Rating: 
Summary: Digital cam!
Review: ... Enter the Lumix...Ive been waiting for a camera like this for years. Its the only big zoom camera that is optically stabilized. This means that you dont need a tripod to take clean max-zoomed photos. In most cases even the digital zoomed pix look ok (there is a noticable degrade though). Most importantly, the camera is tiny. ... The only thing I would add is a flip out LCD monitor. Holding a camera up to your face is a dead give away that you are taking a photo. With a flip out, you could hold the camera like you are just carrying it while you are actually zooming in on chix. This and a remote zoom & shutter control would make it the perfect cam. Unless you are taking poster size photos you dont need any more than 2MP. It will do 1600x1200 photos which are perfect for your computer wallpaper. So whether you're a private eye or like me, the lumix is an affordable dream come true. Amazon has the best price online and the best return policy.
Rating: 
Summary: Just ordered it - great reviews and a fantastic zoom...
Review: ...Basically, the 12X zoom convinced me, plus many of the advanced consumer functions such as bracketing and burst mode shooting. I shoot outdoors a great deal, especially sports, and this is a nice compromise between the cheaper cost of a point and shoot and the full features of a digital SLR.
Rating:
Summary: Great Camera
Review: Don't fall for megapixal envy! A 12x stabalized optical zoom on this 2.1MP camera will out perform a 4MP camera cropped to the same field of view. I've used three digital cameras; a Canon A40 (2.1MP), an Olympus D-40 (4.0MP) and the FZ1. It is no contest the FZ1 takes the best pictures, has the quickest shutter response, the most accurate color reproduction and an amazing lens that allows shots the others cannot dream of taking... Manual controls would be nice, but not missed much at all. Once again, you cannot crop a 4 or 5MP image to the same field of view as this camera at 12x optical zoom and achieve the same quality. If you are not making posters, 2.1MP is plenty. You won't be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: The Poor Man's Digital SLR
Review: Dumbfounded by the deluge of digicams? Spending more time obsessing on which digicam to buy, more than you did buying your house? Like the fact the users seem to fall in love with this little wonder but are put off by the fact it's only a 2 megapixel camera? Don't worry about the megapixels. The Lumix FZ1/FZ2 is rightfully developing quite a cult following with consumers, photography enthusiasts, and even professional photographers (read "FZ-1: A Pro-Level Digital Point & Shoot" by Frank Van Ripper from the Washington Post available on-line at CameraWorks.com) If you can live without more megapixels, this compact camera has so much to offer. 2MP is more than you need for PC viewing, e-mail, and the web. It can and does provide sufficient resolution to make excellent photo-quality prints up to 5X7, and supposedly makes nice enlargements up to 8X10. This is a compact, responsive, point and shoot camera with a robust feature set - including a capable burst mode (great for sports action shots and not found on cameras in this class), and true TTL framing via an EVF. There's enough to this camera to satiate the enthusiast - night portrait, portrait, panning, "normal" mode etc., and also has a fully automated mode if you want to let the camera do all the work, and just "focus" (pardon the pun) on composition. But what sets this digicam apart is the big zoom fixed Leica lens. It really is a word-class piece of glass with remarkable specs, especially considering its size. Combine this remarkable lens with an effective image stabilization system, and you have a "different animal" all together. This is a unique versitile and fun digicam that has so much more than others in its price range. Its limitations (weak pop-up flash, EVF cuts out in low light, noise above ISO 200, etc) are really more attributable to its class ($300 point and shoot) than the camera. However, it is capable of producing remarkable images, and once you start shooting with its high quality lens with an IS system, you'll never want a camera doesn't have them. Plus, it is an excellent value. If you don't do a lot of enlargements or cropping in a photo editor, I would recommend the FZ1 in a heartbeat over any other camera, regardless of the number of megapixels, in its price range, and most cameras that cost two or three times as much. Now a word about megapixels. A megapixel is 1 million pixels (they're the little squares that make up the image...). So, this camera produces images that are 1600 pixels wide by 1200 pixels high. 1600X1200 = approx 2 million, hence 2 megapixels. Since going digital, I find that I view 90%-95% on my PC/laptop monitor. It's convenient, and priting them all would cost a small fortune, since now that I can snap away with wreckless abandon since film (for me) is a thing of the past. (I still use a lab to print. I would rather "borrow" the lab's $200,000 printer than own a $300 dollar consumer photo printer, plus it costs much less per print when you factor in the cost of the printer ink...) Okay, so my laptop's highest 32 bit resolution setting is 1024X768, the resolution of the FZ1 (1600X1200) exceeds that. Point is that since I view most of my pictures on a PC now, I gain NOTHING from a higher resolution camera with more megapixels in most circumstances. The 5% to 10% of pictures I print, I usually print at standard 6X4. Anything over 200 pixels per inch (ppi) is considered "photo quality" for printing, 150 ppi is considered "acceptable". As you get beyond 250 ppi on a print, the differences in resolution from a normal viewing distance are virtually invisible to the naked eye. IMO, I would fail a blind test, probably, if asked to guess the resolution of a picture between the 200 and 250 ppi range. 1600 (pixels)/6(inches) = 267 ppi, exceeding 250 ppi in length on a 6X4 (Note: technically, this formula isn't entirely accurate but is close enough for government work, and serves better as a quick illustration...). A 5X7 is 228 ppi, and an 8X10 is 160 ppi. Hence, this camera produces "photo-quality" images up to 5X7 and "acceptable" resolution up to 8X10. Most photo editors worth their disk space, like Photoshop, can resample images using bicubic interpolation to add pixels and boost resolution for the (very) occasional larger print. A very good product for this is Qimage, a free trial is available, and it's quite inexpensive to purchase. A hot shoe would have been nice but my understanding is that a "digital slave flash", which are quite reasonably priced, like the Vivitar AF200, work very well when you need a big flash. Now consider, not a "scientific survey" but 3 or 4 folks I know own 3 to 5 megapixel cameras. (The 5 megapixel guy has a 10X optical zoom camera, made by one of the usual suspects, that cost 2X as much as the FZ1, but he doesn't even attempt zooming out beyond 5X without blurring the image, since his camera doesn't have IS). None of them kept their cameras on the highest setting thereby "using" all the megapixels. Why? Because the larger image files cut the amount of pictures they can store on their flash cards in half, their camera annoyingly "locks up" for a couple seconds while it writes a larger image file (often very frustrating), and they really can't notice a difference in quality on their prints, and they view most of their pictures on their PC. Let's say you have a 6 megapixel camera that had a cheap lens that introduced all sorts of distortion and a processing engine that rendered inaccurate colors. What would you get? A crappy picture with distortion and inaccurate colors rendered in all their ugly glory in high resolution. The FZ1 has the "best" lens on the market, and an excellent, innovative processing engine that provides "enough" but not "extraneous" megapixels to provide photoquality resolution for 99% of "real world" viewing formats. I believe that camera companies are exploiting the conspicuous consumption factor of camera consumers who wear their camera around their neck like jewelery. (The "name" + many megapixels = "the guy" equivalent of a pearl necklace to wear on a night out). It is therefore a great way for the camera co's to (finally) introduce planned obsolence into their offerings, dispensing with the days when folks held on to their cameras for decades until they finally died. I'm glad at least one manufacturer withdrew from the "great megapixel wars" and offered an excellent product based around real user needs and the true advantages of the full range of available technology - like IS and its processing engine, and did so at a very reasonable cost, instead of being just another combatant exploiting one aspect - "the megapixel", and the conspicuous consumption factor. Get the picture?
Rating:
Summary: The Poor Man's Digital SLR
Review: Dumbfounded by the deluge of digicams? Spending more time obsessing on which digicam to buy, more than you did buying your house? Like the fact the users seem to fall in love with this little wonder but are put off by the fact it's only a 2 megapixel camera? Don't worry about the megapixels. The Lumix FZ1/FZ2 is rightfully developing quite a cult following with consumers, photography enthusiasts, and even professional photographers (read "FZ-1: A Pro-Level Digital Point & Shoot" by Frank Van Ripper from the Washington Post available on-line at CameraWorks.com) If you can live without more megapixels, this compact camera has so much to offer. 2MP is more than you need for PC viewing, e-mail, and the web. It can and does provide sufficient resolution to make excellent photo-quality prints up to 5X7, and supposedly makes nice enlargements up to 8X10. This is a compact, responsive, point and shoot camera with a robust feature set - including a capable burst mode (great for sports action shots and not found on cameras in this class), and true TTL framing via an EVF. There's enough to this camera to satiate the enthusiast - night portrait, portrait, panning, "normal" mode etc., and also has a fully automated mode if you want to let the camera do all the work, and just "focus" (pardon the pun) on composition. But what sets this digicam apart is the big zoom fixed Leica lens. It really is a word-class piece of glass with remarkable specs, especially considering its size. Combine this remarkable lens with an effective image stabilization system, and you have a "different animal" all together. This is a unique versitile and fun digicam that has so much more than others in its price range. Its limitations (weak pop-up flash, EVF cuts out in low light, noise above ISO 200, etc) are really more attributable to its class ($300 point and shoot) than the camera. However, it is capable of producing remarkable images, and once you start shooting with its high quality lens with an IS system, you'll never want a camera doesn't have them. Plus, it is an excellent value. If you don't do a lot of enlargements or cropping in a photo editor, I would recommend the FZ1 in a heartbeat over any other camera, regardless of the number of megapixels, in its price range, and most cameras that cost two or three times as much. Now a word about megapixels. A megapixel is 1 million pixels (they're the little squares that make up the image...). So, this camera produces images that are 1600 pixels wide by 1200 pixels high. 1600X1200 = approx 2 million, hence 2 megapixels. Since going digital, I find that I view 90%-95% on my PC/laptop monitor. It's convenient, and priting them all would cost a small fortune, since now that I can snap away with wreckless abandon since film (for me) is a thing of the past. (I still use a lab to print. I would rather "borrow" the lab's $200,000 printer than own a $300 dollar consumer photo printer, plus it costs much less per print when you factor in the cost of the printer ink...) Okay, so my laptop's highest 32 bit resolution setting is 1024X768, the resolution of the FZ1 (1600X1200) exceeds that. Point is that since I view most of my pictures on a PC now, I gain NOTHING from a higher resolution camera with more megapixels in most circumstances. The 5% to 10% of pictures I print, I usually print at standard 6X4. Anything over 200 pixels per inch (ppi) is considered "photo quality" for printing, 150 ppi is considered "acceptable". As you get beyond 250 ppi on a print, the differences in resolution from a normal viewing distance are virtually invisible to the naked eye. IMO, I would fail a blind test, probably, if asked to guess the resolution of a picture between the 200 and 250 ppi range. 1600 (pixels)/6(inches) = 267 ppi, exceeding 250 ppi in length on a 6X4 (Note: technically, this formula isn't entirely accurate but is close enough for government work, and serves better as a quick illustration...). A 5X7 is 228 ppi, and an 8X10 is 160 ppi. Hence, this camera produces "photo-quality" images up to 5X7 and "acceptable" resolution up to 8X10. Most photo editors worth their disk space, like Photoshop, can resample images using bicubic interpolation to add pixels and boost resolution for the (very) occasional larger print. A very good product for this is Qimage, a free trial is available, and it's quite inexpensive to purchase. A hot shoe would have been nice but my understanding is that a "digital slave flash", which are quite reasonably priced, like the Vivitar AF200, work very well when you need a big flash. Now consider, not a "scientific survey" but 3 or 4 folks I know own 3 to 5 megapixel cameras. (The 5 megapixel guy has a 10X optical zoom camera, made by one of the usual suspects, that cost 2X as much as the FZ1, but he doesn't even attempt zooming out beyond 5X without blurring the image, since his camera doesn't have IS). None of them kept their cameras on the highest setting thereby "using" all the megapixels. Why? Because the larger image files cut the amount of pictures they can store on their flash cards in half, their camera annoyingly "locks up" for a couple seconds while it writes a larger image file (often very frustrating), and they really can't notice a difference in quality on their prints, and they view most of their pictures on their PC. Let's say you have a 6 megapixel camera that had a cheap lens that introduced all sorts of distortion and a processing engine that rendered inaccurate colors. What would you get? A crappy picture with distortion and inaccurate colors rendered in all their ugly glory in high resolution. The FZ1 has the "best" lens on the market, and an excellent, innovative processing engine that provides "enough" but not "extraneous" megapixels to provide photoquality resolution for 99% of "real world" viewing formats. I believe that camera companies are exploiting the conspicuous consumption factor of camera consumers who wear their camera around their neck like jewelery. (The "name" + many megapixels = "the guy" equivalent of a pearl necklace to wear on a night out). It is therefore a great way for the camera co's to (finally) introduce planned obsolence into their offerings, dispensing with the days when folks held on to their cameras for decades until they finally died. I'm glad at least one manufacturer withdrew from the "great megapixel wars" and offered an excellent product based around real user needs and the true advantages of the full range of available technology - like IS and its processing engine, and did so at a very reasonable cost, instead of being just another combatant exploiting one aspect - "the megapixel", and the conspicuous consumption factor. Get the picture?
Rating:
Summary: An awesome camera for novices!
Review: First, I'd like to say that I've owned about 7 different digital cameras, and this has got to be my favorite out of the bunch. I travel a lot, so I enjoy taking a lot of photos, and this camera has just made picture taking fun again! Its controls are easy to use, making it a great point-and-shoot camera for someone who's new to digital photography. The 12x optical zoom using a Leica lens is the BIGGEST optical lens on a digital camera, and the image stabilization help to make this huge zoom usable without a tripod. Thanks to the Leica lens, colors are vivid, and the photos come out crisp. I only have two complaints about the camera, but only one is important: it's a 2 MP camera. With a lens like this, Panasonic should've made it at least a 3. That's the only reason I didn't give it a 5 star rating...but I was still tempted to. I like to make 4x6 pics, but 2 MP doesn't make for nice 4x6's. The other complaint is that many controls and settings are preset, so serious photographers won't like it (but serious shooters would avoid it anyway, because it's a 2 MP). All that said, at this price, you won't find a better point-and-shoot camera with a big zoom lens. The camera is compact (it still fits in the palm of my hand), has a fast start up time (considering the lens) and a fast shot-to-shot time. The controls and settings are easy to understand for beginners and did I mention the 12x zoom? It's a great camera for fun photography. If you don't make too many 4x6 prints, this camera is incredible--buy it!
Rating: 
Summary: NIce features and lens but poor picture quality
Review: Had high expectations with Leica lens but picture quality is below average. Tried developing photos at Costco and Ofoto and it was the camera and not development service. It's fragile and sand got caught very easily. Dissapointing... Avoid. I can now see why the retailers are liqudating this camera.
Rating: 
Summary: complicated
Review: I bought this camera 1 week ago, I am still trying to figure out how to use it. The viewing menu is so small I can hardly read it, even with glasses on. I had three people trying to help me figure it out and couldn't do it. I am in the process of trying to understand the manual, that is very hard to do, it is no easy to read. I bought this camera because it was supposed to be a simple point and shoot, not so, there are more instructions to read and understand than anything I have ever bought. I tried to return it but couldn't because I opened the package, how else would I know its complicated and impossible to use? so I am stuck with this thing and I have not been able to take one picture. If you want a simple camera, forget this one. Stick to a company that just makes cameras.
Rating:
Summary: Cool Cam Good Zoom
Review: I bought this Camera a few weeks back and have been very happy with it. This camera is very easy to use and has a very good optical zoom. The battery which comes with the camera is very good should last a day if you dont review your pictures often. The macro mode takes good pictures. The day light pictures are of excellent quality but the night time are ones not as good as the day light ones if you are 6-7 feet away from the subject. The image stabilization is pretty good. The camera comes with a 8 MB SD card. But Panasonic was shipping a free 128 MB SD card (I believe offer is valid till Oct 30'03) which holds around 150 medium sized pictures.
Rating:
Summary: Wow! Hot Camera
Review: I bought this camera in December of 2003, It's my first digital camera, and I know nothing about digital cameras or photography. There are some people where I work that are really into cameras and photography. A few of the people cringed when I told them I bought a Panasonic. When I showed it to them and told them about the features such as the 12x optical zoom and the Leica lens, those people quickly changed their minds about my camera. I read all the reviews here and someone mentioned that it doesn't take good 4x6 prints....to that person, are you nuts? They looked great to me, I used this camera to document the assembly of an engine for my friend's hotrod, I have taken about 40 pictures so far. I had them printed on ofoto.com as 4 x 6's and had one picture printed in 8 x 10 and they looked amazing! My friend was also impressed. One tip, purchase a bigger memory card than the 8mb that comes with it, it'll allow you to take about 8 pictures at full blown size and quality. I purchased the 128mb card and an extra battery. The bottom line is, buy this camera and 90% of the people you run into will be green with envy over your camera! Occasionally you'll run into someone who uses a high end camera who might snicker at this camera, but keep in mind folks, it's not a professional camera, it's a great amateur camera! In this price range, nothing can touch it. This camera is also offered in a 4MP model, When I saw that, I instantly wanted to upgrade because of the pixels. After reading these reviews today, I'm saving my money! Again, great camera.
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