ones to let you shoot RAW.

Anyhoo, I only just got my FZ28 this past week, but I've got a business trip June 8-10 and another June 14-17... so hopefully I'll get a chance to mess around with it a lot in the upcoming weeks, I'll let you know if I notice anything nifty / out of the ordinary on it.