Korean Job Discussion Forums

[hanney]

i want to buy Panasonic DMCFZ20GD , anyone know about this digital camera.Its say the best digital camera ever made. Is it compatible with Canon 20 D ?

[Gatsby]

This is a three-year old model. Probably was good in its time, but best ever?

Once upon a time Minolta made a deal with Leica to manufacture their SLR bodies and even some of their lenses in exchange for permission to use Leica's lens designs on their Minolta cameras. The result was just about the best lenses for the money ever.

Now Panasonic has a similar deal with Leica, hence the similarity of designs between the Panasonic and Leica models. That's what you have with the Panasonic DMCFZ20GD.

However, Leicas are no longer always the best lenses around. Sometimes you will find better lenses on a Canon of similar design, sometimes on a Fuji.

You are presumably a novice, based on your question. A fine camera for that I recommended to one novice, who quickly got excellent results with was the Fuji 5100. The current version is the Fuji 5200. I also recommeded the paper buy one for a staffer on a weekly, and the results were professional newspaper quality, at least for such a paper. The lens is excellent, and the processor produces remarkably good images with available light.

Here is a good source for camera reviews, though there are other more detailed technical reviews out there:

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2006_reviews/fuji_s5200.html

These days of high megapixel cameras loaded with bells and whistles, there is such a thing as too much camera for the amateur. Most digital cameras are also fairly fragile, so if you use it a lot there is a risk it might get broken. So I figure it is better to get something you will use, have fun using without struggling to understand the controls, and don't have to worry too much about breaking.

It's interesting how many people buying their first camera think they need a pro model because they are absolutely certain they are going to do real serious photography. I have seen lots of high quality SLRs at garage sales with little use on them.

I knew a fellow back in college in the pre-Internet days who wanted to buy a pro SlR with a motor drive. Never had used a camera before. But he figured he wanted to learn how to take pictures of nude women and go pro. I told him that a motor drive was the worst way for a beginner to learn how to take pictures. He figured with a motor drive all he had to do was hold down the shutter release and some of the 36 pictures on the roll would have to come out good. Not. In retrospect, I hope I didn't discourage him too much; there sure is a market for such pictures today, and he could have gotten in early. Or I could have, had I less scruples.

And then there was the kid in my fourth grade class who when asked what he wanted to do for a living said he wanted to be a Playboy photographer.

At any rate, with digital cameras, I think people are less likely to discard a new camera in the closet. But I think it is better to get a moderate priced camera, or even a good compact cheap camera, and see how passionate you are about photography. Then buy a more expensive model if you are really going to use it. You will still have use for the cheaper model.

Here are some other models to consider:

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2006_reviews/stylus720.html

This Olympus is an extra tough camera, able to withstand a 5-foot drop. The image quality is not as good as models like the Fuji S5200, but it is also super compact.

Or

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2005_reviews/p880.html

I generally prefer wide angle lenses over long telephoto. This Kodak P880 has a wider angle lens than most - 24 mm - great for interiors or group shots, as well as some landscapes.

And to answer your question, No, the Panasonic is not comparable to the Canon 20D. They different types of camera, and the Canon is far higher quality, no matter how you slice it.

[hanney]

pm sent

[capebretoncanadian]

It costs around 400,000won in Korean market

[hanney]

[capebretoncanadian]

new one

[crazy_arcade]

It's a good camera, but Panasonic has newer models that would be a better purchase

the LX2 for example is a very impressive camera.

[KOREAN_MAN]

I own Fujifilm's FinePix S5200 and I would say that S5200 or S5600 (same model) is a wonderful camera for its price. Even though it's about 1.5 years old, I still recommend it. For the price I don't think you can get a camera with a better lens, white balance performance, and picture quality than S5200. (Even its newer models can't compete.) It won the EISA award last year for the high-end 'superzoom' camera category.

But Panasonic's DMC-FZ20 comes with better features, which is definitely a big plus for novice photographers. For example, S5200 doesn't come with image stabilization. That means you need to hold the camera very steadily unless there's plenty of bright sunlight. Otherwise, you might get blurry pictures. Let me include two photos I took with S5200 just a couple days ago. I only resized them; no "photoshop."

[hepcat]

Panasonics have nice lenses, but second-rate sensors. If you want a fine sensor+unbeatable lens, consider a Sony DSC R1. Un-frickin'-real.

[Gatsby]

It's interesting to see the various opinions on which camera to buy. It's a very different market than the days of film cameras. Back then, for someone who knew how to use a light meter, what really mattered in determining image quality was the lens and the brand of film you used. Now it is far more complicated, and good cameras can have their own strengths and weaknesses. So there is no one best camera.

Two good sites for camera evaluations are Steves'

http://www.steves-digicams.com/hardware_reviews.html

and DPreview

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/default.asp?view=rating

The latter is far more detailed, but Steve's is also interesting, especially for looking back at actual photos taken with 1 or 2 megapixel cameras costing $1,000 and comparing them to shots with a $100 camera today.

The biggest mistake in choosing a camera is assuming that more megapixels are better. A camera with less megapixels but with a sharper lens can be better.

But more important, the "film" sensitivity of the CCD with more megapixels packed into the same (or smaller) amount of space can be slower. This means it will shoot at a slower shutter speed, making hand held shots more difficult. I have a very compact Nikon Coolpix 4100 that tested out to an ISO film speed of 25, which is atrocious. With a camera like that, you need to prop it against a wall or chair to get a sharp shot, even outdoors in cloudy weather.

I have compared cameras with image stabilization to ones without, and found that with the latter sometimes the useable film speed is a couple of stops faster than the one with image stabilization, negating the value of this feature. And if your subject is moving, the image stabilization is not going to help much.

The reason for the slow film speed is that on a small camera, the CCD will be very small and less sensitive. There are only so many photons that actually strike each pixel when you have a small 10 megapixel CCD, so the sensitivity is less. And as megapixel counts increase, this is only going to get worse unless the manufacturer uses one of the larger sensor formats or some new technology is developed.

Film speed is important, as users of old film cameras know. For real life shooting, a good 400 or 800 ISO film made a big difference over the less grainy 100 ISO, and they finally started making these color films not long before the takeover of digital cameras. A digital camera that produces good images at these higher speeds is really useful.

So always look at the evaluations of film speed and image quality at higher ISO settings. Unfortunately, most digital cameras don't look so good at ISO 400 or 800.

Obviously there are a lot of other factors, including how the camera focuses in low light, chromatic aberration, vignetting, speed of shutter response and startup time, how long it takes to transfer shots into memory, and what type of battery it has. AAs are nice.

One newer model that I am tempted to buy is the Sony DSLR-A100. I like to be able to use single focal length prime lenses because they are faster and have less linear distortion (barrel and pincushion distortion). Plus you can put on an external flash with greater power.

On the other hand, a nice point and shoot like the Fuji S5200 would probably be more fun to use. And a flat model point and shoot would probably get more use because it fits in a pocket.

No one camera does it all.

Even a $200 camera will give you good pictures if you know how to use it.

With every camera you need to hold it as steady as possible to get a sharp picture (although these days image stabilization helps - but if you have a steady hand, it is not quite so important). You need to know how to compose an attractive picture. You need to know how to compensate for exposure in certain situations. And you should not rely too much on automatic color compensation. Most of the time you will get more accurate, more saturated color by either using one of the presets such as daylight, or use the manual color mode, especially indoors.

If you don't know how to do these things, shots with a $1,000 camera won't look much better than from a $200 camera, and might easily look worse.

[KOREAN_MAN]

Nice post, Gatsby. I like digitalcamerainfo.com review site. They have supposedly objective tests which make comparisons easier. cambridgeincolour.com has really good lessons on digital cameras and how to create great-looking photos.
Sony's A100 and Fujifilm's S5200 are in different leagues. For one, A100 costs about four times as much when you include two bundle lens along with the camera body. By the way, S5200 is not so compact. It definitely does not fit in any pocket. It won't even fit in a lot of small-to-medium camera bags.
Doesn't Canon have a better selection of lenses though? Reviews show 400D having a better picture quality than A100 or Nikon D80. I personally do not like the Canon brand, but I love the fact that they use CMOS sensors instead of CCD sensors on their DSLR bodies. For some reason CMOS seems to produce better pictures than CCD.

[Phyphon]

I have the DMCFZ50 and paid 400 in Yangsan It just came out like 2 months ago... the 20 only costs about 250-300

[hanney]

[Phyphon]

comes with the camera only, u need to buy a bag... lens cover.. extra battery and a mem card.. Yangsan is line one... It is the electronic market. Soon as you get off the subway on line one you will see the Ipark building. You can find better deals if you dig deeper in the town but the Ipark building is good for a quick solution. YOU MUST HAGGLE!!! and compare prices at many Kiosks.... if not youll get burned... one place offered my camera for 550... another place offered it for 400

[ptarmigan]

Say, is it cheaper to buy a camera in Korea than the US, or to buy one here and bring it with you? ('')
Thanks for the help!