Whatbird.com

After researching for two weeks it came down to the Nikon P80 and the Pana fz28 due to extremely limited funds.  I know an SLR would have been better but I have rock bottom learning curve with cameras and not enough cash.

Liked them both but settled on the FZ28.  Any suggestions & tips from FZ28 users greatly appreciated...settings you have found to work best in certain situations (gives me a starting point to make my own adjustments from there), things to avoid (I always leave the digital zoom off of any camera while birding), etc.

Thanks

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By a route obscure and lonely,
haunted by ill angels only.

greenwyvern:

After researching for two weeks it came down to the Nikon P80 and the Pana fz28 due to extremely limited funds.  I know an SLR would have been better but I have rock bottom learning curve with cameras and not enough cash.

Liked them both but settled on the FZ28.  Any suggestions & tips from FZ28 users greatly appreciated...settings you have found to work best in certain situations (gives me a starting point to make my own adjustments from there), things to avoid (I always leave the digital zoom off of any camera while birding), etc.

Thanks

go here you may pick up some hints I know nothing about this camera it set up etc but I am glad to hear you are not using digital zoom. http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/q109superzoomgroup/page7.asp

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My New Avatar is in memory of Nancy my darling wife of 10 years who passed away on Monday November the 16th 2009 after an illness

My photo gallery http://thekiwi.org/photography/index.php

Thanks Kiwi.  I have bookmarked it.  I still hope to upgrade to an SLR at some date in the future if I don't expire first.

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By a route obscure and lonely,
haunted by ill angels only.

I use the Panasonic FZ28 for my bird photos.  I don't take any at feeders so the birds are typically not close.  My hands shake a little and I find that of all of my ultra-zooms, the FZ28 has the best image stabilization/least blur.  If you look in the Let's See Some Gull and Tern Photos, you'll see some photos taken with it (the Maryland, Virginia and Long Island gull pics were taken with the Panasonic FZ28; the older Tennessee ones were taken with a Panasonic FZ18, also an 18x zoom but less megapixels).  If shooting perched songbirds, I usually use aperture priority or landscape setting.  If shooting fidgety birds, I use the sports setting (looks like a running man on the dial).  I'm still experimenting with Shutter priority.  If, when reviewing photos on the camera, you can zoom your review to 8x (two zoom clicks) and the image is decent, it will usually turn out to be a good photo after cropping on the computer to enlarge the size of the bird.  Photographing birds in trees, on signs or on telephone/electric lines, the camera performs superbly on sunny days and semi-sunny days.  I do find, however, that I usually crank down the exposure setting to get bluer skies in contrast to the bird.  On white sky days, if you photograph birds in trees (against the sky) you have to really crank up exposure.  Typically, on white sky days, I look for birds in bushes, on the ground, on nesting boxes or in the water.  I'll post some FZ28 birds of all sizes pics later today.  I rarely use the Auto setting.  I pretty much always keep the burst mode on for birds (in camera mode, it's the same button as the one you use to trash your photos in Review mode.  Although not related to this forum, I also like the camera for scenery photos.  I never use it indoors.