My Hybrid Shooting Started With the Lumix FZ10

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ10 started my journey into run-and-gun hybrid shooting. Looking back on the image and movie quality (or lack thereof), I wouldn't give it a second thought today. But neither would I think about returning to the Kodak (Nikon) NC000 digital camera, either (but heck, the FZ10 can completely beat the pants off a Nikon NC2000!). At the time these cameras debuted, they provided what was needed, and then some. Back in 2003, dpreview called the FZ10 a "new standard of excellence," and it truly did the job for me, while I used it.

This camera was my "go-to" camera. If I needed just one thing to take, I wanted this, because it could perform when I truly needed it. The FZ10 was in my arsenal when I headed to New Orleans to wait for Hurricane Katrina. It shot stills and movies, had a 12x optical zoom, and was so low-profile that no one could tell that I worked for a newspaper. In the week since the hurricane hit, I sent short clips via satellite phone, and the footage and still images generated tons of views online, and some photos and clips were also picked up on worldwide outlets and TV organizations, like CNN. It was the one body I dared take to the Superdome and to the Convention Center when things had gotten out of hand - I wanted something that kept me anonymous, and carrying two Nikon digital bodies and several lenses were inviting trouble, I determined, as reports of crimes persisted.

Looking back on my decision, I still feel I made the right choice. There's no telling whether I might have been stopped by authorities before getting into the Superdome because I never attempted to announce that I worked for the media. In a post 9/11 environment, I didn't want to take that chance. All I know is that no one did stop me from doing my job with the FZ10. And looking around the dome and Convention Center, I didn't see any other media. Many TV outlets seemed content on being escorted, or using aerial views to do the reporting. But I felt that the story needed to be captured by looking at the place from ground level.

These days, people are adding gear onto already big-enough cameras like the Canon 7D and Nikon D3S. But don't these cameras need to be more compact? I still can't switch between movies and stills on-the-fly with the Nikon system, and Canon's just as difficult too. But the Lumix system ~ who have the idea right ~ just needed a twist of a mode dial to change whether you wanted to fire jpegs or .mov files. Canon and Nikon need to learn from how quickly the user can shoot whatever they want without all the extra baggage.