Product Description

With both a 32mm wide-angle Leica DC Vario-Elmar lens and a 5x zoom, this is one camera that does it all. You can fit more in the photo than you can with a 35mm lens, so you can get more of a sweeping landscape in a single shot. The 5x zoom is great for capturing dramatic shots of small or distant subjects. There's also an Extra Optical Zoom function that boosts zoom power to 8.9x in 3-megapixel resolution mode. Simply set the Lz8 to iA mode and let the camera do the rest. 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 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. f=5.2-26mm (35mm Equiv. - 32-160mm) Focal Length 2.5 Diagonal Polycrystalline TFT LCD Display (230K dots) Focusing Area Normal - Wide 50cm/ Tele 100cm - infinity, Macro / Intelligent AUTO - Wide 5cm / Tele 100cm - infinity 8 - 1/2,000 sec. Starry Sky Mode - 15, 30, 60sec. Shutter Speed Auto / 100 / 200 / 400 / 800 / 1600 (High Sensitivity Mode - Auto(1600 - 6400) ) ISO 27MB Internal Memory (additional memory recommended to store more photos and video) Built-in Flash, Microphone and Speaker SD/SDHC, MultiMedia Card Slot DC Input, AV Output (NTSC/PAL), USB Connections PictBridge Compatible Approximate Battery Life - 260 Shots (Oxide Batteries) Approximate Unit Weight - 0.33 lbs

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #67 in Camera & Photo
• Color: Black
• Brand: Panasonic
• Model: DMC-LZ8K
• Released on: 2008-03-05
• Dimensions: 3.88" h x 1.31" w x 2.44" l, .70 pounds
• Display size: 2.5

Features

• 8.0-megapixel resolution captures enough detail for photo-quality 16x 22-inch prints
• 5x wide-angle optical zoom; Mega Optical Image Stabilized
• 2.5-inch Intelligent LCD screen; Face Detection
• Intelligent ISO; Intelligent Scene Selector
• Captures images to SD memory cards (not included)

Manufacturer Description

The 8-megapixel Panasonic LZ8 is perfect for anyone who expects a digital camera that blends power, performance and quality, helping to maximize the digital photography experience. The LZ-Series’ lenses were developed by Panasonic, passing Leica's stringent standards to deliver an exceptional optical performance for Panasonic Lumix consumers. And with the the LZ8’s 32mm wide-angle lens, you can capture larger group photos or more expansive scenic shots.

To provide digital photographers with added creative elements and performance, the LZ8 sports manual control over aperture and shutter speed, thanks to the camera’s newly-adopted iris. When shooting manually, you can choose from three modes: A-aperture priority, S-shutter speed priority and M-manual and enjoy added control and creativity normally reserved for higher end models. Also new to the LZ8 is Advanced Scene Mode -- a feature that gives you manual control using some of the frequently-used scene modes: Portrait, Sports, Landscape and Night portrait.

While in Advanced Scene Mode, when selecting the Portrait or Sports mode, the consumer is then presented with additional settings, with the option of choosing outdoor or indoor. When selecting Landscape mode, there are options to specify if the shot is nature or architecture. For budding photographers who desire even more artistic freedom, they can choose Creative mode, which adds more manual controls over an aperture or a shutter speed.

For those not quite ready for complete manual control, the LZ8 also features Panasonic’s Intelligent Auto Mode, which is comprised of five distinct technologies designed to provide users with intuitive and automatic camera adjustments, regardless of the shooting condition and without the user having to do anything manually. Intelligent Auto Mode consists of the following features:

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 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 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.

Face Detection Panasonic’s Face Detection detects up to 15 faces anywhere in the frame, even if they are moving, and automatically chooses the optimal focus and exposure settings so portraits come out clear and crisp.

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.

The LZ8 also features new 230,000-dot high-resolution LCD, complete with the new Intelligent LCD, meaning the 2.5-inch LCD screen detects the lighting condition and controls the brightness level to offer optimal clarity in any situation, whether dark or light; indoors or outdoors. It also includes the popular High Angle mode, which makes the LCD screen easy to view when held high, to shoot over a crowd or a tall object.

Additional highlights of the Panasonic Lumix LZ8 include:

• Newly-added speaker lets you enjoy a slide show with music, selecting from natural, slow, urban or swing tunes; or add voice to a motion video.
• Title Edit function which allows the consumer to input text to accompany a photo, for instance, the names of children or travel locations.
• Ability to record WVGA (848 x 480) motion images at 30 frames per second in a 16:9 aspect ratio, ideal for viewing on High Definition televisions, such as Panasonic Viera Plasmas and LCDs.
• The ability to shoot 1920x1080-pixel High-Definition ready photos, ideal for wide-screen viewing on a 16:9 Viera Plasma or LCD.
• The DMC-LZ8 shoots 180 images with the included Alkaline batteries and up to 470 images with optional Ni-MH rechargeable batteries (2600mAh).
• A record/playback mode switch, which lets the photographer switch between recording and playback modes, while always knowing the current mode.

Customer Reviews

Excellent "budget" camera with great features
I've been wanting something like the Canon PowerShot A series camera for a while. Another hobby of mine involves photographing small objects in a mini-studio settings (not unlike jewel photography, but less demanding/sophisticated). I wanted something that:

- has aperture/shutter priority modes, and manual mode;
- can set custom white balance
- shows live histogram in recording mode.

The Canon PowerShot A720IS and A570IS looked great, but neither had all three features I wanted. A query here on a photography forum last month led to a reply that pointed me to the then-just-announced Panasonic DMC-LZ8. On paper, it looked GREAT: All the features I wanted, 2.5" LCD with 230K pixels (the Canon ones, while having large screens, have low pixel counts), and priced well under $200 to boot. It seemed so perfect that I preordered it, which I normally don't do--I usually prefer the manufacturers to go through a few production batches and iron out all the bugs before buying a camera.

The camera came today from Amazon.com, and I had a chance to take a few quick shots and get an initial feel for the camera. Here are my observation and thoughts. I also have the DMC-FX33, so a bit of the review will be comparing the two. Not that they are in the same category, but the FX33 represents last year's Panasonic design trends and philosophies, and LZ8 this year's, so I thought it'd be interesting to note the contrasts.

The camera feels GREAT in my hand. I'm 6' tall and have I guess about average hand-size for my height, and the protruding grip felt very comfortable. The thumb naturally rests right above the Record/Review switch, which provides a nice counter-pressure point to the grip.

The LZ8 uses two AA sized batteries and SD/SDHC cards. The battery compartment and memory compartments are separate, which I like a lot. The left side of the camera has a door that hides the USB/AV-out port. There's now a dedicated button near the shutter for Panasonic's Extended Optical Zoom, which allows you to "zoom" in further than the 5x optical lens zoom without the traditional degradation in image quality associated with digital zoom. The flipside is that as you zoom out using Extended Optical Zoom, the image size becomes smaller (at the maximum Extended Optical Zoom, the camera produces 3MP images).

Unlike the FX33, the LZ8 does not have a Clipboard mode (at least not that I could find!). I actually really liked that! It was an easy way to carry some photos with me and use the camera as a digital photo album. Not that you can't do that with storing photos on the regular memory card, but the Clipboard mode made it easier. Oh well.

Unlike the FX33, the down button on the four-way controller no longer acts as a quick review button while in recording mode. But, also unlike the FX33, you can enter the full Review (Playback) mode by using a dedicated switch, rather than having to turn the mode dial to Playback mode. The Exposure button controls the aperture or shutter or both values, in aperture/shutter priority modes and the manual mode. The Q. Menu button seems faster (more responsive) to bring up the quick menu than the FX33.

The screen menus have changed little other than the background color. The LZ8 has the same size LCD as the FX33 (2.5"), but 30K more pixels (230K vs. 200K). The menu does certainly seem sharper. A pure eye-candy: When you shut down the camera, now there's a reflection of the word "Lumix" on the screen.

A gripe I have with the FX33 was how narrow the viewing angle was for the LCD. I'm happy to report that the LZ8 is significantly better in this regard.

The images straight out of the camera look great. I know it's a subjective matter, so be sure to check out various review sites and also photo hosting sites that let you view pictures by the camera model to see if you like the image quality. I've also uploaded some 20 images to accompany this review.

So far I'm extremely happy with how the camera feels in my hand, how responsive it is, and how feature-packed it is. I haven't really tested high ISO performance, as that will not matter in the applications I have for the camera (mini-studio). I'm sure pixel-peeping the images to death will reveal all manners of shortcomings and imperfections, but for real-world usage, it rates very favorably against the PowerShot series. Well done Panasonic!

Panasonic LZ8 - Excellent Camera
I bought the LZ8 for $162 from Amazon, but u can get it now for $152 from Amazon. I can say without reservation: THIS IS A GREAT CAMERA! I've read 1000s of reviews on digicams on the net, I finally settled on the LZ8 because it had full auto, manual (aperture & shutter), a great 2.5" screen, nice video capabilities and was under $[...]. Many websites complain about digicam's low light capabilities, given my experience with this camera using it's manual controls and a tripod, frankly I got excellent results.

If want to see this camera's capability, then goto: steves-digicams, and under "Photo Contest" look at my entry for 20 May 2008.

Take it from a user with who can make up his mind without fear of upsetting sponsors etc. There is no problem with start up speed, if there is any lag when taking flash photos, the question is what do u expect? This is an 8M camera using AA batteries. If u want a fast 8M camera using LiOn batteries (that might take faster flash photos) then spend $[...] or more and just u might just get that, or buy a DSLR. The bottomline is: if u want Porsche performance then buy a Porsche.

The LZ8 is a honest to excellent $150 camera that will produce great photos and has options that can be only found in more expensive cameras. Read the manual, don't be afraid to experiment, trawl the net for tips on how to take photos and u will have fun with this camera.

Excellent value for the specs
I've only owned one other digital camera, a Canon a60. Although it was only 2mp it took some great photos (still does even after 7,000 shots). However, I wanted a new one and did research for about 3 months before deciding which one to buy. I was looking for a pocketable camera that preferably ran off AA's instead of a proprietary li-ion, and could use a SDHC card. I was also looking for a camera that had a nice wide-angle lens and took true widescreen (16:9) photos - which really narrowed it down. I really liked the TZ5 w/ the 720p video, but the twice-as-much price and extra heft and battery steered me towards this little guy. Here are my pro's and con's:

Pro's:
- 5x optical at full resolution, 8x at 2mp (which still takes decent pics, just not as good as my canon at 2mp). There's also an easy-zoom button that auto zooms to 5x then 8x with just one press each time. The third press will put back to the wide-angle.
- size (very pocketable - much better than my a60 which was pocketed itself for the longest time)
- lightweight
- Runs off 2 aa's - in fact... I swear I've taken over 800 shots on my new set of Sony Ni-MH's (2600 or 2700 mah), but I'll just have to test that out again in case I did switch them at some point.
- Venus IV engine vs the older Venus III for better images
- Optical image stabilizer
- boot-up time (from off to shot taken)
- looks and price (both subjective)
- great video (including the ability to do it in 16:9)
- As mentioned above - ability to take true 16:9 images (all the way up to 7mp I believe)
- full manual control, minus focus (something even the TZ5 doesn't have!)
- Easy to use with intelligent auto function that will select the scene mode for you (which has worked really well so far)
- 32mm wide angle lens to capture more. Works great for group photo's or 16:9 outdoors shots.
- Leica lens (although that's like saying your speakers or receiver is "THX certified" - it's all subjective).

Cons:
- Slow shot-to-shot when using the flash
- photo's don't have the canon color (subjective) - they just seem a bit dull.
- blurry shots in low-light condition (more so than my canon a60, but better than my folks' SD400).
- More noise than I'd like. It makes the 8mp necessary if you'll be cropping any of them.

All in all I still think this is the best camera you can buy if you're looking for the same specs I was. I've recommended it to family and friends and even my girlfriend wants one (and she is very careful with big purchases). One way to tell you got a good deal is that the price actually goes UP 2 months after you bought it (especially if it's anything to do with technology). I'm actually surprised it's priced so low with it's bigger brother the LZ10 priced a lot more for just a few more bells and whistle's. If the big optical zoom, wide-angle or 16:9 capabilities aren't necessary than compare image quality to canon's before buying this. Everyone's opinion on a 'good picture' is different, judge for yourself. Otherwise, you'll be happy with this purchase just like I am!