Digital Camera Recommendations: $300 to $400

That Compact Super Zoom article is very telling... I think I'm going to go with one of the Panasonic Lumix ZS cameras. Probably the ZS3 but maybe the ZS1 depending on prices I can get.

Speaking of which, will I only be able to find these available online? When I was first looking I dropped into BestBuy and Target and the selection absolutely sucked. I remember telling the guy what I wanted and he pushed the Olympus Stylus 9000 (Superzoom) which also happens to be the worst in that class of cameras based on the article named above.

Am I forced to shop Amazon or can I pick this puppy up at a local retailer? Thanks everyone!
 


trigatch4 said:
That Compact Super Zoom article is very telling... I think I'm going to go with one of the Panasonic Lumix ZS cameras. Probably the ZS3 but maybe the ZS1 depending on prices I can get.

Speaking of which, will I only be able to find these available online? When I was first looking I dropped into BestBuy and Target and the selection absolutely sucked. I remember telling the guy what I wanted and he pushed the Olympus Stylus 9000 (Superzoom) which also happens to be the worst in that class of cameras based on the article named above.

Am I forced to shop Amazon or can I pick this puppy up at a local retailer? Thanks everyone!
Click to expand...

Like I said earlier, I would wait and see what other cameras come out in the show that's on now? or next week... not sure when it is, and then decide. Panasonic might update the line, otherwise the ZS3 looks like a good choice.

Of course you should be able to find those cameras locally. In Vancouver there is a store called London Drugs and their electronics dept. carries just about every camera that is on the market. There's also Future Shop as well as dedicated photography stores here and there. They all compete for pricing and will usually beat the lowest price at another store.

I would have guessed Best Buy would have a good selection, but maybe not. Or maybe you just didn't know exactly what you were looking for when you went in?

Otherwise Amazon would work.
 
Fatbat said:
Yeah that's the one, I linked to a round up review of it earlier in this thread and it did quite well against the others in its class, though they rated the Panasonic ZS1 and ZS3 as the overall winners so if one of those is the one you have then you chose well.
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I bought the TZ5 last year, didn't realise they use different names here and in the US. The ZS3 = TZ7 (successor to mine), not sure what mine would be.. TZ minus 1? Maybe it wasn't available in the states...

Anyway from what I can tell the only upgrades are the higher MP sensor and the 12x zoom (which half makes me wanna upgrade already!)

There's 2 small annoyances I've found: The sound quality on vids (HD :D) is not great in noisy places such as gigs and the exposure time can only be changed manually in fixed increments with the smallest being 15 secs (it's only available in starry sky mode), they might have changed this for the TZ7/ZS3 though. Not the end of the world but the one thing I miss from my old Canon.
 
LazyHippy's recommendation for the Panasonics is spot on. I did tons of research a while back before buying my last camera, and the TZ/TS series beat every other brand hands down in the compact category.

I also noticed that Canon Powershots had the most problems after time. Take a look at ebay- there are hundreds of broken ones up there at any given time. They seem to be prone to lens errors and sticking.

After all that research on compacts, we decided to go with a pro-sumer Nikon P80. Not purse friendly, but it's one step below the D series (DSLR), and takes fantastic pictures. Video's not bad either. 10x optical zoom and macro down to a couple of cm. I paid less than 300.00 for it just before Xmas last year.
 
Panasonic's poor audio is rather disappointing. I'm wondering how bad it is. We were at the Erykah Badu concert in the front row and each of us took video with our compact cams. I have a exilim and she had a cheap canon elph.

Her audio was amazing and mine was terrible. And I was pretty pissed the audio sucks. Is it really, really poor audio or just not super crisp?

Time to find the best price on that ZS3!
 
trigatch4 said:
Panasonic's poor audio is rather disappointing. I'm wondering how bad it is. We were at the Erykah Badu concert in the front row and each of us took video with our compact cams. I have a exilim and she had a cheap canon elph.

Her audio was amazing and mine was terrible. And I was pretty pissed the audio sucks. Is it really, really poor audio or just not super crisp?

Time to find the best price on that ZS3!
Click to expand...

Let me find a small enough vid to put on online quickly (problem with HD vids... massive fuckin files!) and you can hear what it's like on mine at a gig. (Although a quick search found one user of both who thinks the audio has improved.)

Fuck... reading more I'm wanting to upgrade now...
The TZ5 sported an awesome Leica lens with a wide 28mm starting point, going up to a whopping 280mm. That's called a 10x zoom, in case your maths isn't up to much! The new model goes even wider at the starting point, 25mm, and even further at maximum zoom. It's new 12x lens extends to a mightily impressive 300mm.
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Panasonic TZ7 | Mexiled Photographer

Movies have been further enhanced by the addition of a dedicated Record button, stereo microphone, wind cut function to block out background noise, and audio sampling at 48kHz.
Click to expand...
Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ7 Review | PhotographyBLOG
 
These are from my TZ5, the predecessor to the TZ7/ZS3.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV48mv3YzOk"]YouTube - Shlomo and the vocal orchestra @ glasto 2009[/ame]


[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvJZrNvH-Oo"]YouTube - Beardyman @ Glasto 2009[/ame]

Click HD to get a better idea... as you can see it gets a bit grainy with the digital zoom and can sometimes take a while to focus. The stabilisation is great.. but can't handle dancing whilst filming!

The sound can distort with loud bass and generally lacks clarity, although it certainly sounds a lot better on Youtube than using Quicktime (TZ5 uses .mov files.. think that's changed for the TZ7/ZS3).

I've got another vid uploading of a larger, louder gig (and more crappy camerawork!). That one's outdoors and shows how it handles a lot of crowd noise.

If you do get the ZS3, it'd be great to see/hear some gigs and see how they compare. The higher sample rate might help a lot.

 
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