Panasonic DMC-FZ7

Reviewed June 2006

Test Photos

STILL LIFE PHOTO

This subject is photographed in a room that has a mix of fluorescent and incandescent light, but which is not brightly lit. The camera's flash is used to add fill light. The backdrop is 1.95 m (6.5 ft) from the camera.

At all but macro distances, the flash of the DMC-FZ7 extends far enough above the camera so that it projects light above the lens, and avoids causing a shadow of the lens when the zoom is set to the wide angle. The result, with a subject such as this, is a uniformly lit exposure which shows no light falloff.

The frame is sharp from corner to corner, and reveals a very reasonable level of detail.

ZOOM PHOTO

Now we zoom in on a specific area. The intent is to test the sharpness of the image at the zoom's maximum setting. The camera normally remains at the same distance as with the preceding photo.

At the maximum setting of the 12X zoom, the FZ7 requires a minimum distance of 2 m (3.28 ft) to focus. Therefore, with this subject, the camera needs to be moved back a bit to allow for a sharp focus. The image the FZ7 produces is remarkably detailed. individual paper fibers of the old photographic paper envelope can be seen clearly, as can faint wrinkles on the paper surface.

This strongly backlit macro shot of a little (repeat) visitor is captured with the FZ7 set to the Macro mode, and with the lens at the wide angle setting.

At the widest angle the camera captures a field of view measuring a bit less than 5.5 cm (2.145 in.) horizontally that shows some barrel distortion. And at the telephoto end, indicated as Tele on the monitor/EVF, the FZ7 is able to capture a field of view measuring 9.5 cm (3.705 inches), and images show no distortion.

BUILDING PHOTO

This image is our outdoor test. The architecture of the building, in particular the angled girders, immediately show the presence of jaggies. The shadowed entrance can also often reveal the quality of the exposure.

Both the wide angle and telephoto shots of the building presented here are captured using the TIFF format, an uncompressed format. Each TIFF image file is a bit more than 17MB, and an image takes a touch less than 5 seconds to store on an average SD card.

Normally, the advantage of the TIFF format is that the image is unaffected by the compression process, and is normally the sharpest and most detailed image the camera can produce.

ZOOM PHOTO

The powerful zoom of the FZ7 makes it possible to capture a small area of the entrance while remaining in the same spot as for the wide angle shot presented above.

The telephoto shot is captured with the camera hand-held, using the optical stabilizer set to Mode 2. The resulting image is crisp, and very detailed, as can be seen below.

The exposure is nuanced, capturing detail in both the highlights and the shadows and the image reveals no chromatic aberration.

NIGHT PHOTO

This camera is capable of long exposures, and an image captured late at night is presented to give an idea of its capabilities.

Offering a maximum exposure time of 60 seconds in the Manual mode, the DMC-FZ7 is very capable when it comes to night photography.

As do many other cameras, the FZ7 automatically applies noise reduction to all images captured with a long exposure. It is, however, one of very few cameras that offer a bit of control over the noise reduction process*, allowing the user to increase or decrease it modestly.

The standard setting for noise reduction, used for this shot, softens the image slightly, but eliminates most of the noise. Moreover, when printed, even out to a 5.25 x 7 inch size, the soft focus visible here disappears and the image is perfectly sharp.