Friday, July 19, 2013

Panasonic takes super-zooms to new levels with 60x FZ70

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8 hours ago

fz70

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The FZ70, with zoom lens extended.

Panasonic's latest super-zoom camera is a strange-looking beast, but if you need to get close to the action, it's certainly a good way to do it. The FZ70's massive lens provides a 60x optical zoom ? the 35mm equivalent of a 1200mm lens.

There's a fairly large class of people who want the ease of use of a point-and-shoot combined with the zoom capability of a large-lensed DSLR. Shooting at the kid's soccer match, catching birds at the feeder in the backyard, and other common photographic tasks can always use that extra range provided by a zoom.

The 16-megapixel FZ70's lens has a 60x magnification factor, meaning you could probably read the date on a penny from across the room.

That is, if you can keep it steady. It has built-in optical image stabilization, but even so, at that level of zoom you'll want a tripod or at least something to steady the camera with if the image is to be sharp or the video smooth.

The cannon-sized lens is F/2.8-5.9; it could certainly be worse, but remember that it has a rather small point-and-shoot size sensor, so even decent lens numbers won't let you shoot in poor conditions. Nighttime game? Good luck.

Still, it's a notable accomplishment to provide such an insane zoom in a package that is, if not exactly pocketable, is certainly more so than a DSLR with a two-foot lens on the end.

The FZ70 should be available in September for about $400.

Devin Coldewey is a contributing writer for NBC News Digital. His personal website is coldewey.cc.

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/663301/s/2edb1e34/l/0L0Snbcnews0N0Ctechnology0Cpanasonic0Etakes0Esuper0Ezooms0Enew0Elevels0E60Ax0Efz70A0E6C10A678594/story01.htm

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