Digital Cameras Reviews

Posts Tagged ‘H 264’

Panasonic Lumix DMC ZS3 10MP Digital Camera with 12x Wide Angle MEGA Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 3 inch LCD Black

The ZS3 records HD motion images at a smooth 60 frames per second with 1280 x 720-pixel resolution. It uses the AVCHD (MPEG-4/H.264) format, via AVCHD lite, which stores less data than other formats and thus lets you shoot more minutes of HD motion images before running out of memory.Just set the camera to iA mode, aim and shoot. The camera does all the rest. It automatically determines the most suitable scene mode and helps correct blurring, focus, and brightness problems. With iA mode, it’s easy to get beautiful, clear results. In the ZS3, iA mode cannot be used when shooting motion images.The ZS3 packs a LEICA DC VARIO-ELMAR lens with 12x optical zoom into a compact body. This versatile photographic tool lets you shoot everything from sweeping vistas at the 25mm wide-angle setting to dynamic 300mm telephoto shots. And the lens system’s exquisite rendering ability lets you capture even the subtle nuances of the sights and scenes in your travels.

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars Very good camera, although I expected a little bit more…
As has been said, it’s a really good camera. With a powerful zoom, little bit uncomfortable to handle if you are used to super compacts, but you know that (or you should know) when you buy it.

The video is very good, I’d say that it’s the best that I have ever seen or I would expect from a still camera.

I haven’t noticed too much lose of focus when I zomm in and zoom out during video. But the AVCHD format isn’t very common. Other pro is that the slow speed of zoom during video make transitions very soft being more slow when you start and finish zooming than in the middle.

The part that I expected much better was the face recognition, which is like play to Lotto.

And although reviews say that it hasn’t manual focus, there’s an option to follow objects. You have to put the object on the center of the screen, click a button, and then the camera will automatically focus that object although it or you move, or zoom, etc. Not very accurate, but good enough!

The battery life deppends on some options. If autofocus is working all the time instead of just when you click the button to take the photo, then your battery will have a shorter life. But the performance average is normal for this type of camera.

5 Stars Easy to use digital Camera with great HD video!~But CAUTION when order replacement batteries!
I purchased this camera just before I left for a trip to the Galapagos Islands. I’m not a whiz kid when it comes to cameras, but I knew the Galapagos Islands would have once-in-a-life-time photo opportunities that I didn’t want to miss due to poor quality equipment or equipment that was too complicated for me to use. This camera DELIVERED on all my needs! (except battery incompatibilities, mentioned later!)I recommend spending an hour or two with the camera and instruction book. The 130 page instruction book was easy to navigate through, but it takes a while to familiarize yourself with everything this amazing little camera is capable of doing!!

The quality of my vacation photos and videos were amazing! I was able to record a video of the mating dance of two blue-footed boobies, iguanas fighting, and sea lions and penguins playing. My landscape photos have such detail that it’s hard to believe these were not taken with a more expensive SLR digital. When I returned home, I projected the video onto a giant classroom screen during a lecture and the quality was amazing. Everyone asked what type of camera I was using! I connected the camera to my Samsung 46 inch 1080i HDTV. The photos and videos looked so good I couldn’t believe they were really MY photos!

The large 3 inch LCD monitor on the SZ3 is large enough to review photos and videos so I could easily determine which photos and videos were worth keeping while I was still on vacation. The size and quality of the LCD was even good enough replay videos and scan through photos for fellow travelers.

The 12X optical zoom on this camera allowed me to zoom up on animals and landmarks otherwise too far away to photograph. I did not try out the 21X extended optical zoom. Thanks to the setting made for photos from airplane windows, my on-flight photos turned out better than any on-flight photos I’ve ever seen.

There is a setting on the camera that allows you to hold the shutter down. It will continue to take photos until you release the shutter. This allowed me to take photos of animals in motion and later choose to save which photo caught the animal in that “ideal” position! No more pushing the shutter only to have the subject move and you’ve missed the shot! If you don’t want to change settings on the camera, there is an “Intelligent Auto Mode” that adjusts automatically to light, movement, scenery (adjusts to take sharp pictures near and far landscapes), recognizes faces to adjust light to create optimal settings for portrait lighting, etc.

The FACE RECOGNITION setting isn’t always accurate. I tried to train it to recognize my dad, and several other faces were later incorrectly identified by my camera as “Dad.” Hopefully re-training it will resolve that glitch. I eventually had to turn off. It was even labeling photos of women as “Dad”!

The Travel feature allows you to set the dates of your vacation into the camera memory. It also allows you to change the time zone during your vacation and automatically returns to “home” clock at the end of the ‘Vacation mode dates’. This creates a time stamp that is not only accurate to your vacation time zone, but allows you to record when & WHERE each photo was taken! This is especially great if your travels include several cities or islands. The on-screen menu tells you what day of your trip you are on (Galapagos Day 1, Galapagos Day 2, etc.). It’s really nice for later when you are trying to sort through photos and remember what day and where they were taken. Especially when you have more than one SD card!

You can increase the size of the on screen menu to a larger font if you have problems with reading small print.

I have to say I was impressed with the different settings for taking photos of babies, sunsets, portraits, food, etc. It was amazing how many differnt settings were available and the instruction book gives great hints on how to maximize the use of each of those settings. I think this is one of the best instruction manuals I’ve seen for cameras.

Again, my only hesitation with this camera is with the battery, and it’s more of an idealogical complaint against Panasonic. I just don’t think they should create a camera with a battery that is so difficult to find and doesn’t have a compatable generic. SO………WARNING!!!!!!!!! THE ONLY battery that is compatable with this camera is the Panasonic Lumix DMW-BCG10PP. USE CAUTION when ordering batteries advertized on Amazon’s website that claim to be compatible with this camera. I ended up going on vacation without a second battery and due to the high volume of photos and videos I was taking each day I ran out of battery before the end of the day. Luckily most days I had a lunch period where I was able to recharge the battery. The instructions say you can get 300 photos from a battery charge, but I got more than twice that amount and somedays got almost three times that many. Still, If I didn’t recharge mid-day, I ran out of battery before I ran out of photo opportunities each day. I’m sure it’s because I took those shots so close together. One battery is probably good enough for almost every situation except special vacations where photos are a huge part of your day! ENJOY!

4 Stars I NEED HELP! How to get MAC Preview to render clear images of ZS3 10 MP shots
I am making some simple mistake – please help! I have a MAC G5/OS 10.5.8/2 GB dram running Preview 4.2 (all software up to date). Previously I had a 2 MP Fuji 2650 and its jpegs looked fine with this setup. Now with the ZS3 the 10 MP photos looked muddy and ill-focused, 5 MP and 3 MP of the same subject look much better. I think it must be some issue with how the Preview program is set to display the photos. When I change the jpegs to actual size, and zoom subjects in the 10 MP shot to the same size as the 5&3 MP shots they look almost identical (so I think the camera is focusing correctly) – but when I simply double-click on the jpegs the 10 MP shots look awful. Is this because the 10 MP shots are downsampled more? How can I get all the jpegs to render well? Am I supposed to use some Preference setting like “respect image and screen DPI for scale”? Could this be a setup issue (haven’t read the manual much)? Could this be because I haven’t imported into iPhoto with which I am not that familiar?

As for the ZS3 the dedicated movie button is awesome, the zoom is quite nice to have but uses so much juice that the battery shuts down pronto! I actually find the wideangle annoying, have to read to see if I can defeat that default state. Haven’t tried to view the AVCHD lite video yet, sounds like getting it to work will be a lot of work. I really like the package as seemingly the best you can get and still carry in your pocket but man the battery issues are a serious problem if you zoom much; not to mention the price and availability problems of the OEM battery and the 1.2 software shutdown of non-OEM batteries that sell for much less!

4 Stars SO far so good
It’s probably unfair to write a review after only one day’s ownership, especially a work day, but here are a few thoughts.

12x zoom in a pocket camera is an amazing thing. Whatever other camera(s) you own, this is the one you can take everywhere.

And while the 65x zoom available with combined optical/digital doesn’t produce pictures that you’d want to show anywhere, it’s certainly fun for spying on people. I was even able to see people at the top of the Empire State building taken from the street, 10 blocks away.

Polarized sunglasses can make the screen disappear in bright sunshine. (Do wish this camera had a viewfinder.)

27 scene modes cover most conditions, but they’re on 2 separate screens, and the first has modes such as “baby” and “pet” (which I don’t need) while “burst” and “flash burst” are on the second screen Wish one could move them around.

Tried flash burst in a pretty dark room and didn’t work very well, pictures were much darker than with normal flash, though the camera’s flash refreshes fairly quickly so you can take a series of pictures with full flash almost as fast as in burst mode. Didn’t try burst flash in a room with some lights on, yet. One of my reasons for wanting this camera is to be able to take candid pictures in a party situation and my old Sony H-5 just takes too long and I’d miss more pictures than I’d get.

I’ll add to this review after I use the camera a bit more.

5 Stars Love this camera
Camera arrived quickly and was easy to set up. Make sure you get a large memory card for this as a 10MP camera creates large files. I work on a MAC and the camera was recognized automatically. The zoom is incredible and the video works fine. Very impressed with this camera.

Buy/More Info

The GF1 is essentially a G1 (with a couple of GH1 features and the loss of a handful of scene modes) squashed into a body that’s more or less the same size as the E-P1 – it occupies 35% less volume and is 26% lighter than the G1. It may lack the E-P1’s cute-as-a-button retro styling but it does effectively answer the three main criticisms faced by the Olympus: the lack of built in flash (check), the lack of a viewfinder (there’s an optional EVF) and the poor focus speed (it has the same impressive system as the other ‘G’ models). You don’t get the E-P1’s total compatibility (it currently won’t focus any Four Thirds lens that doesn’t currently offer live view AF on an Olympus SLR), but those lenses it will focus, it will focus a helluva lot faster.

Panasonic Lumix DMC ZS3 10MP Digital Camera with 12x Wide Angle MEGA Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 3 inch LCD Red

The ZS3 records HD motion images at a smooth 60 frames per second with 1280×720-pixel resolution. It uses the AVCHD (MPEG-4/H.264) format via AVCHD Lite, which stores less data than other formats and thus lets you shoot more minutes of HD motion images before running out of memory.The ZS3 is equipped with an HDMI output terminal for direct transmission of digital picture and sound signals. Just connect the camera to an HDTV using a single HDMI mini cable (purchased separately), and it’s easy to view beautiful HD photos and motion images. If you have a VIERA HDTV, you can control the camera’s playback functions with VIERA’s remote control unit.The ZS3 packs a LEICA DC VARIO-ELMAR lens with 12x optical zoom into a compact body. This versatile photographic tool lets you shoot everything from sweeping vistas at the 25mm wide-angle setting to dynamic 300mm telephoto shots. And the lens system’s exquisite rendering ability lets you capture even the subtle nuances of the sights and scenes in your travels.

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars Very good camera, although I expected a little bit more…
As has been said, it’s a really good camera. With a powerful zoom, little bit uncomfortable to handle if you are used to super compacts, but you know that (or you should know) when you buy it.

The video is very good, I’d say that it’s the best that I have ever seen or I would expect from a still camera.

I haven’t noticed too much lose of focus when I zomm in and zoom out during video. But the AVCHD format isn’t very common. Other pro is that the slow speed of zoom during video make transitions very soft being more slow when you start and finish zooming than in the middle.

The part that I expected much better was the face recognition, which is like play to Lotto.

And although reviews say that it hasn’t manual focus, there’s an option to follow objects. You have to put the object on the center of the screen, click a button, and then the camera will automatically focus that object although it or you move, or zoom, etc. Not very accurate, but good enough!

The battery life deppends on some options. If autofocus is working all the time instead of just when you click the button to take the photo, then your battery will have a shorter life. But the performance average is normal for this type of camera.

5 Stars Love this camera
Camera arrived quickly and was easy to set up. Make sure you get a large memory card for this as a 10MP camera creates large files. I work on a MAC and the camera was recognized automatically. The zoom is incredible and the video works fine. Very impressed with this camera.

4 Stars SO far so good
It’s probably unfair to write a review after only one day’s ownership, especially a work day, but here are a few thoughts.

12x zoom in a pocket camera is an amazing thing. Whatever other camera(s) you own, this is the one you can take everywhere.

And while the 65x zoom available with combined optical/digital doesn’t produce pictures that you’d want to show anywhere, it’s certainly fun for spying on people. I was even able to see people at the top of the Empire State building taken from the street, 10 blocks away.

Polarized sunglasses can make the screen disappear in bright sunshine. (Do wish this camera had a viewfinder.)

27 scene modes cover most conditions, but they’re on 2 separate screens, and the first has modes such as “baby” and “pet” (which I don’t need) while “burst” and “flash burst” are on the second screen Wish one could move them around.

Tried flash burst in a pretty dark room and didn’t work very well, pictures were much darker than with normal flash, though the camera’s flash refreshes fairly quickly so you can take a series of pictures with full flash almost as fast as in burst mode. Didn’t try burst flash in a room with some lights on, yet. One of my reasons for wanting this camera is to be able to take candid pictures in a party situation and my old Sony H-5 just takes too long and I’d miss more pictures than I’d get.

I’ll add to this review after I use the camera a bit more.

4 Stars I NEED HELP! How to get MAC Preview to render clear images of ZS3 10 MP shots
I am making some simple mistake – please help! I have a MAC G5/OS 10.5.8/2 GB dram running Preview 4.2 (all software up to date). Previously I had a 2 MP Fuji 2650 and its jpegs looked fine with this setup. Now with the ZS3 the 10 MP photos looked muddy and ill-focused, 5 MP and 3 MP of the same subject look much better. I think it must be some issue with how the Preview program is set to display the photos. When I change the jpegs to actual size, and zoom subjects in the 10 MP shot to the same size as the 5&3 MP shots they look almost identical (so I think the camera is focusing correctly) – but when I simply double-click on the jpegs the 10 MP shots look awful. Is this because the 10 MP shots are downsampled more? How can I get all the jpegs to render well? Am I supposed to use some Preference setting like “respect image and screen DPI for scale”? Could this be a setup issue (haven’t read the manual much)? Could this be because I haven’t imported into iPhoto with which I am not that familiar?

As for the ZS3 the dedicated movie button is awesome, the zoom is quite nice to have but uses so much juice that the battery shuts down pronto! I actually find the wideangle annoying, have to read to see if I can defeat that default state. Haven’t tried to view the AVCHD lite video yet, sounds like getting it to work will be a lot of work. I really like the package as seemingly the best you can get and still carry in your pocket but man the battery issues are a serious problem if you zoom much; not to mention the price and availability problems of the OEM battery and the 1.2 software shutdown of non-OEM batteries that sell for much less!

5 Stars Easy to use digital Camera with great HD video!~But CAUTION when order replacement batteries!
I purchased this camera just before I left for a trip to the Galapagos Islands. I’m not a whiz kid when it comes to cameras, but I knew the Galapagos Islands would have once-in-a-life-time photo opportunities that I didn’t want to miss due to poor quality equipment or equipment that was too complicated for me to use. This camera DELIVERED on all my needs! (except battery incompatibilities, mentioned later!)I recommend spending an hour or two with the camera and instruction book. The 130 page instruction book was easy to navigate through, but it takes a while to familiarize yourself with everything this amazing little camera is capable of doing!!

The quality of my vacation photos and videos were amazing! I was able to record a video of the mating dance of two blue-footed boobies, iguanas fighting, and sea lions and penguins playing. My landscape photos have such detail that it’s hard to believe these were not taken with a more expensive SLR digital. When I returned home, I projected the video onto a giant classroom screen during a lecture and the quality was amazing. Everyone asked what type of camera I was using! I connected the camera to my Samsung 46 inch 1080i HDTV. The photos and videos looked so good I couldn’t believe they were really MY photos!

The large 3 inch LCD monitor on the SZ3 is large enough to review photos and videos so I could easily determine which photos and videos were worth keeping while I was still on vacation. The size and quality of the LCD was even good enough replay videos and scan through photos for fellow travelers.

The 12X optical zoom on this camera allowed me to zoom up on animals and landmarks otherwise too far away to photograph. I did not try out the 21X extended optical zoom. Thanks to the setting made for photos from airplane windows, my on-flight photos turned out better than any on-flight photos I’ve ever seen.

There is a setting on the camera that allows you to hold the shutter down. It will continue to take photos until you release the shutter. This allowed me to take photos of animals in motion and later choose to save which photo caught the animal in that “ideal” position! No more pushing the shutter only to have the subject move and you’ve missed the shot! If you don’t want to change settings on the camera, there is an “Intelligent Auto Mode” that adjusts automatically to light, movement, scenery (adjusts to take sharp pictures near and far landscapes), recognizes faces to adjust light to create optimal settings for portrait lighting, etc.

The FACE RECOGNITION setting isn’t always accurate. I tried to train it to recognize my dad, and several other faces were later incorrectly identified by my camera as “Dad.” Hopefully re-training it will resolve that glitch. I eventually had to turn off. It was even labeling photos of women as “Dad”!

The Travel feature allows you to set the dates of your vacation into the camera memory. It also allows you to change the time zone during your vacation and automatically returns to “home” clock at the end of the ‘Vacation mode dates’. This creates a time stamp that is not only accurate to your vacation time zone, but allows you to record when & WHERE each photo was taken! This is especially great if your travels include several cities or islands. The on-screen menu tells you what day of your trip you are on (Galapagos Day 1, Galapagos Day 2, etc.). It’s really nice for later when you are trying to sort through photos and remember what day and where they were taken. Especially when you have more than one SD card!

You can increase the size of the on screen menu to a larger font if you have problems with reading small print.

I have to say I was impressed with the different settings for taking photos of babies, sunsets, portraits, food, etc. It was amazing how many differnt settings were available and the instruction book gives great hints on how to maximize the use of each of those settings. I think this is one of the best instruction manuals I’ve seen for cameras.

Again, my only hesitation with this camera is with the battery, and it’s more of an idealogical complaint against Panasonic. I just don’t think they should create a camera with a battery that is so difficult to find and doesn’t have a compatable generic. SO………WARNING!!!!!!!!! THE ONLY battery that is compatable with this camera is the Panasonic Lumix DMW-BCG10PP. USE CAUTION when ordering batteries advertized on Amazon’s website that claim to be compatible with this camera. I ended up going on vacation without a second battery and due to the high volume of photos and videos I was taking each day I ran out of battery before the end of the day. Luckily most days I had a lunch period where I was able to recharge the battery. The instructions say you can get 300 photos from a battery charge, but I got more than twice that amount and somedays got almost three times that many. Still, If I didn’t recharge mid-day, I ran out of battery before I ran out of photo opportunities each day. I’m sure it’s because I took those shots so close together. One battery is probably good enough for almost every situation except special vacations where photos are a huge part of your day! ENJOY!

Buy/More Info

Panasonic Lumix DMC ZS3 10MP Digital Camera with 12x Wide Angle MEGA Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 3 inch LCD Silver

The ZS3 records HD motion images at a smooth 60 frames per second with 1280 x 720-pixel resolution. It uses the AVCHD (MPEG-4/H.264) format, via AVCHD lite, which stores less data than other formats and thus lets you shoot more minutes of HD motion images before running out of memory.Just set the camera to iA mode, aim and shoot. The camera does all the rest. It automatically determines the most suitable scene mode and helps correct blurring, focus, and brightness problems. With iA mode, it’s easy to get beautiful, clear results. In the ZS3, iA mode cannot be used when shooting motion images.The ZS3 packs a LEICA DC VARIO-ELMAR lens with 12x optical zoom into a compact body. This versatile photographic tool lets you shoot everything from sweeping vistas at the 25mm wide-angle setting to dynamic 300mm telephoto shots. And the lens system’s exquisite rendering ability lets you capture even the subtle nuances of the sights and scenes in your travels.

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars SO far so good
It’s probably unfair to write a review after only one day’s ownership, especially a work day, but here are a few thoughts.

12x zoom in a pocket camera is an amazing thing. Whatever other camera(s) you own, this is the one you can take everywhere.

And while the 65x zoom available with combined optical/digital doesn’t produce pictures that you’d want to show anywhere, it’s certainly fun for spying on people. I was even able to see people at the top of the Empire State building taken from the street, 10 blocks away.

Polarized sunglasses can make the screen disappear in bright sunshine. (Do wish this camera had a viewfinder.)

27 scene modes cover most conditions, but they’re on 2 separate screens, and the first has modes such as “baby” and “pet” (which I don’t need) while “burst” and “flash burst” are on the second screen Wish one could move them around.

Tried flash burst in a pretty dark room and didn’t work very well, pictures were much darker than with normal flash, though the camera’s flash refreshes fairly quickly so you can take a series of pictures with full flash almost as fast as in burst mode. Didn’t try burst flash in a room with some lights on, yet. One of my reasons for wanting this camera is to be able to take candid pictures in a party situation and my old Sony H-5 just takes too long and I’d miss more pictures than I’d get.

I’ll add to this review after I use the camera a bit more.

4 Stars Very good camera, although I expected a little bit more…
As has been said, it’s a really good camera. With a powerful zoom, little bit uncomfortable to handle if you are used to super compacts, but you know that (or you should know) when you buy it.

The video is very good, I’d say that it’s the best that I have ever seen or I would expect from a still camera.

I haven’t noticed too much lose of focus when I zomm in and zoom out during video. But the AVCHD format isn’t very common. Other pro is that the slow speed of zoom during video make transitions very soft being more slow when you start and finish zooming than in the middle.

The part that I expected much better was the face recognition, which is like play to Lotto.

And although reviews say that it hasn’t manual focus, there’s an option to follow objects. You have to put the object on the center of the screen, click a button, and then the camera will automatically focus that object although it or you move, or zoom, etc. Not very accurate, but good enough!

The battery life deppends on some options. If autofocus is working all the time instead of just when you click the button to take the photo, then your battery will have a shorter life. But the performance average is normal for this type of camera.

5 Stars Easy to use digital Camera with great HD video!~But CAUTION when order replacement batteries!
I purchased this camera just before I left for a trip to the Galapagos Islands. I’m not a whiz kid when it comes to cameras, but I knew the Galapagos Islands would have once-in-a-life-time photo opportunities that I didn’t want to miss due to poor quality equipment or equipment that was too complicated for me to use. This camera DELIVERED on all my needs! (except battery incompatibilities, mentioned later!)I recommend spending an hour or two with the camera and instruction book. The 130 page instruction book was easy to navigate through, but it takes a while to familiarize yourself with everything this amazing little camera is capable of doing!!

The quality of my vacation photos and videos were amazing! I was able to record a video of the mating dance of two blue-footed boobies, iguanas fighting, and sea lions and penguins playing. My landscape photos have such detail that it’s hard to believe these were not taken with a more expensive SLR digital. When I returned home, I projected the video onto a giant classroom screen during a lecture and the quality was amazing. Everyone asked what type of camera I was using! I connected the camera to my Samsung 46 inch 1080i HDTV. The photos and videos looked so good I couldn’t believe they were really MY photos!

The large 3 inch LCD monitor on the SZ3 is large enough to review photos and videos so I could easily determine which photos and videos were worth keeping while I was still on vacation. The size and quality of the LCD was even good enough replay videos and scan through photos for fellow travelers.

The 12X optical zoom on this camera allowed me to zoom up on animals and landmarks otherwise too far away to photograph. I did not try out the 21X extended optical zoom. Thanks to the setting made for photos from airplane windows, my on-flight photos turned out better than any on-flight photos I’ve ever seen.

There is a setting on the camera that allows you to hold the shutter down. It will continue to take photos until you release the shutter. This allowed me to take photos of animals in motion and later choose to save which photo caught the animal in that “ideal” position! No more pushing the shutter only to have the subject move and you’ve missed the shot! If you don’t want to change settings on the camera, there is an “Intelligent Auto Mode” that adjusts automatically to light, movement, scenery (adjusts to take sharp pictures near and far landscapes), recognizes faces to adjust light to create optimal settings for portrait lighting, etc.

The FACE RECOGNITION setting isn’t always accurate. I tried to train it to recognize my dad, and several other faces were later incorrectly identified by my camera as “Dad.” Hopefully re-training it will resolve that glitch. I eventually had to turn off. It was even labeling photos of women as “Dad”!

The Travel feature allows you to set the dates of your vacation into the camera memory. It also allows you to change the time zone during your vacation and automatically returns to “home” clock at the end of the ‘Vacation mode dates’. This creates a time stamp that is not only accurate to your vacation time zone, but allows you to record when & WHERE each photo was taken! This is especially great if your travels include several cities or islands. The on-screen menu tells you what day of your trip you are on (Galapagos Day 1, Galapagos Day 2, etc.). It’s really nice for later when you are trying to sort through photos and remember what day and where they were taken. Especially when you have more than one SD card!

You can increase the size of the on screen menu to a larger font if you have problems with reading small print.

I have to say I was impressed with the different settings for taking photos of babies, sunsets, portraits, food, etc. It was amazing how many differnt settings were available and the instruction book gives great hints on how to maximize the use of each of those settings. I think this is one of the best instruction manuals I’ve seen for cameras.

Again, my only hesitation with this camera is with the battery, and it’s more of an idealogical complaint against Panasonic. I just don’t think they should create a camera with a battery that is so difficult to find and doesn’t have a compatable generic. SO………WARNING!!!!!!!!! THE ONLY battery that is compatable with this camera is the Panasonic Lumix DMW-BCG10PP. USE CAUTION when ordering batteries advertized on Amazon’s website that claim to be compatible with this camera. I ended up going on vacation without a second battery and due to the high volume of photos and videos I was taking each day I ran out of battery before the end of the day. Luckily most days I had a lunch period where I was able to recharge the battery. The instructions say you can get 300 photos from a battery charge, but I got more than twice that amount and somedays got almost three times that many. Still, If I didn’t recharge mid-day, I ran out of battery before I ran out of photo opportunities each day. I’m sure it’s because I took those shots so close together. One battery is probably good enough for almost every situation except special vacations where photos are a huge part of your day! ENJOY!

5 Stars Love this camera
Camera arrived quickly and was easy to set up. Make sure you get a large memory card for this as a 10MP camera creates large files. I work on a MAC and the camera was recognized automatically. The zoom is incredible and the video works fine. Very impressed with this camera.

4 Stars I NEED HELP! How to get MAC Preview to render clear images of ZS3 10 MP shots
I am making some simple mistake – please help! I have a MAC G5/OS 10.5.8/2 GB dram running Preview 4.2 (all software up to date). Previously I had a 2 MP Fuji 2650 and its jpegs looked fine with this setup. Now with the ZS3 the 10 MP photos looked muddy and ill-focused, 5 MP and 3 MP of the same subject look much better. I think it must be some issue with how the Preview program is set to display the photos. When I change the jpegs to actual size, and zoom subjects in the 10 MP shot to the same size as the 5&3 MP shots they look almost identical (so I think the camera is focusing correctly) – but when I simply double-click on the jpegs the 10 MP shots look awful. Is this because the 10 MP shots are downsampled more? How can I get all the jpegs to render well? Am I supposed to use some Preference setting like “respect image and screen DPI for scale”? Could this be a setup issue (haven’t read the manual much)? Could this be because I haven’t imported into iPhoto with which I am not that familiar?

As for the ZS3 the dedicated movie button is awesome, the zoom is quite nice to have but uses so much juice that the battery shuts down pronto! I actually find the wideangle annoying, have to read to see if I can defeat that default state. Haven’t tried to view the AVCHD lite video yet, sounds like getting it to work will be a lot of work. I really like the package as seemingly the best you can get and still carry in your pocket but man the battery issues are a serious problem if you zoom much; not to mention the price and availability problems of the OEM battery and the 1.2 software shutdown of non-OEM batteries that sell for much less!

Buy/More Info

Canon PowerShot SX200IS 12 MP Digital Camera with 12x Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 3 0 inch LCD Black

Creating gorgeous images is more fun than ever with the sleek, impressively equipped PowerShot SX200 IS, elegantly designed in three new colors. Capture close-up, wide-angle shots with stunning 12x optical zoom. Experience the unprecedented image quality and point-and-shoot convenience of Smart AUTO, along with enhanced operability and an intuitive new menu. HD shooting at 1280 x 720 pixels with HDMI output lets you see all the beauty of your HD images and movies on your HDTV. HD movie shooting capability plus HDMI output for easy playback of video and photos on your HDTV Jpeg Compression – Still Image – Exif 2.2 (JPEG); Movie – MOV (Image – H.264; Audio – Linear PCM (Monaural)) Blink Detection alerts a shooter after a shot has been taken that a subject had closed eyes DIGIC 4 Image Processor has evolved Face Detection Technology that tracks the faces of moving subjects and lets the shooter enter the frame seamlessly with the Face Detection Self-timer ISO Sensitivity – Auto, ISO 80/100/200/400/800/1600 equivalent Continuous Shooting – Normal – approx. 0.8 fps; AF – approx. 0.5 fps; LV – approx. 0.6 fps (Large/Fine) Storage Media – SD/SDHC Memory Card, Multimedia Card, MMC Plus Card, HC MMC Plus Card Number of Recording Pixels – Still Image – up to 4000 x 3000 (Large); Movie – High Definition – up to 1280 x 720 (30 fps) Video Out – NTSC/PAL Power Source – Rechargeable Lithium-ion Battery Shooting Capacity – Still Image – approx. 220 shots Playback Time – Approx. 360 min Dimensions (WxHxD) – 4.06 x 2.38 x 1.48 Weight – Approx. 7.76 oz

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars This thing is awesome…
I read all the reviews of this camera here on Amazon, as well as seeking out photography websites looking for recommendations for the best small point and shoot camera. Despite a few bad reviews here, everything else I saw was pretty positive, so I decided to go for it. I am SOOOOO glad I did.

From the moment it came out of the box, it was love at first site.

The display is large and clear and crisp.

The photos is takes are wonderful. I have seen low reviews talking about “noise” and “blurriness” and the only thing I can guess is that these people never took 5 minutes to figure out how to USE the camera. Set to the indoor setting, pictures taken inside are clear, crisp and brilliant. No noise. If you use the Kids&Pets mode, motion shots are almost always perfect and without blurriness. If you try and take every picture on “Auto” you are going to get a mixed bag of shots on ANY camera, that is why the camera comes with different settings.

I’ve also seen complaints about where the flash is and how hard the camera is to hold. It is true that when turning the camera on, the flash has bumped my finger a few times. But this is hardly a deal breaker. So it bumps you – it isn’t as though it is causing injury to the camera or to you, for goodness sake!!!! So it bumps you and you move your finger – big deal! I cannot fathom why anyone would care about this. As far as being hard to hold, maybe if you had the hands of a 7 ft NBA player or a 350lb lineman, it might be a bit small in your hands and hard to handle – but so would ANY small camera. But both my husband and myself have had no issues holding on to it. If you are worried for some reason, that is what the camera strap is there for. Personally, I love the fact that it EASILY slips into a pocket so I don’t walk around looking like a tourist, or have my hands full of camera while I want to be site-seeing.

The function section of this camera (SCN) is SUPER fun. You can take pictures where you turn everything in the photo black & white except selected color(s). This yields some AWESOME artsy shots with no effort (seriously, take pictures in candlight, where the color of the candle light is the only color – AMAZING!!!!). You can also swap colors to take wacky, fun photos. People will think you are a photography genius, and all you did was point and click. There is also a straight B&W mode, and sepia mode, like most cameras.

All in all, I CANNOT imagine having chosen any other camera.

1 Star Flawed camera.
Had the camera for about six months now. Very happy at this point that I bought an extended warranty.

Anyway, I’m not sure if its a problem with just my camera, but from day one I have had problems with the camera not focusing correctly. If anything is in motion at all the picture is blurry. Even staged portraits often come out blurry. I love the zoom ability of the camera, but couple it with the focus problems and it is darn near useless. When the pictures do come out, they come out very nice, but this camera does have problems with low light situations. Additionally, the battery life sucks. I shot around 100-120 pictures in around 1.5 hours and had to change the battery… sounds like a lot of pictures, but really its isn’t when half of them are out of focus.

Last weekend, the camera started having other problems. You look at the display on the back and the image on it shifts left and then right over and over again. I mean big jumps that could take half your subject out of the frame. Put an ear to the camera body/lens and you can hear it constantly adjusting when it is doing this. So, returning this piece-o-junk today… not going to get another one if I can help it.

4 Stars Canon SX200 IS
I have only had the camera for a few weeks and haven’t had much time to play around with it, but it’s quite simple to just pick up and start taking pictures. So far I have been very impressed with both the still picture and video options.

The one drawback that I have noticed is that when I am taking pictures, if I am holding the camera with one hand instead of both hands, I frequently hit the “play” button which displays the pictures already taken. There have been many times when I am about to take a great photo of our kids and then it switches to the play setting and I lose the opportunity to take it. The button is just in a bad place on the camera. That is the only drawback I have found so far. Other than that, I am very satisfied with the camera.

4 Stars Very Nice Camera
This is my 2nd Canon Digital Camera. Overall, i am very satisfied with this product. The pictures taken in sunny, outdoor settings are stunning.

720P HD videos shooting is easy and quaility is very good. Camera Software user interface is very intuitive, and has some advanced editing features as well.

Here is some short-comings I’ve noticed:.

(1) if you takes a lot of pictures with kids playing sports where your subject is in motion, this camera is not a good fit. The continuous-shooting mode is slow. (~1 shot/second range)

in addition, the LCD “blanks” out for a 1+ seconds after each shot so you have a hard time following your subject while in continuous-shooting mode. The “Servo AF” mode tends to over-compesate so i general turned that off.

(2) If you would like to take picutres using the camera’s 12X optical zoom, pls make sure you use a tripod since very small hand motion at that range can make the shot producing a lot of noise (”foggy” pictures).

(3) The “Auto” mode in indoor setting doesn’t always detect the current light condition. It’s best to put the camera in “Program”(P) mode and manually select light condition and sensitivity.

In general, this camera does not take good pictures in low-light conditions without the flash.

1 Star A shame
I don’t really like this product!

I find that is not comfortable the pop up flash.

The lens retraction is really TOO slow the same as the shooter (easy to lost THE moments).

The auto setting MANY times fails (really bad), you can’t trust on it to take a good picture… Is better to use manual settings.

The light capture is deficient the most of the times (it’s a shame, maybe the worst).

It was a big deception for me.

Canon PowerShot SX200IS 12.1 MP Digital Camera with 12x Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 3.0-inch LCD (Red)

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Creative Labs Vado HD 720p Pocket Video Camcorder with 8 GB Video Storage and 2x Digital Zoom Black

See it, shoot it, share it – capture life’s unforgettable moments in high-definition clarity and share them online with Creative’s Vado HD Pocket Video Cam. The thin, lightweight Vado HD is small enough to fit in a pocket, purse or the palm of your hand, and easily captures video in 720p high-definition quality with just the touch of a button. The Creative Vado HD is the only pocket video camera to feature high quality HDMI connectivity and an included HDMI cable that provides 1080i output to an HDTV. Sharing videos online is simple with built-in software that helps you post videos to YouTube, Photobucket or Box. net. The VadoHD is the only pocket video cam to feature true HDMI Connectivity and an included HDMI cable for a superior viewing experience on an HDTV. Take the VadoHD Pocket Video Cam with you everywhere you go and never miss a moment. Up to 8 hrs extended recording capacity (640×480 @ 30fps) HDMI & RCA connections for TV (HDMI cable included, AN cable available separately). Removable, rechargeable Li-ion battery VadoCentral software for simple video editing and sharing Memory size – 8GB Sensor – HD CMOS (1280 x 720) Video quality (pixels) – 1280 x 720 Low light performance – Extremely high sensitivity at 3.3V/lux-sec LCD – 2 diagonal, 16 million colors Screen resolution (pixels) – 640 x 240 Zoom – 2x Digital Zoom Recording capacity – Up to – 2 hours (HD+ quality), 4 hours (HD quality), 8 hours (VGA quality) Digital video format – H.264 AVI at 30 frames per second TV out – RCA, HDMI (HDMI cable included) PC connection – Built-in flexi USB connector Battery life – 2 hours Dimension (H x W x D) – 3.9 x 2.2 x 0.6 Weight – 3.5 oz. Package Contents – Vado HD Pocket Video Cam, HDMI Cable, USB Extension Cable, Silicon Skin, Rechargeable Battery

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Highly Recommended!
I purchased a Vado HD about a month ago on a whim in preparation for a trip around Europe, thinking it might be nice to have some video footage of the things we do and see on the trip. I have owned several bulkier video cameras in the past and am a developer at an online media company, so some of this review will be a bit technical but it should be useful for everyone. I have used the Vado HD for about a month now, taken and processed many hours of video, and have even put together a DVD of some of the footage for friends.

First and foremost, I am very impressed by the Vado HD. Creative opted to use the state of the art H.264 video codec, the image quality is excellent given the limitations of a small image sensor and the device is extremely easy to use. Unlike my DSLR I can hand this to family and friends and they are able to use it in one try, just press the big button. This is extremely useful around children, grandparents, etc.

Image quality is dependent on the amount of available light and the amount of motion (including global motion / shaking of the camera). Less light results in a less clear and noisier picture. More movement results in a less clear picture and possible encoding artifacts. So, if you mostly record in decent lighting and try to hold the camera still or use a tripod then the image quality is absolutely excellent. The camera auto-adjusts exposure settings to your current environment, but realize that it can take a second when moving from very light to very dark environments and such. If you plan to film a lot of night scenes you need to remember there is a limit to the amount of gain the camera will use, so if it is very dark you will get near black video. The sensor is just too small to add much gain to the signal. The video format is 1280×720 H.264 Main, level 4, at 30 frames per second with a bitrate around 8000kpbs. The video is progressive (not interlaced).

Sound quality is about average for such a device. The audio format is Microsoft ADPCM, one channel at 44100kHz. Try not to directly face the wind and you should get decent quality. It can’t be compared to a powerful dedicated directional or wireless mic system, but remember the purpose of the device.

The container format used is AVI rather than MP4, which has a few implications depending on the operating system you use. Apparently it makes life easier on Microsoft Windows, but I’ve never tried using it with Windows. On Mac OS X 10.5 it works fine as long as you install the Perian Quicktime codec pack, which adds support to all applications using the Quicktime library (Quicktime Player, iMovie, Final Cut, etc). If all you care about is playback then VLC will play the files beautifully without installing Perian. Ubuntu and other Linux distributions will play the files out of the box (or automatically install the required components and then play the files). Kdenlive, PiTiVi, and OpenShot support the files perfectly for editing.

The Vado HD is a USB mass storage device, so it is literally plug and play. The files show up on a disk and you can watch and/or drag them to your computer easily. The Vado HD is really that easy to use.

In my opinion the bitrate is pretty high for the quality, but that’s probably a limitation of the hardware encoder in the camera. When storing the files on my computer for editing or archiving I will generally transcode them using FFmpeg, an excellent free video processing tool. The settings I recommend for others are:

ffmpeg -i VID00001.AVI -vcodec libx264 -vpre default -crf 23 -acodec libfaac -ab 128k VID00001.mp4

In my experience the above will result in H.264/AAC in MP4 at a bitrate of around 5000kbps and an SSIM of 0.985 (very near the original quality at 60% of the original file size).

An issue that you most certainly will run into is the shakiness of your videos, especially when moving around / walking with the camera. I’ve found the free AviSynth DePan plugins to be extremely useful for combating this, but it does require running AviSynth through wine or a virtual machine on both Mac OS X and Linux, as AviSynth is Windows-only. Recent versions of iMovie now include a deshake feature so this should be less of a problem for Mac users. After deshaking the videos look much more professional and are far less likely to cause your friends and family to experience vertigo.

There was one severe issue that I ran into that should be mentioned. A week ago I turned on the Vado HD and when pressing record the screen would go black. Nothing was recorded and nothing worked. I was able to format the device by turning it on with the play and trash buttons pressed. After the formatting everything works beautifully again, however if I had any important videos on the device they would have been permanently erased. Since this happened it has not happened again, and I’m likely to call it a filesystem corruption one-time fluke. If it ever happens to you, don’t panic, just format the device. Be aware that you should copy your videos off the device when you can, just in case. Backups are always a smart idea! Also note that formatting the device removes the included software bundle for Windows, so if you are a Windows user you may care about that. I don’t and it gave me an extra few minutes of recording time when it removed the software.

Overall I have to say this is an amazing device. High quality video in your pocket, everywhere. I carry it in my jacket pocket everyday now, taking it out from time to time to film friends or interesting things I see about town. You really can’t beat it for the price and the features. The Creative Vado HD just works, and it works well. I recommend it to anybody wanting to get into filming or wanting to document trips or his/her life. I am extremely happy with the purchase and would buy it again (and may actually purchase another one as a gift).

5 Stars Great video camera for YouTube
Love this camera: battery life is unexpectedly long, high video resolution, super-easy youtube transfer. If this video camera has zooming capability and much better sound quality, it would definitely deserve a five-star rating.

5 Stars Fantastic image quality for an HD camcorder of this size!!!
everything is perfect except one thing – when taping indoors, VadoHD automatically changes the exposition level, so for example if you are taping a person with a window or another good source of light in the background, the person might come out heavily darkened in video. so just try no to come to close to the object you are taping, and everything will be great.

in short – extremely happy with this purchase, one of the rare things that is really useful in everyday life, especially when taping little kids – believe me, in 15-20 years they will be SO GRATEFUL to you for preserving in video their childhood… simply priceless… no need to run for your big DV/HD camera to another room, look for it on the shelf, take it out of the carrying case, turn it on (if battery is not dead – when did you charge it last time?), open the display, check the settings, tape, disk, hdd, flash memory, whatever — well, too many operations. with this tiny beast you can instantly have on video whatever you want – birthdays, get-togethers, fishing/hunting trips, hiking, picnics etc. it is always in your pocket, with a nice light-gray silicon protective case on it (included w/ the device).

whoever sees it, immediately asks (1) what is this and (2) where it can be purchased from.

video format is AVI (HD compressed, of course) – a standard, classic, compatible w/ everything, format.

and yes, did i say it – unbelievably good video quality for a device of this size!!! especially outdoors. wide-angle (!!!) glass lenses are great!

but just remember that this camcorder is really useful in situations when you don’t really need zoom. for school, sport, music or similar events, big concerts etc, take your DV/HD camcorder with you.

5 Stars Incredible Video for a camera this size.
Instructions or suggestions for creating a DVD are not included. It would be helpful, however if you have various DVD creator programs you’ll be able to figure it out.

5 Stars Gr8 HD cam all round
The Creative Vado HD is the perfect work companion for me. I own a lot of gear including a full 3ccd HD camcorder, and while that is undeniably great, my Vado is by far the thing I use the most. I am not going to go into a big review of the features, there are plenty of reviews already doing that. What I will say is that for one on one interviews, capturing footage from tradeshows and conferences, and social events at work, it’s perfect. Anyone can use it, so it’s very easy to give it to someone to use and not worry about them struggling to work out what to do. The size is great it’s about the size of my old Blackberry Pearl, and the battery is great, gives me plenty to shoot for a weekend, or a tradeshow.

The built in sw is pretty good, for short edits, but I do use another editing package that I edit the footage with, which gives me more control over sound/transitions etc – it’s not surprising that SW cost more than the Vado.

I love that the sw is built into the camera, and loads through USB, it means I can use it between all my machines. I do have one feature request though, currently the sw has a fixed window size, which is fine on most of my machines, but… when I use on my Netbook, the 600px screen height is not quite enough to use the sw correct. Creative, if you can make Vado Central resizable or have a Netbook optimized view, now you’re cookin!

I would thoroughly recommend this to anyone.

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