I had a quick look at a TZ80 (aka FS60) today. When I powered it on, the lens popped out, preumably to the shortest focal length. Can anyone tell me if it's possible to configure the camera so that it automatically zooms to the longest focal length as soon as you turn it on?
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Can the TZ80 (FS60) auto zoom on power on? (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter pshute
- Start date
Beyondhope
Member
Good advice - if at first you don't succeed, read the instructions though not always easy to find the topic you are looking for. Eventually I found it was possible to set 'zoom resume' on the FZ1000, why do so few user manuals have an index?
jmepler
It's just a flesh wound.
That is why I prefer to have an electronic version of a user manual, even in the unlikely event that I have a hard copy manual.
It is easy to search for the terms that I am looking for.
Thanks for that. I had downloaded the manual and didn't manage to find it. I even read that page, but didn't spot it!
Can you please tell me how it works? Does it just leave the lens extended when you turn it off, or does it retract, and then extend to the same position again when you turn it back on?
Yes, but only if you know what to search for. There are dozens of mentions of the word "zoom", and only three of them are about zoom resume. I'm coming from an Olympus DSLR background, and haven't even owned a zoom lens for years.
Of course if there was an index, it most likely would have just pointed me to the zoom chapter.
jmepler
It's just a flesh wound.
The owners manual isn't very clear, is it?
The way my FZ-150 works is that when you turn the camera off the lens retracts to the home position, and when you turn the camera back on the lens zooms to wherever it was set previously.
I would imagine that this works the same way, otherwise I think they would label it Lens Retract ON/OFF.
I don't think that I have ever seen a digital camera that left the lens extended when it was turned off. It is just too delicate to leave hanging out there to be banged aroung.
The manual says "Retaining / not retaining the zoom position when the camera is turned off". One could be excused for thinking that very clearly says it won't retract when you turn the power off, but I agree that would be unusual.
By contrast, the FZ150 manual says "It will automatically return to the zoom position when the power was switched [OFF], next time you turn the power [ON]. [OFF]/[ON]", which sounds much more promising.
I think it's uncertain enough that I think I should confirm it. What I'd like to do is to be able to keep it in my pocket, and have it zoom as soon as I turn it on. I can't see myself using it at anything other than full zoom very often.
I have the earlier TZ70, it works well as a pocket travel cam with great zoom.
The image quality is decent, but not spectacularly sharp, colors are not as pleasing as those from my earlier Canon SX260, they are more muted.
There is a view finder, but it is relatively small and not that useful imho.
Overall, it is a serviceable and robust bit of kit.
The TZ80 is a newer version with more megapixels on the same size sensor. It also has a touch screen and 4K video, so it is a big upgrade functionally, even though the lens is the same.
If wanted, it might be possible to do some tweaking of the menu to e.g., increase contrast - unless you prefer to do those kind of things in the PC afterwards.
Niels
Panasonic's colors are really not wrong, just a lot more low key than Canon's.
The camera has menu adjustments to boost the color intensity, but the results don't seem an improvement to me. In any event, the pictures are shown randomly on the computer by the screensaver. They bring back the memories, so the image quality is not critical for me.
A few questions for you:
I was hoping the view finder (which is the same on the TZ80) would be ok. Comparing to my first digital camera, a Canon S3, the resolution of the viewfinder is about 10x the resolution. I used to find that viewfinder difficult to work with, hard to find the bird in the frame but often manageable, so surely over 1M dots would be very usable. But you called it "small" - what do you mean by that?
Also interested in using the lens ring for manual focusing. Have you tried that?
Does your model have the post focus feature? It seems to be using high res video for focus bracketing. It sounds like it might be helpful for birds in vegetation.
I'm very interested to know about the high ISO performance. Is the 6400 setting a joke like the 800 was on the S3?
Have you tried using RAW mode? Does that give you a better end result? Some cameras do a pretty good job with their jpgs,and RAW is usually not much of an improvement. I'm interested to know if it's true of this one.
How have you found the battery life?
The TZ70 does not have post focusing.
It would be nice if it did, birds in vegetation are a problem for the focusing, as it picks the nearest element to focus on.
RAW for a minute sensor such as on the TZ70 is unrewarding, as you note there just is not that much margin to work with. I've not used it.
Battery life is reasonable, about 200 pictures. Buy a couple of added batteries, inexpensive generics will do, plus a separate charger. It is no fun to have the camera die just as the evening is picking up.
High ISO settings are a monument to optimism. You're pushing it at 800. Do note the TZ80 has a new sensor and a much better processor. It can perhaps do better than the TZ70 despite its smaller individual pixel size.
Manual focus does work, but is finicky, so you need a patient bird for good results.
The viewfinder is small and not especially bright. I'd thought it would help me hold the camera more steady when shooting distant birds, but reverted to just using the back screen. It does work, has an eye sensor and reasonable resolution, but I very rarely use it.