Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Camera for Pix and Video, July 2, 2006
I don't need a professional quality camera, nor a "prosumer" model as I want a camera I can easily put in my fanny pack along with some trail mix and a flashlight and hit the trail or tourist spots. This is a nice relatively small camera that has a powerful 12x zoom. I've attached my pix of a semi taken at regular and 12x to give an idea of the distance you can be from your subject and still take a great picture.
I purchased Panasonic's first iteration of this camera, the FZ1, a couple years ago. It was less than 3mp, but that was fine for printing 5x7 (and even up to 8x10). Here's why: the first mark of a good camera is not the megapixel count, but the lens that lets the light in. Four companies make great camera lenses. They are Zeiss, Leica, Nikon and Canon. Nikon and Canon of course make cameras. Certain Sony cameras use Zeiss lenses. Leica makes its own cameras, but Panasonic was able to persuade them to design a set of lenses that Panasonic can use (I imagine in return Panasonic takes care of the digital components and manufacturing for Leica's own series of digital cameras). Although common in video cameras Panasonic was (from what I've read at least) the first to bring image stabilization technology to ordinary digital cameras (despite Canon having developed this for certain of its telephoto L-series lenses and awesome binoculars). Thank goodness! It's vital for zooming as handshake will really spoil many shots.
So anyway, as should now be obvious, a buyer's first consideration should be the quality of the lens as that's what lets the light through and permits focusing on the image. Then is image stabilization. Don't leave home without it (in this respect the reviews I've read say you should set the image stabilization feature to only come on when the picture is being taken rather than keeping it always on). Only after those two features should you think about megapixels. That's why I was perfectly happy having my FZ1 even though it only had 2.1 megapixels. The wonderful Leica lens let in plenty of light and color even at zoom and macro. (TIP: if you're planning to print at 5x7, you can set your image resolution to only 3-4 megapixels rather than the full 6 megapixels and that will allow you to take more pix on the same size memory card while still getting enough resolution in almost all instances to print excellently for 5x7 and more than enough for e-mail or a webpage.)
What I didn't like about the FZ1, however, was the poor quality of the video. That's why when I read that Panasonic had doubled the video quality in the FZ7 and the TZ1 I went and bought a new camera. First I bought the TZ1 as it's even smaller than the FZ1 and it can fit in an off the shelf camera case, but it's only 10x and I just wanted 12x. Now I've got what I want. Hurrah!
In addition to what is now really great Quicktime video (only $30 to download the Quicktime editor from Apple so you can stitch together video segments), you can now select the aspect ratio to either the usual format (4:3) or a panorama format (16:9). Hurrah again!
It's also got a much larger LCD screen so it's much easier to frame shots than it was before.
There's more I could write about the great stuff, but this should suffice. Here's what I feel there is to not like for the average person. First, there's still no good camera case for this camera. It's absolutely shocking to me that the only case I've seen from Panasonic is one in which you stuff the camera in sideways (this is a really easy to fix screwup and they should probably hire Lowe to design a nice camera bag for this). I don't mind putting this camera in my fanny pack (I've done it for almost 2 years with the FZ1 without incident) but I would spend the money for a nice case that fit snugly so Panasonic is just leaving money on the table by not doing so.
Second, I don't understand why I can't zoom in and out when taking video. The TZ1 will do this so why not the FZ7?
Third, in low light you will get grainier pictures than you might with some other cameras. If you're planning on taking mostly interior night club shots you'll definitely want a different camera (a "prosumer" or better that you can add a more powerful flash to). For me, not a problem. For you, maybe.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
CRYSTAL CLEAR PICS FOOL PROOF, June 26, 2009
ANY ONE CAN TAKE GREAT PICS WITH THIS JEWEL OF TECHNOLOGY,EASY TO OPERATE AND IF YOU PUT IT IN CONTINUOS SHOOTING MODE YOU GET AWESOME PICS AS FAST AS YOU CAN PRESS THE SHUTTER, NICE HEFTY BATTERY THAT LASTS A LONG TIME, THIS IS TRULY A MINIATURE DSLR LIKE CAMERA AND OF COURSE IS EQUIPPED WITH LEGENDARY GERMAN lEICA LENS AND PANASONIC TECHNOLOGY YOU JUST CANNOT GO WRONG WITH THIS HONEY..GET ONE YOU'LL ENJOY IT FOR MANY YEARS.
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