Product Description

Simply set the 10.1-megapixel DMC-FS5 to iA mode and let the four Intelligent Auto functions team up to help prevent shooting errors. Intelligent Scene Selector chooses the mode that best fits the situation; MEGA Optical Image Stabilization (O.I.S.) helps prevent blurring from hand-shake; Intelligent ISO Control helps prevent motion blur; and Face Detection helps produce clear portraits by optimizing the focus and exposure settings.The 30mm wide-angle Leica DC Vario-Elmar lens with 4x optical zoom takes wider shots than an ordinary 35mm lens. This is helpful in small rooms or crowded places, for example, letting you fit more people into a group photo. There's also an Easy Zoom button on the camera top - just press it, and the optical zoom and Extra Optical Zoom instantly extend to full telescopic position. This quick zooming lets you catch even fleeting opportunities.With its two basic settings - shoot and play - the FS5 is easy enough for anybody to use. Panasonic has also minimized the number of fine settings that need to be made with the cursor button and easy-to-understand settings menu.The brightness and contrast of the large 2.5" diagonal LCD adjust automatically in 10 steps as ambient light conditions change, so images are clear, bright and easy to see day or night, indoors or outdoors.In Hi-Speed Burst mode, you can snap off a lightning-fast six shots per second. This makes it easier to catch the perfect action shot of a fast-moving subject.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22956 in Camera & Photo
• Color: Black
• Brand: Panasonic
• Model: DMC-FS5P-K
• Released on: 2008-03-07
• Dimensions: 3.72" h x .94" w x 2.03" l, .70 pounds
• Display size: 2.5

Features

• 10-megapixel resolution captures enough detail for poster-sized prints
• 4x wide-angle optical zoom; Mega Optical Image Stabilized
• 2.5-inch Intelligent LCD screen; Face Detection
• Intelligent ISO; Intelligent Scene Selector
• 50 MB built-in memory; captures images to SD memory cards (not included)

Manufacturer Description

The Panasonic DMC-FS5 combines easy operation with a slim and sleek look, enabling both beginner and advanced users to take beautiful digital photos with a camera they can slip in their pocket. Featuring 10-megapixel resolution and a 30mm wide-angle Leica DC lens with 4x optical zoom, the FS5 also has Intelligent Auto Mode, an advanced intuitive system of technologies that help users take better photos more easily.

Additionally, the fourth generation high-performance image-processing Venus Engine IV LSI helps produce higher-quality pictures with an advanced signal processing system. It adds a new high-performance noise reduction system that helps reproduce even the most delicate parts of images naturally and without color bleeding. The Venus Engine IV reduces shutter release time lag while still enabling high-resolution picture taking, making it easier to capture spur-of-the-moment photo opportunities.

Other features of the DMC-FS5 include approximately 50 MB of internal memory and a 2.5-inch LCD -- perfect for easy-to-see viewing of images. Furthermore, the FS5 features an Intelligent LCD, which detects the lighting condition and controls the brightness level of the LCD to offer optimal clarity in any situation, whether dark or light; indoors or outdoors.

Lumix DMC-FS5 Highlights

Mega O.I.S. Gyrosensors detect hand-shake and the lens system shifts to compensate, helping to prevent hand-shake from creating a blurry image.

Intelligent ISO With Intelligent ISO, the FS5 can determine if the photo subject is moving and change the ISO setting and shutter speed accordingly, thus giving a blur-free photo.

Intelligent Scene Selector Intelligent Scene Selector senses the ambient conditions, recognizes the shooting environment and will automatically select the appropriate scene mode from: Scenery, Portrait, Macro, Night Portrait or Night Scenery mode. This intuitive technology, helps the consumer use the most common scene modes that are built into the camera, but often go unused, without making any manual adjustments.

Face Detection Panasonic’s Face Detection detects faces anywhere in the frame and automatically chooses the optimal focus and exposure settings so portraits come out clear and crisp. Detecting up to 15 faces, Panasonic’s Face Detection can even track a face if the subject is moving.

Quick AF The Quick AF (auto focus) system starts focus on the subject by just pointing the camera to the subject, thus minimizing the AF time.

Customer Reviews

Pretty cool little gadget
This is the first digital camera I've purchased, and so far I think it's pretty awesome. I'm a little technophobic, and have always loved taking pictures with my old Pentax 35mm manual, but this camera is great for what I'm using it for, and has allowed me to learn how to take better pictures.

As a student I wanted a lightweight camera with a nice lens that could easily be taken on a study abroad trip, as well as on backpacking trips and hikes. This camera has a Leica lense, which is of great quality glass and this company makes very decent microscope lenses so I figured it'd be a solid quality-over-quantity purchase.

This camera has performed exceptionally well on the snowy and overexposed summit of a 14,000 ft peak, and the quality of the pictures are more than I had hoped for. It's very easy to understand, especially for someone who isn't great with modern gadgets. The zoom can get very detailed close ups of animals, and there are many options for different scene modes, including candlelight and starry sky scenes, but if you're into not thinking about it the intelligent auto mode is very efficient and consistently takes nice shots. Manual adjustments can be made to compensate on different exposures, one can edit the picture from the camera before downloading it onto a PC, and it often finds and focuses on faces automatically.

Another nice addition is trip planning and the calendar, where if you're going out of country or far away you can set the time of your journey and pre-set the time ahead or behind, which I think is great because I like to know when I took pictures and in what order. The manual is easy to understand, too.

Overall, excellent camera for someone not wanting to spend a lot, like students and most people :) I think it's a good introduction especially for people who are used to old point and shoot cameras, but it has enough to offer to teach people to be better picture takers.

Like anything, familiarity develops simplicity
I've owned mostly Nikon Coolpix point and shoots for years and nothing was more complex than the interfaces to these cameras. So when I got the Lumix, I expected the same. But unlike the previous review, this camera was very simple to understand. Maybe going from the harrowing interface of something like the Nikon to something fairly simple like the Lumix made it an easy transition (kind of like driving BMW with i-Drive to a Honda). Don't get me wrong, I love the Nikons, but the Lumix's portability (small, small size), Leica lens and wide angle ability, is simply the best.

The battery and SD card placement is well designed (meaning, next to each other with one panel opening to deal with). Trigger button is significant and zoom in and out switch is where you'd want it. The screen IS the back of the camera, which grants a viewing area that's impressive.It's solid in feel and again, small enough for the pocket, bag, and hand palm. It's size is also one of those things that make you think, "I could lose this", but that's the price of it's footprint. Just look after your stuff - or yeah, you'll lose it.

Pics are very good. At 10MP, details are impressive. The wide angle tends to add a parallax, but nothing that's significantly distorting.

Check this camera out, by all means - especially as the vacation documenting device that is simple to take, simple to use and easy on the wallet.

great camera
This is my third digital camera and by far the best. I used it for a trip to England. It worked beautifully in a wide variety of settings. For the most part I used the "auto-settings" and I got great pictures from closeups to distant landscape, indoors in old building lighting to bright backlighted outdoors seens to low light nighttime indoors. The anti-shake features eliminated any user problems for high speed pictures and rapid ready to shoot and multiple shot in a row options. The design for the memory card and battery in the same slot is well thought out and easy to use. I didn't begin to scratch the surface of the additional features since the auto-settings worked so well. I have had Sony Cybershot and Olympus Camedia Ultrazoom cameras before and this is by far the best performance and far better value for the price at less than $200. I recently had a water mishap with my camera that unfortunately caused my camera to die and I immediately replaced it. (taking a full immersion in a canoe mishap is probably more than any digital camera is designed to handle)