whatsamattaU wrote:


http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/recommended-cameras.htm

Thanks for the link. Visiting this site just provided me with some needed info on two different matters.

BTW, this comment of yours in an earlier post gave me my first laugh of the day:

"...which you can't take with you when you die anyway (unless Woot has made special arrangements through Amazon)"

NightGhost wrote:In PC World's new reliability/satisfaction survey, Panasonic has overtaken Canon for the top spot:

The anti-spin is this: Reliability? Over what period of time? 1 day? A year? Whats the def of reliability? That it works even if abused?
Could be that Canon owners were out taking pics and not answering surveys. You're gonna try and tell me Casio is more reliable and satisfying than a Nikon? SERIOUSLY? Riiiiight. Surveys in this day and age are pointless. You dont know who's responding. Maybe Panasonic stuffed the ballot box. Maybe a LOT of Florida voters couldn't get the chad punched out on their computer screen. Maybe Nikon owners also dont read PCWorld. To respond to a survey, you need to be aware of it and then go do it...
From PCWprlds Methodology page:
"It's important to note that our survey results don't necessarily represent the opinions of a given company's customers as a whole. And because our data comes only from PCWorld readers who chose to take the survey, our results don't necessarily reflect the opinions of PCWorld readers in general." Or this universe.
Soooo.....essentially worthless data. Period.
Nikon and Sony are 6th and 10th respectively? WOW...who answered this survey?

It's also possible that Canon and Nikon and some others are out of reach of the average reader taking part in the survey. The variables are too vast to even consider a survey's worth.

I've purchased Lumix cameras for several years, now, for our people at work who need a reliable, full-featured camera in the field. These are great cameras! Image stabilization is a required feature, and good zooming optics help. Easy to use. The only drawback is the li-ion batteries in most. Some people prefer AA's, but they sure burn through them fast.

lexicon5 wrote:The anti-spin is this: Reliability? Over what period of time? 1 day? A year? Whats the def of reliability? That it works even if abused?
Could be that Canon owners were out taking pics and not answering surveys. You're gonna try and tell me Casio is more reliable and satisfying than a Nikon? SERIOUSLY? Riiiiight. Surveys in this day and age are pointless. You dont know who's responding. Maybe Panasonic stuffed the ballot box. Maybe a LOT of Florida voters couldn't get the chad punched out on their computer screen. Maybe Nikon owners also dont read PCWorld. To respond to a survey, you need to be aware of it and then go do it...
From PCWprlds Methodology page:
"It's important to note that our survey results don't necessarily represent the opinions of a given company's customers as a whole. And because our data comes only from PCWorld readers who chose to take the survey, our results don't necessarily reflect the opinions of PCWorld readers in general." Or this universe.
Soooo.....essentially worthless data. Period.
Nikon and Sony are 6th and 10th respectively? WOW...who answered this survey?

It's also possible that Canon and Nikon and some others are out of reach of the average reader taking part in the survey. The variables are too vast to even consider a survey's worth.

All surveys or polls contain statistics gathered from random sampling of a population. A random sample is a small portion of the camera owning population and as such is prone to error. We can still glean useful information from the survey if we understand its context. PC World surveyed 79,000 of its readers and hired statistical consultant Ferd Britton to interpret the results. Thank you Night Ghost for posting the info.

marn161 wrote:Wow. Are you people serious? Though woot! is a business, and a good one at that, it is also an artistic website. I would have to say that woot! is more about the art than the business. You people sound like a bunch of whiny school children. "If Tommy gets one, I should get one too!" (stomping feet)
Really, if the whole team gets a trophy for MVP, what's the point?

Amazing.
Amazing.
Oh, and get a life.

Yeah, agree with this 100%. I never even look at the "quality post" numbers -- that's not what I'm here for. Some comments are useful, and I'm often thankful to those whose info answers my questions: at the end of the day what is or isn't a "quality post" in my book is whether it gives me information I can use. Some comments make me laugh -- although the comments in general have gotten less smartly/snarkily/creatively funny over the years, imho, and I don't spend as much time reading them for fun anymore. I also don't care how much stuff other people buy -- why the hell would I? (I don't peep in my neighbors' windows to see what stuff they're accumulating, either.)

As for the camera, I bought a Panasonic Lumix DMC-LC70 a billion years ago and it's been a great little camera. I carried it around with me everywhere and it was always reliable for catching life moments crisply and clearly, and I've also had good luck using it for more "serious/arty" shots and video clips. My only complaint was that -- as someone else already pointed out -- it wasn't the best in low light. One major plus is that it uses AA batteries and it was easy for me to replace those in a hurry no matter where I was in the world.

Poor DMC-LC70 is showing the wear of spending too many years banging around in my purse and pockets, and I'm contemplating a DSLR -- but this Woot! is tempting me. If it used AA's I'd be in right now. I'll argue with myself for awhile longer.

marn161 wrote:Wow. Are you people serious? Though woot! is a business, and a good one at that, it is also an artistic website. I would have to say that woot! is more about the art than the business. You people sound like a bunch of whiny school children. "If Tommy gets one, I should get one too!" (stomping feet)
Or the Teacher that says, "NightGhost! Because you are doing something I don't like, I am going to change the rules, and take the party away from everyone!"
People will buy the best deal they find. Period. But people will continue to come to woot! because it is fun, funny, and creative.

Really, if the whole team gets a trophy for MVP, what's the point?

Amazing.
Amazing.
Oh, and get a life.

Thank you for your post. I was going to do it but I'm hungover. I buy tons of crap here and don't even know what a quality post is.

I am going to buy one of these based on all of the posts, quality or not. Beside needing a camera I'm also buying it because I'm sort of a lummox and this camera just seems to suit me.

Did anyone answer the question, "does this charge off of USB, or do you need a separate charger for the battery?"

Add one to that, "can you substitute AA/AAA batteries for the stock battery in case you run out while visiting Mouse-schwitz?" (nickname credited to a former Eisner employee...)

I am kicking myself in the arss. I would be in for 1 but I bought that polaroid for 75$ on the last woot off. I would much rather have this one.....CURSE YOU WOOOOOOOT

Minor detail. The SD card that comes with this Woot offering is rated as a "Class 4" SD card (whatever that means). The manual says to use a "Class 6 or higher when recording motion pictures."

I can't say whether this is a requirement, or a mere suggestion, ("always use genuine Wesson cooking oil!") but be aware that recording "motion pictures" might not work out of the box.

Then again, what means "motion picture?" Can you shoot little video clips but not feature-length recordings? I suspect you can always do short bursts, at least up to the length of the 40Mb internal storage. It might be a case of how fast the internal buffer can dump to main storage. Short clips may work out of the box, longer clips might incur full buffer conditions.

I don't know. I don't have one. Ignore me.

On the plus side, it will work with special SD cards up to 64 Gb. How do they DO that?

Russ__F wrote:Did anyone answer the question, "does this charge off of USB, or do you need a separate charger for the battery?"

Add one to that, "can you substitute AA/AAA batteries for the stock battery in case you run out while visiting Mouse-schwitz?" (nickname credited to a former Eisner employee...)

According to reviews, battery only charges with external charger, battery must be removed from camera to charge.

Mysteria1884 wrote:Digital zoom just enlarges your pixels.

Close, but not quite accurate! Digital zoom crops away the outer part of the image that is already on the sensor, it does not enlarge a pixel. This means that if you zoom digitally, you may crop away 50% or more of your 14MP image...leaving with you with something that is the same as if it was shot with a 7 MP camera.

NEVER consider digital zoom a feature.

I just bought one. I also just bought a 16Gb class 10 card and a double battery pack with charger over at *mazon:

16Gb class 10 memory

Battery Pack

The only issue is how to make hi-def DVDs out of the QuickTime format when I don't have a Mac. I could have purchased the larger card, but not worth risking it until I play with it first and see how it's going to work.

Not bad for a total investment of around $150.

Soccer Moms and Dads please note: This camera (and many others) has a "variable aperture" that slides from f/3.3 to f/5.9 as zoomed. It will spend most of its life at f/5.9 which is seldom if ever going to allow action shots indoors with no flash.

It's simply not a big enough hole to let light pass through abundantly. Buy an SLR and a $2,000 lens if you want to take the kinds of shots you see on the cover of sports magazines. There ain't no free lunch optically at this time.

my girlfriend just ordered me one of these off of Amazon a few days ago, I'm glad to see such great reviews!

Russ__F wrote:

The only issue is how to make hi-def DVDs out of the QuickTime format when I don't have a Mac.

Pinnacle Studio for Windows accepts about anything you can hand it and then makes a DVD. I got mine here on Woot last year! Version 14 does HD.

In for 1 myself :-)

4.6 Pictures Per Second sounds mighty fine for ghost hunting!

MarshallMD wrote:Can you recharge the battery through USB?

Could come in handy with my XPal battery I got from woot.....

Nope. The battery must be charged in a separate unit that comes in the package.

richg0404 wrote:most of the reviews and comments I've read say that shutter lag is fairly good, but someone else mentioned that the SD card that is included isn't the best.

How much of shutter lag is due to the camera and how much due to the card ?

Invest in a good card like a SANDISK Ultra (15Mbs) or Extreme III(30Mbs)

lexicon5 wrote:The anti-spin is this: Reliability? Over what period of time? 1 day? A year? Whats the def of reliability? That it works even if abused?
Could be that Canon owners were out taking pics and not answering surveys. You're gonna try and tell me Casio is more reliable and satisfying than a Nikon? SERIOUSLY? Riiiiight. Surveys in this day and age are pointless. You dont know who's responding. Maybe Panasonic stuffed the ballot box. Maybe a LOT of Florida voters couldn't get the chad punched out on their computer screen. Maybe Nikon owners also dont read PCWorld. To respond to a survey, you need to be aware of it and then go do it...
From PCWprlds Methodology page:
"It's important to note that our survey results don't necessarily represent the opinions of a given company's customers as a whole. And because our data comes only from PCWorld readers who chose to take the survey, our results don't necessarily reflect the opinions of PCWorld readers in general." Or this universe.
Soooo.....essentially worthless data. Period.
Nikon and Sony are 6th and 10th respectively? WOW...who answered this survey?

It's also possible that Canon and Nikon and some others are out of reach of the average reader taking part in the survey. The variables are too vast to even consider a survey's worth.

I agree no survey is perfect (nor is it useless). Just add it to your pile of information.

worldwidewebfeet wrote:According to reviews, battery only charges with external charger, battery must be removed from camera to charge.

Charging can only be done in the external charger.

I have an older Panasonic camera and I really like it. Panasonic uses the Leica lens in some of thier cameras. This camera does not have the Leica but all Panasonic optics are high quality glass.

Russ__F wrote:Did anyone answer the question, "does this charge off of USB, or do you need a separate charger for the battery?"

Add one to that, "can you substitute AA/AAA batteries for the stock battery in case you run out while visiting Mouse-schwitz?" (nickname credited to a former Eisner employee...)

No AA/AAA - they wouldn't fit. Charging must be done in the charging unit included.

lexicon5 wrote:The anti-spin is this: Reliability? Over what period of time? 1 day? A year? Whats the def of reliability? That it works even if abused?
Could be that Canon owners were out taking pics and not answering surveys.

For what it's worth, I bought a Panasonic Lumix FX-01 about 5 years ago and still love it. The only issue I ever had with it is for a while sometimes the little lens hood flaps wouldn't retract when the camera was turned on. Giving the extended lens a flick would pop them open. It was a small annoyance but never enough to get me to send it out for repair(I bought an extended warranty with it - never used it). I can't say enough about the quality of this thing. Pictures, LCD screen, menu navigation/usability are all of superior quality; even when compared to newer cameras like the Canon SD1200 I got my mom last Xmas and the Casio H5 I'm giving to my bro this year. I played with a current Panasonic camera in store last week and have to say the menu setup and navigation sucks now. My few gripes are that you can't zoom during video recording and I wish it had manual controls. But I learned long ago how to use exposure and flash compensation controls to quickly adjust a photo.

What is all that feedback worth? Probably not much since I don't know how picture quality, user interface, and reliability have changed between my camera and this one, but I still love my 6mp Lumix FX-01 and have had no desire to replace it yet.

ragebassmasta wrote:I've been using my Canon Powershot A590 for years now. It takes great pictures, but I never liked the zoom or its video capabilities. This Panasonic has 8x optical zoom and HD video. I'm going in for one in the hopes that it can retire my old Canon.

I've never used a Panasonic camera to comment on how good they are, but being a previous Canon A590 owner, I am going to say you will miss your A590 if you replace it. My kids were playing with ours and dropped it in a sink full of water and it died. Replaced it with the Canon A1000IS which was supposed to be the "new and improved" replacement for the A590 and I'm not impressed. The A590 worked much better than the newer camera and had a lot more features. It seems with electronics like cameras that as new models come out, more and more features are lost as everyone is in a race to make things as simple as possible. Which, I guess for most is a good thing, but for anyone who likes have more control over their pictures is a bad thing.We still have the A590 laying around the house but it does not work. It's just a toy for the kids now, but I really wish we had it back. The picture quality was better and it had more usable features.

bop13 wrote:I am kicking myself in the arss. I would be in for 1 but I bought that polaroid for 75$ on the last woot off. I would much rather have this one.....CURSE YOU WOOOOOOOT

Polaroid FTL. I'd never buy anything electronic made by Polaroid.

richg0404 wrote:most of the reviews and comments I've read say that shutter lag is fairly good, but someone else mentioned that the SD card that is included isn't the best.

How much of shutter lag is due to the camera and how much due to the card ?

I can't really speak to this particular camera, but remember that the term "shutter lag" refers to the delay between you pressing the button, and the camera actually taking the picture--in other words, that annoying pause that results in missing the exact shot you wanted. It's a characteristic of the camera, not of the storage media. That being said, what people seem to have noticed is that there's a long delay after you take one picture and before the camera is ready to take another, which typically has a lot to do with the card.

bop13 wrote:I am kicking myself in the arss. I would be in for 1 but I bought that polaroid for 75$ on the last woot off. I would much rather have this one.....CURSE YOU WOOOOOOOT

Misread that as "kicking myself in the ears." I was pretty impressed by your flexibility for a minute there...

my rule of thumb for sd card speed classes is
2 for data
4 for stills
6 for vga videos
10 for hd videos

hskr wrote:Polaroid FTL. I'd never buy anything electronic made by Polaroid.

I bought it before i read any reviews.First and last time i will do that.All i can do now is hope for the best.

Mysteria1884 wrote:Looks like people are starting to realize it's the OPTICAL zoom that makes a difference. Digital zoom just enlarges your pixels. 8x optical isn't bad, but twice that would be better.

Good luck finding more than 8x in this price range.

radi0j0hn wrote:Soccer Moms and Dads please note: This camera (and many others) has a "variable aperture" that slides from f/3.3 to f/5.9 as zoomed. It will spend most of its life at f/5.9 which is seldom if ever going to allow action shots indoors with no flash.

It's simply not a big enough hole to let light pass through abundantly. Buy an SLR and a $2,000 lens if you want to take the kinds of shots you see on the cover of sports magazines. There ain't no free lunch optically at this time.

Agreed! Worth mentioning, though, that (to the best of my knowledge) every P&S camera on the market has a variable aperture, so I'm not sure how much a consideration that is. That being said, 5.9 is slooooooooooow.

At the risk of overthinking this:
1. This camera's ISO goes up to 6400 when set to high auto, according to the specs posted earlier. To some extent, that will compensate for a slow lens, but unfortunately also tends to introduce lots and lots of noise, resulting in really grainy photos. Again, I have NOT used this camera, so I can't speak to it directly, but this is pretty much a hard and fast rule.

2. I suppose you could shoot zoomed out and crop later (the one upside to have 14MP), thus getting the benefit of the lowest aperture, i.e. f/3.3. Of course, since there's no optical viewfinder (again, like most point-and-shoots these days), that would probably make it tough to compose your photos. So...yeah.

Apparently I'm in a posting sort of mood today.

The last time I owned anything other than a Canon Camera was 1969. In the last year I have replaced my digital Canons with Panasonics and have been very pleased with the results. I am happy with the photos and the videos it makes. It is also very intuitive to use.

lexicon5 wrote:The anti-spin is this: Reliability? Over what period of time? 1 day? A year? Whats the def of reliability? That it works even if abused?
Could be that Canon owners were out taking pics and not answering surveys. You're gonna try and tell me Casio is more reliable and satisfying than a Nikon? SERIOUSLY? Riiiiight. .

I own a Nikon S560 point and shoot, and I can't imagine any camera possibly taking worse pictures and video than it does particularly in low-light conditions. So as far as the survey goes, it's right-on as far as I'm concerned. My Nikon is not satisfying at all. Seriously.

The reviews say very good pics in low-light conditions so I'm in for one.

NightGhost wrote:

Do you really think I care about the number next to my name at this point?

Then let others post the general links to reviews and what not instead of rushing to be the first one to always post general links that are not unique in nature. I here what your saying above and I have heard you say it before but your actions speak otherwise.

Russ__F wrote:Did anyone answer the question, "does this charge off of USB, or do you need a separate charger for the battery?"

Add one to that, "can you substitute AA/AAA batteries for the stock battery in case you run out while visiting Mouse-schwitz?" (nickname credited to a former Eisner employee...)

If you noticed the photo it comes with a charger..

Is it maybe too soon for another Wootoff? Please? What if i said it's all I want for Christmas?

anyone know if it has a time-stamp feature?

Review @
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/DMCFH20/DMCFH20A.HTM

I already have one of these, and I can promise that for what you're paying for this product, you will not be disappointed. It's an extremely well-built camera that is above par in comparison to other mini digital cameras. A strong buy, this will probably keep you pleased for years to come!