Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ2

Ive had 3 digital cameras in the past and this one is by far the best and most reasonably priced. You cant beat the value. I also looked into the canon cameras but the low factor zooms, large sizes and the lack of image stabilization really led me to believe that this was the best camera for the price. The 6x lens works extremely well and the image stabilization works small wonders. You don't have to worry about taking bad pictures with this camera!!!!

Price, Features, Ease of Use

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You have to be an idot to buy any other camera. I'm not kidding. This camera takes awesome pictures and never blurs in my experience. The image stabilization feature is awesome, even at six times zoom. Even when it cannot focus in a pitch black room, our hiding cat comes out perfect, albeit glowing eyes. Don't forget the BURST mode for fast moving objects like children. You will get one with them looking at you eyes open!

We had had another DCM-33 3 megapixel a few years ago which was great. Even without image stabilization, the picutures were perfect. It was stolen. We bought a Pentax, and it sucks. Had it less than a year and it focuses poorly. Almost half our indoor pix were either yellowed or blurred. Try that at Christmas around a tree and you will feel my angst.

My mother bought a new $350 Sony and took pix at our baby shower. Again, half the pix were blurred or soft.

We will NEVER buy anything but a Panasonic. I also read that it was the number one selling brand in Japan. There's a reason.

We have come back to Panasonic. You should'nt bother to look anywhere else.

Look at Costco online where they have it for $150. Great deal.

Burst mode for fast multiple shots like high-end SLS's live.

Focus in any light

Batteries last for hundreds of shots versus about 40 for my 5.0 megapixel Pentax.

Really, ....none.

Panasonic DMC-33
Pentax 5.0 Optio

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At less than $200 the Panasonic LZ2 is a bargain but not to be confused with bargain performance. It's a snappy camera that focuses faster and more consistently under low light than the other cameras I tried, including the overrated Fuji FinePix F10, competent Olympus SP-350, pricey Panasonic FZ30 and the brand-new Panasonic FZ7. In fact, the LZ2 is second only to my recently purchased Olympus E-300 dSLR in autofocus speed and performance. Now that's saying something.

Even though the Panasonic LZ2's lens is not Leica branded, as is the case with Panasonic's higher end models, the results I obtain shooting subjects with fine detail — such as parakeets and their feathering — were much sharper than I obtained using the overrated Fuji FinePix F10. That’s not to say you won’t obtain a soft picture now and then, but overall the consistency of this camera is quite good. As a result, more pictures are "keepers" than not. And that's a good thing when you're trying to capture one of those quick-to-pass picture perfect moments.

Having last entered the digital camera market over six years ago, I expected today's crop of digital cameras to offer much more features and to be relatively hard to operate. But the LZ2 is so self explanatory that within minutes I was shooting pictures without having read the manual. Simply press the menu button to see what is available under each dial position.

In short, there's little to dislike about the Panasonic LZ2. Run it on the highest rechargeable AA batteries you can find and you will enjoy a long battery life, too.

1. Image stabilization. I cannot stress enough: Image stabilization produces more successful pictures and fewer throwaways. You'll still need a tripod as per the user manual for the Candle, Party, Night and Fireworks scenes, but in general you can handhold shots at slower shutters than you can on the likes of most point-and-shoot cameras, including the Fuji FinePix F10.

2. 6x optical zoom in a compact camera. Wow!

3. Dedicated Macro mode — unlike the Olympus SP-350 you don't have to go into a menu to set the camera to Macro. Speaking of Macro, close-ups are one of the LZ2's strong points. You can get as close as 5cm and as long as you don't zoom in too much you will be able to focus nearly as quickly as you can in any other mode. (By comparision, most cameras seem to slow down when focusing in Macro.)

4. Picture Adjustment allows you to change color saturation to suit your tastes. Choices include Natural (my preference), Standard and Vivid.

5. Picture Effect allows you to choose a warm cast, cool cast, sepia or black & white. A number of cameras coming out right now are dropping the sepia setting, so it's nice to have so many choices.

6. White Balance: The AUTO white balance is not quite as good as the Panasonic FZ7 but it's better than any point-and-shoot camera I tested. You can also set your own white balance or use a preset, such as Sunny, Cloudy or Tungsten.

7. PictBridge and DPOF enabled. No problems printing to a printer without a PC or Mac. And you can print the image date, too.

8. Multipoint autofocus option as well as spot, center weighted, etc.

9. AF brackets are large enough to capture a good percentage of your frame. Compared to the overrated Fuji FinePix F10, the autofocus area is much, much larger.

1. Flash is too powerful for Macro subjects. If you zoom in it tames down a bit, but then it also becomes difficult to focus if you begin zooming while in Macro.

2. The LCD should be a higher resolution. Though the LCD is big, it doesn't provide enough pixels to give you a positive perception of how sharp your pictures are.

3. I absolutely HATE the fact that when you hit the "Review" button and delete a photo, the Panasonic cameras — speaking of the LZ2, FZ7 and FZ30 — dump you back into picture taking mode. Consequently, if you want to review and/or delete more than one photo, you have to repeatedly hit the Review button, delete the photo in question, hit the Review button again, wait a second or two for the pictures to load, scroll back through the lineup to the picture you want to delete and repeat the process again. Panasonic: As long as a user is in the Review mode, why not make it necessary to hit the Review key a second time to discontinue the review process rather than defaulting the user back into the picture taking setting?

4. I would like to see improved Depth-of-Field while in Macro mode. Example: If I take a picture of two birds sitting side-by-side on a perch no matter what setting I use one bird will be in sharp focus and the other will not.

Panasonic PVSD4090
Panasonic FZ7
Fuji FinePix F10
Olympus SP-350

Not an issue or reason to call at this point.