Rating: 
Summary: Great Little Camera
Review: After having used this digital camera for two months the conclusion is simple: This camera is great!The quality of the pictures is really good (at normal/small prints). I am very pleased with the many opportunities digital photos give me, I can just print the pictures from home, send them to my family, edit colors etc.
The ability to see the pictures right at the spot comes in very handy (and I can just delete them if I don't like them). Once you have the camera and a printer it is completely free develop the pictures! The only drawback this camera has is it's ability to take indoors photos in low light conditions. But using the software that comes with the camera I can easily change that. It takes a little time to learn to use the Arc photo sotware, but once you get used to it is easy (even though I only really use Arc PhotoBase). The camera has plenty of settings for my use and they are easy to use. I have found that some pictures look better when I turn the photo compression off and set ISO to 200. The pictures will take up a little more space, but the memory is not all that expensive compared to the camera. One function I am using a lot is the video (with sound). It is very neat to capture small video clips and transfer them to PC (very easy using USB) so you can send them via email. I can also review the pictures on TV using the cable that comes with the camera. After having this camera two months I have taken over 300 photos, even though I didn't use to take photos at all. I have pretty much takne the camera with me every where! Most of the photos came out in a great quality due to the cameras automatic settings. This really makes it easy to take good photos!
Rating:
Summary: "great little camera"
Review: For my first digital camera, was looking for a reasonable priced 2 mp model and looked at Canon A40, Casio and Fuji equivalents. Running the specs side by side and removing the "nice to haves" left the Panasonic the clear winner for me -good value for money, lots of usefull features, compactness and a Lieca lens stood out in the comparisons. Panasonic and Leica is a good combination and works well in this camera. The LC20 has good looks and feels the part - It is attractive and is ergnomically very good. Video is a bonus, but not a replacement for a video camera. Haven't seen any barrel distortion, colour bleed or other faults. The pictures are very sharp, clearly defined and relatively undistorted. The colours are natural and not "over saturated". Some people have reported a little under exposure - rarely see this, but it is easy to compensate for with the software. Have seen some complaints with the software, but have found it okay to use. Start up time is quick, refresh time between flash shots is up to 5 seconds. Battery use depends on lcd screen use etc. but is not too bad. I bought 4 more 1800ma/hr batteries, so won't run out of power. Comparing the results with photos taken by friends / family digital cameras this camera more than holds its own. A little knowledge of photography was helpful as good results in full auto mode in all situations are not always achieveable. Outdoors, just set in auto and shoot for consistently good results. Indoors in lower light situations as with most digital cameras, the flash is not particularly strong, the lcd screen is a little hard to see in low light and the auto focus sometimes takes a little time to work. If you take the time to read the manual, and learn how to adjust the sensitivity and make exposure compensation adjustments and you will get much better results. Found that changing the sensitivity to ISO200 in low light produced good results, ISO400 can produce noisy pictures. Positives: Great value ... came with additional 16mb card, battery charger, case and strap; Compact; Great leans; Good macro; Bright lcd screen and very good menu functionality (intuitive); Quick start up time; Leica lens; Good quality pictures; Negatives:
No real negatives, but use the battery door carefully. It appears a bit "plasticky" but if you take care no problems.
Rating: 
Summary: Complete waste of money
Review: Having always been a Panasonic believer, I bought this camera two years ago for a purchase price of $550, after playing with the camera for a year and four months the camera overheated and died on me (at a draft horse show that I had been waiting for for a long time). I sent the camera into Panasonic and was quoted an incredible $350 to fix the camera (market value for that same camera at the time was less than $250). I wrote the CEO of Panasonic only to be directed to someone else. They offered to take the cost of the part and have me pay for labour ($90) and shipping ($20), I asked them if they could instead send me a coupon towards the cost of a new one (as I would have rather spent the $110 on the purchase of a new one with warranty) and they said they couldn't. (more like they wouldn't) Needless to say that I was not impressed and would not recommend this product to anyone. It was a horrible experience dealing with the customer service sector of Panasonic, unfortunately for them they have lost a fond customer and repeat buyer.
Rating:
Summary: spend your money on a good camera
Review: I bought this camera less than a year ago. I had it die on me once and i had it exchanged for a different one, after getting the run around from panasonic. A few days ago the camera has just died on me again. There is a 1 year waranty right, no that just covers the cost of parts, labor is on you, which is a $90 flat rate, plus $12 to ship. If you are thinking about buying this camera, you are best off looking else where.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome Little Camera LOADED with Great Features
Review: I bought this, my first digital camera a month ago and it has exceeded my expectations! I did a tremendous amount of research to figure out what features I most wanted in a digital camera. I was basically looking for a small DC I could take around and take lots of pictures with. Despite Panasonic being pretty new to DC's, I noticed a lot of the features that I was looking for on the LC-20 and decided to take a chance. What first caught my eye about this Panasonic was the Leica Lens. Being somewhat familiar with photography, I have always known Leica to make excellent (and expensive!) lenses. I don't have a digital photo printer so I can't comment on how well these pictures print out. This baby had just about every important feature I was looking for: 2.1 mp, 3x optical 2x digital (but everyone knows digital zoom's useless), compact, light, plugs directly to my computer via USB (don't need to buy a separate reader), burst mode rocks; and it uses 2 AA batteries (included with charger!) which have averaged a good 70+ shots with the LCD screen on. Movie mode with sound is a great addition too with a 20s film clip eating 3.25megs each. One feature that I thought was awesome and I'm still learning to use is Burst mode. This was another feature I highly desired, seeing that one of the major complaints my friends had with their DC was the 1-2 second lag in between picture-taking. Burst mode allows you to take 3-5 pics per second, with one drawback being you can only take as many pictures as fast as the flash will allow. This basically translates to being able to use burst mode most effectively outside during the day. I talked to friends before I bought this camera, most of whom own one of the Canon Elphs (great line of cameras too), others have Olympus Camedias (huge and bulky) and Sony's (not bad, but pretty pricy for what you're getting). I tried theirs out before I made my purchase and I can safely say I'm much happier with my camera for the following reasons: -The Panasonic powers up FAST! Power-up to a picture taken is about 3 seconds.
-The delay between hitting the shutter button and the camera actually taking the picture is very short, less than or about a second.
-Burst mode! Although it really only functionally works during the day when you don't need a flash, one of the most frequent complaints I heard from friends is it's impossible to time action shots. Burst mode helps remedy that.
-AA batteries are cheaper than proprietaries and can be bought anywhere if you find yourself on vacation or just out and unable to recharge quickly
-The camera fits well in my hand
-The macro feature is a definite bonus
-I recently took this camera skiing and can happily report that I could turn the camera on/off, and take pictures pretty easily even with my gloves on. Some drawbacks that I've come across:
- Don't even bother with the packaged software. Even using plain old Windows Explorer beats it.
- Doesn't include a DC adapter, but this is easily remedied by buying a set of 4 rechargables for a total of 6, that'll take care of 200+ pics at a time)
- Of course 8MB isn't enough, but you need to buy a new memory card with every DC on the market anyway; my 128MB card can hold 159 1600x1200 pics without compression. That jumps to over 1000 pictures if you lower the resolution to 640x480 and use compression.
- Uses SD (SecureDigital) memory cards, which are slightly more expensive than Compact Flash and Sony Memory Sticks (and hardly anyone else uses them so you're stuck if you want to switch brands later). These memory cards are SMALL, though, about the size and thickness of a dime. Some people may say 2.1 mp is a drawback, but these pictures come out crisp and clear at 1600x1200 and are already pushing 700kb. If you want 3-4mp, you'll probably need to invest in huge memory sticks not to mention a bigger hard drive. Digital pictures add up! I've already taken over a thousand in the past month! The key to buying a DC will be to ask yourself what you will be using the camera for most. Is it something you want to bring with you EVERYWHERE? If so, you'll probably want something ultra-small, smaller than this camera (and thus probably twice the price of this camera). I just wanted something to replace my Point-and-Shoot, something that allows me to take a lot of pictures without worrying about the cost of film, development, etc. IMHO, this is a great starter DC. It's relatively cheap, has a lot of great features, and it's compact enough to carry in a jacket pocket. Overall, it has exceeded my expectations and continues to please.
Rating:
Summary: Good camera for beginners
Review: i got this camera last christmas, and it's great, you may say that 2.0 mega pixels, is too low in quality, but you will be stunned, the pictures comes out clean and clear. when put on digital mode you can get high quality pictures. i'm having fun in the airport taking pictures and sending them in to airliners and myaviation.net. if you are an amatuer photographer this camera is the perfect starter camera.
Rating:
Summary: This Camera is a Joke.
Review: I got this camera last december, and since i'm a die hard aviation fan, i decided to use the camera for aviation photography for airliners.net. and since airliners.net requires high quality photos of the airplanes, when i first started to use it i realize it's a disaster. why it's a disaster because since this camera hardly has any zoom lens when i zoom the aircraft to the maximum, it still looks like it's 100000000000 light years away in the viewfinder and the reality is it's really kind of close to you. i tried sending in aviation pictures to airliners.net but the webmasters rejected my photos, because they say the plane is too far away, and of low quality, who i have to thank for that, Mr Camera whatelse. do yourself a favour and get a very very very very powerful camera, with lots of zoom lens, ignore this peice of crap, no wonder it's so cheap.
Rating:
Summary: Panasonic Lumix DMC-LC20S
Review: I've had my LC-20 for 2 weeks now, and love it! The movie feature works well and fits my needs as an educator. It's coming in really handy in my classroom with reports, behavior problems, etc. I have to keep a portfolio of my year, and this camera is making it happen. The 8 MB card that comes with the camera will not hold enough for much use; 2 movies and 2 or 3 photos at 1024. I've been filling up a 64MB card, so it's best to go 128 MB or higher. Your could easily spend more on huge memory than on a digital camera itself. I am replacing an RCA camera that has been replaced twice under warranty and am awaiting a third replacement. It's picture quality was fine, but the quality of the body and battery cover was lousy.
Rating:
Summary: Panasonic Lumix DMC-LC20S
Review: I've had my LC-20 for 2 weeks now, and love it! The movie feature works well and fits my needs as an educator. It's coming in really handy in my classroom with reports, behavior problems, etc. I have to keep a portfolio of my year, and this camera is making it happen. The 8 MB card that comes with the camera will not hold enough for much use; 2 movies and 2 or 3 photos at 1024. I've been filling up a 64MB card, so it's best to go 128 MB or higher. Your could easily spend more on huge memory than on a digital camera itself. I am replacing an RCA camera that has been replaced twice under warranty and am awaiting a third replacement. It's picture quality was fine, but the quality of the body and battery cover was lousy.
Rating:
Summary: spend your money on a good camera
Review: I've had this camera now for about 6 months and it's been exactly what I was looking for. It is slightly larger then the much more common Canon Elf line, but had the distinct advantage (at least over early models) of not making your friends look like ghosts when the flash is used (I found images taken with the elf nearly always overexposed - but I've never actually owned one). The pictures taken with the lumix can be very sharp. I say can be, because I've ended up with more then a handful (out of hundreds) of images which have ended up fairly blurry. Usually these are when I've zoomed out to the full 3x (that's optical zoom - digital zoom is fake, and this camera sensibly lets you disable it). I may have a slightly shaky hand, or a tendency to snap the shutter button hard when I take the picture - I don't think it's very forgiving. If you have a lot of trouble with taking a steady shot you probably will not be happy with this camera. Generally though, my images are sharp and very true to life. I am not sure how much of the quality of the images is attributed to the leica lens, but the light and shadows in my images give pictures from the lumix a depth that is often missing from digital images. As with nearly all digital cameras, your best pictures will be in bright (but not direct) natural light. And, as with most 2MP digital cameras you won't see the pixelation in the image that is so common in older digital cameras. The images will be suitable for printing at 5x7 (or maybe even 8x10), and you won't have to spend a fortune. It seems like the jump to 3MP costs quite a bit more for an only incremental increase in quality. Again, as with most digital cameras, the lumix really drains the batteries quickly. It uses 2 AA batteries and comes with 2 rechargeables and a charger. I get about 2 hours of "shooting time" with a full charge. A really sweet feature on this camera is the last photo review. Digital cameras generally have a picture taking mode and a review mode, where you can view and delete your images. The lumix has this, but also allows you to review your last picture. You can see the image, zoom around on the details of it, and if it's bad, you can delete it. It automatically ends the review mode after a few seconds of inactivity. I am totally lost when using a camera without this feature now. In the 2MP range this camera is definitely a pack leader. Pros:
Capable of very sharp pictures
Sensible user interface, easy to nagviate
Last photo review is awesome Cons:
Drains batteries
Somewhat hard to hold focus when zoomed in
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