4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
Great quality camera for the price
Date of Review: Mar 16, 2007
The Bottom Line: This a great camera, with excellent zoom, great picture quality, and amazing movie feature. Great for many skill levels.
I bought this camera three months ago at Amazon.com, and so far I am very pleased. The camera seems to be of such great quality, and it really has a professional feel to it. It is lightweight, and it fits very well in my hand. Because of the kind of bulky shape of the camera, it is easier to grab onto than one of the smaller cameras, and it is therefore less likely to slip out of my hand, as I have a firmer grab of it.
My favorite part about this camera is its 10 x optical zoom feature, which is completely amazing. As an example I took a picture of a sea gull at the beach from more than 10 meters away, and the details in the picture is completely incredible. I can actually see the tiny layers of the feathers, and the focus on the seagull is amazing.
The only two negatives I have about this camera, is that it took me a while, to learn how to focus the camera, especially when taking photos inside. I might just have been my novice skills that needed to be adjusted; but I have heard from several different sources that they had the same problem with the camera. Three months of training and playing around with the different settings and options have done me a lot of good though, and I the pictures I am able to take with this camera now are completely amazing. The details are so incredible, the colors are fantastic and the shutter speed is absolutely spectacular. If you hold the shooting button down half way to find the focus, you can then press down the button all the way, and if you keep it there it will keep taking photos, which is an excellent feature on this camera.
The other negative comment that I have specifically about the camera is the lens cap, since it seems to be somewhat fragile, and I think it is a bit odd to have the cap hanging from the camera in a string, when I shoot. It makes it often gets in the way, and I am a bit puzzled as to why Panasonic have not chosen to make the lens cap automatic, as this camera is excellent in every other way.
I love the movie quality of this camera, as most of my family lives overseas, we have used this feature a lot. I have had many friends and relatives ask me whether I had bought a new digital video camera, and they have all been surprised that a still camera can take such quality video. It is almost impossible to see that the movie is from a digital camera, and as far as I can tell, it is only the size of your memory card that sets the limit for the length. I have a 2 GB memory card, and I have shot many five minutes films before I run out of space.
One negative thing that I have to say about the movie function, is that there is no zoom on the movie feature.
The package I bought from Amazon.com included one Panasonic battery and a editing program called PhotofunStudio. I will have to say that in comparison to the camera, this program is not up to date. It is very basic, and I have had to download a Corel program in order to get the most benefit out of this great camera.
I can definitely recommend this camera to others, it is a great camera with excellent features and an amazing zoom, and it is simply incredible compared to the price.
If you buy this camera, make sure you have a large memory card for it, since the high quality pictures take up a lot of space. I have a 2 GB card (not Panasonic), and it works perfect with this camera. Another item that is important to purchase is a second battery, since the Panasonic battery runs out rather quickly, and because it is always handy to have an extra battery with you. This way you will never miss out on a great photo opportunity.
