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Gail's Panasonic FZ18 Blog
FZ18 Joystick
I really must comment on the Panasonic FZ18 Joystick. This feature may be found on other cameras, but it's new to me.
One of the most frustrating things about the non-DSLR digital cameras I’ve owned or am familiar with, is the lack of intuitive and quick access to key settings. It is a pain to have to stop in a middle of a shot to change, for example, the metering mode. You must:
- Remove your eye from viewfinder or LCD
- Pess a button to access the main menu
- Scroll through sometimes 2-3 pages to find the mode option
- Scroll to find and click to select which metering mode
- Click a few more buttons to remove the menu from the screen.
By this time, your subject may have moved out of view or the lighting changed.
Not so with the Joystick.
Whoever conceived of this little wonder and placed it on a digital camera is certainly a photographer and not a marketing executive.
The Joystick is the silver colored button on the back of the FZ18. It is larger than most other buttons and placed in just the right spot. It can be pressed down in the center as well as pushed up, down, left or right, with similar effects as using the Set and cursor buttons.
When using the Electronic Viewfinder, you don’t even have to move your eye away from the camera to change settings, once you get the hang of using the Joystick. A photographers dream, imho.
The Joystick is useful for several things, but the following two are my favorite:
Quick Setting menu
The Joystick gives you quick access to key settings.
Press down the center of Joystick once, and a Quick Setting menu appears on either the LCD or Electronic Viewfinder (manual pg. 71). By tilting it when in record mode, you can quickly access and change all settings for Image Stabilizer, Focus mode, Metering mode, White Balance, Sensitivity, Picture Size and Image Quality.
The FZ18 Joystick and Exposure Compensation
I change Exposure Compensation a lot. On the FZ18, the Exposure Value setting is constantly displayed on the left hand bottom side of the monitor. You can almost instantly increase or decrease the Exposure Value with the Joystick.
Other Joystick uses
- Program Shift – when you press the shutter button halfway, use the joystick to activate Program Shift to change the preset shutter speed and aperture size (pg. 27).
- Viewing magnified images on the LCD – use the Joystick to scroll through images at an enlarged size by moving it to the right right or left (pg. 33).
- Semi-Automatic and Manual exposure modes – use the Joystick to set the aperture and shutter speed; and switch between both (pg. 50 - 51)
When key settings and other parameters need to be quickly changed, the Joystick is, excuse the pun, a joy to use.
