Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50

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Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50

Type	Bridge digital camera
Sensor	1/1.8" CCD
Maximum resolution	3,648 × 2,736 (10.1 million)
Lens type	Fixed
Shutter speed range	60 - 1/2,000 sec.
Exposure Metering	1/3 EV step, -2 - +2 EV
Exposure Modes	Program AE, Aperture Priority AE, Shutter Priority AE, Manual, Program Shift (P mode)
Metering modes	Intelligent Multiple / Center Weighted / Spot
Focus areas	1 point / 3 points / 9 points / Spot
Focus modes	Auto Focus System, Normal / Macro (Switch), Continuous AF On / Off, Manual Focus (Ring), One-Shot AF
Continuous Shooting	2 fps. 5 images @ standard OR 3 images @ fine OR unlimited @ 2fps
Viewfinder	0.44" Electronic viewfinder (235K Pixels)
ASA/ISO range	Auto / 100 / 200 / 400 / 800 / 1600
Rear LCD monitor	2.0" (207K Pixels) Field of View : approx. 100%
Storage	Secure Digital (SD), Secure Digital High Capacity (SDHC)
Weight	668g. (1.49 lb) (Body), 734g (1.63 lb) (with Battery and SD Memory Card)

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50 is a superzoom bridge digital camera by Panasonic. It is the successor of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ30.

While the FZ30 was a major upgrade of the FZ20 both internally and externally, the FZ50 differs relatively little from the FZ30. The main differences are:

Higher resolution 10.1-megapixel CCD
Venus Engine III processor (with its characteristic unusual noise reduction algorithm)
2.0-inch flip-out 207k high resolution LCD (FZ30 has 235k)
TTL Flash hot-shoe

The camera is known for its high-quality optics and effective optical image stabilization system. Many professional reviews have commended it for its excellent pictures at ISO 100, but it has a reputation for excessively "smeary" noise reduction at higher ISO settings; this can be negated by using the RAW capture mode. It uses proprietary Lithium-Ion batteries. There is no storage built into the camera; an MMC, SD, or SDHC card is required. High-speed SD cards up to 2GB and SDHC cards up to 8GB are supported.

The camera has many SLR-like handling features: dual control wheels for aperture and shutter speed, manual focus (focus-by-wire) and zoom rings, and a flash hot shoe. It is among the largest non-SLR cameras built, and is positioned at the high end of the bridge-camera market.

Zooming while recording movies is supported since the zoom is manual. The camera also includes an "extended optical zoom" system providing greater optical zoom ability when shooting at lower resolutions, giving up to 19.3× zoom at 3MP. Essentially, this just crops the center out of the image in-camera, but can be useful for metering and framing purposes. Apertures from f/2.8 to f/11 are supported, though the largest apertures are not available at high zoom levels (f/3.7 at full zoom). Shutter speeds range from 60 secs to 1/2000 sec, although shutter speeds faster than 1/1000 sec. are not available at the widest apertures. Several different auto-focus modes are available. The AF-macro setting can be selected for all camera modes. Macro capability is not outstanding (5cm minimum focal range at 1× zoom), and the tele-macro capability present on the lower-end Panasonic FZ models (the ability to focus down to 1m at 420mm) is not present; the FZ50 can only focus down to 2m at 420mm. However, the FZ50 is commonly used to record high-magnification macro images with an inexpensive addon macro lens; the most commonly-used lens for this purpose is the 8-dioptre Raynox 250.

The FZ50 has a screw mount to accept 55mm filters, and is compatible with a wide variety of Panasonic-branded and third-party lens converters which can provide greater wide angle, telephoto and close-up capabilities.

The FZ50 can also record in a RAW format which is supported by Adobe Camera Raw and the free UFRaw plugin for GIMP and many other third-party programs; the camera comes with a special version of Silkypix for conversion. RAW files are recorded in around three seconds with fast SD cards, which is one of the best results among non-Digital SLR cameras; however, there is no RAW buffer as on many digital SLR's. Unlike its predecessors, the FZ50 does not support TIFF format.

The zoom and focus mechanism is internal: the lens does not physically extend beyond the camera housing when focusing and zooming. Startup is under one second, as the lens does not need to be extended.