Until recently fixed zoom lens cameras have struggled in low light. This hand held photo was made with a Panasonic LX100. ISO 1600, f1.7, 1/40 second. |
There
has been much discussion
recently in blogs and camera forums about the contest for market
dominance between Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) and Mirrorless (MILC) interchangeable lens camera types.
However this contest
may be sidelined by the rise of two other camera types.
The first of these is of course, the smart phone which
has become the favourite picture taking device in the modern world.
Until recently if you wanted better picture quality than
a smart phone you had to get a DSLR or MILC.
But there is another camera type which is capable of
making very good pictures.
That is the Fixed Lens camera (FLC). Some of these
come with a single focal length lens, attractive to a very small buyer group
happy to live without a zoom.
But the great majority have a zoom lens (FZLC) which
is more appealing to a wide buyer demographic.
Sales figures for these cameras are presently unknown
as they have been buried in the ‘compact’ category.
This category includes budget compacts, advanced
compacts, superzooms and travel zooms of various configurations. Some of these
are not compact at all as anyone who has held a Nikon P900 will know.
Some have been called ‘bridge’ cameras, presumably
suggesting they are some kind of intermediate between compacts on the one hand
and DSLR/MILCs on the other.
But cameras like the Sony RX10 and Panasonic FZ1000
are not a bridge from any camera type to any other type. They are a fully
fledged, stand alone, all purpose
solution to the majority of photographic requirements for the majority of
photographers.
Shipments of cameras in the ‘compact’ category fell
precipitously from 2012 to 2014 but appear to have steadied since the beginning
of 2014 according to CIPA data of shipments by Japanese camera companies,
published in Mirrorless Rumors 01 May 2015.
It is possible that the apparent plateau in ‘compact’
sales since the beginning of 2014 might be due to advanced compacts and
superzooms.
I think that the future of cameras for the great
majority of amateur users lies in the Fixed Zoom Lens (FZL) category.
Last year I sold all my interchangeable lens cameras
(ILC) in favour of a Panasonic FZ1000 and have never regretted that
decision.
Interchangeable lenses and interchangeable lens
cameras (ILC) are the 20th Century’s answer to the problem of
providing a range of focal lengths from very wide to very long.
The ILC strategy is successful but the downside is the
need to buy, carry and change lenses as subject requirements alter.
The 21st Century has seen great advances in
the technology of compact, high quality budget priced zoom lenses and small sensors.
These developments have allowed manufacturers to
create cameras with fixed zoom lenses covering almost all the angles of view
most photographers will require, together with picture quality good enough for
most purposes most of the time.
This allows the photographer to have an entire camera
kit in a single device with no need to change lenses, ever. This is less
expensive, lighter and more user friendly than a multi lens kit on an ILC.
Until quite recently the main argument against the
FZLC has been poor picture quality compared with an ILC, especially in low
light when high ISO sensitivity settings are required.
This is still to some extent true particularly for
cameras with small sensors but some FZLCs now have sensors as large as the
smaller ILCs so the picture quality gap is closing.
The second argument against FZLCs is that none of them has an ultrawide
zoom setting. For many users this will not even register as a problem.
However for those times when an ultrawide view is
required a multi frame panorama is a workable solution in many cases.
There are two ways to achieve this.
Many cameras now offer in camera auto panorama
stitching, some providing very good results.
An alternative is to make multiple overlapping
exposures and merge to panorama in image editing software. The latest version
of Adobe Photoshop (or Lightroom) can do
this even with RAW files and output a RAW file for further adjustment.
The third argument against FZLCs is that as a result
of the small sensor sizes used in these cameras, focal lengths are short making
it difficult to render backgrounds smoothly out of focus.
This characteristic might be a problem if the
background is required to be completely out of focus for instance in sport or
portraiture but could also be an advantage for documentary work where everything
is required to be sharp.
Wide aperture lenses are a partial solution to
achieving smoothly out of focus backgrounds.
However there are some situations such as sporting
venues which present very busy, intrusive backgrounds which I suspect will
always benefit from a full frame sensor.
Next:
five FZLCs compared
Interesting that fitting your definition would be a rather unique small sensor Pany called the FZ70 (also called I think the TS50, just for confusion. Perhaps it is true bridge camera at this point in history. huge zoom range but stays small due to small sensor and slow apertures, RAW, manual settings, EVF. I'm curious about your take on it.
ReplyDeleteHi Andrew -
ReplyDeleteHave you tried iZoom as a way to extend your telephoto range to as high as 800mm with the FZ1000? I find this can be quite useful, with little or no loss of image quality in many cases. I'm not clear exactly what the camera does with iZoom, perhaps only in-camera cropping, but I don't think it is digital zoom.
Robert Nichols