Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ5 Black Digital Camera (5.0MP, 2560x1920, 12x Opt, 16MB SD Memory Card)

Reviewed by: touristguy87

Duration of ownership:

Strengths: lens. The lens. Did I say, the lens?light, good imaging, great metering, fast burst mode

Weaknesses: a few minor things

Overall Evaluation: I've had one for 4 months now and I can say this is my main camera. I take it on trips instead of my sp-500 because, even though the sp500 creates slightly better looking images in the best conditons, the fz5 has a solidly-mounted lens and I can shoot it from my car with no problems and it shoots very fast in burst mode whereas I'm afraid I'm going to break the sp-500 plus it focuses and shoots slow. I take it instead of my s2-is because the lens cap is well-designed and it is about a third less weight, and I trust the metering better on the fz5 than I trust the s2. I had to change one thing you will have to do this too, set it to use vivid mode, there is no independent brightness/sharpness/contrast/saturation setting, the only way to do it is by changing the color mode from natural or standard to vivid. A second thing I would recommend would be to use the 9-point metering. Makes it a whole lot easier to get good focus. Those two changes turned this camera from a tepid performer to a torrid one :)Third just shoot program (since it is a pain to manually reconfigure the camera for different F# and shutter speed settings) and shoot it in a high enough ISO to give you a good shot under various zoom conditions. Don't worry. It's a very clean camera.Last suggestion is to shoot it in burst mode when shooting hand-held, the camera is so light that it will shake easily when you hit or squeeze the shutter. Most of the time the 1st shot of a burst has noticable shake, but the 2nd and third shots are great. Play the odds. The key is to learn how to hold the shutter down and the camera still, relaxed, calm, for 2 seconds, and let the camera reel off 4 or 5 shots. You'll get at least two good ones from a burst with this camera, even at 10x zoom 1/200 or 1-3x 1/20. It does shoot well with a good steady hold and it will not be steady while you are squeezing and releasing the trigger.It is still a bit bigger than I'd like, I have to use a sizable fannypack to carry it. But. It's reasonably small, light, very fast burst (not so fast zoom, that could be faster but it's fast enough) and uses SD high-speed 2gig cards I can shoot all day on a battery charge, easy. It's a good deal. It's not an SLR. It's not a Nikon Coolpix 8400. But it's pretty damm good. In terms of noise, you can shoot at ISO400 and not complain about the noise. I really don't see any noise at any slower ISO. And it is soooo fast, you can shoot ISO100/F2.8 at dusk. Then turn the IS on and keep shooting. It is a little awkward to shoot at night and get the proper exposure (you kind of have to shoot manual or fiddle with the auto-exposure to get the lighting o.k.), but, with practice you'll get used to it. I would recommend this camera over any of the others that I have, for all-around use. As my "one camera". It's been there with me, I've done that with it...I trust it.