Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ28K 10MP Digital Camera with 18x Wide Angle MEGA Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Black): Customer Reviews & Product Details

At my age (over 70) I am unable to hold steady a regular weight SLR. So I was pleased to find a camera that has so many controls - and yet weighs so little - even with the battery installed. I am looking forward to using it often.

I'm an avid amateur. I've owned 5 Fuji's, including a F30, F40fd, F200EXR, nikon D40, and the Lumix FZ 28.
The FZ 28 was a fun camera with great specs and great features. I loved it. I took it on a trip to England, foregoing my D40 and Fuji.
Unfortunately, despite all the hype and excitement and legitimate pros of this camera, the pictures were mediocre. Very soft. Resolution was very limited compared to all my other cameras. And if you don't have sharp pictures with good contrast and excellent color rendition, you are just deluding yourself about the quality of the camera.
So I sold mine to someone on Ebay, and bought a Canon G10. My girlfriend had a G10, and for a year i always marvelled at the marvelous, sharp, detailed pictures as well as the package. And there is just no comparison whatsoever. You want a fun camera with mediocre pictures? Enjoy the Lumix. You want a real solid camera with great features and great pictures, buy the G10 or G11. That is what I recommend to every enthusiast I know, and they've never been disappointed.

I love this camera! I purchased it a year ago because I was looking for a good camera to take photos of my son's baseball and football games. The 18X zoom, excellent reviews, and the amount of features the camera offered for the price convinced me to buy it. I haven't been disapointed.

Previously I owned a pretty basic point and shoot camera that was about 5 years old, so this camera was a big improvement for me. The picture quality and colors are excellent. The long zoom allows me to take nice close-up pictures from the stands at baseball and football games. The Burst Mode is great for capturing multiple action photos and makes it possible to review pitching mechanics or capture great shots of the bat making contact with the ball. The battery lasts long enough to take 100's of photos during a double header or a full football game.

The camera has plenty of automatic settings that make it easy for an amateur to use, but it becomes a bit more complex if you want to take advantage of all the features. I consider myself pretty advanced when it comes to figuring out technical products, but I still haven't used more than half of the features available on the camera. The User Manual does a fairly good job of explaining the features and it's pretty easy to experiment with different settings to see what they do, but for a novice photographer it still takes a while to figure out when and why to use different settings. On the plus side, with so many more things to learn, it will be a while before I need to replace this camera with something more advanced.

Positives:
* 18X Zoom
* Burst Mode
* Picture Quality
* Value (Features/Price)

Negatives:
* Won't fit in my pocket.
* Advanced features aren't exactly simple to master.

I've always been a photographer at heart, from the time I was very young. I had been begging my parents for an SLR or DSLR for years so I could advance in my photography (at that point, I had only a point-and-shoot), but unfortunately, they couldn't afford one.
A little over a year ago, when I was sixteen, they gave me this camera for Christmas. I have never looked back.
This camera is simply amazing, and I've been using my sister's DSLR beside it. I can tell you, there is a difference between the two, for example the solid quality of the photos and the number of features/options, but this is as close to a DSLR you can get without actually spending the hundreds of extra dollars.

I'm too lazy to go into more detail than that, but rest assured that this is a very good camera.

I purchased this camera one year ago and very very happy I am that I did. In reading what follows please keep in mind that I am only an amateur so I won't go into any technical details. Here are a few thoughts about my experience with this camera:

- First and foremost, if used well, this camera takes amazing pictures. I am particularly impressed by the quality of pictures taken at night or with indoor lighting. With a tripod, and using 100ISO and 1-2sec exposure you can take really amazing pictures.

- The price is amazing, given the quality of the pictures.

- The lens is very eclectic, going from very wide angle (for landscapes) to a powerfult zoom (but see below). About the zoom, do note that in certain settings you can achieve 32x magnification (not just 18x).

- I really like the cap, which is securely tied to the camera by a string. I do not agree with the reviewer that writes that it falls off easily. It never fell off my camera in more than a year, although it did partly break recently (but because of my fault).

- I also LOVE the fact that it takes filters. This was very important for me, because I think polarizer filters can improve outdoor photography a lot.

- The provided software is good and functional.

- I find battery life satisfactory. I rarely take more than 40-50 pictures in a day, but I never had problems with the battery and anyway I usually have a spare with me. Also, the battery recharges quite quickly (one-two hours).

- Movies are of very high quality, altough I have not explored this much.

- The manual is quite clear and without being a genius, but with a bit of skill, you can actually navigate the built-in menu quite easily without using the manual.

- I found customer service fantastic. At some point (see below) the camera was damaged and I got a refurbished replacement at no cost which is now working perfectly. Thanks Panasonic!

My two reasons for not being totally happy so far?

1- the reason why the camera had to be replaced was that at some point a bit of of water fell on it. Not much water at all, really, but after a few minutes of increasingly erratic behavior the camera totally died. So, don't expect super-sturdy construction and do be careful when you handle the camera in wet conditions. On the other hand, like I said, the customer service was fantastic.

2- if you are naively thinking of buying this camera (also) for wildlife photography, you will likely be disappointed. The zoom, although powerful, if not good enough for that. What I mean is, for instance, that I see much more clearly birds with an 8x42 binocular than with this camera with maximum magnification (that is, 32x, which you can achieve in some settings). If your subject is more than 15-20 yards away the level of detail you can achieve is rather disappointing. As far as I can see, for wildlife photography you really need to spend significantly larger amounts of money, too bad!!! On the other hand, the zoom is often good enough that you can use your pictures to help in identifying a bird on your field guide.

Anyway, to sum it up, after one year I can say that I recommend this camera highly and I would certainly buy it again.