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Panasonic Duo - The Long and the Short of It When traveling, you often want to decrease the weight of the gear you bring with you.  TakeGreatPictures.com contributor Jon Sienkiewicz recently brought the super slim Panasonic FX01 as well as the compact Panasonic FZ7 with him on a trip to the coast of Maine for some terrific results. Article rating: 8.00

Even if you shoot with a digital SLR everyday there’s bound to be a time when you want to travel light. Leaving that heavy bag full of bodies and lenses at home doesn’t necessarily mean you have to give up anything—except perhaps the backache. In fact, if you make the right equipment choices you may find compact cameras habit forming. Good compact cameras deliver images that are indistinguishable from DSLR images. And the cameras are so small and light that in many instances you can pack two in the space normally occupied by your bulky SLR. That can offer exceptional versatility, and that’s exactly what I did on a recent visit to the coast of Maine.

Panasonic offers several top notch cameras that are perfect for this approach, but the two I selected were the DMC-FX01 and the DMC- FZ7. Two hours into the journey I knew I’d made the right choice.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX01

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ7

I picked the FX01 because its 3.6 times zoom starts at 28mm and I knew I’d need a wideangle lens. The coast of Maine is as wide as it is craggy. I wanted a WA that could do fair justice. On the long end, the zoom extends to about 100mm, so I knew that the lens would be ideal for portraits, too. Add an f/stop of f2.8 and most important—image stabilization—and you have a real winner. The lens traces is bloodlines back 70 years to the precision German camera maker E. Leitz—it’s a Leica DC Vario-Elmarit. Put it all together and you have a combination that’s impossible for a serious photographer or even a rank amateur to resist.

The FZ7 is a diminutive camera that packs a whopping 12X zoom and 6-megapixel resolution into a smaller-than-believable package. It’s tiny—and tiny means easy to carry. But it has a large LCD, which means it’s easy to review and casually share images. Imagine your favorite digital SLR—then imagine it 50% smaller. That’s roughly what the Panasonic DMC-FZ7 represents. Long zoom cameras require anti-shake technology. The DMC-FZ7 uses Panasonic’s proprietary Mega OIS “Optical Image Stabilizer” to tame the blurs. It really works, too. I was able to shoot at 1/8 of a second at 400mm (35mm equivalent). That’s something I definitely cannot do with a conventional camera.

One of the nicest features of the Panasonic DMC-FZ7 is the tiny button-shaped joystick that’s located conveniently at thumb level on the back. Press it firmly and it activates an abbreviated menu that allows you to very quickly change ISO, White Balance and other mission critical settings. It’s a feature that saves time and helps you get more good shots.

Both Panasonic cameras delivered terrific images. Focus was dead-on, color balance was just right and exposure—even in tricky, high contrast situations—was near perfect. Depending on how you count them, both cameras provide more than 20 shooting modes. Standard modes, like Program AE, Aperture Priority, and so forth, are selected from the main dial, as is the very effective Close Focus mode. Several other shooting modes are selected from a menu. Here’s how it works with the DMC-FZ7. Set the main dial to Scene mode and the LCD monitor displays the optional modes and provides a brief explanation for each. Even if you can’t remember what effect the Starry Sky mode delivers, the camera prompts you. It’s truly like having a professional photographer there to coach you. The shooting modes cover every imaginable situation and include Baby 1, Baby 2, Candle, Fireworks, Food, Night Portrait, Night Scenery, Panning, Party, Portrait, Scenery, Snow, Soft Skin, Sports, and Starry Sky.

Why carry two cameras instead of just one? Let me turn that around and ask why would you only take one camera on a scenic trip when you can easily take two or more? Although the Panasonic FX01 and FZ7 are very different in size and features, they operate essentially the same way. What you learn about one model does not have to be “unlearned” when you pick up the other. The combined weight of the two cameras is about 18 ounces. Even with batteries, battery chargers and extra memory cards, packing weight was less than two pounds—for both. So even if you want to travel light, you can still travel right.

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Instead of the FX01 why not just carry the optional wide angle lens that Panasonic offers for the FZ7? Then you would only need one camera and not have to change back and forth. Posted by: Arnold Victor Dec 9, 2006 @ 12:38 PM EST

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