PANASONIC LUMIX ZS50 Camera, 30X LEICA DC Vario-ELMAR Lens, 12.1 Megapixels, High Sensitivity Sensor, Eye Viewfinder, DMC-ZS50S (USA SILVER)

This is my fourth Lumix camera and it is the best. It is a metal casting/machined case that gives it a good feel It just takes superior photos compared with the competition. i have owned Nikon and Cannon and these have far better durability and photo performance. I have now taken about 1500 photos with this camera. These Panasonics have s superior zoom mechanism especially compared to the plastic gear Nikon zooms that just strip and fail way too soon. The Leica lens is superior to the competition, is optically and mechanically superior, and is the longest lived.I really like the 30X zoom and stabilizer. I get a good image at full zoom 90% of the time compared with about a fourth of the time with a 10X Nikon that also had a stabilizer. I also like the SCN modes. The hand held night mode works superbly. It seems to take multiple exposures and stitches the pixels to make an image. I use the P mode for most regiular photos. The I'A mode works fairly good, but it gets confused on when a flash should be used for fill light. The IA mode does work very well on bringing in the macro mode. The red eye reducing flash mode is not reliable with the IA mode. The sunset mode really works well and gives a very nice orange bias to the coloring for sun \rises and sunsets.I don't miss the GPS feature. I usually know where I am and the GPS feature ran down my batteries much quicker. I prefer simplicity.I have tried the view finder, but I have trouble using it with eye glasses. I know about the diopter control, but it is still hard to see the photo frame. I find the camera screen works well enough, even in sun. .I especially like the image quality from this camera. It has superior sharpness, colors are vivid, it has a great dynamic range that results in good images in poor light without a flash. We used this camera at a restaurant function and got far superior images compared especially to I-phone photos, but also Cannon and Nikon cameras. Everyone sent me their photos and I made a photo file and burned DVD data disks for everyone. The Panasonic had by far the best images.The 12 Megapixel sensor doesn't seem to be a shortcoming compared to a prior 18 Megapixel camera we had. We get sharp prints up to 8X10.The serious shortcoming Panasonic has had with the Lumix cameras is that dirt leaks into the camera and leaves black spots in the picture. That is what has killed three of our Panasonic cameras. It happens at about two years out and about 10.000 photos. We hope this one will do better. There is a U-tube video that explains how to disassemble these cameras and clean off the sensor and rear lens element. I haven't been brave enough to do this.In summary, this is a great camera, fits in a shirt pocket, and one i can have with me a lot more than the old SLRs. To do better photo quality, you have to go to the big SLRs and spend another $2K or more and that will be a camera you won't have with you much of the timek plus this one travels better.

I've had the ZS50 for a few weeks now, and the more I use it, the more impressed I am. I just finished writing a five-article hands-on review which I have posted on my photography Web site. I just Googled for Brian Byrd ZS50, and the first three results were three articles from the series.There is a lot to say, which is why I wrote five articles, but I will try to hit the highlights here. For the past 18 months I have been happy with my Fujifilm FinePix F900EXR. I bought the ZS50 as soon as it was available because it has all the feature of the F900, plus a viewfinder, a 30x zoom instead of a 20x, and more.I'll never buy a camera without RAW image capability, so that's a must-have. The quality of the viewfinder is fine. Having a viewfinder is indispensable at times, and has already come in very handy. 20x zoom is great, 30x zoom is awesome!As other reviewers have noted, the optical image stabilization works very well. I have been very impressed with it. The full manual exposure control is implemented well, but the manual focus it not as great. Read my articles for all the details.The Wi-Fi remote control is a dream come true. I tested it out at the bird feeder in my backyard and got some amazing shots! The image quality of the 12 MP sensor (thank you Panasonic for your wise decision to reduce the pixel count!) is so good that I was able to enlarge some shots with a 100% crop and they still came out really good. I would not dare to crop like that with images from my F900. See my Web site for all the bird photos.The ZS50 focuses a lot slower when the focus mode is set to AF Macro, so make sure you have the focus mode set to regular AF unless you are doing some close-up shots. For the best focusing in low-light situations, you will want to make sure the AF Assist Lamp option is turned on in the menu.Apart from the great remote control, the rest of the mobile app is not very impressive. It would be nice if the ZS50 had some sort of tilting LCD screen, but the remote control feature can compensate for that in some situations.Accompanying my five articles are three photo albums of test shots taken with the ZS50 during the past three weeks, so that you don't merely get all of my blah, blah, blah, but you can actually see for yourself what this great little camera is capable of.All in all, I am very happy with it. It definitely surpasses the Fujifilm F900. Of course, it is not perfect, but then no camera is. Every camera is designed and built with compromises and trade-offs. Considering the relatively-low price and how much functionality Panasonic has packed into a pretty-small package, I can give it 5 stars without hesitation.