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Hike to Coyote Peak, Santa Teresa Park (Camera Test), 10/23/20 by Ronald Horii
On 10/14/20, I had to say good-bye to my Panasonic ZS60 travelzoom. The zoom lens was getting stuck, probably from dirt sucked into the lens jamming up the zoom mechanism. It's a 30X zoom lens, so it extends out several inches when the camera turns on. That's like one big bellows, sucking air and dust into the internals of the camera. I've had problems with dust on the internal lens elements. Fortunately, I bought an extended warranty from Squaretrade when I ordered the camera on Amazon, so I sent it in for repair. In the meantime, I used my Moto E4 smartphone to take pictures. It takes OK wide angle pictures, but the digital zoom pictures are useless. I've had to live without zoom, which meant no telephoto wildlife pictures. Finally, on 10/23/20, which is pretty quick, I got my travelzoom back. To test it out, I hiked up to Coyote Peak in Santa Teresa County Park. Here are the pictures I took along the way. (These are minimally edited, just resized for Facebook and sharpened.) However, I could only take pictures on the hike up. While I was on top of Coyote Peak, I accidentally dropped my camera, and the end of the lens popped off. Fortunately, the warranty still covers drops, so I have to send it back again for repair. I'm back to using my phone's camera for a couple of weeks again. Groan.
On 10/14/20, I had to say good-bye to my Panasonic ZS60 travelzoom. The zoom lens was getting stuck, probably from dirt sucked into the lens jamming up the zoom mechanism. It's a 30X zoom lens, so it extends out several inches when the camera turns on. That's like one big bellows, sucking air and dust into the internals of the camera. I've had problems with dust on the internal lens elements. Fortunately, I bought an extended warranty from Squaretrade when I ordered the camera on Amazon, so I sent it in for repair. In the meantime, I used my Moto E4 smartphone to take pictures. It takes OK wide angle pictures, but the digital zoom pictures are useless. I've had to live without zoom, which meant no telephoto wildlife pictures. Finally, on 10/23/20, which is pretty quick, I got my travelzoom back. To test it out, I hiked up to Coyote Peak in Santa Teresa County Park. Here are the pictures I took along the way. (These are minimally edited, just resized for Facebook and sharpened.) However, I could only take pictures on the hike up. While I was on top of Coyote Peak, I accidentally dropped my camera, and the end of the lens popped off. Fortunately, the warranty still covers drops, so I have to send it back again for repair. I'm back to using my phone's camera for a couple of weeks again. Groan.
