Off to Montana with the FZ300 - the Perfect Camera for Travel

"Go as many places as you can. Take vacations. You can always make money - you can't always make memories!"
Anon

Fly-fishing just below the Ruby Valley Dam

Click to read more about the specs of the FZ300

I wrote a post last Sunday about my experiences going off the grid for vacation recently. Here's another aspect - the challenge of what camera to take on the trip. I may not be a working professional photographer, but there's plenty of gear in the house, from full DSLR's to pocket point and shoots. So, like many of you, the challenge came up recently for vacation. Well, there was only one choice for me - the LUMIX FZ300.

My wife, Sheila, has been wanting to play with something other than the little point and shoot she normally has, so I traded with her. I took the little point and shoot, a LUMIX ZS30, perfect for the pocket of my waders while fly-fishing and gave her a fast lesson in the FZ300.

The FZ300 weighs 1 1/2 lbs, and that's with battery and memory card. It's got an F2.8 Leica lens with a 25-600mm zoom and although it's got a smaller sensor - it's the perfect camera to travel with. Plus, it shoots 4K video! It went everywhere with us, including some hikes into the mountains of Montana.

So, Sheila's background in photography couldn't be more typical as a consumer. Thirty years ago she had a 35mm SLR, a little Yashica with a 35-70mm zoom. Pretty much used for family images, it might have taken her a month or more to shoot an entire roll. She's got a great eye and loves capturing detail. When she's got a camera in her hands, she just wants to capture memories and not be bothered with worrying about the settings.


These images are all Sheila's from a week in Montana. I showed her how to set up the camera, and she used "IA", Intelligent Auto, most of the time. She loves playing with the zoom and remember, this was her first time using the FZ300. I've cropped a couple of her images, but overall these are screenshots right from her downloads.

One of the great things about all the LUMIX cameras is their low-light capability. For example, on a day trip to Butte, we played tourist. We did a one hour tour of the William A. Clark House, the mansion of one of the copper kings, still an active bed & breakfast today. The house is dark, minimal lighting, high ceilings and fascinating. It's filled with authentic period pieces, right down to a special massage shower Clark had built, which is the only shower in the house used by guests today.

In a small ballroom on the third floor, which had nothing but a ceiling fixture and a small window for light, Sheila got a great shot of a bird hat from the period. Inside a showcase of reflective glass, it couldn't have been tougher to light. And while the lighting in the kitchen was updated - the combination of the antique stove next to the DVD player and monitor was a kick.

So, this is Luminary Corner, and ordinarily, I'm sharing images by the Luminary Team. However, today's post is about a remarkable little camera, the FZ300. The next time you're headed out for a little family time, but just don't want to carry a lot of gear - think about this camera. Sheila's a hobbyist, but imagine what an FZ300 will do in the hands of a professional!

Interested in finding out more about the LUMIX line, visit the LUMIX Lounge (click on any image) and meet the rest of the Luminary team. They're one of the most diverse groups in professional photography, all sharing a common denominator, their passion for the craft.

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The Berkley Pit , a flooded copper mine in Butte

Ruby Valley Lodge: "Home" for the week

William A. Clark House in Butte

The reason for so many extinct species of birds today, might just be the craze to stuff them and put them on women's hats!

Not a lot of pictures from this hike because it was 42 degrees and we were in shorts. It was almost 70 at the bottom of the mountain, but at 8500 feet the temperature dropped and the clouds rolled in over the mountains.