Panasonic just introduced the DMC-FZ7 a replacement for the camera I’ve been using to shoot during my runs.
The most important new feature is the addition of manual focus (controlled by a joystick - remains to be seen how easy it it to use, say, compared to a manual focus ring).
I was hoping for RAW support, but alas. Also, with 12x zoom, it’d be nice to have a wider range, maybe 28-336mm instead of the 36-432mm that it has.
The FZ5 is a terrific running camera (it’s not tiny, but for its capabilities, it quite small). The FZ7 looks like an improvement — probably not enough to trade in an FZ5, but if I were shopping for a new camera (or if I still owned an FZ3) I’d probably get the FZ7.
Ideally I’d do all my shooting with an SLR - the photos are much better. But when I’m out there running for many hours, especially in a 50 or 100 miler, carrying that much weight is out of the question — not if I want to make the cutoffs
- dc