The 18x sounds impressive but is in reality little more than an advertising gimmick. It suggests a huge great telephoto but 18x is based on the range from maximum wide angle to longest telephoto. The FZ38 at the widest setting is equivalent to 27 mm (in 35 mms terms) so the big telephoto isn’t quite as impressive as it might seem.
The only time I have used the max telephoto was to photograph that Norfolk Camberwell Beauty high up in those oaks. But I have to say that it could be useful for photographing birds. The detail I get with the camera approximately equates to 8 x 42 binoculars. The camera’s image stabilization is more than adequate.
A really useful additional piece of kit is a good (achromatic – also known as a doublet) close-up lens. A simple single-element close-up lens (plane glass) while reasonable, loses some resolution compared with a properly colour-corrected two-element achromatic. Neil uses the somewhat expensive achromatic Panasonic close-up lens - exactly the same type of lens as I have. I got mine from e-bay for a mere £3 plus about another fiver for (stepping ring) adapters. My e-bay purchase - bought blind – turned out to be a +2 diopter (same as the Panasonic “official” lens) but a +1 diopter would be fine if you can get one.
If any people are confused about dioptres, this old article helps:
http://www.earthboundlight.com/phototip ... pters.html
Having a small sensor, noise – the equivalent of grain on film – is far more apparent with a camera such as the FZ38 compared to a DSLR with its much bigger sensor. I have recently been using free Noiseware:
http://noiseware-community-edition.en.softonic.com/
While results will never compare with the best a DSLR can produce, Noiseware does a very good job at minimising noise. It is very simple to use.
Several of us on this group now have FZ38s. Neil freely admits that he hasn’t read the manual in depth and isn’t too interested in technicalities. He, as we know gets good results. On the other hand, I read the manual, am interested in ISO settings, shutter speeds, apertures, fill-in flash
(I have incidentally, just made a flash diffuser which seems to overcome the extreme harshness of normal flash), close-up lenses and so on. These things in many ways interest me more than the results.
Sad aren't I ?
Jack
, if you're interested!
