"Fast" Lens & Photography

Not sure what you mean by "classic" but generally the more expensive you go the faster the auto focusing.
 
Daniel said:
Not sure what you mean by "classic" but generally the more expensive you go the faster the auto focusing.

There are for example Canon lenses with and without "USM".
 
cumi said:
There are for example Canon lenses with and without "USM".
Some USM is definitely faster, but there are two types of USM (thank Canon! :? ). The ring motors are the really fast ones. These are usually the ones you can manually focus without moving the switch to "M". Though some don't have a ring motor and have a clutch to allow this, like the 50mm 1.4.
 
Lumix said:
Rob The spec on my camera (Panasonic FZ20) is F2.8 from one end of the zoom to the other. This is one of the main features of this camera. Unlike most zoom lenses that have a decreasing aperture at the full telephoto end. Go to Panasonic's site or read the review at "Imaging Resource". Not to be confused with the later FZ30 which dose drop from F2.8 to F3.5. Where do you get the F8 from?

From the review:
Announced at the end of July 2004, the DMC-FZ20 is the flagship model of the third generation of 'super zoom' cameras from electronics giant Panasonic, and is a direct replacement for the FZ10. Like its predecessors (and the simultaneously announced DMC-FZ3) the FZ20 sports a Leica-branded DC Vario-Elmarit zoom with a whopping 12x optical range (36-432mm equiv) and a constant F2.8 aperture. It also boasts a newly-improved optical image stabilisation system and the Venus II engine, which, according to Panasonic's documentation, is now equivalent to shooting at 3 or 4 shutter speed steps faster.
I got that from dpreview where it said aperture range is f2.8-f8 which is presumably the settable range, rather than the zoom range, bit misleading really.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Panasonic/panasonic_dmcfz20.asp

Still, it's a 6mm-72mm f2.8 lens which means it's only 25mm wide in real life. That makes it 6x less diameter of glass than a 35mm film camera. A film camera would be a whopping 154mm wide at that length. Can 25mm really produce the same kind of results as 154mm??

It'd be very interesting to compare it image wise to an SLR with a 400mm f2.8 lens to see what the effective difference is. I can't believe that a £400 camera could produce images in any way equivilent to say this beastie: http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/40028afsII.htm

But the times they are a changin!

Rob
 
It'd be very interesting to compare it image wise to an SLR with a 400mm f2.8 lens to see what the effective difference is. I can't believe that a £400 camera could produce images in any way equivilent to say this beastie: http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/40028afsII.htm

But the times they are a changin!

Rob[/quote]

I did state it was not in the same ball park as the lenses you recommend, but the original thread was for a camera/lens that would photograph good sports type pictures in return for a sensible outlay. To this end I think the FZ20 fits the bill. I've used this camera now for 11 months and rate it very highly. So whats my opinion worth? Well 52 years in photography, my own studio, commercial work for companies like Ford motors etc. weddings and other functions plus retail. Retired now and find the FZ20 does all I could wish for.
 
Daniel said:
How does it deal with chromatic aberration Lumix?

Full review at www.dpreview.com

Here's part of it:-


Specific image quality issues

It is hard not to be impressed with the images produced by the FZ20 - sharp, full of detail and with admirably natural (i.e. not over-saturated) colors. In our extensive real-world testing we only found a few minor problems - the occasional focus error when shooting quickly at full zoom, some mild exposure problems, and some flare in very bright light (mostly solved by the use of the supplied hood). It should be noted, however, that the 'hit rate' is very high; I would guess only 1 in 100 shots had a problem serious enough to ruin the shot. The images have more detail than the 3MP FZ3, and we saw far fewer blown highlights. Noise is an ever-present problem at higher ISOs (a 'feature' of this sensor), but is perfectly acceptable at ISO 80 and 100 - the F2.8 lens and effective image stabilization also mean you don't need to go to ISO 200 or 400 as often as you might normally. The images also need only the tiniest amount of unsharp masking, meaning noise is not exacerbated. It is also worth noting that we found none of the vignetting seen on the FZ3.
Color fringing

We found virtually none of the purple fringing we've come to expect from long zooms and small sensors - perhaps because one of the functions of the new Venus II engine is the removal of 'purple fringing'. Even in areas of extreme overexposure the only problem was a little blooming - no fringing at all. Excellent.
What we did find on rare occasions was what appears to be a little lens-produced CA (chromatic aberration) at the extreme telephoto end of the zoom when shooting at wider apertures. This takes the form of a slight red fringe around areas of very high contrast. It's only visible in a few shots and is best illustrated by this hand-held shot of the moon. I suspect also that the fringing may be something to do with the moving elements used in the image stabilization system (see the soccer shot below for an example where the IS has been pushed to the limit).
P1010589-001.jpg
100% crop 432 mm equiv., F3.3, 1/500th sec
P1010416-001.jpg
100% crop 432 mm equiv., F2.8, 1/100th sec Image Stabilization

The MEGA O.I.S image Stabilization system used on the FZ20 (and many other recent Panasonic models) works, and it works well. There are two modes: Mode 1 (IS on all the time) and Mode 2 (IS is activated at the moment the exposure is made). Mode 1 makes framing easier - the IS system steadies the preview image (in the same way as, for example, the Canon S1 IS), but is less than 100% effective when it comes to actually taking the pictures. Mode 2, which minimizes the amount of movement needed by waiting until the actual moment you press the shutter, is considerably more effective. I certainly found the 3 or 4 shutter speed steps gain claimed by Panasonic to be justified - and was able to shoot at 420mm equiv. at speeds as low as 1/60th second successfully. Impressive stuff. The 100% crops below show the effectiveness of the IS system - especially in Mode 2 - when shooting at 420mm equiv. handheld at fairly low shutter speeds. It's by no means foolproof (and sometimes Mode 1 works better than Mode 2), but it's the best optical system we've seen yet. If anything the effectiveness is slightly less than the FZ3, though this is undoubtedly due to the higher pixel count, which means any blur in the scene is more visible when viewed on-screen at 100%.
IS offIS mode 1IS mode 2
1/50 sec, 432mm equiv. IS offIS mode 1IS mode 2
1/15 sec, 432mm equiv.
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