Panasonic DMC-FS5K 10.1MP Digital Camera, Black

[1 of 1 customers found this review helpful]

Panasonic DMC-FS5K 10.1MP Digital Camera, Black Review

Great price for a good camera

"Also having a Canon Rebel, I purchased the Lumix to have a second, more compact "easy" camera for taking quick snapshots of the kids and when we're out and about and don't want a bulky SLR with us. So far I've really enjoyed it and I LOVE the movie mode! I've become quite the movie enthusiast, and upload my movies to Google Video now for easy sharing. Lumix shoots great movies, though the file sizes are HUGE (runs about 100 MB for a minute and a half movie!). All in all, this is a good camera at a great price. Very pleased.



One minor con is that it doesn't saturate photos well at the factory default setting."

A day at the park - High Resolution

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Panasonic DMC-FS5K 10.1MP Digital Camera, Black Review

Excellent

"Absolutely perfect, small, handy, make great pictures. Just came back from India, shot 500 pictures. So happy with it that I bought a second one and offered it to my father, a professional photographer so that he can keep this very small camera in his shirt pocket. He loves it."

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Panasonic DMC-FS5K 10.1MP Digital Camera, Black Review

Decent point&shoot camera for the price

"I bought this camera for my wife so she could carry it in her handbag for casual shots of friends and family. She wanted a simple camera that was easy to use, well-built, and stylish.



I did quite a lot of research online to find my wife a good point & shoot camera. Although I'm a big fan of Canon products, I decided to purchase the DMC-FS20. This was our first time purchasing a Panasonic digital camera, after purchasing numerous Canon products.



PROS:



o Like most of the Panasonic Lumix series of cameras, this camera just feels like a really well-made unit. The body is made of a very attractive brushed metal alloy. The switches and controls are all well-placed and well-designed.



o The "iA" or Intelligent Auto function is perfect for a novice like my wife. The camera's on-board computer does absolutely everything and selects proper ISO, aperture, shutter, SCENE mode, etc., with no input from the user. Generally, the iA does a decent job. Sometimes it can be fooled by tricky lighting situations, but overall it's a really good feature.



o Good LCD screen, bright and sharp.



o Decent flash, despite its seemingly tiny size.



o Reasonable battery life. Not great, but not horrible either.



o Power up is fast. Shot-to-shot times are very good. Flash recirculation/recharge is reasonably fast as well.



o The Leica lens is excellent. Panasonic made a wise decision to use Leica lenses in their compact cameras. If you do research on the net, you will find very few complaints about the Leica lenses in any Panasonic cameras. Chromatic aberrations are well-controlled, and there is only minimal distortion at wide-angle.



o The zoom is decent, not comparable to other 10x or 12x models, but definitely adequate. There is a handy "rapid zoom" button which helps you speedily push the lens to its maximum or minimum reach without having to fiddle with the zoom lever.



o The onboard "Venus" image processing is pretty good. Not as good as Canon's DIGIC III or IV, but still very competent.



o The onboard video function is pretty cool. Records in "standard definition" video in 16:9 format. Very usable, actually.



CONS:



o Proprietary battery. If you're planning on doing a lot of shots on vacation, and being away from your hotel room for a day or two, you WILL need to purchase another battery, and they're not cheap.



o This Panasonic model, like many others, seems to have a strange problem with white balance. Outdoor shots look fantastic, but indoor shots can vary. The camera's computer has a hard time decoding artificial/indoor lighting situations. Frequently it pushes the entire photo into warm oranges and reds. This is fine for my wife, but for me, the household DSLR "enthusiast" photographer, I'm very picky and it drives me crazy. This problem is not isolated to this model -- if you poke around online you will find complaints about other Lumix cameras doing the same thing.



o A discovery I made on my own, which I found no references to online: the transfer speeds from the camera are AGONIZINGLY ...S...L...O...W. When my wife and I returned from a trip to Spain in mid-2008, it took AN ENTIRE AFTERNOON for the camera to transfer the pictures to our iMac. Unacceptable! What is Panasonic using as their transfer protocol? USB 1.1?



Side note to the above: even ejecting the SD card from the camera and using a card reader didn't help. For some reason, our iMac was unable to read the directory on the card accurately and no files were displayed in any folders. I don't know if this is a problem with Mac OS X, or with Panasonic. I have used many other brands of cameras with our iMac before (Canon, Sony, Fuji) and NEVER had this problem.



o One final gripe: low-light performance is pretty bad. Anything past ISO 800 is total garbage."

[14 of 16 customers found this review helpful]

Panasonic DMC-FS5K 10.1MP Digital Camera, Black Review

Small in Size, Large in Output

"Pros

Easy-to-use, large viewer.



Cons

Delay to take the next shot can kill a mood, lose a moment, shot.



Review

I've tried them all. Nikons, Canons, Fuji - and the Panasonic FS5K has been by far the best point and shoot. Excellent quality imaging, construction and easy-to-follow interface design make it the choice for traveling."

Panasonic DMC-FS5K 10.1MP Digital Camera, Black Review

Very impressive little camera

"As a Canon junky (well, not anymore), I was a little reluctant to purchase this, but based on the reviews, I'm glad I did. As a great second camera, I couldn't be more pleased. My previous point-and-shoots were Canons, and they both died prematurely.



My photography professor in college was a Leica disciple, so seeing the Leica lens made a good impression on me. (Although truthfully, after 20 years, I really don't know if the Leica mystique and quality still holds true.)



The interface of the camera is quick and easy to use. The images are fantastic -- very sharp and properly saturated. The manual exposure controls are well done, so it's easy to get nice results without using the strobe. (And believe me, there is NO point-and-shoot camera with a decent flash that produces decent results. It's impossible.) Battery life seems fine.



Overall, a great value, good construction, and excellent results. Before you puchase a subcompact Canon, take a look at the Lumix models -- you'll be very impressed."