Wednesday, September 23, 2009

 

Panasonic Lumix DMC FX-33

This is one of my best investment. I am quoting my review posted on Amazon.com here.

>>>
4.0 out of 5 stars Good for easy point-and-shoot, July 8, 2008

I took this camera to my 7-day Japan trip and here are my
observations. In summary, this is a very good camera for
most occasions.

Pros:

- The small & lightweight nature allows me to carry this camera
in my pocket throughout the entire trip
- The lag from switch-on to ready-to-use is short and enables
me to capture many scenes that could have been missed if I use
the older Optio 450
- The image stabilization is very helpful, especially for
those moving targets. There were cases it caught flying
eagles flawlessly.
- The auto face-recognition feature is also a big plus.

Through my trip I set the camera to IA mode most of the time,
combined with abovementioned features, this camera is not only
easy to use and is also extremely handy to capture whatever
scene comes to your eyes.

Cons: (Of course, being a sub-compact digital camera, it also
has its deficits)

- It has very limited manual control which makes it not so
good on special weather conditions.
- 3x optical zoom is good but not sufficient for travellers
who want to zoom in to much farther objects (my older Optio
450 has 5x zoom)
- The battery life is much shorter than my expectation. I had
to recharge the battery twice during the trip which surprises
me very much and makes me feel that I may need to purchase and
carry a spare battery in my next trip


2009-09-23

I have now owned Lumix DMC FX33 for more than 15 months and have
taken it with me to two oversea trips. Because my daughter also
used this camera a lot, few more things were noticed in this
year's trip and I would like to share them.

Good,
- the 16x9 scenic pictures taken are really beautiful
- the 640x480 videos recorded are sharp and clear (they are also
suitable for YouTube/Facebook)
- those preset scenic modes are really helpful for good pictures
under different circumstances (but you need to remeber to switch
to the correct scenic mode)
- the compact battery charger is very convenient (even I have to
charge the battery every other day, I am still using the
original battery)
- the camera body is sturdy. In this year's trip, we accidentally
dropped the camera to the concrete ground (from about 5 ft. high)
and it came up with only minor dent on the body. Everything
continues to work. *** very amazing (& lucky) ***

Not so good,
- the video sound quality is not so good,
- the zooming function doesn't work when recording. you have to
move camera forward to get a closer view.

Regardless, I have built up strong confidence on Panasonic, my next
digital camera will definitely be Panasonic Lumix.
<<<

I would also like to give credit to my Pentax Optio 450 which I have owned for more than 4 years. Its 5x optical zoom still better than Lumix DMC FX33 and still produce sharp, clear, and excellent pictures.

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