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(More customer reviews)I have been using DSLRs for several years, and currently use the Canon 40D and a wide selection of lenses. I bought this camera as a pocket camera that is easy to take anywhere, and for its HD video capability, as I'm currently in Thailand for several weeks doing some geology research for my master's thesis, and it's impractical and annoying to lug around my big camera everywhere. Therefore my expectations may be different - I am not expecting perfect image quality, full manual controls, etc., because I have my other camera for that kind of thing when I want it. I'm not sure that I would want this as my only camera, because the image quality isn't perfect, but if I didn't have a DSLR I don't think I would notice.
In any case, the main thing I have been using this for is taking HD video. This is excellent, and looks phenomenal on a computer screen. I haven't tried playing it on a TV but I assume it would look excellent there too. It is 720p, not 1080p like the new DSLRs will do, but it still looks great - surprisingly great, even, considering the size of the camera and its lens.
Others have apparently had trouble using the AVCHD Lite codec, but I have not. I can import the .mts files flawlessly into the Kdenlive video editor on OpenSUSE Linux 11.2 with KDE 4.2. I'm not sure what the status of this codec's support in the popular Mac and Windows video editors is, but if you're using Linux, don't worry about it because it works great and the quality and file size are much better than using MPEG2. As it's a small camera with a small lens and few manual controls, video is not going to look like that from a professional camcorder or from a new DSLR with HD video, but it's easily as good or better than that from the small sub $1000 HD camcorders that are available. Manual control of exposure compensation and ISO for video isn't apparently possible - a workaround is to use the scene modes, which works decently well. The night scene modes give pretty good high-iso (i.e. grainy) video at night, even in dark bars and clubs (or here in Thailand, riding in the back of a tuk-tuk). I really like that there's a dedicated movie button - you can immediately start recording a video no matter what else you're doing on the camera by hitting the button.
The camera's responsiveness is very good - obviously not like a DSLR, but much quicker than I'm used to from point and shoots, including other recent models that I've handled. You don't get full manual controls, but if you know what you're doing you can almost always get exactly what you want out of it. I usually leave it in "Normal Picture" mode, which gives you the most manual control. All other modes will either default to use the flash if the camera deems it necessary (which, as in most point and shoots, is almost all the time apparently), or will use the built-in LED to aid focusing, both of which are extremely distracting if you want to be discreet (or if you just don't like the look of straight-on flash).
You do have to know what you want to do with the camera if you use "Normal Picture" mode, it's not just point and shoot - but you will get the best results. The "Intelligent Auto" mode works OK - it tries to decide the best scene mode for you based on what it thinks you're taking a picture of. I would suggest just dialing in the scene mode yourself (there are a lot to choose from) as when I was trying that mode it would sometimes choose the wrong thing. That would be the best mode if you wanted pure point-and-shoot action, though.
Image quality is probably about on par with other point and shoots with folding optics. I don't know too much about this as I'm used to my 40D and other DSLR images. It is certainly more than decent for my purposes, though. Impressively, I've been taking high-iso shots without flash in really dark Thai bars and clubs that turn out ok - they are relatively long exposures of 1/2 to 1 1/2 seconds (or more) so I steady the camera on something, and there is motion blur, but I think that adds to the photo. The image noise in these cases is very obvious, but not overly distracting. Don't expect the results you'd get from a DSLR with a fast lens, and you won't be disappointed. Definitely practice your technique in various situations to get the best results with this camera.
Menu navigation is a little strange at first. I am not sure if it is really non-intuitive, or if I'm just used to the excellent navigation on DSLRs. I think users of point and shoot cameras probably have different expectations - most probably won't have a problem with this. Once you get the hang of it it's not really a problem, anyway, but for me it really was strange at first. All the controls you want (all the manual controls available in "Normal Picture" mode) are quickly available by hitting buttons on the back. You don't have to dig through menus to get the the settings you need most often. It's a similar setup to that on the Canon Powershot series, and probably other cameras as well as far as I know. I really like the different auto-focus options they give you - there are more options than on my 40D, and similar options to the professional series DSLRs from Canon and Nikon. Obviously, they aren't going to work as well as on those cameras, but I quite like the "1-area High Speed" and "Spot" focus modes, which are very fast and work quite well. Unfortunately there is no manual focus, and in tricky situations it can be hard to get it to focus on exactly what you want - in those cases try "Spot" focus, but even there it doesn't always give you what you want.
Now, of course, the big thing about this camera that calls for the high price - because let's face it, for the specs on this camera it is pretty expensive - is that it's waterproof. This works great and is really a lot of fun. I took it into the cold Pacific Ocean at Newport Beach and it held up great. Taking underwater HD video is a lot of fun. [...] I will have some more videos, from Thailand, up soon as well. I've also taken it in a hotel pool, and it worked great there too. Even if you don't plan on going snorkeling or anything with this camera, it being tough and waterproof is a great feature - I don't ever worry about just slipping it in my pocket. It's the rainy season here right now and I don't carry an umbrella, so I could easily get soaked at any time - I would be very careful with a non-waterproof camera, but don't have to think twice about always carrying this one with me.
Do be careful, though, and be sure to read the instructions - there are some things you should do to take care of it so that the waterproofing holds up. The waterproof seals really could be better than they are, but if you take care of them I think they should hold up pretty well.
One thing you might also want to watch out for is battery life - when I took it to the beach, I only got about 25 minutes of video recording and a few photos before the battery (which was fully charged beforehand) was completely dead. The Pacific is quite cold, of course, which may have been the reason for the short battery life, but it is something to be careful of. Extra batteries are annoyingly expensive, and I haven't seen a third-party version available yet, but I would have to recommend getting one because so far it seems that the battery life is unpredictable. I left it recording video on my desk with a fully charged battery to see how long it would last, and it went about 2 hours (which is about what you can fit on the 16gb SDHC card I got with the AVCHD lite codec). That seems pretty good, but in real life use you will probably get considerably less life out of the battery.
The zoom range is pretty decent; I usually stay at the wide end and I appreciate that they give you the 28mm equivalent - a lot of other point and shoots are at their widest at 35mm, which is significantly less wide. The lens is not exceptionally fast - which I assume is due to the folding optics design - but it normally is fine, even in dark places as I described earlier. I don't really ever zoom in too much, because with the slow lens it's usually blurry except in bright light. The optical image stabilization works well, and is active during video recording (if you want it to be) to remove some of the jitter, which is kind of annoying in videos, and which you'll get a decent amount of with this camera due to its small size.
Macro images are nice - you can get quite close. Be careful about the "Macro Zoom" mode, though - it is actually a digital zoom! You can get much closer, but the image quality really suffers. This looks especially bad if you use it during video. I suggest simply never using this option. The regular macro mode works fine. You can get closest by zooming to the widest setting, which seems weird, but it works.
The camera is pretty stylish and has a nice feel and heft. It feels really well built, mostly metal, and not all smoothed out and boring like most modern electronics design. If you're into gadgets, you'll really appreciate the industrial styling of the camera, and the weight. The screen is very good; it is bright and visible in direct sunlight and will automatically adjust the brightness depending on where you are (if you set it to - you can set the brightness yourself, too). One problem with the design - and one inherent to this type of camera with folding optics - is that you will often find your fingers covering the lens until you get used to holding it. Kind of annoying, but understandable due to design limitations.
Overall - I think this is great as a pocket camera, for its HD videos, and as a backup for another camera. I personally would not want it as my only camera - I would choose my DSLR. I would not hesitate in recommending it to anyone who isn't interested in a DSLR, though, and who wants a tough, neat little camera, great for traveling. To be honest, I've taken very few shots with my 40D, and quite a lot of them (and a heck of a lot of video) with this in the week or so I've been in Thailand so far.
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Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS1 12MP Digital Camera with 4.6x Wide Angle MEGA Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 2.7 inch LCD (Green)12.1-megapixel effective recording * 4.6X optical zoom (4X digital/18.4X total zoom) * waterproof to 10 feet * shockproof up to 5 feet * 2-11/16" LCD screen with automatic 7-step brightness adjustment * optical image stabilization * wide-angle lens for shooting landscapes and large groups * 35mm equivalent focal length: 28-128mm * top JPEG resolution: 4000 x 3000 * high-definition movie mode with audio (1280 x 720 at 30 frames per second) * face detection adjusts focus and exposure settings for better portraits *
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