Introduction

Ease of Use

Panasonic has confidently pitched the newly available-to-buy Lumix DMC-FZ1000 to photographers and video makers alike as an ‘epoch’ product that it hopes will prove to be a game changer. It’s clearly pretty excited to have the first compact camera to not only feature 4K video capture, but which also allows photographers to extract a still image from a 4K sequence, to end up with the equivalent of an 8 megapixel photo. In terms of video we also have the option for time-lapse effects and stop motion animation with this model, so one could argue this is clearly a ‘hybrid’ product.

Thankfully this premium camera has some premium features to help justify the hype. These include a one inch 20.1 megapixel ‘Mos’ sensor – the same physical chip size found in Nikon’s ‘1’ system or Sony’s RX10 bridge model – plus a Leica branded lens. The latter provides a focal length the equivalent of an ultra wide angle 24-100mm in 35mm terms, translating as a 16x optical zoom. Naturally bird watchers, outdoor photographers, amateur paparazzi and simply family users will find such a broad range of framing options very useful, as they would do with any big lens ‘all in one’. Also on board is what Panasonic claims is a newly developed Venus Engine processor, with a quick (in fact almost instantaneous) start up time, faster AF response at the telephoto end of the zoom (again we’re talking blink-and-you’ll-miss-it fast), plus high speed OLED display all adding up to the fact that, it says, there is nothing else in the Panasonic range currently at this level.

The FZ1000 obviously resembles your typical bridge/ super zoom model from all angles, ape-ing the look of a full-blown DSLR, which immediately instills confidence while building expectation.

Notable on-board features include a 2,359K dot OLED EVF and 921K dot, 3-inch ‘free angle’ LCD screen. That lens reach, prominent electronic viewfinder, tilting screen and a decent sized handgrip have all resulted in a slightly chunky camera that obviously comes from the same ‘stock’ as the GH4. While the chunkiness might dissuade some, others will be glad to at least feel they’re getting their money’s worth for the £749.99 manufacturer’s asking price. There is also the point to be made that the FZ1000 weighs around a third what a DSLR kit with equivalent lens might – so portability here is still key.

Front	Rear

It’s also worth mentioning that the lens’ maximum f/2.8 aperture – running to up to a still respectable f/4 at extreme telephoto – will give us DSLR-like ‘bokeh’ effects, enabling attractive shallow depth of field look for portraits and still life shots whatever the framing option chosen.

Further notable features include 49-area AF, in-camera raw processing, face and eye detection technology, seamless 1 area AF, pinpoint AF and shutter speed of 1/4000 sec, plus an electronic shutter function for when photographers want to avoid potentially subject distracting noise – very useful when taking the night shots for this test report and wanting to avoid getting mugged! Aiming to make this camera truly a jack-of-all-trades, Panasonic’s picture control mode now offers up 22 filter effects on the FZ1000, which feels like an almost exhaustive amount as you scroll though the various options. Naturally since this is 2014, Wi-Fi connectivity is another box that needs ticking and here the camera offers up both NFC and QR code interaction, along with the prospect of remote shooting with use of a Panasonic ‘app’ that includes a new photo collage creation function.

Providing the hands-on feel for those who want it, the FZ1000’s zoom can be controlled via the regular zoom lever surrounding the shutter release button, as on any point and shoot compact. Alternatively this can be done by flicking a zoom/manual focus switch on the side of the lens barrel, and either focus or lens reach automatically adjusted by turning a lens control ring.

Whether you’re put off by the fact that a bigger than average lens means a chunky camera or are positively enthused by that fact, from all angles the FZ1000 certainly looks like it means business, which is reassuring given the high-ish price tag of £749.99, though street prices may be slightly cheaper a little after initial launch. The mottled finish and leather effect padding will cause most observers to suspect you’re wielding a DSLR from a distance. As you’d imagine it handles like one too. And 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 and more flexible screen is what we most naturally found ourselves using when setting up or reviewing shots.

Unsurprisingly, that large Leica branded glass lens dominates proceedings here with its 25-400mm focal range and aperture range stretching from a bright/fast f/2.8 to a perfectly acceptable f/4 at the telephoto end. This, and probably not purely the fact that the camera shoots 4K video, is what the majority of users will be buying it for – though the latter feature is certainly a bonus in terms of future proofing your footage, providing you have the storage capacity to deal with the resultant huge 4K file sizes.

Tilting LCD Screen	Tilting LCD Screen

Interestingly on this camera, the default still image ratio is now 3:2, which gives us the full 20.1 effective megapixel image. If you want to opt for the 4:3 ratio usually provided as the standard on a digital camera, this results in a resolution squeeze down to 17.5 megapixels. Naturally there’s the ability to capture Raw files or Raw files and JPEGs in combination. Since the latter option barely affected writing speed in the slightest, we chose it as our own personal default setting for the Panasonic.

To help with the ability to hold the camera nice and steady at maximum zoom, the FZ1000’s manufacturer has thoughtfully provided us with 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.

Situated just behind these controls are two further buttons on the top plate. To the left we find a dedicated video button and on the right the first function button, marked ‘Fn1’. Drill into the menu screens and it’s possible to manually attribute a wide variety of functions to such buttons, including the ability to call up Panasonic’s Photo Style settings (the default factory option, seemingly), a level gauge – also summoned up by a press of the ‘display’ button – or alter the aspect ratio, just for starters. In fact, on this model there are 11 screens’ worth of user-attributable options, with four options presented on each, so the customization of said controls certainly feels almost limitless. If you so desire, the ability to make this camera your own – or to ‘build your own camera’ as some rivals are found of saying in their marketing, is here.

The FZ1000’s second function – or ‘Fn2’ – button sits just behind the first. Here the default factory setting is to enable the camera to establish a Wi-Fi connection – seen as a must on any digital device these days. Via this mode we can also set up remote shooting and viewing with the aid of a smartphone, plus Panasonic’s free downloadable app, transmit images whilst recording or send those already captured and stored by the camera to a suitably enabled TV set for shared viewing.

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 4-5 seconds when in stills shooting mode. Even at maximum telephoto setting a squeeze of the shutter release button and the camera determines focus in a blink of an eye. If there’s potentially distracting foreground objects when fully zoomed in on your subject – such as bars on a cage at the zoo, or foreground shrubbery in a landscape shot – of course this will confuse the auto focus slightly – though a slight re-framing and subsequent press quickly eliminates the problem.

Top	Side

On the FZ1000 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. These range from our particular favourite of the saturation boosting ‘Expressive’ colour through the sepia tinted ‘Retro’ and the more white-ish if slightly clumsily named ‘Old days’, and include the more self explanatory High Key, Low Key, a slightly unnecessary ‘Sepia’ (given the previous Retro and Old Days options), Monochrome, more high contrast Dynamic Monochrome and grainy film-like Rough Monochrome, Silky Monochrome, the high dynamic range ape-ing ‘Impressive Art’, a separate High Dynamic setting, Cross Process, a vignetting Toy Effect, a more luridly saturated Toy Pop, Bleach Bypass, Miniature Effect, Soft Focus, ‘Fantasy’ – bathing everything in a light blue-ish wash (a it like we’ve left the camera on ‘daylight’ setting) – plus Star Filter, One Point Colour and Sunshine setting – the latter of which mimics a burst of sunshine intruding from the top of your frame, so enlivening rather dull shooting conditions with the haze of a summer’s evening.

The next shooting option discovered with a further turn of the mode dial is the scene settings, of which there are 25 here, including the likes of Silky Skin and ‘Sweet Child’s Face’, Vivid Sunset Glow, Glistening Water, ‘Cute Dessert’ – from which it would appear obvious that this camera has originated in Japan (!) – and finally, a panorama option. Moving around the shooting mode wheel we find two customisable settings, followed by a dedicated mode for video. Here we can switch between AVCHD video capture and MP4 – interestingly, if you want to shoot the maximum 4K video – i.e twice as high quality as Full HD – then a switch to MP4 mode is required before you can implement that setting on the Panasonic, with a resultant 25 frames per second capture speed. In other words 4K shooting is not available with AVCHD compression. Continuing around the dial, the final four shooting setting options are for the regular creative quartet of manual, shutter priority, aperture priority and program modes.

Jumping across the ‘hump’ in the middle of the top plate, housing the electronic viewfinder, vacant hotshoe, stereo microphone and pop-up flash, we come to a second, smaller dial with ridged edge. Here we get access to the camera’s drive modes, which range from single shot capture through high speed burst, to exposure bracketing and further self timer and interval shooting modes. In other words all the essentials are easily within reach of forefinger and thumb, and, despite the camera’s relative bulk, without too much of a stretch.

Moving our attention to the backplate, this is obviously dominated not only by the tilt, swivel and flip LCD screen, but also by the aforementioned EVF that juts out above it. The malleability of the screen is such that it can be turned to face the subject for that inevitable ‘selfie’, or flipped screen inwards affording added protection when in transit. It’s worth saying that we were very impressed with the clarity of screen, which comes into its own when focusing manually. Select this option and a central portion of the image is magnified, making matters even easier, and bringing even the scribbles on our notepad into sharp relief.

In terms of composing our shots when leaving the camera on its automatic default, the eye-level electronic viewfinder provides the obvious benefit of a built-in eye sensor immediately below, thus automatically activating and by turn deactivating the larger LCD when it senses the proximity of an eyeball. Over time, such little touches add up to a big benefit in terms of the unit’s intuitiveness.

Memory Card Slot	Battery Compartment

The short sighted also get a dioptric adjustment wheel to the left of the EVF, as viewed straight on, and just up from this we find a manually activated sliding switch for raising the pop-up flash, which announces its presence with a reassuringly solid sounding ‘clunk’ when called into action. As well as the eye sensor, there is a button to the left of this marked ‘LVF’ for manual activation if desired, which feels a bit redundant given the camera’s responsiveness. Luckily this also doubles up as one of the customisable function buttons – ‘Fn5’ to be exact – should you wish to change its function. Attendant controls veer towards those of a DSLR – for example an auto focus/auto exposure lock, encircled by a lever for switching between single shot and continuous auto focus, or on to manual (focus). Switch to manual focus and flick the two-way lever on the lens barrel from ‘Zoom’ to ‘Focus’ and, as noted earlier, your deployment of the lens ring can be changed.

The default setting of the ‘Fn3’ button to the right of the lock/drive mode buttons 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 – which we’ll get to in a moment – or a thumb spin of a DSLR-like control dial top right of the camera back. Again there are a variety of options for arriving at your destination with the FZ1000. But this doesn’t make it a confusing camera to use or difficult to get to grips with. On the contrary; more options are simply more options.

Between this ‘Fn3’ and ‘display’ button we find a standard playback control, with a press of the display button not only showing or hiding on-screen options but also, with subsequent presses, bringing up a level gauge – useful for photographers/ videographers shooting landscapes and cityscapes without the support of a tripod.

Bottom right of the camera’s back plate is 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 ISO125 to ISO12800. White balance and macro mode implementation also happens via the same dial.

The very bottom of the FZ1000 features a further user attributable ‘Fn4’ button which doubles up as a dedicated ‘delete’ button in playback mode, with the base of the camera featuring a slightly off-centre screw thread for tripod attachment and  shared compartment housing both rechargeable battery, good for around a respectable 360 shots, plus SD card. This means that HDMI and USB output ports are provided under a very stiff flap at the camera’s side, which also allows for remote input, while on the opposite flank of the camera there’s a port for attaching an accessory microphone. Clearly this is a camera with ideas and ambitions beyond what is already on board, out of the box.

But what about the FZ1000’s image quality – how does it measure up to the alternative of a mid range DSLR that one could buy for its £749.99 price tag, if a long lens reach and 4K video shooting aren’t the prime concern? Click ahead and find out…

Image Quality

All of the sample images in this review were taken using the 20 megapixel Fine JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 9Mb.

Bright and clear colours are the name of the game with any Panasonic camera and the FZ1000 doesn’t disappoint in that respect. Although occasionally images taken at the telephoto end of the zoom lost their razor sharpness we were still able to achieve perfectly acceptable results handheld, which is where this camera really triumphs. OK, so it’s not the longest lens reach on the planet in this age of 50x and 60x ‘super zoom’ bridge models, but the combination of lens, sensor and resolution feels harmonious and uncompromised. Detail is maintained into the corners of the frame at maximum wide-angle and without a noticeable fish eye effect, which is a further plus.

One odd thing though; we were disappointed to find that when shooting on the widest possible setting with the FZ1000 that, with the lens hood attached, we experienced a ‘vignetting’ effect due to us catching the extremities of the lens hood in shot – so that is something to be aware/beware of.

Rather more pleasingly we were impressed with results at the higher echelons of the FZ1000’s ISO sensitivity settings – and with the lens hood removed! Arguably shots right up until the maximum ISO12800 setting are usable in our opinion, even if detail is noticeably tailing off above ISO6400. Still a respectable showing that undoubtedly comes down to a bright/fast lens and a large-ish sensor not over-burdened with pixels. Although not top quality obviously, also usable is the still image that you’re able to extract from a 4K video feed. Wildlife photographers who want to capture an animal’s movement on video but be able to select a particular frame to produce a still now have the ability to do so, again without compromise. In all, the FZ1000 feels like the ‘go to’ camera.

Noise

There are 8 ISO settings available on the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1000. Here are some 100% crops which show the noise levels for each ISO setting.

ISO 125 (100% Crop)	ISO 200 (100% Crop)
ISO 400 (100% Crop)	ISO 800 (100% Crop)
ISO 1600 (100% Crop)	ISO 3200 (100% Crop)
ISO 6400 (100% Crop)	ISO 12800 (100% Crop)

Focal Range

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1000's 16x zoom lens provides a focal length of 25-400mm in 35mm terms, as demonstrated below.

25mm	400mm

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.

Original (100% Crop)	Sharpened (100% Crop)

Chromatic Aberrations

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1000 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.

Chromatic Aberrations 1 (100% Crop)	Chromatic Aberrations 2 (100% Crop)

Macro

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1000 offers a Macro setting that allows you to focus on a subject that is 3cm 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). The second image is a 100% crop.

Macro	Macro (100% Crop)

Flash

The flash settings on the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1000 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.

Flash Off - Wide Angle (25mm)	Flash On - Wide Angle (25mm)
Flash Off - Telephoto (400mm)	Flash On - Telephoto (400mm)

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.

Forced On	Forced On (100% Crop)
Auto/Red-eye Reduction	Auto/Red-eye Reduction (100% Crop)

Night

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1000's maximum shutter speed is 120 seconds 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 1/4 second at ISO 1600.

Night	Night (100% Crop)

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1000 camera, which were all taken using the 20 megapixel Fine JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.

Sample RAW Images

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1000 enables users to capture RAW and JPEG format files. We've provided some Panasonic RAW (RW2) samples for you to download (thumbnail images shown below are not 100% representative).

Sample Movie & Video

Product Images

Front of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1000

Side of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1000

Side of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1000

Side of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1000

Side of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1000

Rear of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1000

Rear of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1000 / Image Dsiplayed

Tilting LCD Screen

Tilting LCD Screen

Top of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1000

Top of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1000

Top of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1000

Bottom of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1000

Memory Card Slot

Battery Compartment

Conclusion

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1000 is a premium bridge camera for a premium price. And yet, for anyone who requires 4K-video shooting without the need to change lenses, the FZ1000 is a so far unique product within its bridge camera class. But it’s not just about video; as that one-inch sensor and broad focal range equivalent to 24-400mm in 35mm film terms further attests: as it stands Panasonic’s latest bridge camera is arguably its most ‘future proofed’ yet.

Whilst it does most – if not all – of what we would want, those looking for an unobtrusive travel camera may want to widen their search however, or plump for the popular TZ60. This is not a pocket model by any stretch of the imagination, nor one we were able to secrete in even the roomiest of our jacket pockets; helpfully Panasonic provides an attachable neck strap in the box to really show the FZ1000 off. The fact that it does do almost anything you ask of it however meant that the FZ1000 was the camera we most found ourselves reaching for during the two week test period we had it, which speaks for itself. Capable of shooting everything from a child’s piano recital when you’re stuck at the back of the hall, to sunbathers on the riverbank as you’re cruising past on a ferry, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1000 only feels limited by your own imagination.

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	4
Features	4.5
Ease-of-use	4.5
Image quality	4
Value for money	4

Main Rivals

Listed below are some of the rivals of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1000.

Review Roundup

Reviews of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1000 from around the web.

Specifications

Your Comments