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32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pretty cool little gadget, June 19, 2008
This review is from: Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS5P-K 10.1MP Digital Camera with 4x Wide Angle MEGA Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Black) (Electronics)
This is the first digital camera I've purchased, and so far I think it's pretty awesome. I'm a little technophobic, and have always loved taking pictures with my old Pentax 35mm manual, but this camera is great for what I'm using it for, and has allowed me to learn how to take better pictures.
As a student I wanted a lightweight camera with a nice lens that could easily be taken on a study abroad trip, as well as on backpacking trips and hikes. This camera has a Leica lense, which is of great quality glass and this company makes very decent microscope lenses so I figured it'd be a solid quality-over-quantity purchase.
This camera has performed exceptionally well on the snowy and overexposed summit of a 14,000 ft peak, and the quality of the pictures are more than I had hoped for. It's very easy to understand, especially for someone who isn't great with modern gadgets. The zoom can get very detailed close ups of animals, and there are many options for different scene modes, including candlelight and starry sky scenes, but if you're into not thinking about it the intelligent auto mode is very efficient and consistently takes nice shots. Manual adjustments can be made to compensate on different exposures, one can edit the picture from the camera before downloading it onto a PC, and it often finds and focuses on faces automatically.
Another nice addition is trip planning and the calendar, where if you're going out of country or far away you can set the time of your journey and pre-set the time ahead or behind, which I think is great because I like to know when I took pictures and in what order. The manual is easy to understand, too.
Overall, excellent camera for someone not wanting to spend a lot, like students and most people :) I think it's a good introduction especially for people who are used to old point and shoot cameras, but it has enough to offer to teach people to be better picture takers.
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33 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Like anything, familiarity develops simplicity, June 13, 2008
This review is from: Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS5P-K 10.1MP Digital Camera with 4x Wide Angle MEGA Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Black) (Electronics)
I've owned mostly Nikon Coolpix point and shoots for years and nothing was more complex than the interfaces to these cameras. So when I got the Lumix, I expected the same. But unlike the previous review, this camera was very simple to understand. Maybe going from the harrowing interface of something like the Nikon to something fairly simple like the Lumix made it an easy transition (kind of like driving BMW with i-Drive to a Honda). Don't get me wrong, I love the Nikons, but the Lumix's portability (small, small size), Leica lens and wide angle ability, is simply the best.
The battery and SD card placement is well designed (meaning, next to each other with one panel opening to deal with). Trigger button is significant and zoom in and out switch is where you'd want it. The screen IS the back of the camera, which grants a viewing area that's impressive.It's solid in feel and again, small enough for the pocket, bag, and hand palm. It's size is also one of those things that make you think, "I could lose this", but that's the price of it's footprint. Just look after your stuff - or yeah, you'll lose it.
Pics are very good. At 10MP, details are impressive. The wide angle tends to add a parallax, but nothing that's significantly distorting.
Check this camera out, by all means - especially as the vacation documenting device that is simple to take, simple to use and easy on the wallet.
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
great camera, September 4, 2008
This review is from: Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS5P-K 10.1MP Digital Camera with 4x Wide Angle MEGA Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Black) (Electronics)
This is my third digital camera and by far the best. I used it for a trip to England. It worked beautifully in a wide variety of settings. For the most part I used the "auto-settings" and I got great pictures from closeups to distant landscape, indoors in old building lighting to bright backlighted outdoors seens to low light nighttime indoors. The anti-shake features eliminated any user problems for high speed pictures and rapid ready to shoot and multiple shot in a row options. The design for the memory card and battery in the same slot is well thought out and easy to use. I didn't begin to scratch the surface of the additional features since the auto-settings worked so well. I have had Sony Cybershot and Olympus Camedia Ultrazoom cameras before and this is by far the best performance and far better value for the price at less than $200. I recently had a water mishap with my camera that unfortunately caused my camera to die and I immediately replaced it. (taking a full immersion in a canoe mishap is probably more than any digital camera is designed to handle)
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