I have an older Panasonic Lumix FZ200 camera with strange things happening to its EVF. In early February, I first noticed a change in the view through the EVF. The picture was a bit smaller than usual and it had a bright blue frame all around it. Things were fine on the outside LCD. That happened while I was on a short birding trip to the Netherlands. Gradually, in the course of the next few weeks, that blue frame got wider and wider, with the view of the picture becoming correspondingly smaller. Meanwhile, the view on the menu display has changed as well. There is a wide blue band on both sides, with smaller blue connecting bands at the very top and bottom. The text of the menu has a grey background with zigzag borders running down both sides. In a way it looks like a piece of fabric that had been torn off from some fixation on the sides. The border to the blue top and bottom bands is straight. Unfortunately, there is no way for me to take a photo of all of this as it is all inside the EVF.
Thus, this EVF has started to disintegrate and shrink within just a few weeks. At least, that is the period that things became obvious. In hindsight, I think I remember a grey small rim around the picture before the wider blue frame became apparent. Is such an aging process a normal thing? Are there other models that have shown similar events happening?
Strangely enough, the intended replacement camera, again a FZ200, came with a defective EVF as well! As the FZ200 has many features I like while still being reasonably compact, I had tried to find one on the well-known international auction site. I bought it because it was characterized as “perfect condition – as new”. But while the rest of this camera lived up to the claim, the EVF clearly did not. The view through this EVF shows lots of fine parallel streaks that run diagonally through the lower two thirds of the picture. Additionally, there is a slight reddish cast. So the overall impression is like looking through some thin reddish fog with small hailstones being blown through by some stiff wind (though it is all static). Again, the outside LCD is perfect. So it looks that the FZ200 has a weakness in the EVF. The fellow I got the camera from claimed that he had received it from somebody else like that somewhat over a year ago. I still need to sort this out, as simply returning it would mean another costly shipping across the border of Switzerland.
Thus, this EVF has started to disintegrate and shrink within just a few weeks. At least, that is the period that things became obvious. In hindsight, I think I remember a grey small rim around the picture before the wider blue frame became apparent. Is such an aging process a normal thing? Are there other models that have shown similar events happening?
Strangely enough, the intended replacement camera, again a FZ200, came with a defective EVF as well! As the FZ200 has many features I like while still being reasonably compact, I had tried to find one on the well-known international auction site. I bought it because it was characterized as “perfect condition – as new”. But while the rest of this camera lived up to the claim, the EVF clearly did not. The view through this EVF shows lots of fine parallel streaks that run diagonally through the lower two thirds of the picture. Additionally, there is a slight reddish cast. So the overall impression is like looking through some thin reddish fog with small hailstones being blown through by some stiff wind (though it is all static). Again, the outside LCD is perfect. So it looks that the FZ200 has a weakness in the EVF. The fellow I got the camera from claimed that he had received it from somebody else like that somewhat over a year ago. I still need to sort this out, as simply returning it would mean another costly shipping across the border of Switzerland.
