After thousands and thousands of dollars spend on DSLR...

sirsloop

I got out and blow $425 on a blue Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3A, (2) 4GB SDHC cards, and a second battery. :rofl



After comparison to a lot of other camera's some review sites, I finally gave in and got one of these panasonic mega-zooms. I decided on this thing over the Canon SD850IS and Nikon S50C (which nearly had me won over with that awesome wireless download, but LOUSY battery). The thing sports a whopping 28-280mm f/3.3-4.9 lens, IS, and image quality that is "good enough" for me. I'm reading these reviews and had to keep telling myself to stop comparing this to a EOS body with a 70-200/2.8L strapped on it. Its meant to fit in our pocket and be a camera we feel relatively safe handing to someone so they can take a snapshot of my fiancee and I together. Can't wait to get it :thumb

ziggy53

Congratulations and keep us posted.

UP N MTNS

I've been looking at one just to carry with me in the truck and walking around town....Please let us know how you like it, I'm still on the fence about picking one up

FYI: B&H has a $75.00 mail in rebate going on those till Sept 8..

UP N MTNS

Edit: I just placed my order for one

I got an extra battery and the Lowepro case with shipping mine came out to $354--minus the $75 rebate = $279

S. Horton

My brother (XTi owner) selected that for my parents -- I've used it, it is VERY nice! Enjoy!

sirsloop

I just got the camera in this morning. For a P&S I'm pretty happy so far. Its got easy to use flash control, exposure compensation, and the zoom is nuts! I'm not a fan of digital zoom, but when you have it set on 40x, thats the equivalant of a 1120mm lens . The startup time is good, lock to lock zoom is fast, shutter lag is reasonable. AF compared to what i'm used to is like fred flinstone slow, but you can't have it all in a little package like this.

I haven't been able to go out and shoot yet as my SDHC cards are not arriving until tomorrow or the day after. Here's a quick series that I took, two shots at a time (then clearning off the onboard memory).

Now the reviews on this camera did say that the shots come out pretty flat, in need of post processing. Each of these images went through Canon Digital Photo Pro and recieved "100" (out of 300) on their JPG sharpening tool.

http://www.jdhaesloop.com/pani/P1000026s.JPG

28mm - notice the red/grey/black bike in the back there, on the kick stand (not laying down)


http://www.jdhaesloop.com/pani/P1000027s.JPG

280mm of that red bike


http://www.jdhaesloop.com/pani/P1000027ss.JPG

A crop of the red bike at 280mm, optical only zoom



http://www.jdhaesloop.com/pani/P1000028s.JPG

uncropped 40x digital zoom




anyways... goes to show that digital zoom is crap and you are better off just cropping the optical 10x image

UP N MTNS

Thanks for the mini review... I'm looking forward to mine showing up soon.

claudermilk

sirsloop wrote:

anyways... goes to show that digital zoom is crap and you are better off just cropping the optical 10x image

I could have told you that! I had digital zoom locked out on my old P&S and have instructed my wife to avoid it like the plague--your test shots do a good job of showing why.

BTW, that first wide shot has some massive distortions, the building on the left is looking a bit lazy.

sirsloop

Actually, I think this thing does pretty good w/ distortion. This shot looks funny because i'm shooting down and that building it at a slight angle. It makes it looks screwy compared to the deck railing. Maybe tonight i'll go out and shoot that brick wall and see how bad it bends in at 28mm. I think when you take away the screwy angles it'll end up being pretty flat in the corners. As far as being hazy... ehh.. cant argue w/ that especially when you have no control to stop the lens down and you are used to looking at SLR shots through L glass