Panasonic Lumix® DMC-LZ5 Digital Camera

Review:
This is the second digital camera I've bought in the last couple days, the last one I had was a disastrous waste of my time so I expected the worst when I bought this one - I was proven wrong and my faith in the digital world re-established with the use of this camera! I tried a few quickie shots in the parking lot before I left Fry's Electronics, just in case I didn't like it or if it died upon use like my last one. It took 5 pictures before filling up the internal card (they total 13.2mb). The camera didn't seem to have much delay between shots and the lcd looked really nice when we reviewed the pictures.

After a successful basic test I turned it off and installed the 2gb SD 133x card I bought with the camera for $99 and turned it back on to snap a few more pictures, worked great so we drove to the beach and started shooting. 149 photos, 7 movies and 5 photos w/sound later, we'd used 1.88gb - amazing how much space was used imho. The photos totaled 367mb, the movies 1.52gb and the photos w/sound were 531k.

The photo quality is great and with the very short delay between shots I was able to catch my 2 1/2 year old before, during and after throwing a single stone into the water - I was impressed with that alone but it got better! The video quality was great and for a 4m42s video it used 380mb of space so basically 1.35mb/s for video - not too bad for a 640x480 memory WITH SOUND. I hated the fact that I didn't have a cam corder at previous trips to the beach and didn't have audio to go with some precious videos of my kids but thankfully this wont be another repeat of that old frustration going forward!

Anyone that's ever used digital zoom knows that your image quality goes into the crapper with it - but this camera has a decent 6x optical zoom that makes getting decent close ups possible without digital loss you'd normally see.

Now, I have 5, yes count them five kids - having them all be still at the same time and looking at the camera is about as likely as playing the lottery - so with this camera being able to take a series of photos I may actually get one or two with everyone looking and without one or two of them half blurred out in the process. Something I look forward to try more extensively but so far it's only produced 1 blurred image out of 149 so I'd call it a success so far.

How many camera's have you bought that came with the cheapo batteries that last a few photos and have to reach for your good ol rechargables you keep on hand - I'd say, every camera I've used 'before' this one. It came with something I hadn't heard of before called 'Oxyride' batteries that lasted me through all the photos/videos I took and the transfer to my pc - and they still reflect as being at half life on the meter. I still have my rechargables getting ready but I'm still surprised these work so well.

Here's a gripe though - the amount of time it took to get these photos/videos off the camera took forever. I just checked and with the first photo being copied over at 6:54pm and the last one at 7:53 that was probably the longest copy I've ever experienced from a camera - though granted, I've never had a 2gb SD card before but I'd warn you that this is the fastest SD card you can get right now as well and it's rated at 20MB/s so something seems to be slowing it down but anyway its the biggest gripe I have. It'd have been nice to have a camera case and power adapter but I'll survive.

One last thing to add. I've seen too many digital camera's lcd screens get scratched or poked, making them awful or impossible to look at - this camera's lcd has a nice plastic window above it keeping you safely distanced from the actual screen. An excellent idea that will surely save my camera from my kids on many occasions to come!


Now, for some Specs here's a few.

Specs:

Camera Effective Pixels: 6.0 Megapixels {Slightly less than the total number of pixels normally stated for an image sensor (CCD, CMOS, etc.), this term represents the actual number of pixels used to record an image.}

CCD (Image Sensor): 1/2.5" ~ 6.37 Total Megapixel CCD w/Primary Color Filter

Optical Zoom: 6x

Digital Zoom: 4x (Max 24x combined w/optical zoom)

Focal Length: f=6.1-36.6mm (35mm equivalent: 37-222mm)

Lumix DC Vario Lens: 8 elements in 7 groups (2 Aspherical Lenses/ 3 Aspherical surfaces)

Aperture: Wide: F2.8/F5.6 (2 steps), Tele: F4.5 - F9 (2 steps)

Optical Image Stabilizer: MEGA O.I.S. (Mode 1 / Mode 2 )
MEGA O.I.S.: O.I.S. stands for Optical Image Stabilizer. MEGA O.I.S. technology helps, solve the problem of unintentional hand movement that can result in blurry images, particularly with telephoto shots. Mode 1: In this mode, image stabilization is continuously on. It helps you to compose shots in the LCD monitor and to see the focusing condition more clearly. Mode 2: This mode corrects the image the instant that you press the shutter button. It maximizes the compensating capability of the lens in all directions for more effective correction.

Focusing Area: Normal: Wide 50cm / Tele, 120cm - infinity, Macro/Simple/Motion, Picture: Wide 5cm / Tele, 50cm - infinity

AF Metering: 1 point, 1 point high speed, 3 points high speed, 5 points, Spot

Focus: Auto Focus System; Normal/Macro (Dial)

AF Assist Lamp: Yes

ISO Sensitivity: Auto / 80 / 100 / 200 / 400 (High Sensitivity Mode: 800 - 1600)

White Balance: Auto/Daylight/Cloudy/Halogen/White Set/White Balance Adjustment (except for Auto Set)

Exposure: Program AE {A mode where the camera automatically calculates the combination of aperture and shutter speed that will properly expose a scene.}

Exposure Compensation: 1/3 EV Step, ? 2 EV

Backlight Compensation: Yes (at simple mode)

Auto Bracketing (AE): +1/3EV-1EV Step, 3 Frames

Light Metering: Intelligent Multiple

Scene Modes: Dial: Simple, Normal Picture, Economy, Macro, SCN1, SCN2:(Portrait, Sports, Food, Scenery, Night Scenery, Night Portrait, Fireworks, Party, Snow, Baby, Soft Skin, Starry Sky, Candle, Soft Skin, Baby1, Baby2, High Sensitivity), Moving Image, Playback.

Shutter Speed: 8 - 1/2,000 sec.; Starry Sky Mode: 15, 30, 60 sec.

Self Timer: 10 seconds / 2 seconds

Auto Review: 1 sec, 3 sec, zoom

Review: 1x, 4x, 8x

Picture Adjustment: Natural, Standard, Vivid

Color Effect Mode: Cool, Warm, Black & White, Sepia

Recording Format: Still Image: JPEG (design rule for camera file system), DPOF corresponding; Still Image with Audio: JPEG (design rule for camera file system) + QuickTime; Motion Images: QuickTime Motion JPEG

Image Quality: Fine / Standard

Motion Image (Quick Time? Motion JPEG): 4:3 Aspect Ratio: 30 or 10 fps (320 x 240 pixels); 640 x 480 pixels (only with SD Memory Card)

Recording Image Size (Pixels): 4:3 Aspect Ratio (Still Image): 2816 x 2112, 2048 x 1536, 1600 x 1200, 1280 x 960, 640 x 480; 3:2 Aspect Ratio (Still Image): 2816 x 1880, 2048 x 1360; 16:9 Aspect Ratio (Still Image): 2816 x 1584, 1920 x 1080; Motion Image (4:3 Aspect Ratio): 640 x 480, 320 x 240

Burst Shooting Mode, Full-resolution image: Standard Mode: Up to 8 images at 3 or 2 frames/sec.; Fine Mode: Up to 6 image

Unlimited Consecutive Shooting: Yes (Allows Unlimited Consecutive Shooting up to the capacity of the SD Memory Card.)

Still Image Recording with Audio: 5 seconds

Audio Dubbing: Maximum of 10 Seconds

Real-time Histograms: Yes

Composition Guide Lines: Yes

Built-in Memory: 14MB

Scene Mode Help Screen: Yes

Auto Angle Detection: Yes

Economy Mode: Yes (Dial)

Built-in Flash Mode: Auto, Auto/Red-eye Reduction, Slow Sync./Red-eye Reduction, Forced On/Off, Wide: 0.5 - 4.2m (ISO Auto), Tele: 0.5 - 2.6m (ISO Auto), High Sensitivity Mode: 0.8 - 5.7 (Wide), 0.8 - 3.5 (Tele)

LCD Monitor: 2.5" Diagonal Polycrystalline TFT LCD Display (85k pixels), Field of view: approx. 100%

Playback Mode: 25, 16 or 9-Thumbnail Display; Zoomed Playback (16x max); Image Rotation; Slide Show; Favorite Pictures; Resizing; Trimming, Copy, Protection; DPOF Setting

OSD Language: English, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese (Traditional), German, Italian, French

Recording Media: Built-in Memory; SD Memory Card; Multimedia Card

Microphone: Yes

Speaker: No

Interface: DC Input, A/V Output (NTSC/PAL), USB

Direct Print: PictBridge

Cables: AV & USB