Panasonic FZ200 zoom steps

Jock Elliott

Hall of Famer
Location
Troy, NY
So I had this really great idea. I recalled that some of the smaller serious compact cameras, like the LX7 and G15, have the capability to jump to fixed zoom steps, like 35mm, 50mm, etc.

The FZ200 displays zoom steps as 1X, 2X, 3X, etc.

So I thought I would shoot in 1X zoom increments, import the shots into Picasa so I could read out the 35mm equivalents.

So here are the results:

1x - 25mm
there are 3 or four click-steps between 1xand 2x, but no change in the display
2x - 61
3x - 89
4x -114
5x - 145
6x - 160
7x - 192
8x - 214
9x - 236
10x - 254.

So, in short, there is no cool way to snap the FZ200 onto say, 50mm, and make like Henri Cartier Bresson.

Cheers, Jock
 
Hi Jock,

I've just repeated your test and found I obtained rather different results. In operating the zoom control around the shutter release button I found that with very fleeting flicks of the control I was able to obtain 7 steps when the display still showed x1 for the zoom position, then 3 steps for each when the zoom display showed x2, x3 and x4.

Of the 7 steps for a x1 zoom reading in the display the first 2 showed no difference, however the remaining 5 showed the lens to have zoomed, and similarly each of the 3 steps for x2, x3 and x4 showed the lens to have zoomed.

Thus for x1 I obtained equivalent 35mm focal lengths of 25mm, 26.6mm, 28.8mm, 31.1mm, 33.3mm and 37.7mm
for x2 I obtained equivalent 35mm focal lengths of 39.4mm, 60.5mm and 66.1 mm,
for x3 I obtained equivalent 35mm focal lengths of 77.7mm, 83.3mm and 96.6mm
for x4 I obtained equivalent 35mm focal lengths of 106mm, 116mm and 121mm

You are of course correct in suggesting that there is no easy way to zoom to a particular focal length because you would need to know the point at which you started, for example zoom factor 2, position 2 within that zoom range. It would also appear that there is a large jump between the equivalents of 39.4mm and 60.5mm.

In my case the photo editor was Photo Ninja (I can't see that has any bearing on it at all), the firmware for the camera is version 1.0 (I haven't checked to see if there are any updates).

Barrie
 
Very interesting!

Maybe the zoom is more continuous than step-like.

Still, it doesn't solve the problem of getting to a particular focal length quickly.

Cheers, Jock
 
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