FZ150 First Impressions

So here it is, my first post, apart from the introductory post which is technically the first post, this post will be all about my first impressions of my new camera, the Panasonic Lumix FZ150, if you want to get right to the first impressions of the FZ150 scroll down to the fourth paragraph

As mentioned in the 'technically' first post, at Christmas time 2012 I was owner of a Nikon P510 until late Febuary 2013 which is when I sold it on Ebay, I then proceeded to purchase a Canon SX40 and having owned it for just a couple of days I had sent it back due to it not being to my liking because for one I found it very tricky to hold with my large hands and not only that, whenever I found a half comfortable place to hold it in my hands, I was covering up the AF assist lamp! apart from that it was not too bad, the Auto ISO was a bit rubbish I thought, it seemed to select ISO 1600 for a hell of a lot of shot's I took, they may have been in quite low light, but when compared to the Nikon P510 and Panasonic FZ150 the auto ISO to me seemed a bit rubbish

Moving on... Shortly after sending back the SX40 to the retailer it was quickly sorted for me and now it was just a case of paying £10 difference to the retailer and haggling for free delivery, which the person on chat support give to me within a minute or two of me asking if I could have free delivery, so now it was a case of waiting for the FZ150 to arrive.

The 6th of March was here, and so was my new camera! upon opening the package, there was obviously the camera box which I quickly opened up and removed most of the contents of the box which included goodies like a charger, battery, usb cable, neck strap, lens hood, lens cap and some other bits and pieces.

It didn't take me long to turn my new camera on, seeing as that was my main priority at the time, I was then able to take about 15 photos I think it was (as the FZ150 has about 70mb of in built memory). After having a play around with the camera and taking photos for a couple of minutes I was very impressed at the picture quality from what I could see on the LCD screen of the camera. After that I went on to check out some other technical stuff like how the auto ISO worked indoors, which is obviously not the best location for lighting, and that was the point. Again I was very impressed, finding that most images had an ISO of 400-800 and were quite clear, not that noisy and sharp.

A couple of hours later I went to sit in my back garden and test the zoom function, zooming in and out was very quick if you wanted it to be by giving a good tug on the zoom lever control and if you wanted to zoom in and out slowly that was also easy, by simply just giving a gentle and light tug on the zoom lever control. Now that I was outdoors I just had to take some photos and my cat Tatty happened to be in the garden so I took a couple of photos of her which came out looking lovely, maybe I should have adjusted the exposure slightly as the white parts of her fur were quite bright (here is the image, let me know what you think)

I love macro photography so I had to test out the macro capabilities of this camera, which I quickly did on this bush outside in the same garden, not the best subject for macro, but not the worst I guess! I also later that day took a quick shot at this piece of chocolate which I enjoyed, as I got to eat it right after, yummy.

Not much picture taking was done after that, only some messing around photos have been taken since, which I am sure will soon change once the weather improves and I can get to a local country park to capture some wildlife and nature shots.

Some first impressions on the accessories, so this will be quite boring, but quite interesting if you read on... the main accessories I would consider would be whatever you fit to the exterior of the camera body, so the lens cap, neck strap and lens hood, oh yes that nasty piece of work that is the lens hood, which I have still been unable to fit onto the camera, if you google 'FZ150 lens hood' you will see what I mean, getting the lens hood on is a struggle that I have yet to overcome as you have to twist it, and just before it locks into place, there is a load of resistance which makes it feel like you are going to destroy the camera or the lens hood, and destroying my new £270 camera is not something I want to do! so for now I have left it off and have no plans to try fitting it again in the near future. The lens cap is easy to attach and detach from the lens, the neck strap is also very easy to attach if you take your time doing so.

I hope my first impressions of the FZ150 have been helpful to you, if you are reading this and considering whether or not to buy it, do it! this camera has amazed me after only about one day of owning it, so it receives a 5 star rating from me.

With that said, I thank you for reading this post and hope to see you back here soon!