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Camera Test: Almaden Lake, Guadalupe Creek Trail, 11/2/20 by Ronald Horii
My travelzoom compact is the primary camera I use to take pictures when I go hiking or biking. It's small, light, easy to carry, but has a huge zoom range for its size. It's a Panasonic Lumix ZS-60, which has a 30X zoom lens:
https://shop.panasonic.com/support-only/DMC-ZS60.html
The camera's Leica-designed zoom lens has a focal length range of 24-720 mm (35 mm equivalent). It has an "Intelligent Zoom" mode, which boosts the maximum focal length to 1440 mm, plus a digital zoom mode, which boosts it even further to 2880 mm. My camera broke twice. The first time, it was because the zoom lens kept getting stuck, probably from dirt in the mechanism. I sent it out to get fixed. When it came back, I took it for a test run and took these pictures:
"Hike to Coyote Peak, Santa Teresa Park (Camera Test), 10/23/20": https://tinyurl.com/yy5rpfla
While I was at the top of Coyote Peak, I dropped the camera, which caused the end of the zoom lens to pop off. There was no way I was going to try to pop it back on. I sent it back for repair, and it came back today. I took it for a test run at Almaden Lake and the Guadalupe Creek Trail. While my ZS-60 camera was in the shop, I usually used my smartphone, a Moto E4, to take pictures. It takes OK wide angle pictures, but terrible zoom pictures, as you'll see. Here are pictures I took with my smartphone, showing the quality of the pictures it takes: "Calero Hike, Figueroa to Oak Cove Trail, 10/22/20":
https://tinyurl.com/yyntmdvh
(I have an Olympus OMD E-M10 mirrorless camera, but it's too big and expensive to take on casual hiking/biking trips. I save it for special occasions, when I need the best picture quality.)
Below are pictures that I took with my ZS-60, with a few from my smartphone for comparison. The pictures list the camera and the equivalent focal length. All of the pictures are uploaded as-is, with no editing, not even re-sizing.
My travelzoom compact is the primary camera I use to take pictures when I go hiking or biking. It's small, light, easy to carry, but has a huge zoom range for its size. It's a Panasonic Lumix ZS-60, which has a 30X zoom lens:
https://shop.panasonic.com/support-only/DMC-ZS60.html
The camera's Leica-designed zoom lens has a focal length range of 24-720 mm (35 mm equivalent). It has an "Intelligent Zoom" mode, which boosts the maximum focal length to 1440 mm, plus a digital zoom mode, which boosts it even further to 2880 mm. My camera broke twice. The first time, it was because the zoom lens kept getting stuck, probably from dirt in the mechanism. I sent it out to get fixed. When it came back, I took it for a test run and took these pictures:
"Hike to Coyote Peak, Santa Teresa Park (Camera Test), 10/23/20": https://tinyurl.com/yy5rpfla
While I was at the top of Coyote Peak, I dropped the camera, which caused the end of the zoom lens to pop off. There was no way I was going to try to pop it back on. I sent it back for repair, and it came back today. I took it for a test run at Almaden Lake and the Guadalupe Creek Trail. While my ZS-60 camera was in the shop, I usually used my smartphone, a Moto E4, to take pictures. It takes OK wide angle pictures, but terrible zoom pictures, as you'll see. Here are pictures I took with my smartphone, showing the quality of the pictures it takes: "Calero Hike, Figueroa to Oak Cove Trail, 10/22/20":
https://tinyurl.com/yyntmdvh
(I have an Olympus OMD E-M10 mirrorless camera, but it's too big and expensive to take on casual hiking/biking trips. I save it for special occasions, when I need the best picture quality.)
Below are pictures that I took with my ZS-60, with a few from my smartphone for comparison. The pictures list the camera and the equivalent focal length. All of the pictures are uploaded as-is, with no editing, not even re-sizing.
