Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ30 Digital Camera Review

by Patrick Singleton
Published on October 21, 2005

Navigation
Intro	Testing / Performance
Physical Tour	Components
Design / Layout	Modes
Control Options	Image Parameters
Connectivity / Extras	Overall Impressions
Conclusion	Specs / Ratings

Viewfinder (3.5)
Though it looks a bit like an SLR, the Panasonic DMC-FZ30 sports a fully plastic electronic viewfinder. The 235,000-pixel viewing screen has more contrast than the LCD, but not in a good way – its color reproduction is harsh and the view is compromised.

Flash (7.0)
The Panasonic DMC-FZ30's pop-up flash is directly above the lens, which prevents unflattering shadows in flash photography. The flash reaches to 14.8 feet in wide angle mode, but not quite as far in telephoto. Shooting with a 420mm-equivalent at distances closer than 15 feet is pretty limiting – it's too close for anything but a very tight portrait – so an external flash is necessary for telephoto flash photography. The FZ30 has a hot shoe over the lens for just such a flash. Unfortunately, the single-pin shoe will provide only synchronization, not the exposure control and other options that dedicated flashes offer. Dedication can even control the width of the flash illumination – dedicated flashes can zoom with the camera lens, extending the light's range. On a camera with a 12x zoom, like the FZ30, that feature would have been very useful.  

The in-camera flash can be set to fire automatically, automatically with red-eye reduction, always flash, or slow synchronization with red-eye reduction. It can also be shut off.

Lens (9.0)
The Leica-branded 7.4-88.8mm zoom lens sports a maximum aperture that runs from f/2.8 at wide angle to f/3.7 at the telephoto end of the range. The best Leica lenses are among the best in photography. While it isn't realistic to hold the lens on the Panasonic DMC-FZ30 to the same standards as Leica's lenses for its own film cameras (lenses that run thousands of dollars each), the lens fixed to the FZ30 is sharp in its own right and delivers good contrast. A 12x zoom is a very long range for a digital still camera, though movie and video cameras have had such ranges for years. Such extreme zooms often show degraded performance at the ends of the range, but this one looks sharp at both ends (although distortion is certainly a problem).

The FZ30’s 12x zoom lens opens to 35mm at its widest angle (35mm equivalent focal length).  This is only mildly wide, but the lens displays substantial barrel distortion, where horizontal and vertical lines near the edges of the frame bow out in the middle.

MEGA Optical Image Stabilization, despite the superficial hype its name implies, is actually a significant contributor to the Panasonic DMC-FZ30's performance. Optical image stabilization means that components of the lens move to compensate for motion of the camera – if you jiggle the camera, the lens jiggles the opposite way to make up for it.  The FZ30 offers two image stabilization modes. Mode 1 operates continuously, which can make the viewfinder clearer while the photographer frames the shot, along with steadying final images. Mode 2, which activates the stabilizer only when the image is shot, doesn't help improve viewfinder clarity, but it does a better job of stabilizing the final image. It's also possible to turn off stabilization entirely. Mode 2 stabilization is remarkably effective. Shots taken handheld at “420” (the maximum telephoto setting) and 1/100th of a second look as though they were shot with a tripod, while the same shot without stabilization shows noticeable motion blur. Of course, your mileage may vary – OIS is less effective at slower shutter speeds, or when used by photographers who've drunk far too much coffee.