 I received my Panasonic DMC-FZ20K on Tuesday December 22, 2005 and decided to open this Christmas gift to myself a little early. The delivery truck dropped it off at around 1:30 pm or so, but because the battery takes about two hours to charge, I wasn’t able to use the camera until about 3:30. This turned out to be a good thing, however, because it was during this time that I decided to read the manual. Let me just say that, although I have been taking pictures on a personal level since I was very young and consider myself quite good at framing shots, I am not a professional photographer. In fact, this is my first camera where I will have the ability to focus manually or adjust the exposure (up to eight seconds) or aperture manually. For those of you that are wondering the K or S after the model number represents what color camera is. This camera comes in a silver as well. The black is the Panasonic Limux DMC-FZ20K and the silver is the FZ20S.
While reading the manual, I learned about all the basics of the camera and
where everything is. I also learned about what kind of effects and images you
could achieve by manipulating the aperture and shutter speed and about the
great displays that this camera has to help you adjust these settings, like
the histogram to measure exposure levels and a very useful tool they call “manual
exposure assistance,” which makes adjusting the aperture and exposure
for someone like me a breeze.
Take a look at the photos below, for example, and you can get an idea for
yourself what I am talking about. This camera is so easy to use that my very
first shots came out really good. Every shot you are looking at was taken using
manual settings that I just learned how to adjust minutes before by reading
the manual. Take a look at my very first night shot as well. Although I see
a lot of room for improvement, I was very impressed at how well these shots
came out considering my experience.
I actually had a different shot in mind for my first night shot but the environment
was not friendly for it tonight. I have been scoping out nearby neighborhoods for
good night shots in anticipation of this night for weeks now and found this
one that I thought would be great, unfortunately, there was a Christmas party
there tonight so I had to abandon that plan and go for plan B. If all goes
well, I will be able to go back and get that shot before they take down their
lights. I’ll be sure to post to this section if I do.
Overall, I am extremely happy with this camera in every way. Although it is
a little bigger than what I am use to carrying around, the quality is just
so much better than those compact cameras and the kind of shots you can expect
to achieve is just so much greater. Unfortunately, I can already see that this
is only going to fuel my desire to improve my photography skills and will most
likely mean that my next camera will be an SLR.
| My First Set of Pictures Using the Panasonic FZ20 |
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