This is the TZ7 next to a tape measure to give an idea of its size. You may have to click on the photo and choose 'all sizes' to see it larger. The little holes on top of the camera are where the stereo microphones are. To me that seems a good idea as wind is not blowing directly in to them. There are different buttons for taking still and movie. For stills it is the large button in the middle of the zoom lever on top of the body. The one for movie shooting is tiny and on the back of the camera.
To give an idea of the zoom range here are two shots from the same place. First at wide angle and second at maximum zoom. The same tree can be seen in both shots. It is the small one just right of centre in the wide angle view.
I was hoping to photograph the lambs but there was a cricket match in progress so I took a couple of shots of that. This is a crop and shows the only 'problem' I have found. Brilliant white can get over saturated but the camera has facilities for adjusting exposure and taking bracket shots so it will be a case of learning which adjustments are best. User preferences can be stored as MS1 and MS2 on the dial. Also there is a burst mode which can be useful for those wildlife shots.
Finally, I know some are bursting to see what the photographer looks like so here is a shot of the photographer in action.
There are many times when walking Bobby that I want a camera with me but a hefty DSLR and zoom lens are not the easiest of things to control. Many years ago I bought a Pentax Optio, sturdily built, small enough to go in a shirt pocket, 3X zoom lens, 3.2 M pixels and video facility (very poor). At the time it seemed great but technology has moved on since then and the quality doesn't come up to my expectations any more.
A few days ago I was looking through some blogs and saw a video taken with the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ7 and was very impressed. A quick search for its specifications showed it has a 12X zoom (the equivalent of 25mm to 300mm on a 35mm camera), 10.1 M pixels and the ability to take HD video. That did it, along with good independent reviews, I had to have one. Looked on the Argos site - out of stock in every store within 30 mile radius. Looked on the Amazon site - a bit cheaper than Argos and in stock. Opted for overnight delivery and it arrived Friday morning.
It's a bit larger than the Pentax but still pocketable, sturdily built and easy to hold with the main controls within easy reach. As is usual these days there are endless menus which take some getting used to but easy to read on a large clear LCD screen. No viewfinder which is a pity as even a modern bright LCD screen is hard to see in bright sunlight.
First trials were around the garden. With the lens set to wide angle and using the macro facilities it is possible to get as close as 3cm to a subject so I tried it out on various plants. The auto focus and image stabiliser worked well. All of the photos have been cropped to some extent, some more than others.
Next thing was to take it out and about. A couple of riders were coming down the street so out with the camera, fire it up, point and press.
To get a photo of this horse in the paddock I had to poke the camera through a gap in the hedge.
Back at home a ladybird co-operated even with the lens about 3 cm from its body.
And this unknown bug was so determind to have its portrait taken it landed on my hand.
Of course a photo session would not be complete without a shot of my ever lively Bobby.
Finally after a couple of visits to the churchyard I managed to capture some video of the Black East India Ducks. The video has been processed to reduce the file size.. The original is 848 x 480 pixels HD. Filmed hand held.
All in all I have been very impressed with the performance of the Lumix TZ7 and its Leica lens. Battery life is a lot shorter than the Canon DSLR - up to 300 stills or 90 minutes of video are stated in the handbook. The camera has approximately 40 MB of internal memory which can be used for photos or low quality video otherwise you need to buy a SDHC memory card to take full advantage of all its facilities. Photos are stored in jpeg format and videos in AVCHD lite for HD or QuickTime motion jpeg for other video sizes. Software is supplied for handling the HD video format though I found that my copy of Daniusoft Video Converter will convert any of the camera files to WMV or MPG (or many other formats).
At first glance it certainly looks as though this Wood Pigeon went for a swim in the garden pond. These pictures were captured by the ProStalk wildlife camera which sits on a post next to the pond and takes photos whenever it detects any change in heat with its passive IR sensors.
The pigeons often stand on the raised edge round the pond drinking and occasionally I have seen one slip and just manage to take off before it landed in the water. From these shots I can't be sure whether it landed on the water by accident or deliberately. Fortunately for the pigeon that part of the pond has masses of oxygenating vegetation which it is resting on. Obviously it managed to take off OK as there has been no sign of a pigeon in the pond.
It has been quite a rarity for the camera to capture any wildlife. Normally when I check the contents of the memory card there are dozens of photos of me or Bobby or just the pond as whatever triggered the camera moved away in the second it takes to start up.
It has been difficult recently to get clean audio on taking video outdoors as the wind seems to be ever present. There have been several songsters around recently but I did manage to film a male Chaffinch singing towards the end of the day.
A couple of days ago I watched a Dunnock as it spent several minutes preening. One thing I noticed on the close up was that when it stretches its wings it wasn't just having a good stretch but it was a way of tucking the wing under the lower layer of feathers so it could preen them. Every now and then the camcorder took a battering from a cross wind.
Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you. I am hoping that the volcanic ash cloud from Iceland will produce some interesting sunsets like the ones we got a few years ago when a certain oil depot went up in flames.
Since the Hedgehogs came out of their winter hibernation period it is entirely predictable that one, and sometimes two, will visit the garden every night. What is unpredictable about them is the timing as they can be as early as 10 pm or as late as 4 am.
Completely unpredictable is the activity around the Blue Tit nestbox. I had given up on the idea that it would be used this year as it has been over two weeks since the last visit but there they were this morning. One inside the box but the other only went as far as the entrance.
A still snapshot from the video clip.
The video clip. Sometimes it is a pain when the DVR changes the view on playback when a different camera detects movement but this time it was useful to see both birds, one inside and the other at the entrance.
There is still hope they will choose this box to nest in.
I had been a bit worried when the first clump of frog spawn in the nursery pond began to turn white as this usually means it wasn't fertilised. I need not have worried however as quite a few tadpoles have emerged from that batch and dozens from the second batch.
At least they are safe from the fish in the main pond so they should have a good chance of growing to a size where it will be safe to return them..
Whenever we have walked past the house with a large natural pond there have always been a group of what appeared to be black ducks. Occasionally there have been little glimpses of green and blue but until yesterday the Sun has been facing me making it hard to see much more than a silhouette. Yesterday on our way back from a wander down one of the lanes I decided to nip through the churchyard and there they were, basking in the warmth of the sun. This time the Sun was behind me and their true colours were showing:
We had disturbed their afternoon snooze in the peace and quite of the churchyard and they were slowly making their way back to a hole in the fence.
What beautiful colours. Not at all the dowdy looking black I had seen on previous sightings.
Apart from the duck with so much brown all the others were virtually black with fluorescent green and blue. After much searching on the net I am pretty sure these are Black East Indian Ducks, the oldest breed of Bantam Ducks, not from the East Indies but from the U.S.A.. Another identification problem solved at last.
