Overview
The perfect “Swiss army knife” of cameras, the Panasonic Lumix FZ1000 gives you excellent image quality, a sophisticated video camera, full automatic operation when you want it, full manual control if you prefer, customizable buttons, raw files that offer additional creative possibilities, a huge zoom range, and more features than you’ll ever need.
If you can bring only one camera with you, and you need both wide-angle and telephoto options, it’s hard to do better than the FZ1000.
Pluses
- Excellent image quality (compare: travel / wildlife)
- Huge 16x zoom range, 25-400mm* (equiv.)
- Large 1″ sensor
- Full-auto option
- Full manual controls
- Customizable buttons
- RAW support
- 4K video
- Relatively small and light (about 850g / 1.85 lb with battery and card)
- Relatively inexpensive
Major Drawbacks
- Electronically controlled zoom is slow (but all other similar options also have an electronically controlled zoom)
Minor Drawbacks
- Focusing is good but some cameras do better
- Too big to fit in a pocket
- Lens is fast (f/7.5 to f/11 equiv.) but not best in class
Why You Want It
You’ll be ready for any situation with a camera that can go anywhere, and you’ll be able to get acceptibly high-quality stills and videos no matter what.
Sample Images
