Panasonic FZ1000 Performance

Generally excellent performance in our tests, though RAW+JPEG burst mode buffer clearing is glacial.

The Panasonic FZ1000 took about 1.2 seconds to power on and take a shot in our tests. That's much faster than average for its class. Switching from Play to Record mode and taking a shot took almost as long, though, at about a second. Buffer clearing times for JPEGs or RAWs were pretty good for its class, but was very slow when shooting RAW+JPEG files.

Looking at the Panasonic FZ1000's ability to determine that it's properly focused when shooting the same target multiple times using AF-S (single-shot AF) mode using the center AF point (our standard test), full autofocus shutter lag was very fast at 0.101 second at wide angle, and 0.112 second at telephoto. Enabling the flash increased full autofocus shutter lag to 0.218 second, which is still pretty fast. Manual focus lag was a very fast 0.053 second, and prefocused shutter lag was only 0.029 second, also quite fast.

To minimize the effect of different lens' focusing speed, we test AF-active shutter lag with the lens already set to the correct focal distance.

Single-shot cycle times were excellent, averaging 0.34 second for Large/Fine JPEGs or RAW files, and 0.45 second for RAW+Large/Fine JPEG pairs.

In Continuous H mode (the FZ1000's highest-speed full-res burst mode), the FZ1000 captured 73 Large/Fine JPEG frames at about 9.5 frames-per-second, 11 RAW frames at 9 fps, and 12 RAW+JPEG frames at 9 fps. That's quite fast, but falls significantly short of Panasonic's 12 fps spec with AF-S. Note that we do however shoot all our cycle timing tests at ISO 200, so faster results may be possible at a lower ISO.

Continuous SH mode which captures ~5MP JPEGs clocked in at almost 49 frames-per-second, pretty close to Panasonic's 50 fps spec, with a fixed buffer limit of 60 frames.

Buffer clearing was reasonably fast with JPEG and RAW files, but slowed down significantly when shooting RAW+JPEG files. We measured about 10 seconds after a max-length burst of Large/Fine JPEGs or RAW files, but that increased to a whopping 60 seconds when shooting a max-length burst of RAW+JPEG pairs. To see if a fast UHS-I card would do better, we retested with our SanDisk Extreme Pro 95MB/s UHS-I card, but got results identical to our SanDisk Extreme Pro 250 MB/sec UHS-II card.

The Panasonic FZ1000's flash recycled in about 5.8 seconds after a full-power discharge on average, which is a little slow.

Bottom line, the Panasonic FZ1000's performance is generally excellent for a high-resolution all-in-one camera. Startup time is very good for its class, autofocus speeds are faster than most DSLRs, prefocused shutter lag is very fast, single-shot cycle times are excellent, and Continuous Hi mode is faster than most DSLRs as well (though the FZ1000 won't track focus in that mode). Buffer depths are excellent with full-res JPEGs at over 70 frames, though with RAW files buffer depth drops to about a dozen frames. Buffer clearing when shooting JPEGs or RAW files was good, but very slow after a max-length RAW+JPEG burst, requiring a full minute to finish writing even with our fastest SD card.

Battery Life
Below average battery life for its class.

The Panasonic FZ1000 uses a custom rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack for power, and comes with a single battery and dedicated battery charger. Battery life is CIPA-rated for 360 shots per charge when using the LCD, which includes 50% flash shots. When using the electronic viewfinder, the number of shots per charge decreases to only 300.

Battery life is below average for its type, so we definitely recommend getting a second battery for your FZ1000 if you plan any extended outings or shoot a lot of video.

The table above shows the number of shots the camera is capable of (on a fully-charged rechargeable battery), based on CIPA battery-life and/or manufacturer standard test conditions.

(Interested readers can find an English translation of the CIPA DC-002 standards document here. (180K PDF document))