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DPChallenge Forums >> Hardware and Software >> Fuji F50FD versus Lumix TZ5
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 07/07/2008 11:42:21 AM · #1
I am in the market for another compact, since my son just left for a trip with my wife's TZ3, and my wife now needs a camera for her trip!

I was going to buy a TZ5, since I'm pretty happy with the TZ3, but mainly outdoors. Indoors, of course, moderate and high ISO performance is pretty poor. But it has a wonderful feature set in a compact package.

The Fuji's have legendary low light performance, but the F50FD has a pretty mediocre feature set, and doesn't appear to have that legendary performance. Yet it got a 8.5 rating in image quality at DPReview, so that's something. But although it has manual exposure options, it's light on zoom at both ends compared to the TZ series.

So if you have a F50FD, please chime in. I'm interested in photographer opinions (though my wife is basically a snapshotter, I do borrow her camera often for my bike rides.) And I'd like her to be a snapshotter without flash.

Also, the Canon A720IS looks tempting, though it's a bit more chunky.

Or I'm happy to hear other options. I'll look into them, but it's something I need to order today! (And I have a hard time deciding on these things, I'm a slow decider)

Thanks in advance!

07/07/2008 02:33:06 PM · #2
small bump...
 07/07/2008 03:04:19 PM · #3
I have the f50fd as a compact camera.

I have not had too much chance to use it so far, but I am quite pleased overall. It is small and convenient. Manual functions are very accessible. Video capture is surprisingly good too.

As for image quality, I am spoilt by the 5D. However, I think that the output is very useable. IS works well (noticeably when taking pics in low light).

High ISO shots tend to get quite a bit of noise reduction in-camera and I cannot see a way to turn it off, but it is not overly intrusive.

Here is an example of an image I took at ISO 800 (which is really stretching the camera):

full frame:



100% crop:



The 100% crop may look a bit dodgy, but it fares badly partly because the pixel count is so high. The crop is of a tiny portion of the image. If you are interested in printing (rather than pixel peeping) you would never know at most ordinary print sizes.

Compared to my old P&S it is a world away in terms of quality. However, I cannot compare it to another modern p&s easily.


07/07/2008 03:11:44 PM · #4
I actually like my new Panasonic DMC-FS5 (Lumix). It is quite small and the lens and image quality are pretty decent. Also, it is very small and seems like the build is pretty good. The camera doesn't do well at low light, but what small P&Ss do? It did well for sunsets in low light and in natural day light. The flash is way underpowered so it won't work well for real low light.

You can get one for about 220 bucks compared to the TZ5 which I think runs for about 300...
 07/07/2008 03:26:05 PM · #5
Actually, looking at the pics on DPReview, I'm leaning back towards the Panasonic. The F50FD high ISO shots just don't look impressive to me, at 1:1 anyway.

I also found I can get the TZ4 (8mp) for $203, same price as the Fuji, with a lot more features and zoom.

But I need to confirm that the TZ4 will zoom while taking videos--I hate that our TZ3 doesn't let you do that (otherwise, it takes very good video). Anyone know?
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