We look at Panasonic’s new spring assortment to highlight the most exciting.
Spring is the season for new cameras. The snow and cold weather slowly disappear, flowers begin to poke up from the ground and photographers everywhere can focus on vibrant, colorful things instead of gloomy, gray slush and ice. The photo industry’s annual mega-trade event, affectionately known as the PMA Show, is held in Las Vegas and signals the beginning of the new model year. Every camera manufacturer exhibits their wares and showcases their new products. For 2009, many companies, including Panasonic, got an early start and announced their new lineup in advance of the show.
Panasonic is adding nearly a dozen new compact models to their current assortment. Prices of the new Lumix offerings start around $100 for a modest 4X zoom, 8-megapixel model and climb all the up to the $400 range for the fully featured 12X zoom with high quality video.
This is on top of their existing lineup which includes the category-shattering Lumix G1 interchangeable lens SLR and super high quality Lumix DMC-LX3. If we consider those as well, we can say that Panasonic covers every price point from $99 up to $799 and truly offers something for everyone.
If you are a serious photographer—not a professional necessarily, but someone who enjoys a sharp photograph and appreciates finer features like wideangle lenses and/or long zooms—there are three new Lumix models that should be on your radar. Each is as unique as can be, and all three could earn a spot on your equipment roster—for different reasons.
Lumix DMC-FX48
Slim enough to slip into a pocket, equipped a professional 25mm wideangle Leica lens…that describes the new Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX48. It’s the latest model in a long line of FX cameras—in fact, I wrote about the FX01 for this website back in 2006: http://www.takegreatpictures.com/Articles/Details/params/object/9598/default.aspx
The FX48 has a 12.1-megapixel imager and a powerful 5x optical zoom (equivalent to 25mm to 125 mm on a 35mm film camera). It has a host of other features too, and we’ll review the highlights below—but first it’s important to explain why this model deserves special recognition within the new Panasonic camera lineup.
You can’t take many pictures if you don’t take the camera. In other words, unless a camera is compact enough to be convenient to carry—but not so small that it lacks features—you’ll leave her at home. The Lumix FX48 measures 3.75 inches long by 2 inches tall and is 1/8 inch short of being a scant one-inch thick. Now, a standard American business card measures 3.5 by 2 inches—so you can see I’m talking about small. Remarkably, the camera still manages a 2.5 inch LCD monitor and the whole package—with battery and SD card—tips the scales at about 5.25 ounces. Long story told short, this camera is compact enough to be with you wherever you go. And the luxurious fit and finish will make you proud to have it in your pocket.
The Lumix FX48 has a long list other features, as well. Some of them can be found in other Panasonic cameras. The Intelligent Auto mode, for example, includes an advanced Face Recognition feature that not only knows when it’s focusing on a person’s face, it remembers familiar faces and suggests that you register them—in order of importance. That way, the next time the camera encounters a face that’s been cataloged it knows its priority and biases toward your favorites. You can even attach a cute little heart icon on your Sweetie’s entry so that it will appear every time their mug appears on the LCD. For your more serious side, the IA mode also enables AF tracking, Mega O.I.S. (Optical Image Stabilizer), Intelligent ISO Control, Intelligent Scene Selector, and Intelligent Exposure—all in addition to Face Detection with Face Recognition.
The Venus Engine V digital signal processor provides sophisticated professional features like a shutter release time lag that’s about 0.007 second (don’t ask me how they measure something that short) and a high-speed burst shooting rate that bangs out 10 shots in one second (at reduced resolution). At normal speed it’s still quite fast, and can shoot 1.8 consecutive frames per second without limitation until the memory card is full. The Venus V engine is very efficient, too, and delivers up to 350 shots on a single charge of the included lithium ion battery.
If you enjoy creating short movie clips with your digital camera, you’ll be happy to know that the Lumix FX48 can capture at HD resolutions up to 1280x720 at 30 fps, and video files (MOV or MPEG2) can be uploaded directly to YouTube.
Lumix DMC-TS1
Here’s a camera that can take it when the others can’t—because it’s waterproof, shockproof and dustproof, and can be used underwater at a depth of ten feet without harm. You can even drop it from a height of about five feet without shock damage (it could get scuffed though, so don’t use it for a hockey puck). Even if you don’t swim, the ease with which the TS1 ignores adverse conditions will appeal to you because it means that for the first time you can ski, go canoeing, walk in the rain or zip through the lawn sprinkler without worrying that your camera gets ruined.
And best of all, there’s a REAL CAMERA inside this suit of waterproof armor. The TS1 is 12.1-megapixel, 4.6X zoom camera that utilizes the all new AVCHD Lite High Definition (HD) video recording capabilities. The exciting AVCHD Lite feature is explained in more detail below, but in a nutshell it is the most advanced and most efficient video system that a digital still camera can offer.
The Lumix TS1 also provides a real wideangle-to-telephoto range (28mm to 128mm equivalent), Face Recognition (detailed above), Panasonic’s well-established Optical Image Stabilization (O.I.S.) and a dual-CPU Venus Engine HD for digital signal processing at 2.4X processing capability. It features HDMI output, 0.005 second shutter lag and a hot new panorama assist mode. In short, it can do just about everything you want to do—and it can do it underwater or in the rain.
Lumix DMC-ZS3
High end, fully featured camera with impressive 12X zoom, 25mm wideangle to 300mm super telephoto Leica lens and AVCHD Lite video—the ZS3 is a camera that even an inveterate DSLR shooter will carry with them when they need something portable because it has all of the most desirable features. It produces simply great images, and that’s what it’s all about.
AVCHD Lite is the video buzz word you’ll be hearing more about. Jointly developed by Panasonic and Sony, this new recording format nearly doubles the recording time in HD quality compared with the conventional Motion JPEG format. It will record in 720p high definition with enhanced audio quality, and create movies that look incredible even on big screen TVs.
The Lumix ZS3 features Panasonic’s Intelligent Auto mode which provides the extended feature set detailed above, including Face Recognition, AF Tracking and the rest. It also offers Intelligent Scene Selector that will seamlessly switch between Normal, Portrait, Macro, Scenery and Low Light modes automatically according to the situations you encounter.
The ZS3 also features a large, bright 3-inch LCD that provides 460,000 dot resolution and a wide viewing angle. The screen brightness automatically adjusts in eleven steps as the ambient light level changes, so it’s comfortably visible under dim as well as very bright lighting conditions.
So which do you choose? That’s the dilemma. Each camera has a definitive characteristic that makes it suitable for certain circumstances. If you have always wanted to do things in bad weather or dusty/sandy/dirty conditions, go with the Lumix TS1. If you need a powerful camera that’s so compact it easily slips into a pocket or purse, pick up a Lumix FX48. But if you are looking for a mainstream, everyday primary camera, the new Lumix ZS3 is hard to beat.
