fz20 shoot delay and maximum exposure
 

Hi!
Was thinking about DSLR before saw this camera...
The only thing am afraid of is the delay between pressing the button and camera taking a picture. Is this an issue?
And one more thing... I love making >5 minutes exposures on my Nikon EM, could this be possible with fz20?
Thanx!

Can't say I find much about the FZ20 as an issue, it is really down to the individual. Using the higher speed SD cards helps. Panasonics cards operate at 2mb/s for 16, 31, 64 and 128 and 10mb/s for 256 upwards.

Shutter lag was a big issue for me. Because of the demand for the camera and the fact my local Circuit City didn't put batteries in the floor models I was unable to try it out before I bought. The good news is shutter lag is minimal to non existent if you push the shutter 1/2 way down and pre focus. This works well for action. I use it for surfing where shutter lag can result in completely missing the shot. The FZ 20 works for this demanding application. The only other option is a dSLR and buying a comparable 500 mm lens and then you don't have image stabilization unless you spend well over a thousand more.

Shutter lag is not a problem especially after prefocus but the longest exposure is 8 seconds.

Thanx for the info :)
But I'm afraid I'm still not going digital....
I used to do about 10% of my shots with exposures way much longer than 8 sec.... And these are quite often my favourite ones :)
Probably will wait for after the NY, maybe some decent dSLR owners would wish to upgrade several megapixels? (and would wish to get rid of their mmm.... obsolete? devices for nothing? :))

Re: fz20 shoot delay and maximum exposure
 

Ah, but were you shooting through an f2.8 lens? If you had been, you might not have needed any exposures greater than 8 seconds.

my 50mm nikkor and 100mm russian kaleinar are 2.8 and 28mm nikkor is 1.8. Nikon EM body in automatic mode can do exposures up to... could be 1/2 hour (sometimes it was too long to wait and i closed it manually) and the night sky becomes daylight :) i wonder why is it that difficult for panasonic to implement bulb mode on a camera, it's supposed to be just a question of firmware, as i suppose....