YACamT: Anyone here have the Panasonic FZ3/15/20?

[yhelothar]

I've recently borrowed my work's Minolta Dimage A2 $700 prosumer 8MP camera. I was surprised at how poor quality the long exposure shots were. Extremely noisy, yes at ISO80 too. Even 1/8th second is very noisy.
My Canon S30 cheapo consumer point and shoot on the otherhand is absolutely noise free all the way down to 15second exposure.

I read a review from imaging-resource.com, and it said the night time performance for the FZ20 is below average. I'm planning on getting the FZ15 from Dell.com for $360 after coupons. Any comments/suggestions?

 

[yhelothar]

anyone?

 

[imported_Mike]

why did you create another thread?

 

[RichieZ]

i odn't have teh FZX, but I have the FX7 which I believe has the same Mega OIS system. Works pretty good for long exposure shots, at damn sight better than my old canon s200

 

[yhelothar]

Originally posted by: CheapArse
why did you create another thread?

That one I was asking about noise, this one I'm asking about long exposure performance 😉

 

[Zenmervolt]

The A2 does not have an ISO 80 option. The available ISO's for the A2 are 64, 100, 200, 400, and 800. At ISO 800 it's going to be insanely noisy. With the 8MP 2/3" sensor, anything above ISO 400 is pretty worthless.

You should look into using the ISO 64 setting for long exposures. The A2 is pretty clean at ISO 64, though the Canon PowerShot Pro1 and the Olympus C-8080 are superior. My personal choice in that segment is the Olympus C-8080, it's consistantly highly-reviewed and the lens is wonderful, the lack of a greater zoom is made up for with superior clarity and sharpness.

ZV

 

[yhelothar]

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt
The A2 does not have an ISO 80 option. The available ISO's for the A2 are 64, 100, 200, 400, and 800. At ISO 800 it's going to be insanely noisy. With the 8MP 2/3" sensor, anything above ISO 400 is pretty worthless.

You should look into using the ISO 64 setting for long exposures. The A2 is pretty clean at ISO 64, though the Canon PowerShot Pro1 and the Olympus C-8080 are superior. My personal choice in that segment is the Olympus C-8080, it's consistantly highly-reviewed and the lens is wonderful, the lack of a greater zoom is made up for with superior clarity and sharpness.

ZV

Thanks for your response.
I remembered wrong about the A2, but I did use the lowest ISO available, and it was still very noisy on the A2.
C-8080 looks like an awesome camera, but unfortunately it's way over my budget at $600+
Well I just ordered the FZ15 fromthis store for $388 shipped. Probably should have gone with butterfly photo for $3 more.