Panasonic Launches Ultra-Wide Ultra-Zoom

2017.01.04

At some point past 30X, the zoom race started looking pointless. There is little difference between a 720mm and 750mm photo while both require truly fast shutter-speed, so good light in order to avoid increasing the ISO which causes very poor image quality on tiny sensors of ultra-zooms.

Panasonic today is changing this by introducing the widest ultra-zoom of all: The Panasonic Lumix FZ80 which features a 60X optical zoom lens, equivalent to 20-1200mm. This puts at 2mm ahead of its closest competitors which gives it roughly 10% wider field-of-view. Each mm is much more significant at the wide-end than at the long end of the zoom. At 20mm, the FZ80 shows a 94° field-of-view which is extremely useful for architecture. At 1200mm, it shows about 2° which is good enough to tightly frame almost anything which can be seen with the naked eye.

The new Panasonic Lumix FZ80 is built around an 18 megapixels high-speed CMOS sensor with 10 FPS full-resolution read-out and wide ISO 80-3200 sensitivity range. This is paired with an optically stabilized 20-1200mm F/2.8-5.9 lens. This camera can record 4K Ultra-HD video at 30 FPS too.

This mid-level ultra-zoom offers a tiny 0.2" EVF with 1.2 megapixels and 0.46X magnification. The rear of the camera has one control-dial to help set parameters but offers a limited number of controls. The FZ80 this way remains relatively light-weight at 616g, much lighter than even most ultra-wide or long lenses alone.

The Panasonic Lumix FZ80 is schedule to ship the second half of March for a retail price of $399 USD. Adorama and B&H Photo are both ready to take pre-orders.

• Digital Camera
• CES