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Posted on 12 Jun 2014 at 05:00, by Katharine Byrne
Panasonic has already produced some stunning digital cameras this year, but the DMC-FZ1000 announced today could be the most exciting new addition to the Lumix range for 2014. It’s a premium bridge camera that’s also the world’s first compact camera to shoot video at 4K resolutions.
The FZ1000 is stretching the term “compact”, as this chunky camera isn’t that much smaller than Panasonic’s Ultimate award-winning DMC-GH4 compact system camera (CSC). Panasonic has crammed a lot of top class features into the FZ1000, though, including a large 1in, 20.1-megapixel MOS sensor and a Leica 16x optical zoom that covers a 35mm focal equivalent of 25-400mm and an aperture of f2.8 to f4.0.
The sensor alone is roughly four times larger than your average 1/2.3in sensor on a compact camera, but it’s the 16x optical zoom that really makes the FZ1000 stand out from the crowd, giving it a huge amount of range for a single-lens camera. Better yet, the whole system weighs just around 800g, making it considerably lighter than a DSLR with the same kind of lenses.
One of the FZ1000’s most attractive features, though, is its 4K video shooting. Until now, Panasonic’s £1,300 GH4 was one of the company’s only 4K-capable cameras, but the FZ1000 brings Ultra HD video capture to a much broader audience. It can shoot 4K at 30fps in 29 minute and 59 second chunks (in accordance with WTO ruling on tax duty), or you downsize the resolution to Full HD and shoot at either 60 or 50fps in AVCHD or MP4 formats, or at 100fps at 1,080p to create slow-motion video. 100fps videos automatically play back in slow-mo as well, letting you see just what the final product will look like on the camera itself.
You can also go back into any video file and capture 8-megapixel still images on the camera itself and save them as additional photos. It’s incredibly simple to do, just needing a single press up on the main rear dial to pause the footage and then a press of the central rear dial button to save it. The FZ1000 also has time-lapse and stop motion modes, giving it plenty of versatility for amateur video fans.
Auto-focus has been another big focal point for Panasonic. Not only has the number of AF areas increased from 23 to 49 over the old model, but it also uses the company’s latest DFD (depth from defocus) technology. This means the FZ1000 can instantly jump into very close focus and then use contrast AF to make the fine adjustments, theoretically letting you get into focus a lot quicker than cameras that just use a contrast AF system.
Low-light auto-focus has also been improved to -4EV, and the FZ1000’s face detect, eye detect and “seamless” one-area AF feature lets you enlarge and change the size of the focus point onscreen to make sure you’re focusing on exactly the right spot.
For taking photos, most users will probably want to use the live viewfinder. This will automatically turn on when you put your eye to the camera, and its 0.39in, 2.3 million-dot OLED panel looked stunning. For trickier shots, though, there’s a 3in free angle LCD screen on the rear of the camera that can rotate 180 degrees to the side and tilt 270 degrees up and down, making it easier to see what you’re shooting if you can’t look through the live viewfinder. Neither viewfinder will put you at a disadvantage, though, as both cover 100 per cent of the field of view.
The FZ1000 isn’t short on extra features either, with everything you’d expect from a flagship bridge model. Built-in Wi-Fi and NFC technology lets you upload and geo-tag your photos as well as control the camera remotely via Panasonic’s Image app, and you’ll also find zebra pattern, hue adjustment, Cinelike gamma (to give videos a cinematic style gradation), focus peaking, 22 filter modes and centre markers to make sure your shots are level. There’s even a silent mode, which will be welcome news for wedding photographers, as well as the ability to shoot and save in RAW formats and convert RAW files to JPEGs all on the camera itself.
There are plenty of controls to get to grips with as well, including five function buttons, two mode dials, an AF lock button, a small zoom slider and a hotshoe for attaching additional accessories.
When we tried out the camera for ourselves, most of our photos looked very sharp and crisp and showed an impressive amount of detail, but we did have a few issues with the auto-focus. While most shots were clean and largely noise-free, a good handful of shots were still quite blurry and out of focus when we zoomed in to take a closer look, both at the wide and tele-ends of the zoom. Lower lighting conditions also produced very mixed results, even when we took our time composing the shot.
We also had a few issues with the 12fps burst shoot mode, as almost none of these remained in focus when we panned the camera sideways. Our samples were early pre-production models, though, so we’re hoping these kinks will be ironed out in the final version.
We had trouble focusing in lower lighting conditions
When the camera does focus correctly, the amount of detail on show is stunning
The FZ1000’s 16x optical zoom is great for taking pictures of far away objects
We took this image from one of our video files
[embedded content]Shooting at 100fps creates a beautifully smooth slow-motion effect, but the focus isn’t perfect
[embedded content]This is the world’s first compact camera to allow 4K video shooting
The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1000 will be available from mid-July in the UK with an RRP of £750. If you pre-order now, Panasonic will also throw in a free battery and case, but we’ll bring you our final verdict once we get our hands on review samples.