Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Panasonic makes the best compact superzoom cameras! Here's why. I was a professional photographer for over twenty years and recently sold all my professional film cameras (35mm, 21/4"x 23/4" and 4" x 5"). I've been searching for a compact superzoom camera that I can keep with me at all times to catch those once-in-a-lifetime shots without the expense or weight of a Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) camera. Keep in mind that a compact superzoom has a smaller imaging sensor and will never truly compete with a high quality DSLR but if you want the best camera available in the compact point-and-shoot category then Panasonic DMC-Z series of cameras wins hands down. I've conducted an exhaustive search of camera review sites and have found Panasonic to consistently meet my standards of excellence. You don't have to take my words for it, you can check out my claims for yourself at the digitalcamerareview and dpreview web sites.
OPTICS:
The heart of any camera is the lens. Nothing else in photography counts without good optics. Panasonic uses Leica DC Vario-Elmar lenses in many of their cameras. Amongst professional photographers Leica has a reputation for quality akin to Rolls Royce. Leica appears to have maintained their reputation in Panasonic cameras by avoiding significant optical flaws. Most superzoom camera optics suffer from multiple flaws. Two optical flaws that I find completely unacceptable are chromatic aberration and uneven or soft focus.
You'll see chromatic aberration as a color fringe (red on one edge and blue or green on the opposite edge) along the edge of an object. It's often most visible near the corner of the image and along the edges of high contrast subjects like a dark car in front of a bright building. Sometimes chromatic aberration is so bad that it can be see in the center of a 4" x 6" photo but it's most often only visible when enlarged to full screen on a 17" or larger monitor. In my opinion, when it comes to chromatic aberration, Panasonic consistently out performs all competitors including Nikon, Canon, Olympus and Sony. I strongly suggest you see this for yourself by looking at web reviews that have full resolution images. Click on the full resolution image, zoom in and scroll from corner to corner and you'll see what I mean.
The second major optical concern is focus. Some camera lenses are sharp in the center of the photo but go slightly out of focus towards the edge of the photo. This usually isn't a problem if you are only going to use your multi-hundred dollar camera to make 4" x 6" prints but soft focus can be a huge disappointment when making larger prints or viewing the photo as a full screen image. The Leica lenses on the Panasonic cameras appear to excel in the category of sharp focus. Again, I suggest you see for yourself by zooming in on full resolution images available from some web review sites.
Other optical concerns include barrel and pincushion, which describe how vertical and horizontal lines can be curved in the photograph even though they were straight in real life. Some barreling or pincushioning is inherent to every zoom and are usually only noticeable at the widest angle or strongest telephoto settings. This type of distortion can be so severe that it distracts the viewer from appreciating the subject of the photograph. Leica does a superb job of minimizing barreling and pincushioning to the point that I find this type of distortion within acceptable limits.
My final comment on the Panasonic DMC-Z series optics is that the wide-angle setting on the zoom lens is equivalent to a 25mm lens on a 35mm camera. In my experience, the wide-angle lens is the most important feature of a zoom lens. You can always crop an image to get the equivalent effect of a stronger telephoto (of course you'll lose some resolution) but there is no similar way to compensate for not having a wide enough lens. Sure you can paste images together using a panoramic mode but you wind up with a long narrow picture that's difficult to put in a frame. Plus, except for the latest top-of-the-line Sony, you can't paste a large group photo together because people will move between shots.
SENSOR:
If the heart of a digital camera is the lens then the soul is the imaging chip and the camera's internal image processing software. Panasonic excels in this area too. Again, I strongly suggest you see for yourself by zooming in on full resolution images available from some web review sites. Every digital camera has software that is designed to minimize the noise introduced into the image by the sensor. If noise reduction is too strong then details are lost and objects start to look like cartoon drawings. If noise reduction is too weak then smooth areas like blue sky or concrete look unnatural because they're covered with dots. Panasonic has managed to achieve a pleasing balance in this category.
CONCLUSION:
Finally, I'd like to mention that, for the most part, I don't care about what photo editing or cataloging software comes with a camera. There's plenty of great software available from third party vendors and if the camera is not capable of producing a quality image then the accompanying software is absolutely useless to me.
So the bottom line is that the Panasonic DMC-Z series has the best combination of lens & sensor/built-in image processing software of any of the point-and-shoot cameras and is the most capable of producing an image that can stand up to being enlarged. Additionally, considering Costco has the Panasonic on sale this month along with their great return policy, I consider Panasonic a great buy.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Panasonic LUMIX DMC-ZS6 12.1 MP DIGITAL CAMERA BLACK - 3.0 " TFT Screen LCD Display
The Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS6 delivers 720p HD movie recording, 25mm ultra wide-angle and powerful 12x optical zoom lens in a compact body to cover virtually any shooting situation. This 12.1-megapixel powerhouse includes an abundance of features like Hi-speed AF, Power OIS for double the corrective power, providing crisp sharp images, Optical Image Stabilization, Intelligent Auto (iA) prevents blurring and provides intelligent ISO control, subject detection and AF tracking.25mm Ultra Wide-angle LensThe DMC-ZS6 features a 25mm ultra wide-angle 12x optical zoom f/3.3-4.9 Leica DC Vario-Elmar lens. Incorporating Panasonic's advanced optical technologies, this lens system is comprised of 10 elements in 8 groups, with 2 ED and 2 aspherical lenses / 3 aspherical surfaces. This lens system enables a remarkable 25 to 300mm range of focal length in a compact body.The 25mm ultra wide-angle lens has about twice the shooting area as a standard 35mm lens. This enhances shooting situations when you're photographing a group of people at a party or shooting a large structure or sweeping landscape while traveling.16x Intelligent Zoom/23.4x Extra Optical ZoomThanks to the newly designed Intelligent Resolution technology extends the zoom ratio by 1.3x while maintaining the picture quality even with digital zoom. This means the 12x optical can virtually extend to 16x equivalent. Furthermore, the Extra Optical Zoom function extends zoom power to 23.4x by using the center part of the large CCD to bring subjects even closer.Sonic Speed AFThe Sonic Speed AF system in the DMC-ZS6 includes numerous re-engineering enhancements, including a higher-speed actuator, optimized algorithms and parallel software processing. The result is fast and accurate AF performance. You can quickly get moving subjects in focus, such as when you're shooting sports scenes.
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