Mac users, we’re pleased to announce Macphun’s all-in-one photo editor Luminar is now available for just $69£52, and now comes with 12 portrait presets created by Scott Kelby, plus 1 month of access to KelbyOne photography training.
Use coupon code “PHOTOBLOG” to save another $10 on Luminar.
We rated Luminar as “Highly Recommended”. Visit the Luminar web site to try it for free.
Introduction
The Panasonic LUMIX DC-FZ82 (also known as the Panasonic Lumix DC-FZ80) is a super-zoom bridge camera featuring a 60x zoom lens equivalent to a focal range of 20-1200mm, 18.1-megapixel High Sensitivity MOS sensor, 3-inch 1040K-pixel LCD touchscreen, 1,170k Live View Finder (LVF), 4K (3840 x 2160pixel) video recording at 30/25/24fps including the ability to extract 8 megapixel images from the 4K video, ISO range of 80-6400, burst shooting at 10 fps (AFS) / 6 fps (AFC), 1cm macro shooting with Post Focus and Post Focus Stacking functions, a flash hot shoe and integrated Wi-Fi connectivity. The Panasonic Lumix DC-FZ82 is available in black and retails for £329.99 / $399.99.
Ease of Use
The Panasonic DC-FZ82 has a 18.1-megapixel High Sensitivity MOS Sensor, plus a 60x zoom lens which provides an incredible focal length the equivalent of an ultra wide angle 20-1200mm in 35mm terms. It features hybrid POWER O.I.S. (Optical Image Stabilizer) with Active Mode to help prevent image blur from camera shake. The MOS sensor greatly increases the camera’s burst shooting options, with a fastest setting of 10fps with both focus and exposure fixed at the first frame, or 6fps with continuous auto-focusing. Other notable features include a decent 1,170k dot EVF and a 3-inch LCD touchscreen.
That astonishingly long lens reach, the prominent electronic viewfinder, and a decent sized handgrip have all resulted in a slightly chunky camera, measuirng 130.2 x 94.3 x 119.2 mm and weighing 616g with the battery and memory card fitted. Still, while the overall size might dissuade some, others will be glad to at least feel they’re getting their money’s worth, and it’s not too big and heavy considering the focal length on offer. It’s also worth mentioning the lens’ fast maximum f/2.8 aperture, which runs to up to a still respectable f/5.9 at extreme telephoto.
The Panasonic FZ82 certainly looks like it means business, llooking very much like a DSLR from a distance, and , it handles a lot like one too. The large-ish, bright and clear electronic viewfinder with a prominent eye relief means that we just about get away with avoiding our nose smearing up against the main monitor screen, though the larger screen is what we most naturally found ourselves using when setting up or reviewing shots.
To help hold the Panasonic FZ82 nice and steady at the 1200mm maximum zoom, there’s a comfortably moulded handgrip around which we were able to wrap three fingers, leaving our forefinger to hover expectantly over the shutter release button. The latter sits atop the handgrip, tilting forward at an ergonomic angle, encircled by a zoom lever. The FZ82’s zoom lens is controlled via a regular zoom lever surrounding the shutter release button, as on any point and shoot compact, but sadly there’s no zoom ring on the lens barrel, as seen on the more expensive FZ1000 model.
Situated just behind this are three further buttons on the top plate. To the left we find a dedicated video button and on the left the first function button, marked ‘Fn1’, which by default accesses the comprehensive 4K photo settings, and then the second function button, marked ‘Fn2’, which accesses the Post Focus feature. Post Focus is a new function that enables users to select the in-focus area after shooting simply by touching it on the LCD screen. The new Post Focus Stacking function enables users to take multiple images of the same frame with different areas in focus, then combine all or selected focus areas into one image.
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| Front of the Panasonic Lumix DC-FZ82 |
Drill into the menu screens and it’s possible to manually attribute a wide variety of functions to such buttons, of which there are no less than 8 in total. In fact, on this model there are 12 screens’ worth of user-attributable options, with four options presented on each, so the customization of said controls certainly feels almost limitless.
The other notable control nestling nearby on the top plate is for the camera’s shooting modes, of which 10 are offered – including the usual fully automatic, manual and custom settings – with the dial ergonomically encircled by the on/off switch. Give this a flick with the thumb, and, as soon as said thumb comes to rest, the camera is powered up, which is as quick as anyone could hope for. This responsiveness extends to the use of the lens, which travels through its optical zoom range from wide-angle to maximum telephoto setting in 5-6 seconds when in the stills shooting mode.
On the FZ82 the selectable shooting modes include the expected intelligent Auto setting and palette-like icon indicating creative controls. The Panasonic has eight screens’ worth of digital effects on board selectable in this mode. The next shooting option discovered with a further turn of the mode dial is the scene settings, of which there are 25 here, and finally, a panorama option. Moving around the shooting mode wheel we find a Custom setting, followed by a dedicated mode for video.
There’s the choice of 30 or 25 frames per second capture speed in QFHD 4K quality (3840×2160 pixels) in the MP4 format. Bit rate is an impressive 100Mbps, there is a 15 minute time limit on the recording duration, and high speed video options include 240 fps 640 x 480 and 120 fps 1280 x 720. You can also extract a still image from a 4K sequence via the dedicated 4K button on the top of the camera, ending up with the equivalent of an 8 megapixel photo at 30fps.
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| Rear of the Panasonic Lumix DC-FZ82 |
The Panasonic Lumix DC-FZ82 provides access to the same creative exposure P,A,S,M modes that are selectable when shooting stills. You also get access to all the Photo Style and Creative Control modes when shooting video, plus the ISO settings, white balance and AF tracking, while the normal bugbear of exterior location shoots is also dealt with thanks to a wind cut option. Happily, the full extent of the smooth and steady optical zoom can be accessed when shooting video, its mechanical operation quiet and minimally intrusive.
The Panasonic Lumix DC-FZ82 has a time lapse function in which you can set the time interval and the number of images to take, plus a multi-exposure option that lets you combine up to four exposures in a single frame, while the Stop Motion Animation mode allows you to create unique stop motion videos. The FZ82 has wi-fi connectivity built-in, but not NFC or GPS. You can use your smartphone to change the camera settings (focus setting, exposure compensation, ISO, WB and Photo Styles) and even fire the shutter button remotely (including interval video recordings), while the auto transfer function automatically backs up your photos onto a tablet. You can also use GPS data from your smartphone to record the shooting location onto your images.
The ‘hump’ in the middle of the top plate houses the electronic viewfinder, flash hotshoe, stereo microphone and pop-up flash, with holes for the speaker over on the left. Moving our attention to the backplate, this is dominated not only by the LCD screen, but also by the aforementioned EVF that juts out above it. The Panasonic FZ82’s LCD screen is commendably touch sensitive. All of the menu options can be changed via the touchscreen interface, and you can also control image playback, with the ability to tap a thumbnail to see the full-size version, scroll through your images by dragging them from side to side, and magnifying them up to 16x.
The most immediately noticeable function is the ability to use the 1-area AF mode to focus on your main subject simply by touching it on the LCD. If the subject then moves, the DC-FZ82 cleverly follows it around the screen using the the AF tracking function. If the subject exits the frame entirely, simply recompose and tap it again to start focusing. Impressive stuff that makes focusing on off-center subjects fast and intuitive. It is a little too easy to accidentally press the screen and set the focus point to the wrong area for the current subject, but a simple tap in the middle of the LCD will center the AF point (or you can turn this feature off altogether).
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| Side of the Panasonic Lumix DC-FZ82 |
If Multi-area AF rather than 1-area AF is enabled, then you can select a group of 6 AF points from 9 different areas, again providing some manual control over what is traditionally a rather hit and miss affair. If Face Detection is enabled, the 1-area AF point can be manually set to a person’s eye to help ensure that the most important part of a portrait is in focus. One other great benefit of the touch-screen control system is that Touch Auto Focusing is available in movie recording, enabling pro-level rack-like focusing simply by pointing at the subject on the LCD screen.
When Intelligent Auto is switched on, the Panasonic FZ82 changes the scene mode used when you touch the subject, for example selecting portrait mode if you touch a face and macro mode if you touch a close-up flower. If you prefer to manually focus rather than use the snappy AF, you can magnify any part of the subject by 1x, 5x or 10x by simply dragging a yellow box around the screen. The final touchscreen ability from an image composition point of view is the ability to release the shutter, with a small icon on the left hand of the screen enabling this functionality, and then a single on-screen tap all that’s required to take the picture.
Focus Peaking graphically shows the peak of focus in the MF and AF+MF modes by displaying an outline around the subject. The detection level can be set to ‘High’ or ‘Low’ and a colour can be selected In ‘High’ these are light blue, yellow or green and in ‘Low’ blue, orange or white can be selected. Pinpoint AF mode is very useful for precisely focusing on a very small area, while, Manual Focus Assist automatically displays a 10x magnification to help you make sure that the subject is in focus in the MF mode.
Sadly the Panasonic FZ82’s eye-level electronic viewfinder doesn’t have a built-in eye sensor immediately below, which on more expensive models automatically activates the LCD when it senses the proximity of an eyeball. Instead there’s a LVF button to the right of the EVF, which toggles it on and off. The short sighted also get a dioptric adjustment wheel to the right of the EVF. To the left we find a button for raising the pop-up flash, which announces its presence with a reassuringly solid sounding ‘clunk’ when called into action. Attendant controls veer towards those of a DSLR – for example an auto focus/auto exposure lock button, and underneath that a button for choosing between the AF, AF Macro and MF focusing modes.
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| The Panasonic Lumix DC-FZ82 In-hand |
Next we find a standard playback control, and underneath that the aforementioned four-way/directional control pad. Selectable here are ISO sensitivity settings, which include both auto and ‘intelligent’ ISO options, along with manually selectable staggered increments from ISO80 to ISO6400. Drive mode and AF mode implementation also happens via the same dial.
The default setting of the ‘Fn3’ button in the shooting mode (which doubles up as a dedicated ‘Delete’ button in playback mode) provides access to the usual Panasonic ‘Quick Menu’ bar. Selectable from this are the Photo Style settings, which here range from the default ‘Standard’ setting to Vivid, Natural, Mono(chrome), Scenery, Portrait, and Custom options. A top-of-screen toolbar further provides access to flash modes, which include forced flash, forced flash with red eye reduction, slow sync and slow sync with red eye. Image size and picture quality can also be adjusted in this manner, along with, again, AF modes. Such options can either be tabbed through using the camera’s four-way control pad or a thumb spin of a DSLR-like control dial top right of the camera back.
A press of the display button not only shows or hides on-screen options but also, with subsequent presses, brings up a level gauge – useful for photographers/ videographers shooting landscapes and cityscapes without the support of a tripod.
The base of the FZ82 featuresa slightly off-centre screw thread for tripod attachment and a compartment housing the rechargeable battery, good for around a respectable 330 shots. The SD card is also inserted into the same compartment. On the right-hand side, HDMI and USB output ports are provided, the latter being the principal way of charging the camera’s battery, although there are no ports for attaching an external microphone for sound recording or headphones for monitoring audio.
Mac users, we’re pleased to announce Macphun’s all-in-one photo editor Luminar is now available for just $69£52, and now comes with 12 portrait presets created by Scott Kelby, plus 1 month of access to KelbyOne photography training.
Use coupon code “PHOTOBLOG” to save another $10 on Luminar.
We rated Luminar as “Highly Recommended”. Visit the Luminar web site to try it for free.
Image Quality
All of the sample images in this review were taken using the 18 megapixel Fine JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 7Mb.
The Panasonic Lumix DC-FZ82 produced images of good quality during the review period. It produces noise-free images at ISO 80 to 400, with limited noise starting to appear at ISO 800. ISO 1600 exhibits quite visible noise and loss of fine detail, and the fastest settings of ISO 3200 and 6400 are even noisier but still usable for small prints and web use.
The Panasonic FZ82 dealt well with chromatic aberrations, with limited purple fringing effects appearing only in high contrast situations. The pop-up flash worked well indoors, with no red-eye and adequate exposure. The night photograph was excellent, with the maximum shutter speed of 60 seconds allowing you to capture plenty of light.
Anti-shake is a feature that sets the FZ82 apart from its competitors and one that works very well when hand-holding the camera in low-light conditions or when using the telephoto end of the zoom range. Macro performance is very good, allowing you to focus as close as 1cm away from the subject (although it’s difficult to get the lighting correct at such a close distance). The new Post Focus and Focus Stacking functions both worked very well. The images were a little soft straight out of the camera at the default sharpening setting and ideally require further sharpening in an application like Adobe Photoshop, or you can change the in-camera setting if you don’t like the default results.
The large number of Creative Controls and Photo Styles allow you to quickly and easily customise the look of the Panasonic DC-FZ82’s JPEG images. We struggled to see any differences between the Intelligent Resolution settings, but Intelligent D-range is an effective feature for capturing more detail in the shadows and highlights, as is the HDR mode.
Noise
There are 11 ISO settings available on the Panasonic Lumix DC-FZ82. Here are some 100% crops which show the noise levels for each ISO setting.
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JPEG |
RAW |
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ISO 80 (100% Crop) |
ISO 80 (100% Crop) |
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ISO 100 (100% Crop) |
ISO 100 (100% Crop) |
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ISO 200 (100% Crop) |
ISO 200 (100% Crop) |
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ISO 400 (100% Crop) |
ISO 400 (100% Crop) |
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ISO 800 (100% Crop) |
ISO 800 (100% Crop) |
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ISO 1600 (100% Crop) |
ISO 1600 (100% Crop) |
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ISO 3200 (100% Crop) |
ISO 3200 (100% Crop) |
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ISO 6400 (100% Crop) |
ISO 6400 (100% Crop) |
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Focal Range
The Panasonic Lumix DC-FZ82’s 60x zoom lens provides a focal length of 20-1200mm in 35mm terms, as demonstrated below.
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20mm |
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1200mm |
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Sharpening
Here are two 100% crops which have been Saved as Web – Quality 50 in Photoshop. The right-hand image has had some sharpening applied in Photoshop. The out-of-the camera images are a little soft at the default sharpening setting. You can change the in-camera sharpening level if you don’t like the default look.
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Original (100% Crop) |
Sharpened (100% Crop) |
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File Quality
The Panasonic Lumix DC-FZ82 has 2 different JPEG image quality settings available, with Fine being the highest quality option. Here are some 100% crops which show the quality of the various options, with the file size shown in brackets.
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Fine (7.89Mb) (100% Crop) |
Standard (4.09Mb) (100% Crop) |
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RAW (22.5Mb) (100% Crop) |
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Chromatic Aberrations
The Panasonic Lumix DC-FZ82 handled chromatic aberrations excellently during the review. There’s some slight purple fringing between areas of high contrast, but it’s only noticeable on close inspection, as shown in the examples below.
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Chromatic Aberrations 1 (100% Crop) |
Chromatic Aberrations 2 (100% Crop) |
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Macro
The Panasonic Lumix DC-FZ82 offers a Macro setting that allows you to focus on a subject that is 1cm away from the camera when the lens is set to wide-angle. The first image shows how close you can get to the subject (in this case a compact flash card).
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Macro |
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Flash
The flash settings on the Panasonic Lumix DC-FZ82 are Auto, Auto/Red-eye Reduction, Forced On, Slow Sync./Red-eye Reduction, Forced Off, and Flash Synchro. These shots of a white coloured wall were taken at a distance of 1.5m.
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Flash Off – Wide Angle (20mm) |
Flash On – Wide Angle (20mm) |
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Flash Off – Telephoto (1200mm) |
Flash On – Telephoto (1200mm) |
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And here are a couple of portrait shots. As you can see, neither the Forced On setting or the Auto/Red-eye Reduction option caused any amount of red-eye.
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Forced On |
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Auto/Red-eye Reduction |
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Night
The Panasonic Lumix DC-FZ82’s maximum shutter speed is 2 minutes in the Bulb shooting mode, which is great news if you’re seriously interested in night photography. The shot below was taken using a shutter speed of 30 seconds at ISO 80.
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Night |
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Image Stabilisation
The Panasonic Lumix DC-FZ82 has an antishake mechanism which allows you to take sharp photos at slower shutter speeds than other digital cameras. To test this, we took 2 handheld shots of the same subject with the same settings. The first shot was taken with the stabilizer turned off, the second with it turned on. As you can see, with image stabilisation turned on, the images are sharper than when it’s turned off.
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Shutter Speed / Focal Length |
Image Stabilisation Off (100% Crop) |
Image Stabilisation On (100% Crop) |
| 1/8th / 20mm |  |
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| 1/8th / 1200mm |  |
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Post Focus and Focus Stacking
Post Focus is a new function that enables users to select the in-focus area after shooting simply by touching it on the LCD screen. The first three images show the effects of switching between the three memory cards.
The new Post Focus Stacking function enables users to take multiple images of the same frame with different areas in focus, then combine all or selected focus areas into one image. The fourth image below shows the effect of merging the first three images into on stacked image.
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Right |
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Middle |
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Left |
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Focus Stacking |
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Intelligent Resolution
The Panasonic Lumix DC-FZ82’s Intelligent Resolution feature makes a standard image look like a higher resolution one by processing the contour areas, texture areas and smooth areas individually, with three different strengths available and an Extended setting which extends the zoom range.
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Off |
Low |
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Standard |
High |
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Extended Off |
Extended On |
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Intelligent Dynamic
The Panasonic Lumix DC-FZ82’s Intelligent Dynamic setting adjusts the exposure setting to record more detail in the highlights and shadows, with three strengths available – low, standard and high.
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Off |
Low |
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Standard |
High |
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HDR
The Panasonic Lumix DC-FZ82’s HDR setting automatically akes and combines three differently exposed shots to record more detail in the highlights and shadows, with three EV strengths available.
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Off |
+1EV |
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+2EV |
+3EV |
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Aspect Ratios
The Panasonic Lumix DC-FZ82 offers four different aspect ratios.
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4:3 |
1:1 |
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16:9 |
3:2 |
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Multiple Exposure
The Panasonic Lumix DC-FZ82’s Multiple Exposure mode combines two or three different pictures to create one composite image.
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Multiple Exposure |
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Photo Styles
The Panasonic Lumix DC-FZ82 has 6 preset Photo Styles, with Standard as the default setting. The contrast, sharpness, saturation and noise reduction can be individually set for each picture style, and there is also a Custom style so that you can create your own look.
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Standard |
Vivid |
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Natural |
Monochrome |
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Scenery |
Portrait |
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Filters
The Panasonic Lumix DC-FZ82 has an extensive range of creative Filters with 22 different options on offer.
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Expressive |
Retro |
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Old Days |
High Key |
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Low Key |
Sepia |
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Monochrome |
Dynamic Monochrome |
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Rough Monochrome |
Silky Monochrome |
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Impressive Art |
High Dynamic |
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Cross Process |
Toy Effect |
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Toy Pop |
Bleach Bypass |
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Miniature Effect |
Soft Focus |
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Fantasy |
Star Filter |
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One Point Color |
Sunshine |
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