Panasonic FZ7,8, or 20?

[techdraw]

Hello:

I need some help in choosing a camera. I am green when it comes to photograpy, so I hope that a few of the more learned vets here can help me out. I am looking for a camera to take photos of my son's karate class and tournaments. They are indoors and he is about 20' to 40' from me. I have recently tried the Panasonic FZ20 with pretty good results. I was wondering if I should go with the 7 even though it's in a lower class than the 20, it's a newer camera. I don't know how to weigh the differences in that respect.

Another option is to wait 'till March on the FZ8.

By the way, I am not able to use the flash when photographing him at class/tournament.

Any advice you could provide would be GREATLY appreciated.

Thanks.

[coldrain]

Have you actually tried the Panasonic FZ20 for indoor action? The FZ7 does not reach the quality of the FZ20, it is noisy and the higher ISO modes are quite useless because of in camera over processing.

For indoor action two ultrazoom cameras are much better suited, and none are from Panasonic. The Sony H5 will do quite a bit better than all mentioned panasonics (of the panas the FZ20 is best), you can see how it performs in higher ISO in the review of Jeff Keller.

Another worthwhile camera to consider is the Fuji S6500fd, it performs even better at higher ISO settings, making lower light photos with fast shutter speeds even better in quality.

So my advice here: skip the Panasonics for lower light action, and look at the above mentioned Fuji or Sony ultrazoom cameras.

[mattdm]

In those conditions, I don't think I'd go with a Panasonic. Unless your subjects pause for the shot, image stabilization won't help you, so you need solid high-ISO low-light performance -- and that's Panasonic's weakness. Have you looked at the Fujifilm Finepix S6000fd?

[tim11]

Buy FZ20 if you don't mind using direct external flash on the subjects. Personally, it will have to be bounce flash or no flash for me. Others FZs have pop up flash that won't go 20'.
I have used S6000fd that belongs to a friend who bought it on my recommendation. It won't get you the quality equal to National Geographic Magazine but it surely will be the best any PnS camera can offer for family photo albumn.

[techdraw]

Thanks for the help so far. I have tried the FZ20 indoor last week. I shot about 100 photos. None of them were great. Previously I tried the Canon S3 IS, Kodak P712 and Z612. The FZ20 was about the best of the crowd.

Until now, I haven't even looked at the Fuji because the review site I initially looked at let me narrow my search based on many factors including memory type. I chose to narrow my search to cameras that use SD cards. When I narrowed my search, it did not show these cameras.

As far as the Fuji goes, I noticed that they don't have IS. Should I consider this a significant hinderance (either in karate or general photographing)? As stated earlier, I want the camera mainly for indoor Karate classes and tournaments in low light 20-40' feet away with no flash. If the lack of IS is a problem, would a monopod solve it? I also saw several models, the sd6000fd, s6500fd, and I think a 9000 and 9500. Is there one particular Fuji that outshines the others for my needs? The 6500 has limited availability. Is there a reason?

What would be the closest camera that uses SD cards? Although it's not the end of the world if I have to go to xD cards, but I already have several SDs.

Please forgive me if I am being a pest. I have spent the last couple of months reading reviews, buying cameras, taking hundres of pix, returning cameras and repeating cycle. I am currently on info overload.

Thanks again everyone.

techdraw.

[mattdm]

As far as the Fuji goes, I noticed that they don't have IS. Should I consider this a significant hinderance (either in karate or general photographing)? As stated earlier, I want the camera mainly for indoor Karate classes and tournaments in low light 20-40' feet away with no flash. If the lack of IS is a problem, would a monopod solve it?

IS will only help prevent the camera from shaking -- it won't keep your subjects from moving. It may be beneficial if you have shots where your subjects *are* holding still -- or, if you want to do an action shot where the martial artists are a blur of movement. Otherwise, you need high shutter speed, and there IS doesn't do anything. (And in fact, makes it harder to capture the right instant by introducing more shutter lag.)

A monopod or tripod would definitely help -- better than IS, in fact.


I also saw several models, the sd6000fd, s6500fd, and I think a 9000 and 9500. Is there one particular Fuji that outshines the others for my needs? The 6500 has limited availability. Is there a reason?


S6500 and S6000 are the same camera -- Fuji strangely decides to number them differently in different markets. Same with the two S9x00 cameras. I haven't ever seen the S9x00 model, so I can't really comment on it, but it looks like it's the same with a higher resolution (and slightly bigger) sensor, a flash hotshoe, and more pixels in the electronic viewfinder.

Fuji outshines others because a) it has the best high ISO performance of any non-dSLR, which you will need for fast shutter speeds in low light and b) it has a manual zoom ring on the lens.

The xD card thing is unfortunate, but in my opinion only a small annoyance.