FZ7, did I get a lemon or are they all like this?

[KentC]

Just got a new FZ7 last week and I've noticed something about the LCD response. It is horrible in room light.

I'm not talking about shutter lag, I'm talking about what you see on the LCD or the EVF when you move the camera. Outdoors there seems to be a slight lag in the image shown but indoors the lag is so bad it's distracting. Imagine a 10 fps movie clip on the internet. Images blur and it has a jerky, strobe like effect instead of smooth motion.

I compared the LCDs of the old Sony and Canon point and shoot digitals we have at home. Both show slight lag but both track camera motion much much better than the Panasonic.

Did I get a lemon or do they all behave like this?

[genece]

I do not have a FZ7 but the lag on my FZ20 and 30 is no worse indoors or out..I do not know what would be causing that....there is a delay but its not any different that I can see....

[fzuser]

I don't have the FZ7, but had the same problem last weekend with my FZ20. Hadn't happened before, hasn't happened since, so I've no idea what could've caused it, but if it happens again I'll take better note of the conditions and post them here.

[GabOrcinus]

Hmm... are you perhaps talking about autofocus? That would vary in time, according to the amount of light. Try using high speed autofocusing.

[scaredwitless]

I own a FX9, and what you're describing sounds an awful lot like the behavior of the LCD when the FX9 is in a night scene mode. Particularly in the scene mode "Starry Sky". Basically the LCD image is gained up so you can see well enough to compose, but the frame rate drops so movement looks very strobe-lightish, and there's a lot of motion blurring going on. However if in that same mode you were to point the camera at something with a lot of light the LCD goes mostly back to "normal". Which would explain the differences you're seeing between outdoor and indoor use. So my suggestion is you make sure your FZ7 is not in a scene mode. I don't own one, but I imagine the Panasonics have similar scene modes along the lines.

[ckl_88]

Just got a new FZ7 last week and I've noticed something about the LCD response. It is horrible in room light.

I'm not talking about shutter lag, I'm talking about what you see on the LCD or the EVF when you move the camera. Outdoors there seems to be a slight lag in the image shown but indoors the lag is so bad it's distracting. Imagine a 10 fps movie clip on the internet. Images blur and it has a jerky, strobe like effect instead of smooth motion.

I compared the LCDs of the old Sony and Canon point and shoot digitals we have at home. Both show slight lag but both track camera motion much much better than the Panasonic.

Did I get a lemon or do they all behave like this?

No. They are all like this and it can be corrected. I just bought the FZ7 yesterday and was playing around with it today. I noticed this phenomena too when I started it up right out of the box with the default settings. I thought it was weird too, but after playing around with the settings for a while, I noticed that it is due to the continuous auto focus being set to OFF (default). If you set this to ON in the menu, the lag disappears.


Hope this helps.

[tim11]

Continuous Auto Focus will consume battery faster. You have to remember that.