Panasonic FZ200 ?

Hi all

A friend of mine is asking me to help her find a reasonably-priced high end P&S with a long zoom. Yes, she wants to take bird photos....but maybe not the high quality stuff we normally expect here on NSN. Just reasonably good, maybe even very good at times. Have been looking at the Panasonic FZ200. f/2.8 throughout  a 25-600 zoom range. Articulated LCD. The usual Panny bells and whistles. Shoots raw, and of course video.   I've never seen or used one, though. Seems to get very high ratings in it's class.
Anyone familiar with the camera and/or something of similar quality?

Thanks!

I checked the sensor size on that camera to determine what the crop factor would be and it's approximately a 5.6x crop factor. That would mean the FZ200 set to F2.8 has the same DOF of a 35mm sensor at F16. I'm sure that's an advantage some of the time but not often.

The other question would be quickness of focusing and control of that focusing. Do you think it will be able to focus accurately on a bird the bird's eye from normal photo distances? Would it be quick enough for a bird in flight image?

I moved from a P&S to a dSLR 12 years ago because of focusing speed. I still do not think the manufacturers concentrate enough on that aspect of action photography.

Anthony Medici wrote:I checked the sensor size on that camera to determine what the crop factor would be and it's approximately a 5.6x crop factor. That would mean the FZ200 set to F2.8 has the same DOF of a 35mm sensor at F16. I'm sure that's an advantage some of the time but not often.

The other question would be quickness of focusing and control of that focusing. Do you think it will be able to focus accurately on a bird the bird's eye from normal photo distances? Would it be quick enough for a bird in flight image?

I moved from a P&S to a dSLR 12 years ago because of focusing speed. I still do not think the manufacturers concentrate enough on that aspect of action photography.

Thanks for that info- I would not have considered the crop factor. Certainly changes the picture, so to speak. No idea what the focus speed is, or the burst mode. BIF? I doubt it. She's in California, though, and getting big birds from her porch on the beach. (Wish I was there!).

I don't think she can afford a DSLR, though I've suggested the cheapest combo- a Rebel or (possibly used) 60D and a 70-300 f/4 L IS.  I think that's a great lens for the money, but the combo is a long ways from $500!

I have a Panny GH2 and sometimes get good results with  my 100-300 (200-600) lens.. It's definitely slow compared to my 1D MKIV, but it's not really a fair comparison for the money.  I am not recommending that combo- it is not cheap either.

I'd recommend this but there is no P/S that will do BIF well:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/9 ... amera.html

E.J. Peiker wrote:I'd recommend this but there is no P/S that will do BIF well:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/9 ... amera.html

Thanks E.J. Do you think it would do well with, say, shore birds, birds in the bush, ...birds other than BIF?  If it works about as well as my GH2 (or better), I think that would be satisfactory, at least as a beginning point for her.

Well you can't really compare a tiny sensor camera with a m43 but then you can't really do birds with m43 due to no long lenses except maybe the 100-300. This has huge focal length and is stabilized. Should do OK on stationary subjects and the inherent DOF in a tiny sensor would allow for decent sharpness even if focus misses a little.