( 59 reviews )
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Posted: Aug 2 2009
When we were in Italy together, she used it constantly. Happy hunting!
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Posted: Jul 12 2009
I bought this camera after reading the Digital Photography Review Budget Camera Group Tests (Q4 2008) on its eponymous web site - where it earned a "Highly Recommended" rating and was the overall winner. The "contestants" were: Canon Powershot A470, Canon Powershot A590 IS, Fujifilm FinePix Z20fd, Kodak Easyshare C1013, Nikon Coolpix L18, Olympus FE-360, Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ8, Samsung L210 and Sony Cybershot DSC-W120. You can read the original report by googling "Digital Photography Review Budget Camera Group Tests (Q4 2008)." I am happy to report that the camera definitely met my expectations and then some. Full manual controls, aperture priority, shutter priority, tons of scene modes, AA batteries, very good image quality... you get the drift. I recently pitted this camera in my own one-shot group test against four other P&S cameras: Fuji Finepix 2650, Sony Cybershot DSC W80, Fuji F30 and Panasonic DMC TZ5. I recently took three different shots near the Georgetown C&O Canal boat in Washington DC on a partly cloudy day around 2:45 PM using each of the above five cameras under similar conditions - low fixed ISO of around 100, outdoors, AWB, partly cloudy day in aperture priority (F/8 for LZ8 and F30, 1/50 and 1/60 sec respectively) or similar mode (landscape for W80 (F/2.8, 1/320 sec), "manual" for Fuji Finepix 2650 - F/3.5, 1/180 sec) and auto for TZ5 (F/3.3, 1/200 sec). The TZ5 was clearly a cut above the rest and my old faithful Fuji 2650 is beginning to show its limitations but the other three turned out to be somewhat closer to each other in image quality than I would have imagined, at least under these specific conditions. The "low light king" Fuji F30 has the most vivid colors among all the five with the corresponding Finepix color setting of F-Chrome, and is a notch ahead of the Sony DSC W80 and Panasonic Lumix DMC LZ8 in terms of details captured and overall image quality. You can see the results on flickr - just add a slash photos slash sbansban1 after the URL. I have also used the LZ8 for nightshots with and without a tripod, indoors in tungsten light, in macro mode, to shoot fireworks and of course, outside in broad daylight in landscape and other modes including P (Program auto), Aperture priority, Shutter priority and full manual modes. In each situation the camera has performed quite well. If someone wants to nitpick he / she might find the auto white balance without flash under tungsten light giving a yellow color cast but that can be corrected quite easily using the custom white balance or in Photoshop. Also, I did not check the shutter lag etc as I really don't have too many reasons to care about it so you'll have to gather that info from elsewhere. I personally have no complaints whatsoever, except maybe one: It lacks a "vivid" color mode that I like to use a lot - in fact almost all the time. So I sometimes have to spend 5/6 minutes to post process certain special images in Adobe Photoshop - under Image->Adjust, turn up the saturation a few notches, adjust the "levels" histogram and play with the curves etc. which for me is no big deal. All in all, a great, solid camera.
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Posted: Jul 10 2009
When my Canon A710is died, I needed a point-and-shoot that would fit a pocket better, offer similar zoom range, and good battery life... and I needed it quickly. I did some quick research, and had settled on another camera, but came across a deal I couldn't pass up on Amazon. Being short on cash I decided to look into it further. The Lumix rated well on some of the review sites, so I went with it. For the money, this is a solid performer. First the bad. It takes very natural pictures in good light, but in lower light the pictures look a little overprocessed by the noise reduction in the camera. It's also noticeably slower to focus as the light level drops. It does have a focus assist light, but it seems like the camera first tries to focus without it, then turns it on and tries again.. making focus in poor light annoyingly slow. The flash is strong, but a little harsh compared to the A710. Most of this is only visible in side by side comparison to photos from the A710, so unless you blow up your photos and print them, it's really not a problem. Using the iA mode drastically slows down the performance of the camera. The idea is good, but with every shot, the camera takes nearly a full second to decide on settings to use for that shot. In theory that's nice, but I think the camera may have too many choices for it's own good. The flash is also very slow to charge between shots. Now the good. When you use the other scene modes or manual settings, the performance really speeds up. It's never what I'd consider a snappy performer, but shot to shot times and shutter release to recorded image times drastically improve. The display is sharper and brighter than the A710, and the controls are just as intuitive, if a little different (OK, yeah... I'm a Canon fan). The zoom is relatively fast for a camera in this class, and it has a neat little E.zoom button next to the shutter that very quickly takes you from whatever zoom setting you're currently at to full optical zoom, full optical + digital zoom, and back to wide angle. I find this feature to be very handy. The LZ8's wide angle lens is nice, and because of this it's easier to use in small spaces than most other point and shoots I've owned. It's quick to power on and off, and I found the controls easy to use even with large hands. I also like the fact that the SD card door is separate from the battery door. The face detection is nice, but makes the camera just slightly slower. Battery life in the short time I've had it has been exemplary. I used up the set that came with the camera the first day I had it, which made me a little nervous, but I immediately switched to the 2300 mAh rechargeables I used in my old camera and performance has been great. Between experimenting with it the first week I had it, two birthday parties, a weekend at the beach, and day to day use I still haven't drained the second set of batteries yet.. after around 300 photos, many with flash. I never got more than 200 shots out of the A710, usually somewhere around 80 to 100. Flash recharge time is increasing as the batteries drain, as expected, but is noteworthy on a camera with such a slow recharge time to begin with. Most likely, after I've finished stretching battery life as far as I can, I'll get back into my old habit of swapping in fresh batteries before every event. Overall this camera isn't a great replacement for the A710, but as the 710 was a higher end (and therefore more expensive) camera back when I bought it, it's not completely fair to compare it to the LZ8. Having said that, I did expect the performance of a 4 year newer camera in this class to be slightly better. I bought this camera so I don't have to carry my dSLR around all the time, and for that purpose it's great. It stays in my work van most of the time, and fits a jacket pocket on a motorcycle ride easily. Battery performance so far is good enough that I would be comfortable not carrying a spare set for a day if the ones in the camera are fairly fresh.. a new experience for me. It's inexpensive enough that I wouldn't get upset if it were to get damaged, but still takes satisfactory pictures. It lost one star for the sluggish performance in iA mode and slightly soft low light images. The other star was lost for it's slow full shutter press to image taken time. I made the right choice for the money I had to spend at the time, and for about $130 (with overnight shipping) this camera performs well.
