Review Date: September 30, 2013
Category: Beginner to Serious Amateur
Photoxels Silver Award – Superzoom
HANDLING & FEEL
The Panasonic FZ70 is styled like a DSLR and has very good handling. It has plenty of manual controls and a 60x optical zoom that, with an effective optical image stabilization, shatters preconceived ideas of how much zoom can be safely handled.
The Panasonic FZ70 has a LUMIX DC VARIO F2.8(W)-5.9(T) lens that provides a 60x ultra wide-angle optical zoom. At 20mm (equiv.), the starting focal length is great for ultra wide-angle shots that will allow you to include a large group of friends or capture wide landscapes. You can select a medium tele focal length (e.g. 135 mm equiv.) for portraits and the 1200mm (equiv.) super tele allows you to bring [really] far away subjects close.
Hand-holding a camera at that long a focal length without image stabilization would be unthinkable. The FZ70’s optical image stabilization is very effective at reducing camera shake, meaning that, if you have very stable hands to start out with, the OIS will allow you to hand hold the camera even at the 1200mm focal length. (All the 1200mm shots in this review were hand held.) Macro mode allows you to get as close as 1 cm (0.4 in.) of your subject at wide-angle. The incredible lens reach makes this camera an ideal travel camera as there is not much, from ultra wide-angle to super telephoto, that you can’t capture.
On the front of the camera, at top left of the lens is the AF Assist Lamp/Self-timer indicator. It is quite effective for low light shots though its placement means that your fingers as well as the long lens barrel could somewhat block its light.
Startup is fast at less than 1 sec. (from Power ON to LCD ready for capture, i.e. time-to-first-shot) which is quite fast for a super zoom. There is no practical shutter lag, especially if you prefocus. Shot to shot times is about 1.2 sec. (approx. 12 shots in 10 sec. in M mode, ISO 100, 1/125 sec.).
The AF is fast and precise in both good and low lighting, and this has become a hallmark of Panasonic digital cameras.
At Quality = Fine, a 16MP JPEG image is compressed down to anywhere between 4MB and 6MB. A RAW image saves at about 19MB.
Included in the box is a rechargeable Li-ion battery DMW-BMB9PP that can take about 540 shots (CIPA standard) on a fresh charge. A Battery Charger DE-A83 conveniently plugs directly into an electrical wall outlet and will recharge a depleted battery in approx. 155 min.
The top of the camera has, from right to left (viewing from the back), the Shutter Release Button with a Zoom lever around it, dedicated Motion Picture button, Burst Mode button, FOCUS (AF Area) button, Mode dial with the Power ON/OFF switch around it, Stereo Microphone sealed in its special windshield structure, Hot Shoe, and Speaker.
It takes about 4-8 seconds to zoom from wide to tele, depending on how light your touch is. Slide the lever a small amount for slow zooming and a larger amount for fast zooming. You can disable digital zoom [Menu – Rec – Digital Zoom – OFF]. The Panasonic FZ70 has Continuous Shooting 9fps (max. 3 images) at full resolution.
Beginner photographers will leave the Mode Dial on iA (Intelligent Auto) most of the time, and more advanced photographers have access to the semi-auto and full manual (PASM) shooting modes.
On the back of the Panasonic FZ70, you’ll find a generous 3.0-in. fixed LCD panel with 460k-dot resolution. The control buttons are on the top and right side of the LCD. Clockwise, from top left, there is the Flash open button, Viewfinder (LVF) and Diopter adjustment dial on its left side, LVF button (to manually toggle between the LVF and LCD since there is no eye sensor), AF/AE Lock button (which can be customized as Fn1), Rear dial, AF/AF Macro/MF button, Playback button, Cursor pad with ISO (TOP), WB (RIGHT), Self-timer (DOWN), Fn2 (LEFT) and the MENU/SET button in the middle, Display button, Q.MENU/Delete button.
The Q.MENU (Quick Menu) button displays a menu on screen for fast settings changes. The LCD is not touchscreen so you change settings using the control buttons. You cannot conveniently go into the Playback mode directly if the camera is powered OFF. You have to first power the camera ON, causing the lens to extend. Then, the lens retracts after about 15 seconds. The lens cap conveniently goes on top of the lens itself (and not the lens barrel as on so many super zoom cameras) so that you can turn the camera on without encountering an annoying error message.
You can record Full HD movies 1920 x 1080/60i with stereo sound. You can zoom while filming videos and you can barely hear the zoom and continuous focus sound. You can however hear any noise you make with your finger as it handles the zoom lever (or the lens cap retaining string scraping against the side of the body).
The Terminal door opens up just wide enough to allow access to the HDMI socket and AV OUT/Digital socket (the USB cable plugs in here). The Battery/Card door has a latch to keep the battery from accidentally falling out (though the battery is heavy so that once you press the latch, the battery will fall straight to the floor unless you are ready to catch it). The tripod socket at the bottom is metal; it is not inline with the center of the lens and you won’t be able to change battery or memory card when the camera is on a tripod.
The Panasonic FZ70 should make a great travel camera or all-purpose bridge camera. As Panasonic digital cameras have gained the reputation for, it works very well and the overall experience is that the FZ70 is fast, responsive and pleasant to use. It handles well, the construction is very good and the 60x optical zoom reach opens up new possibilities.
Next: Panasonic FZ70 User’s Experience
