Panasonic Lumix FZ30: Bridge Superzoom camera from 2005 | Shot with a Nikon V1
I got this in the other day, a really affordable Lumix (Panasonic) superzoom digicam from 2005! This class of camera was designated informally as a bridge camera, the ones you bought if you didn’t like the smaller party digicams or didn’t want to invest in an early gen DSLR from the early 2000s. These things are pretty insane spec wise if you think of the time period that it came out in.
There’s a “Leica” lens on this thing, and later models were rebadged as “Leicas.”
Panasonic Lumix FZ30: Bridge Superzoom camera from 2005 | Shot with a Nikon V1
The FZ30 has a 35mm FF equivalent 35-420mm zoom, which is crazy! It also zooms internally mechanically like an SLR lens, and has optical image stabilization. It’s a pretty big camera, bigger than some of the smaller DSLR’s I have. It feels like a kit lens (about the size of the old Nikon 18-70mm) permanently welded onto a prototype mirrorless camera.
I can see many uses for this camera due to the reach of the lens, one of them being a simple throw in the bag digicam for travel and vacations where the image quality isn’t that important.
However…this camera’s special gift/ability is that it can shoot TIFF files and RAW! Sure it only supports maximum 2GB SD cards, but that’s not a big problem.
Ah yes, please take us back to good ol’ 2005. A time when Hot Import Nights was just around the corner and videogames could be bought for cheap in the discount section of Blockbusters.
The screen flips and tilts so it’s a pretty good waist level type of camera. So wild how in 2005 flippy screens were almost standard in higher end bridge cameras, and then the camera manufacturers basically hit the reset button on DSLR’s and didn’t give them to consumers for like ages. Gotta hand it to the camera industry’s product planners, they really do know how to feature creep up just barely enough to keep their businesses profitable.
In keeping with the theme, I photographed this 2005 camera with artwork of mine that I created around that time. So crazy how both of these things are 20 years old.
I think the charm of old cameras, especially digicams, is that the white balance and tint of the back LCD screen is locked in time. A nostalgic color cast with the pixels that you can see with your naked eye.
100% crop of the FZ30 LCD screen
Lumix FZ30 Sample Photos
I haven’t had the opportunity to shoot some fun hangouts with this camera yet, but here are a few heavily edited photos. (Heavy crushing of blacks and contrast)
