 Panasonic Lumix |
| Review Date: October 3, 2009 |
| Reviewer: J. Adam, Wisconsin USA |
| I had been informed about this brand and style of camera from a salesman at a store that didn't carry these. So I checked Amazon, and sure enough, they had them...and in RED, too. I take a lot of photos for school, and I wanted a small, easily portable camera for sports related functions. A lot of photos and videos taken in gyms...and if you've experienced that, you know the lighting in gyms is poor, at best. These are not professional quality, nor do I expext them to be, but the photos and videos come out WONDERFUL! And the megapixel can be adjusted to smaller than 12 so I can take photos that are easily emailed to relatives. OH - and you can zoom WHILE videoing! I am VERY happy with this camera - for an aim and shoot digital I would recommend this camera! |
The perfect camera
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| Review Date: December 10, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Mr.Marvin, Seattle, WA |
I think I found the perfect camera. I had a Panasonic Lumix TZS with a 10 power leica lense and 3 mega pixal. It was easy to use and took good pictures and the lense was fantastic. However I was limited to the size of the pictures that could be produced. Before that I had an Olympus OM1 Single lens reflex which took the best pictures ever. I still have it but it is not digital. I wanted a digital camera that could take better quality pictures and be able to enlarge them more then snap shot size. I loved the leica lens on the TZS.
The Panasonic Lumix ZR1 seemed to fit my criteria exactly. I liked the 10 power lens that my TZS had but I needed to use a tri pod for pictures using anything more then about 4 power. I saw the lumix ZR1 with the 8 power leica lens and with 12 mega pixel and the price was right. Since I already had a Panasonic Lumix TZS, the ZR1 was easy to learn to use. Everything was the same almost. The ZR1 has a little more manual control available which is nice. I can set a minimum shutter speed and set the film speed and the camera will do the rest.
I have not had a chance to take a lot of pictures with it but the ones I have taken are very very good. I have not had a chance to test this camera in low light so I can not comment on that aspect. It also takes movies but I am not interested in that. The lense is phenomenal. It is clear and crisp at all stages. It starts out at a 25mm wide angle and goes to an 8 power telescope. The camera itself is a lot smaller then my TZ3. A lot thinner and only slightly thicker then my cell phone. So it is easy to take with me. It fits easily in my pocket.
The camera was made in Japan and not China and is of the best quality construction. It is fast. It comes on instantly and is ready to take pictures in seconds. It is also very fast taking consecutive pictures compared to my old camera. I can just keep snapping the shutter with only a slight delay. I was going to get a black camera but at the last second decided on the red and I am glad I got the red, it is beautiful. I have more cameras then I need but I think this camera, the ZR1, is the one I will use the most.
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best upgrade camera
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| Review Date: November 30, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Angela D. Troy, st george island, fl |
| There are a lot of features that really make this camera easy to use. I upgraded from a Cannon SD110 and I like the zoom capabilities when I take videos and the extra wide angle and zoom when taking still pictures. |
just what i was looking for
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| Review Date: November 22, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Paul F. Brown, virginia |
great camara, very small fits right in my pocket. batteries last about 2.5 hrs. this camara was $50 cheaper thru amazon than Walmart. great product
Paul Brown |
The pictures we have taken so far are wonderful
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| Review Date: January 9, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Richard J. Kapash, Dillon Beach, California |
| Very nice compact design with a bright easy to use LCD display. Excellent resolution and good construction. |
Nice compact camera
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| Review Date: October 6, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Dina Labarge, Wilmington NC |
| I like this camera. It takes great indoor and outdoor photos. Its small enough for your pocket and zooms in pretty far. Its takes a faster picture than my old compact camera. No complaints |
Digital Camera
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| Review Date: July 2, 2010 |
| Reviewer: D. Barber, Tacoma.Wash. |
My old digital camera is now some seven years old and has only two megapixels of resolution. Clearly, it was time to upgrade. After a lot of online research, I went with the Panasonic because of a high rating at the [...] site (always a "must consult" before making high-tech purchases). The camera is stunning in appearance, almost jewel-like. I ordered the metallic red model and it is just beautiful. It reminds me of an expensive wristwatch, say a Rolex. The camera is almost exactly the size of a deck of playing cards and is quite heavy for its size. It feels solid, as though it were made to industrial specs. It is anything but plastic or toylike. The small moving parts feel precision made and strong. Nothing flimsy about this camera.
When first charging the battery with the plug-in wall charger, it took several hours to reach full charge. Not knowing how much memory is required for high resolution photos, I bought an 8 Gig SDHC memory card. I figured this would probably suffice for say, 100 shots. I later Googled the subject and discovered that high-res JPEG photos in the 12 Megapixel range translate into about 1500 photos with this card!! Well, this was clearly a case of overkill and I would go with a 4 Gig card were I to order it today.
I took my camera outside on a bright and sunny day, and determined to see how sharp it's 12 Megapixel images can be, placed the camera on a tripod for really steady shots. I found that it is very hard to see the LCD screen in bright sunlight. I had to hold my hand over the screen to aim the camera. It wasn't possible to make out fine detail but I could see well enough to aim the camera composition-wise. The wide angle works great indoors and I was very pleased with the zoom function. It's impressive. I also made a few indoor shots and found that the flash worked unexpectedly well. In general, well lit rooms photograph with sharp and clear colors but darker spaces take on a more contrasty appearance. My photos were generally sharp and detailed. Colors were good. It is obvious that 8 by 10 enlargements with no loss of detail, are a breeze for this camera. Who needs 11 by 14's for family snapshots? One downside though. This camera has a problem with high contrast subjects. My first digital camera does too, so maybe it's characteristic of digital designs. For example, when shooting dark green trees against a brightly sunlit street, the camera lowered exposure to capture the street at the cost of making the trees unnaturally dark and losing shadow detail. There is a built in menu-selected exposure compensation (EV +/-), and perhaps this will solve the issue. I suspect it will but have not played with this function yet.
A final point. The software is lousy. It's bloated at about 400 Megs and has the usual "photo editing" functions for correcting red-eye and re-organizing photos. Slooowww to install, the software uses Microsoft's NET.framework platform. This caused my computer (I run Windows XP home SP3), to download four updates over the next day or so. The software also ran automatically and without my permission, ALL of my photos. These number over two thousand and would have gone on for hours. I could not find anyway to disable this feature and had to open the My Music folder to stop it. The software would not run with the camera until it finished "reviewing" all of my photos. Fed up, I removed the software completely. One bright note, it does un-install quickly and cleanly.
A hot tip: Go to the [...] site and download the FastStone Image Viewer. This is a wonderful photo editor and completely free. I swear by it.
There is no mention of this on the box, but the software will run on Win 7 as well as Apple's OS X Snow Leopard. An included leaflet says that it will not run with Mac OS.
When I connected the camera to my computer directly, with no Panasonic software...good riddance, my computer immediately recognized ths camera as an "F: drive" and downloaded photos through Windows. This worked perfectly. I conclude that it will likely work fine with Apple too. Just treat the camera as a thumb-drive. In conclusion, this is a beautiful camera which I got at the earlier price of about $202 with free shipping, and is likely the last snapshot camera I will ever need. With a bit of exposure compensation (EV adjustments), for contrasty subjects, I'm certain the camera will be perfect for your general snapshot needs. I recommend this one, but about that sudden price increase... |
Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZR1
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| Review Date: July 20, 2010 |
| Reviewer: atgio, |
| I have had the Panasonic Lumix ZR1 for a little over a week. I purchased this camera based on the reviews that I read. I agonized over the different brands and models just like you probably are right now. I chose Panasonic and I am extremely glad that I did. The pictures I just took this past weekend of my son's baseball tournament turned out amazing. A crystal clear picture with a fantastic zoom. My wife and I are going on vacation next week and I can't wait to take some pictures with the camera. Everything positive that I read about this camera is true. Thanks to all of those reviews, I now know I purchased the right product. |
Great value
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| Review Date: January 7, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Old Blue, GR,MI |
| I just gave my wife the new Lumix DMC-ZR1 and she loves it. Stabalization works great even though she typically punches the button. Great quality for reasonable price. We'll know more after we use it for while. Packed with user friendly features. |
Panasonic Lumix DMC-AR1 camera
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| Review Date: January 26, 2010 |
| Reviewer: D. Fisk, Titusville, FL |
| I bought this camera to replace an Olympus camera I've had for many years. The LUMIX has performed very well for the short time I've had it (1 month). The only problem is that it doesn't have an optical viewfinder. The 8x optical zoom is a great feature. I like the size and ease of use. |
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