Panasonic Lumix FZ1000 Viewfinder and Screen (Part 4 of FZ1000 Review)

Panasonic Lumix FZ1000 review (Part 4)

Panasonic Lumix FZ1000 Viewfinder and Screen

If you haven't read them yet, parts 1, 2, & 3 can be found at the links below.
Panasonic Lumix FZ1000 Review (part 1)
Panasonic Lumix FZ1000 review (Part 2)
Panasonic Lumix FZ1000 Review (Part 3)

The FZ1000 has an articulated 3-inch screen and high quality OLED electronic viewfinder with 0.7x (35mm equivalent) magnification for composition.

 

The native 3:2 image ratio for stills doesn't fill the 4:3 viewfinder, so narrow black bands appear at the top and bottom. These areas display information; shooting mode, photo style, flash mode, movie mode, image size and quality, focus mode and battery life on the top; and metering mode, aperture and shutter speed, exposure compensation and card capacity at the bottom.

 

The viewfinder quality is excellent. It's big and bright although there is a slight lag when panning.

 

The 3-inch TFT LCD screen has 920k dot resolution and is 3:2 proportioned so stills fill the entire screen area. The articulated screen can be positioned at any angle and folded in when not in use.

 

An eye sensor underneath the FZ1000's viewfinder switches from screen to viewfinder when you raise your eye to it. If you want to see the EVF image as soon as you put your eye to it, Fn5 toggles between EVF and screen displays. This is also useful to stop the EVF switching when you don't want it to, for instance I found this pretty annoying when shooting from the hip or kneeling down.

 

The Disp button on the rear toggles between the four viewfinder displays:

1. full information
2. full information with a two-axis level
3. exposure details
4. exposure details with a two-axis level
   The viewfinder display is replicated when you switch to the screen, but the screen has two extra options: a detailed information only display and blank.
    
   If you're not using the screen, set the blank option as it uses less battery power.

Part 5 of Panasonic FZ1000 Review (Shooting Modes)