Review Of Panasonic DMC-FZ3

[Suhit Gupta]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.dpreview.com/news/0407/04072203panasonicfz3prev.asp' target='_blank'>http://www.dpreview.com/news/0407/04072203panasonicfz3prev.asp</a><br /><br /></div><i>"The DMC-FZ3 is Panasonic's new budget priced, compact, twelve times optical zoom, three megapixel digital camera. It's based around the guts of the higher end FZ15 and FZ20 digital cameras with a smaller sensor and lens system. The first thing that strikes you when you pick up the FZ3 is just how compact it is an how light, it may not have the expensive feel of the FZ20 but it's certainly good enough and some $200 cheaper."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/fz3allroundview-001.jpg" /><br /><br />This is a small hands on review of the FZ3 since it is still in pre-production, instead of the long in-depth reviews we are used to from dpreview.com. However, from this short review, we find out more about the physical aspects and layout of this unit. We also get a brief idea about how small and light the camera really is.

[PatrickD]

What does the flower petal type lens hood do? I've seen these on many high end cameras, but I don't know what purpose they serve.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0407/Panasonic/hands-on/fz3hood.jpg

[Suhit Gupta]

What does the flower petal type lens hood do? I've seen these on many high end cameras, but I don't know what purpose they serve.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0407/Panasonic/hands-on/fz3hood.jpg
That lens hood reduces the amount of random light to come into the lens, i.e. it gives focus to the light that is coming in. As you may note, not all lenses have this. This is because, as far as I know, not all lenses need it. It is usually dependent on the type of lenses you have in your lens but most camera lenses are built so they they don't need the hood for protection, they have the protection built into the design. The ones that do need it come with it.

Suhit

[PatrickD]

Thanks for the insight. I learn something new everyday :D

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

Lens hoods are used to prevent stray light from entering the lens at an angle and results in this light reflecting internally in a diffused fashion among the various elements of the lens. The result is decreased contrast, and this phenomenon is called lens flare. The other phenomenon is called ghosting, and that's the sharp reflection of the aperture diaphragm and the lens elements, forming a series of blobs onto the image.

The lens hood is petal shaped because while a lens forms a circular image, the film or CCD only captures a square or rectangular section of this circle. As a result, the areas of lens hood covering the four sides of the can extend more, and for rectangular film/ccd formats, since more of the top and bottom areas of the image formed from the lens is not used, the areas of the lens hood covering the top and bottom can extend out even more, thus creating the flower shape