Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ8K 8MP Digital Camera with 5x Wide Angle MEGA Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Black)
With both a 32mm wide-angle Leica DC Vario-Elmar lens and a 5x zoom, this is one camera that does it all. You can fit more in the photo than you can with a 35mm lens, so you can get more of a sweeping landscape in a single shot. The 5x zoom is great for capturing dramatic shots of small or distant subjects. There's also an Extra Optical Zoom function that boosts zoom power to 8.9x in 3-megapixel resolution mode.The DMC-LZ8 Lumix digital camera gives you a choice of four exposure modes: Program AE (P), Aperture Priority AE (A), Shutter Priority AE (S) and Manual (M). This gives you the flexibility and creative freedom to capture more expressive shots. You can also fine tune the settings in the Scenery, Portrait, Sports and Night Portrait scene modes on the mode dial to better suit the shooting conditions. This makes it easier to capture the exact image you have in mind.Simply set the LZ8 to iA mode and let the camera do the rest. Intelligent Scene Selector chooses the mode that best fits the situation; MEGA Optical Image Stabilization (O.I.S.) helps prevent blurring from hand-shake; Intelligent ISO Control helps prevent motion blur; and Face Detection helps produce clear portraits by optimizing the focus and exposure settings.You can easily change settings such as auto focus, light metering, white balance, ISO sensitivity, image size, image quality and so on. There's no need to switch to the menu screen.The brightness and contrast of the large 2.5" diagonal LCD adjust automatically in 10 steps as ambient light conditions change, so images are clear, bright and easy to see day or night, indoors or outdoors.
Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ8K 8MP Digital Camera with 5x Wide Angle MEGA Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Black) Accessories
Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ8K 8MP Digital Camera with 5x Wide Angle MEGA Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Black) Reviews
It was at first an OK camera for the price, BUT the screen cracked spontaneously after less than 6 weeks of light use, and neither the seller nor Panasonic would repair, replace or refund it.
I searched on line, and found picture after picture of similar cracks on various lower end Lumix cameras, typically starting from the lower half of the right edge of the screen. This seems to be a consistent problem, and when we called Panasonic customer service they specifically asked if it was a cracked screen and said they would replace the camera for a price that was more than the retail price.
The camera was not dropped or whacked or abused and I'm sure by now Panasonic knows this is happening. I hope they man up and take care of this but in the mean time I would caution very strongly against buying any of this line of cameras.
Pros :
> lots of features and full manual control.
> very good LCD display.
> good pictures when used in the program mode and the settings tweaked.
> solid construction quality.
> uses AA batteries.
Cons :
> LCD screen is very glossy and scratches easy ( get a screen protector).
> long shot delay with flash.
> very noisy pictures when in any of the auto/scene modes.
> poor resolution in sizes above 3MP.
I noticed as the picture size goes up the more a picture is compressed resulting in loss of detail. I have found the best resolution is obtained when picture size is kept at 3MP or below.
I bought this camera as my husband's Christmas present. He intends to take it on hikes, but it has only been backstage with him so far. It seems to take good pictures, but we haven't yet put it through the paces.
This camera was fantastic for the 7 months that it worked. It completely stopped working in early January after not having been dropped and receiving no rough handling. I am giving this product 2 stars in order to alert consumers to buy NOTHING from Panasonic. I was instructed to ship everything to their service center in McAllen, TX, which I did. Thank goodness I used UPS and had the package insured. Panasonic has no record of the case number they generated for my problem, cannot find me in the system when I call, and when I give them the model number information for this camera they inform me that this model cannot be received into the system because it's no longer in production. I had been told I would receive a replacement within 10 days of their receipt of my unit, but I don't expect to ever receive a thing at this point. My phone calls are met with rudeness and when I ask to speak to a manager I'm informed that they're all "in a meeting." I demanded a new camera be shipped to me and was informed that since my camera hasn't technically been received by them, regardless of tracking information, they will send me nothing.
Seriously. Buy nothing from this company. I just ordered a low end Cannon so I won't miss anymore weeks of my 9 month old son's life.
Bought this camera to replace an older Panasonic model. The actual resolution is better than that of the newer, more expensive models (read more megapixels & zoom) which seem to have added noise (graininess). Would recommend this model for a small,light point and shoot.
Shutter lag is not bad if you use a good brand class 6 SDHC card. The read and write speeds of lower (2 & 4) class and plain SD cards is just not sufficient for high megapixel cameras.
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