Très belle!

What's with all this "or" stuff? Why not "and"? Are we now supposed to throw away our view cameras because they didn't make the cut? Thank goodness photography started as black and white and everything in between, not just black OR white. The question is divisive on its face.

I assume you mean JPG vs RAW+JPG. If you are happy with the camera's instant jpg interpretation of the exposure and never, or hardly ever, want to alter it, then there is no advantage. But when not saving raw when shooting, it forces you to accept camera's jpg result up front, thereby limiting what you can do with the image afterward for those occasional shots you would want to improve in ways done only with raw. This may be acceptable based on your goals and willingness to always accept the camera's jpg over having the option to get the most from any shot. This might be one reason an earlier reply stated that only you can answer the question.

...and sometimes in overdeveloped countries.

Nice. I think my old Fujifilm camera did, too.

Lenses on non-interchangeable lens cameras like the ZS50 usually bear markings with focal lengths that mimic lenses on once familiar 35mm cameras. Most buyers were familiar with 35mm camera lenses and their fields of view. When the first digital cameras with attached lenses were sold, camera makers decided to use focal length numbers people were familiar with as a matter of convenience to the consumer. Your Lumix, though much newer, still follows the same tradition of using 35mm equivalent markings. Just remember everything inside it is scaled down compared with a 35mm camera.

Your question is really about angles. To keep proportions the same when comparing different size cameras, all the dimensions get scaled accordingly in order to keep the proportions and angles the same. When you use a smaller sensor, you have to use a shorter lens to maintain the angles to give an equivalent amount of coverage. Because the Lumix and most fixed lens cameras have a smaller image size than a traditional 35mm camera, the lenses have shorter focal lengths than their 35mm ancestors for a given image size and the area it has to cover on the sensor or film frame.

Please look at p39 of your Basic Owner's Manual (not that I always read manuals.) It states the lens is actually 4.3-129.0mm. This is roughly equivalent to what a 35mm camera would capture with a 24-720mm lens (covering a larger film area) in terms of maintaining the same angles between the borders of the sensor image and the edges of the scene, that is, the field of view.

Interchangeable lenses for digital cameras, on the other hand, are labeled with their actual focal length just as 35mm film cameras and even larger format cameras (also with interchangeable lenses) did. Photographers who buy them are generally more familiar with various sensor sizes, crop factors, etc. and don't mind using the true numbers. So it's more a matter of the intended consumer base and what manufacturers expect that buyers want and are used to. Is there a law that says non-interchangeable lenses have to bear 35mm equivalent markings instead of its true FL? Not all do, in fact. It's more of a custom. At least this is my experience. I do wonder when the 35mm equivalent will be replaced by some other standard. Maybe when kids ask their parents what it means to tape a conversation.

It seems this is an example where interchangeable lenses are labeled with their actual focal length where lenses on non-interchangeable lens cameras are often marked with focal lengths offering equivalent fields of view for lenses on 35mm cameras, or what is called full-frame today?

I am looking into this as well. The single focus lenses and procedures are completely covered by Medicare (for us older folks) and by a supplemental carrier. With any of the multi-focal lenses, they don't pay a dime even though the bulk of the cost is not due to the lens itself. Partly this is because many surgeons prefer using a more expensive (and non-covered) laser technique when installing multi-focal lenses.

My impression is that Medicare is doing some back door means-testing. "If you can afford to upgrade the lens component, then you have the money for all of it." I asked my surgeon about this yesterday. He says simply that there are a lot of things in the world that aren't right. Not much help but true. So I rationalize the extra cost because my eyes are worth the price of decent cameras and lenses.

On the question of lens choice, single focus lenses, covered by most insurance, give the clearest optical results but with a greater need for corrective glasses depending on the situation. Traditional multi-focal lenses offer decent vision with less need for glasses except for close work. But as already mentioned, they do produce halos and glare with bright lights with a dark background. Oncoming headlights is the classic example. Night sky viewing will likely never be the same. There is also less contrast in dark scenes. The new non-refractive multi-focal lenses, e.g. Vivity, are nearly, but not completely free of artifacts. I am very torn about the choice between the clear mono-focal lens and the expensive Vivity option for the convenience of needing glasses less often for reading at a moderate distance. No way would I select the traditional multi-focal refractive lens because of night driving, photography, and whatever little astronomy I enjoy. Even the low artifact Vivity might leave me wishing I saved $6-7K and got the clear, mono-focal lenses, but I am going to take that chance and spend the bucks for the Vivity lens. The Z9 will have to wait. I say Vivity, but there may be other brand names for the same technology, so I am not necessarily tied to one. it's just what my surgeon uses. The biggest problem so far has been getting time with the ophthalmologist about lens choices. They should provide references to unbiased articles early in the process. Too often they will give you 10 minutes about what can be an expensive and impactful decision when you start out knowing nothing. Patients who have options should read up before getting those expensive 10 minutes and at least have more informed questions.

This is just me, but if my only hobbies were photography and astronomy, I would definitely go with mono-focal lenses. As a musician who needs to see small print music and occasionally glance at the conductor, I am going with the lower artifact multi-focal lenses.

Most of the links reviewing the lenses are published by manufacturers. Here are a couple examples of less biased articles with the first I thought was the most informative:

https://www.reviewofophthalmology.com/article/which-lens-for-which-patient
https://www.reviewofophthalmology.com/article/iol-review-2021-newcomers
https://www.reviewofoptometry.com/article/realworld-performance-of-newer-intraocular-lenses

My surgery is two seeks away so I welcome any comments about what I have found so far.

Agreed. My second home was burglarized recently. The thief was caught driving my car the same day with a lot of things in it. He was not charged because I had no video.

There are solar powered, or long life battery powered trail cameras. Some use cellular data if phone service is available. If not, they can make long recordings. Thieves are good at finding them, so hide them well.

We see the occasional copperhead near our house but maybe fewer since we also have king snakes. I like that they lie still and watch when we walk by instead of chasing us like the black racers do. The fine lines of gold on black are beautiful. Thank you for the post.

I very much like that in post you can later emulate any color filter with B/W film. For dedicated B/W work, monochrome converted cameras offer higher resolution than the same pixel density color sensors. You naturally lose your choice of filters after the exposure, but you can at least begin to approach some of the advantages of larger formats with a converted FF camera.

Are you referring to the principle to "never waste a crisis" as recently espoused by a former mid-west city mayor?

Happy creature! Unfortunately, some of the truth reported by some services is the worst without looking too far, even excluding major disasters. My spouse bans the news in our home at certain times. Despite my helpless addiction, I find a little peace now and then is a good thing. Shabbat shalom.

When the term analog is used to contrast with digital media, it usually refers to electronic and electromagnetic processing and storage. Recall analog computers? We didn't call slide rules analog even though they were very similar. I have not seen the term analog refer to non-electronic methods before, though it may have been. I work with sound more than optics, so when digital photography became practical, I sometimes thought of film photography as analog, but would never use it in conversation. It's a matter of language. Today, the most common term by far for traditional, non-digital photography is film.