Topic: Panasonic FZ7

[Jake]

As posted earlier a few weeks ago I ordered a panasonic FZ7 from bestbuy - unfortunately bestbuy didnt realize that they were selling one of the best cameras of this year at an even better price - which resulted in massive backorders  I waited almost four weeks, after which I cancelled my order and picked one up at a wolfcamera. It cost me almost $450 with tax, and I didn't get the extra warranty with it. They wanted almost $200 for two years! Will have to be extra carefull with it though.

When selecting a camera I was considering two others with similar features and price (399) - the FZ7 won out by a long shot with a LEICA lens, rechargable batteries, and a supplied 52mm filter adapte. It has a massive 12X optical zoom - which translates to 36-432. Thats bigger than I had on my SLR minolta! It has all the features of a traditional SLR plus many more! The antishake technology is the best in the industry right now. Oh yeah, it also weights less than my old canon sd100 elph!

I also got some filters with it - 8 to be exact (which aren't cheap either, about $15 each). Orange and Blue are by far my favs - orange for a sharp contrast for b&w and blue for color correction with indoor lighting. The circular polarizer is great also - especially for sunny days in Colorado

Even though I did not get the Canon Rebel which I wanted, I'm extremely happy with it so far. TIFF format rocks - but only about 50 shots fit on my 1GB SD card good thing I got 5 of them when they were on sale for $30 at office depot


 

[yoshi]

I rather get the S3IS than the FZ7 -- just that the S3IS got a better photo quality (Panasonic is notorious for oversharpening their photos.) Otherwise, the FZ7 is pretty sweet.

[Jake]

>>I rather get the S3IS

I dunno dude. First of all its overpriced IMO and second of all I hate the LCD that series has - the flip and turn gets annoying and you lose on the size. Plus AA operated - a $500 camera should not be AA operated when comparing I looked at the the canons S3 IS and S2 IS, Sony DSC-H2, as well as a kodak - but i forget the model. Overall the panasonic beats eachone hands down IMO.

Have you read about that new Samsung DSLR that supposed to fit 2.7 million lenses! looks pretty sweet. And I hope that Sony will do good things for the minolta/konica cameras - they are keeping the same lens mount. Hopefully Sony will be able to compete in the high end market with the canons and the nikons. 

[yoshi]

why not AA operated... if you ran out of juice, you can go to any convenient store and get some alkalines .

Sony in D-SLR? Beat the Rebel XT and D70s first, then we'll talk.

and the flip screen -- I got spoiled by camcorders .