| Panasonic Digital Optical Stabilized 2 7 Inch Only $99.99 @ Amazon   Rated 4 of 5 Stars by 61 Buyers!   |
Panasonic Digital Optical Stabilized 2 7 Inch
I bought my white S3 at Costco for beneath 100 dollars, and the Costco bundle came with a very nice case and a Transcend 2GB SD memory card. The S3′s own box included a LiIon battery pack, a one-piece battery charger (no cord needed), a hand strap, a USB cable, and the software CD-ROM.
The S3 weighs 4 oz. with battery and card and is what we applied to call an idiot-proof camera. It has only 4 shooting modes: Panasonic’s widely known and esteemed iA (intelligent auto) mode, which is merely the best automatic scene-dependent shooting mode on the compact digital camera market today, a normal mode that is alike to the program mode on other digital cameras, a scene mode that lets you pick from 16 presets (including high sensitivity, sports, portrait, baby, etc.), and a camcorder mode that shoots video in Quicktime format at 1280×720, 640×480 (VGA) or 320×240 (QVGA) resolutions. BTW, unlike more expensive Panasonic cameras, the S3 might not zoom while shooting video, a pity.
The S3 comes in assorted colors; mine is white and looks very stylish. It feels good and light in the hand, though I in addition think it feels virtually like a toy, but not in a bad way. The plastic casing seems lasting lasting durable and the buttons are all solid and easy to press.
Unlike other digicams in this price range or even more expensive, the S3 exhibits little shutter lag, that is, as soon as you press the shutter button, it takes the picture (unless it’s actually dark in the room). The S3 takes magnificent outdoor pictures, with splendid color accuracy and contrast and good focus. Indoors, most of the no-flash pictures I have taken of my kids look good, but understandably the digital noise is higher. Indoor flash photography is not something I’d call good on any compact digital camera, including this one, although the flash does make a good fill-in flash outdoors when the subject’s face has shadows.
Overall, I find the S3 *very* pleasant to utilized it is good performance in shutter lag and magnificent outdoor picture quality and good indoor quality make it a winner for a low-cost, no-brainer take-it-anywhere camera. It even comes with date stamp (with or without time), something a heap of casual photographers love.
Note: I posted a sample video and galore sample images on the black Panasonic Lumix DMC-S3 14.1 MP Digital Camera with 4x Optical effigy Stabilized Zoom with 2.7-Inch LCD (Black) product page.
I equated this Panasonic Lumix camera with the Nikon Coolpix L22, which is a 12.0 camera, as opposed to the Lumix which is a 14.1 MP camera. The effigy quality is magnificent with the Lumix. alike shots, one shot at the broad end of the lens, and the other at the zoom end of the lens. I then magnified the effigy to 100% on the computer and equated them. What was enjoyably surprising was that the photos did not show any purple fringing that is usually the norm for low end Point-and-Shoot cameras. None whatsoever.
Secondly, the photo came out sharp and without the hazing that may sometimes become visible up when viewing a photo at 100% magnification.
The flash is small and like most in-built flashes, rather useless at long range and washes everything out at close range. However, when you do manage to take a photo at that accurate zoom range that is ideal, the results are quite acceptable. Just make certain to view the results on the camera’s LCD screen in case you need to make adjustments and shoot again.
The menu is clear and uncluttered. You may even set the timezone via an interactive earth map, similar to what you find on Windows computers. Nice touch.
The camera itself is very light. The black color lends it a stylish look, and the chrome adds to the appeal. Yes, this is a good looking camera.
And yes, it is sleek.
All in all, a very good package, value-for-money, and thus far, a highly recommended compact camera.
Pros:
-What it offers for the price
-Light
-Small
-Excellent “intelligent auto” setting
-16 scene modes (portrait, soft skin- detects face and softens, self portrait, scenery, panorama assist, sports, night portrait, night scenery, food, party, baby, sunset, high sensitivity- reduce blurring of moving objects, fireworks, beach, and snow)
-Built in memory (70 MB)
Cons:
-Panorama
-”Cheap” looking
-Zoom
The Panasonic Lumix S3 is outstanding in terms of it is price, and what it offers. I am not a professional photographer, nor a serious novice photographer. I merely take pictures of events to have memories and for my own enjoyment.
The Lumix S3 was supposed to be a cheap upgrade from my Canon Powershot A560, which I bought over 4 years ago. My Canon had an enormous shutter lag, did not take pictures well in poorly lit areas, and was gorgeous large to put in my pockets (which is something I did not like because that limited my capacity to quickly pull out my camera to take pictures on a moment’s whim… I was perpetually digging through my bag to find my camera).
The Lumix S3 is capable to shoot nice pictures, and it is intelligent auto is competent “change itself” to the right mode to best capture a scene. The flash is good, and the pictures come out bright and crispier most of the time. Like a lot of other point and shoot cameras, this camera is capable of taking fuzzy/blurry pictures. whether or not you have a focus, the picture will come out great. It will not take outstanding group pictures (of people). The people come out fuzzy, busy, and pixilated, and at those times, it does not seem like it is a 14 MP camera.
The plastic exterior of the camera does make the camera look and feel a little “cheap”, (however, because it is “cheap”, I am more adventurous to fetch my camera around with me to more places). It is a very small and thin camera, and it fits nicely in my small hands and pockets. People with more spectacular hands might have disturb keeping on to the camera as it is small, and the plastic shelling make may the camera more slippery to holds Battery life is in addition gorgeous good. I was competent to shoot when it comes to a few hundred shots before the battery died.
However, the initial time I put the lithium ion battery in my camera, I had to set the time, and for a few days after, every time I took the battery out and put it back in, I would be asked for the time. This does not occur so much anymore, but it would prompt me for the date and time once in a while. I am not sure if any individual else experienced this.
There is a built-in memory in the camera (70 MB). While it is only 70 MB, and will not hold a good deal of pictures, it is competent to store at least some. You may retrieve the pictures stored in the built-in memory by connecting your camera with your computer using the USB Connection Cable (comes with the camera).
A con I have noticed is its Panorama feature. It does not have the “sweep panorama” like Sony’s cameras, so I am disappointed. It does have a Panorama ASSIST mode. If selected, the mode displays a 3 x 3 square grid on your screen. You take one picture of the scene. You move your camera to the left/right, make a mental note of where you cut off in the introductory picture, and then snap the second picture (and so on and so forth). To stitch your pictures together, you have to download their software. I did not download their software, so I do not recognise how the pictures will look once stitched together.
While the camera did a good job of taking pictures, zooming in on pictures is not genuinely worth praising. The zoom in on pictures is blurry and reasonably pixilated. Do not have high hopes to see something in detail by zooming in on a photo. Do not anticipate to be far away from an object and still be capable to take a good, close up picture. If you are recording videos, the zoom feature does not work at all, so be in for a little disappointment.
Overall, the Lumix S3 offers galore things for its price and it is a definitive good buy for the amateur photographer, if you not mind the “cheaper” look.
My 8yr old Grand daughter was using a child’s camera I had purchased for her years ago and wanted something better. She has utilized my huge digital galore times but needless to say a $1000 camera isn’t for an 8yr old. I looked long and hard for something more comfortable and almost fool proof. When given to her, she listened very carefully to what she needed to know and then went off and had a ball. She has taken attractive pics of flowers, animals, faces and so on. I got her a red case and a 4g sd card. If you are wanting another camera or just starting off and don’t want or can’t put a lot of cash into it, this is the camera for you.
My husband is the firstborn photographer in the family. He uses a digital SLR and has dissimilar lenses and set-ups. I was simply looking for a small camera that I could carry in my purse that would allow me to quickly take my own photos or videos without requiring to learn a lot of photography stuff like f-stops and ISOs and all that. I think the Panasonic Lumix S3 fit the bill wonderfully!
Size and Weight and Appearance: The camera is compact and light and fits without apparent effort into my purse without adding much bulk. The camera looks like a basic point and shoot. It does have rounded corners, which make it comfortable to hold and appear a bit more “stylish” than a rectangular camera. The design is beauteous basic but seemed fine to me.
Screen and Controls: The screen was very clear and large sufficient for me to navigate around. I thought the controls were beauteous intuitive and easy to applied I like that you may use “Intelligent Auto” to take your photos. This is swell for an amateur like myself who doesn’t want to have to think regarding what settings I need. I as well like that they had choices of dissimilar scenes (scenery, baby, party, sunset, snow, sports) that you may select to automatically modify the settings on the camera to best suit the surroundings that you are shooting in. There are 16 different scenes to choose from. The movement picture option was easy to find and select.
Photos: I thought the quality of the photos was just fine and I was pleased with the results. I think I need to work more with the optical image stablizer to get applied to using it in “action” sequences but I’m sure the learning curve will be gorgeous short. The menu and navigation around the camera and its various controls was intuitive and helpful. Once you get applied to the basic layout of the camera, you can move around and find the features you want to use pretty easily.
Videos: You can without apparent effort choose the movement picture mode and start out shooting a little movie in seconds. The quality of the videos seemed outstanding to me. I shot a video of my son’s Lego game playing on the TV using only natural light and the quality was just fine. I was able to download the video from my memory card and post it on YouTube within minutes without having to make any adjustments. Quick and easy and idealisti for sharing — just what I was looking for!
Playback: I like that you can choose to playback your photos in a slideshow or just show by date. The slideshow feature was in truth nifty because it plays music as it shows your photos. (Although my husband said he can’t imagine using this feature, I thought it was still kind of cool!) You can as well tag your photos as favorites and choose to just show them. It was easy to delete bad photos if you needed to get rid of photos to make more room on your memory card.
Zoom: There is a zoom on the camera but it doesn’t zoom in too much as it is only a 4X zoom. However, this seemed OK to me. After all, you can’t expect everything on a basic camera.
Final Thoughts: Overall, I thought this was a nifty little camera with a nice assortment of features that would be perfective for an amateur photographer who is looking for a camera that is easy to use and takes both videos and photos. For a novice photographer like myself who just wants to keep a lightweight camera with them all the time to capture little moments in life, this camera is just perfect. Recommended.
In comparison to my Nikkon CoolPics, I prefer the Panasonic Lumix more. It’s marginally heavier and thicker, but it’s performance is a tad better. The shutter speed is fast when you push the button, the menu choices are simple to use, and charging the camera is as well more elementary It was in addition interesting that the camera itself has a small memory on its own to take some pictures even if you don’t have a memory card.
My favored feature of the camera is the birthday feature. This is outstanding for babies, where you can put the exact date age into the pictures. It’s an amazing feature and one I haven’t ever seen before.
For a point and shoot camera, this is an idealisti camera and I commend it is
For a point and shoot, this is a outstanding cam a. I bought it for a trip to Guatemala and it worked great. I took about 300 pictures, the battery never failed, the camera perpetually worked as it will have to and the pictures turned out great. For the money, it was a good buy.